Archive for November, 2009

For Sharon

November 21st, 2009

Not many people know this, but my Sharon has a delightful if somewhat black sense of humour.

I taught her well.

Earlier in the week, there was a news item about some twats who were trying to remove a tree from the back garden of a house in California.  The only thing they succeeded in doing was to very neatly slice the house in two.

Poor Sharon was given the task of introducing the item on the News.  She could barely contain her laughter.

So, Sharon – this is for you.

Did I ever tell you you have a very sexy laugh?

World Cup my arse

November 20th, 2009

This country is one sneeze away from bankruptcy, and the IMF are camped just outside the door.

Next week we are about to enjoy the next best thing to a general strike.

Over four hundred thousand people are out of work.

To say the country is in a crisis is like saying that Everest is a bit of a hill.

And what is our government worried about?  Questions in the Dáil, and representations by Biffo to the French government?

A fucking football match!

For fuck’s sake – get a grip!

This is a game we are talking about.  Nothing less and nothing more.  A game where a few nancies prance around after a piece of plastic for an hour and a half or so.  It is nothing to get worked up about.  There is no need to get any knickers in a twist.  It’s a fucking GAME.

If the French had come over here and deliberately burned down Guinness’s Brewery, we might have something to complain about, but what actually happened was that a bloke touched a ball with his hand.  Boo fucking hoo.

Suppose Ireland had one the match, then that means that they would be playing in South Africa.  Half the Knuckle Draggers in the country would be mortgaging their grannies to travel to see Ireland get thrashed in the next round, and we would end up with more debt; more home repossessions and more broken marriages.

The Knuckle Draggers of this country should be grateful to the French for putting the team out of its misery.

Biffo should be sending telegrams of thanks instead of whinging like a petulant child.

So let’s forget about it.  OK?

Let’s worry about something more important.

Such as planning to handle Biffo’s balls with a baseball bat.

In Limbo

November 19th, 2009

There are times when I wonder where I fit in this world.

I saw a video thingy on the Interweb this morning where Stephen Fry and a couple of geeks and nerds were all talking about the future of the Interweb.  Now I have a huge respect for Mr Fry as an orator and an actor, but he leaves me a bit bewildered when he starts on this “Social Media” thingy.  However bewildered he leaves me, is nothing compared to the couple from Twitter and LinkedIn though.  I hadn’t a fucking clue what they were on about.  One was waffling about the transition from “web one oh to web two oh” and the other just twittered on about Twitter.

There are some things in life that I find exciting, like watching a Guinness delivery to a pub, or seeing a 4WD crash or even watching Sharon read the News, but Twitter leaves me completely cold.  I even hate its name.  Fucking “Twitter”!  How anyone can get excited about a medium devoted to mini-brainfarts is beyond me.  I switched off.

I decided I was getting too old for this malarkey so I wandered over to a site for us Silver Haired Surfers – Golden Ireland.  Having browsed their hotel deals and made a few notes, I wandered into their Computing area.  Fuck me but they want to teach me how to use email!

So here I am, stuck in a sort of Limbo.

I’m too old for all this shite about multi-faceted media interaction, and Clouds and other crap like that.

But apparently I’m not old enough to not know how to use a PC.

Am I a Silver Geek?

How do you spend half a million?

November 18th, 2009

One thing that has baffled me for a long time is this desire people have to earn massive amounts of money.

I’m not talking about a reasonable living wage, rather the obscene amounts that bankers, politicians and The Plank fight over.

Take for example this latest claptrap about Doherty becoming the boss of AIB, and the government saying he isn’t allowed a salary of over €500,000.  The poor chap has had to take a drop of €133,000.

But what the fuck does anyone want even half a million a year for?  That is nearly ten thousand a week.  That is €1,300 plus change a day.  How do you spend that?  What use is it?

He could afford to buy a new car every fortnight?

He could afford to buy a new house every six months?

How does anyone need €1,300 every day to survive?  What the fuck does he spend it on?  I can live quite happily [if a little frugally] on that much in a month, yet he needs it every day?

Is it purely a status thing, that he can brag down at the golf club that he is on half a mil a year?  Is he going to save it all so he can die a very wealthy corpse?

We all need to eat and drink.  A good diet will cost no more than a hundred a week?  We all need shelter, and the more fortunate of us have that, but even renting a reasonable kip will cost around a grand or two a month?  A car to get us from A to B won’t cost more than twenty or thirty grand?  A really good holiday shouldn’t cost more than five grand?  So, adding that lot up, one would have change out of €100,000, but I’ll be generous, and allow for a couple of pints a week, and say €150,000.  And that is allowing for a brand new car every year, and no trade in.

I could live a very extravagant lifestyle on €150,000 a year.  So extravagant, that I would probably be uncomfortable with it, yet this bloke reckons he is worth four times that?

Forget swine flu.

Worry about affluenza.

Regularity and routine

November 17th, 2009

Since I gave up work, I was a little worried that I would lapse into a life of random actions with no routine at all.

What has amazed me is the level of routine I have unconsciously maintained even though there is no need for it.

The first thing that surprises me is the regularity of the time that I wake up.  Without fail, every morning I awake between seven and eleven, on the dot.  Isn’t that amazing?  I find that level of regularity quite astounding.

When I get up, I always get dressed.  Except of course for the mornings when I couldn’t be bothered.  The point is though, that I always do one or the other, without fail.

Next of my list of things to do is to make my morning cuppa, and this bit really scares me.  You see, there is a caddy of tea bags and a jar of coffee granules by the kettle, but I always make myself a mug of tea.  I find this really amazing and rather fortuitous as I’m not that fond of instant coffee.

At this point, I will admit that a level of randomness creeps in.  Some mornings I let Sandy out for a piss.  Some mornings I play a game of football with the guinea pigs [did you know that guinea pigs make quite good footballs?].  Some mornings I sit and stare out the window and get depressed at the weather, and some mornings I don’t do any of those.  It’s this level of randomness that adds a spice of life to an otherwise dull existence.

I thought I would miss the dull monotony of the alarm going off at nine every morning, but I don’t.  I thought my live would lose structure but it hasn’t.

There is a comfort in the knowledge that I will wake up tomorrow, as regular as clockwork.

Or maybe not.

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