Archive for June, 2009

How to throw away money you don’t have

Grandad June 30th, 2009

Over two and a half years ago, I wrote about our idiotic Council.

I told how they had managed to destroy a perfectly good stretch of road.  It was one of the most attractive roads in the neighbourhood, with its mossy stone walls and birch trees.  It was narrow and winding, which meant everyone had to drive at a reasonable speed, allowing them to enjoy the beauty of it.

The arseholes in the Council spent a fortune on it, removing a bend or two and adding a couple more.  They resurfaced it, and widened it.  The old stone walls are now gone, and are replaced with massive, very expensive looking stone escarpments.  I don’t know what the cost was, but it was a lot.

Of course, when the boy racers saw the new surface they tried to race it.  However, for all the money that was spent, the road still isn’t any faster or safer.  They still had an 80 kmph limit on it, which was always the limit.  Anyone who drives at that speed will kill themselves for sure, and good riddance.

I drove down it recently.  And what have they done now?  They have reduced the speed limit to 50!  Big fucking deal.  I don’t know why they did that.  No one could drive faster than 50 anyway.  There is nowhere they could place a speed trap.  Changing a speed limit involves changing signs, and it also involves changing by-laws.  It is yet another case of throwing money at a problem that never existed in the first place. 

The arseholes in the Council are always complaining about the lack of money.  They have to cut back on all sorts of essentials because the coffers are dry.

For the last couple of weeks they have been working on my road.

The started by drawing little yellow boxes around any little dimple they could find in the surface, and now they are cutting out those dimples and resurfacing them.

It is a fact of life that the better the road surface, the faster the traffic.  They are removing what were natural speed bumps and making a racing track on a road where children play. Once the work is finished, the speeds will go up.  Then they will have to spend more money trying to slow people down again.

How much of their non-existent money are they spending on that exercise?

Arseholes.

Benefits of the recession

Grandad June 29th, 2009

I’m back. Sort of.

I managed to rob the other laptop when Herself wasn’t looking.  Heh!

My own laptop finally died the death.

And before any of you dumbfucks with Linux or Macs start shouting, it was a hard disk failure.  Got that?  Hardware.  Nothing to do with whatever software I was running.  And don’t tell me a Linux or Mac has never had a hard disk fail.

Now I have to run the gauntlet of the shop where I bought it.  Doubtless they will try to shift me to the manufacturers, but I know my Sale of Goods Act!!

Wooops!!

As I type, I just had a call from the shop [I sent them an email to phone me about five minutes ago].  I am impressed with their response so far.  And the told me to bring it into them and they will deal with it.  Irish business are improving somewhat.

Who says the recession is a bad thing?

When the manure hits the windmill

Grandad June 28th, 2009

Well, I wrote on Friday how my laptop was complaining of ill health….

It is very sick indeed.

In fact it has pretty much seen the white light at the end of the tunnel, though there is still a faint heartbeat. There is word of a heart transplant in the coming week but just in case, I’m currently removing everything off the hard drive before the funeral.

I am having to resort to a clapped out old machine that I thought was an air-conditioner, but turns out to be a PC. It’s in the junk room, and there is nowhere to sit so I won’t be doing much typing here.

I thought of asking Herself for a loan of hers, but after an attempt at baseball-bat-persuasion she has locked herself and her laptop in the bedroom.

So every cloud does have a silver lining?

One way or another, I am sans e-mail or even a decent browser, so I don’t think I’ll be in touch much.

Closed for business

Grandad June 27th, 2009

If you lot think I am going to sit around messing with computers on a lovely day like today, you can think again.

This is a day for the Great Outdoors.

Maybe a game of golf?

I just don’t feel like dishing out the shit today.

A nice round.

The death of a Superstar?

Grandad June 26th, 2009

There sometimes is an occasion in the tides of man when only one word will suffice to sum up a situation.

Last night, that occasion occurred.

“Fuck” I roared, as a message came up un my screen telling me that my hard disk was about to fail.

Sandy ran for cover; Herself muttered something uncomplimentary and Minnie actually stopped eating for a moment.

I did a backup of everything and then ran a check on the disk.

Fucking thing packed up.

This morning I ran some more tests.  Everything seemed to be OK, so I started on a wee project I had been asked to do for one of the newspapers.

The fucking computer crashed with a grinding noise.

I’m flying on one engine at the moment.  I have a feeling this machine is about to expire.  One of several futures awaits me.

Maybe it is sorry for scaring me and will carry on working normally, in which case the world can breathe a sigh of relief.

I am about to run some software on it, and that could mean a rebuild, in which case the world will have to survive without Grandad for a few days.

Or it could blow up.

This could be the last post?

Is Grandad about to expire?

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