Head Rambles

Grandad February 23rd, 2009

I was going to apologise for not posting yesterday, in case any of you were hanging around waiting for me.

But then I decided that if you were sad and lonely enough to be waiting for my rantings then you deserve to be disappointed.

It was a bit of a hectic weekend, as we travelled down to some place called Cork for the blog awards.

It was a surreal experience because, as we all know, bloggers don’t really exist – they are just comments that appear on my site and pages on my feed reader.

So the hotel was full of talking avatars.

I met who I recognised immediately.

Then there was and .

Of course, who could miss .

was much in evidence, as was

was difficult to track down, but I recognised him by the green background.

did a brilliant job of organising the whole thing as usual.

There were dozens of others most of whom I remember, some of whom I forget, some of whom I can’t remember even though I want to and others I can’t forget no matter how hard I try.

Avatars kept coming up to me saying “Howya Grandad!” which was nice, though I don’t know how they knew I was me.  I don’t know who I am half the time.

It was that kind of weekend.

Of course our K8 won the gong for Best Blogpost which I think was a very sound decision on the part of the judges.

In the meantime, The Irish Times called me a cunt.

But then I read it again, and I realised they had written ‘cult’.  My fault.  I must change these glasses.

Herself is delighted at that and is now shimmering around the house in a saffron robe chanting something about Harry Crishna, whoever he is.

I asked her if I was entitled to a few extra wives and she said I could have as many as I like as long as they don’t get under her feet.

I took the liberty of secretly recording that conversation, and my solicitor now has a copy, just in case.

I had a great weekend.

But now I think I’ll have a well earned nap.

• Awards , Blogging
• Comments(25)

Grandad February 21st, 2009

I haven’t said much about the Irish Blog Awards up to now, simply because everyone else has said it.

Today is a bit chaotic because Live95FM in Limerick chose today for their interview.  Bugger.  We’ll see how that goes. 

After that Herself wants a haircut or a Brazilian or something so I have to drop her off. 

Then I have to bring Sandy to the kennels, and she hates kennels with a passion.  She gets her revenge by teaching all the other dogs her nasty tricks.

At some stage or other, we will head down to Cork.

I’m going, of course, as is Herself and we are bringing The Other Fella along as well, as I have a cunning plan.

I am going to get totally hammered and then let himself suffer the hangover tomorrow.

K8 and TAT are going too.  They are going in their own car.  However, I slipped down to their place yesterday and did a little reprogramming of their SatNav, as she and I are in the same category and I like to play with the odds.  I hope they enjoy Letterkenny.

I don’t expect to win anything.

In fact the only reason I’m going is because there are a few people who owe me pints, and I’m a great believer in other people paying their debts.

With a bit of luck, I can also convince Herself that this is our Summer Holidays, which should save a few bob later on in the year.

Lock up your daughters, Cork.

Grandad is on his way.

• Awards , Blogging
• Comments(17)

Grandad February 20th, 2009

I have just been doing some messing with the site.

There has been a nagging thing about upgrading WordPress for a while, and that Richard bloke is in a sulk, so I thought I’d do it myself.

I tried to use the automatic thingy, but the fucking thing kept failing.

First of all it started whinging “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class pclzip” which was a bit of a bummer until I discovered that all I had to do was uninstall the Automatic Upgrade plugin.

Then it started complaining about permissions.  Fuck that!  I deleted the whole thing and reinstalled it. I’ll show it who’s boss.

I did one other thing though.

On Tuesday I had around 80 spam comments.

On Wednesday I had around 110.  Fairly normal?

Yesterday and today I have had none!

Spam is so bloody irritating because I have to wade through it every day to see if there are any genuine ones that landed by mistake.  Sometime I just delete it all anyway, and hope for the best.

That problem is in the history books now, as I don’t expect to get more than three or four spam a day.

So how did I do it?

It’s very simple actually.

All my spam was obviously coming from automated things that had addresses in their databases.  All the spam was going to the same old posts.

So all I did was set my options to disable comments on any post older than 14 days.

It will be a minor inconvenience to the tiny minority who want to comment on older posts, but you can’t make an omelette etc.

As for the spammers.

Nailed the bastards!

• Blogging
• Comments(23)

Grandad February 19th, 2009

I was driving along the motorway today and, having nothing better to do, I went off in my world of intellectual musings.

We all have fingernails, except of course for those of us who have been tortured.

So what good are these little bits of flesh or bone or whatever the fuck they are made of?

I grant you, they are very handy for getting that large bogey from the top of a nostril.  They are also extremely effective for scratching one’s arse.  If you play the guitar, then they are indispensible.

None of the above are what you would call life savers though.  I can scratch my arse with a stick, or play the guitar with a plectrum, though I’m not sure how I’d cope with that big bogey.

So these little yokes on the end of my fingers are pretty much redundant.

Yet they keep growing.

If Jimmy “Hammer” Murphy does remove your fingernails for some reason, they will grow back again in time.

But your teeth don’t.

Why?

Teeth have a very strong argument for being essential.  It is very difficult to eat a steak without them.  Apples too can be tricky.  They are also ideal from trimming said fingernails, yet if one is removed by nature/dentist/Jimmy “Hammer” Murphy then that is the end of that, unless you are a child on your first set.   “Hammer” Murphy draws the line at children.

I’m going to patent my latest idea.

I think teeth should be replaced with fingernails.  They should be easy enough to transplant. 

If you loose a “tooth” it will just regrow.  If you chip one, it will mend itself.

They will also be much closer for a bit of nostril action.

I think I could be onto a winner here?

• Rambles
• Comments(24)

Grandad February 18th, 2009

I was having a lovely sleep last night for the first time in a long time.

Next thing I was woken by Sandy barking her head off as there was someone at the door.

It transpired that it was those builders again.  There were four of them standing on the doorstep wanting to be let in to rip down more of Head Rambles Manor.

One of them gave me one of those hard hat things.

‘Ya have to wear this at all times,’ says he.  ‘E.U. regulations.  Ya also have to wear steel tipped boots and a DayGlo jacket.  This is a building site ya know?’

I pondered this as I stood there on the doorstep, stark naked.  Wouldn’t I look a right prat wearing a hard hat and nothing else?  I told him to fuck off, and went back to bed.

‘Who was that?’ says Herself from under the duvet.

‘Those fucking builders you ordered,’ I said as I decided whether to get dressed or not.

‘I didn’t order them. You did.  Make us a mug of tea.’

‘Fuck your tea.  If you didn’t order them, and I didn’t order them, then who did?’

‘Dunno,’ says Herself, and she went back to sleep.  Lazy bitch.

I got dressed and went out to the lads who were now out ripping up the garden.

‘Where’s the Gaffer?’ says I.  I know that the Gaffer is the only person who ever knows what’s going on.

‘Dunno.  Not here,’ says one of the lads as he swings a pickaxe and punctures our main sewer.

I left them wading around in shit and went back into what’s left of the house.

Herself was up and trying to make toast.

She has filled the house with blue smoke and all the smoke alarms have gone off.

What did I do to deserve all this?

• Around the house
• Comments(9)