Head Rambles

Grandad April 15th, 2009

I wasn’t going to write anything today because I am sick to death of computers.

The fucking things are out to get me.  It is getting personal at this stage and I am on the verge of dumping the lot in a skip.

There is my own, which is driving me up the walls because it refuses to have anything to do with the Interweb.  I ask it politely for a web page and it sits there for about ten minutes before presenting me proudly with a blank screen and smugly declaring ‘Done’.  Done, my arse.  I have to reload the page, and with a bit of luck, I will eventually get what I am looking for. 

Yesterday, it started disconnecting altogether.  And when it wasn’t disconnected, it wouldn’t get me into important sites [like my own] but would connect to useless sites [like RTE].

I could just about cope with all of that, but then Herself started bitching about her laptop. 

Being a woman, she couldn’t have a simple problem like a virus or a crappy Interweb connection.  Oh no.  She has to have a complicated problem – a laptop that just switches itself off for no apparent reason when she is in the middle of buying something useless.  Normally I would say that it was just a laptop being sensible, but she sees it as a fault, so I have to fix it.

The only cause I could think of was overheating.  Why else would a machine work perfectly for long periods and then suddenly stop?  Unless it was running out of petrol?  I realised that if she nags me for a long period, I tend to overheat, so I thought it was worth investigating.

I downloaded a scrap of software from the Interweb and installed it, and it showed me lovely graphs of the temperature shooting up and down.  Each time I thought it was going to come to the boil it would suddenly shoot down again, so there doesn’t seem to be a problem there.  I decided to tell her to live with it and to stop annoying me, but then I noticed something else.

I had to reboot the laptop a couple of times, and each time I did, I got a fucking irritating little message telling me to validate Windows.

I should explain that this is a laptop I had a lot of problems with before.  I lost everything on it and had to reinstall everything.  Now, when they sold me the laptop they didn’t bother their arses giving me a Windows DVD, so I had to use a different one.  It may have been a different DVD, but it was for the same software that was on the original, that I had paid for, and had a licence for.

I tried validating the laptop, but it told me I had the wrong fucking licence code.  God give me strength!

I wasn’t going to go through the hassle of phoning Microsoft, on principle.  They are a shower of money grubbers and if they think I am going to waste any more time or cash on them, then they can whistle.

I went onto the Interweb and found a crack for Windows.  It now works perfectly, and there are no more nags.  I have no conscience whatsoever about using crack software, as I legally hold a licence for what is installed.

I’m off now to search for more crack software.  If I find it, I am going to make Herself eat it.

Maybe then she will work without nagging?

• computers
• Comments(8)

Grandad April 14th, 2009

Some years ago they introduced a National Car Test here in Ireland.

At the time, I thought is was a good idea, as there were a lot of cars on the road that only had one working light, or even none at all.  It wasn’t unusual to see some hick farmer with his arse hanging out of his trousers, driving a car with it’s arse hanging out as well.

Of course, over the years, the government has seen this as a nice little money spinner, and now they test for all sorts of stupid fucking things.

If they don’t like the look of the colour they’ll fail you. 

If the car is dirty they’ll fail you.

If the fucking clock is two minutes slow, they’ll fail you.

Normally, they write and say when the car is due for its test.  This happens every two years, so it’s easy to forget.

They never wrote.  FAIL.

I though I had better check, so I went into their website.

The fucking site takes ages to load and their database keeps crashing.  FAIL.

I eventually got into their database and entered my car registration number, and the date of registration, which I got off the Registration Certificate.

The site crashed another couple of times, but eventually came up with a message – they had never heard of my car.  FAIL.

I tried ringing the number they give on their site.  In fact I tried numerous times over the course of a morning.

Always engaged.  FAIL.

I am really getting pissed off with them now.  They are a shower of incompetent fucking wankers, and they need to get their act together.  How the hell am I supposed to get my car tested if their website doesn’t work, their database is out of date and they don’t answer the phone?

They have been tested and they FAIL.

• On the road
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Grandad April 13th, 2009

English Mum has been nagging me.

She writes a very nice site, which is a sort of foodie type thing that has a lot of recipes in it.

She has been nagging me for the secret of how to cook a guinea pig.

The first thing you have to do is make the stuffing.  You can cheat of course, and buy a packet of the stuff and just add water, but I prefer to do it the long way.

Dice up an onion, and mix with breadcrumbs, a raw egg, milk and a good dose of rosemary and thyme.

When you have a nice quantity [about two tablespoons full, depending on the size of the guinea pig] you stuff the pig.  This is best done from the rear end, and a bit of patience may be called for.  If the guinea pig objects, just tell it to shut up.

Place the now stuffed guinea pig in a roasting pan and place in a pre heated oven at around 180C.

Cooking takes around an hour, and you may want to leave the kitchen at this stage as they can make quite a nasty racket running around the inside of the oven.

It’s worth the effort though.

• Around the house
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Grandad April 12th, 2009

First queen wasp of the summer.

Fucking hate queen wasps.

Pissing me off.

THWAP!!!!

Peace.

• Around the house
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Grandad April 11th, 2009

There are some things I like in life, and sometimes those things are mutually exclusive.

I like my wooden furniture, and in particular a set of nested tables that I use in the sitting room.

I also like my Minnie.

I don’t like keeping Minnie cooped up in her cage as it isn’t fair on her.  I like to give her the run of the floor whenever I can, so that she can stretch her little legs and annoy Sandy.

She is a rather fat little bugger at this stage, as she never stops eating.  I maybe should have called her Harney, but she is nice to look at, has a very sweet personality and would definitely make a hell of a better fist at running the health service, so she shall remain a Minnie.

Despite being well fed, she is constantly on the lookout for new culinary experiences, and this is where the wooden tables and the exclusivity come in.

She has taken to chewing the legs of the tables.

So now I have a problem.  Do I remove the tables, which I like, or do I ban Minnie from the floor?

I didn’t want to do either, so that called for a bit of lateral thinking, and a couple of empty water bottles.

It works.  In fact, it works brilliantly.

I’m thinking of taking out a patent and getting the population of China to mass produce the things.

This could be worth millions, nay billions.  Fuck it.  Trillions.

I’m made.

What do you think?

• Around the house
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