Archive for October, 2011

Bring back the quill

October 21st, 2011

There are times when technology really pisses me off.

Last night I found a document on the Interweb that I wanted to print off.  No problem, you say.  Fucking wrong, I say.

The Other Fella reinstalled this Linux thing the other day, and the twat forgot to connect to the printer.  I have picked up a couple of tips over the years so I decided to connect to the printer myself.

Fucking laptop couldn’t find the fucking printer.

I went to the room where the printer is and checked it.  It was switched on all right but the settings were all wrong.  I pulled up a chair and typed in the settings.  Of course, being modern technology they make that as difficult as possible.  It has a sort of mobile phone keyboard so typing any text means endless tapping of keys.  And of course as I cycled through the letters, it always went too fast and I would miss the letter I wanted and would have to start again.

I could not get the fucking thing to work.  After a couple of hours I gave up.

This morning I gritted my teeth and asked the Other Fella for a drop of help.  The wanker got the fucking printer connected in one minute flat.  I hate that!  He checked and the laptop can see the printer and its status is fine.

He fucked off to the shops, and I settled into printing my document.

The fucking yoke still doesn’t work.

It can tell me all I want to know about the printer, even down to the levels of ink in it.  But will it print my document?  Hah!

I’ll just have to wait ‘til Yer Man gets back.  Doubtless he’ll press one button and everything will work properly.

There are times when technology really pisses me off.

The Seven Steps

October 20th, 2011

Those bastards in the Department of Health are at it again.

Their latest shimmy is to propose a tax on sugary drinks.

What I find so boring about this is its predictability.

Step 1: Hold an advertising campaign to frighten the bejeezus out of everyone.

Step 2: Start talking about epidemics.

Step 3: Mention [frequently] heart attacks and cancer.

Step 4: Turn the rest of the population against the proposed victims

Step 5: Introduce a law which only affects a tiny minority.

Step 6: Extend the laws one step at a time until it affects virtually everybody.

Step 7: Move on to the next unfortunate batch of victims.

Step one has already kicked in.  We are being subjected to a whingey advertising campaign that suggests that we are too fat if our waist measurement is above a particular figure.  This is patent bollox because there is no mention of height.  A three foot midget with a waist of 36” may have a problem, but a seven foot bloke would be positively svelte.  That doesn’t matter to them though as it is not the facts they are promoting – it’s the fear.  They want us to self diagnose ourselves as being obese, based on an arbitrary number.

Incidentally, I have noticed the same advertisement appearing on the foreign TV channels [Channel 4 or ITV], so this is not an Irish issue.  Oh no.  This is the bastards in Brussels at work again.

Step two has been going on for a while too.  Never talk about widespread obesity when you can talk about an epidemic.  The word ‘epidemic’ conjures up images of carts of bodies being wheeled through the streets while we all huddle under our beds in fear.  The fact that there is no ‘epidemic’ [obesity is on the decline] and that the word is defined as “The occurrence of more cases of a disease than would be expected in a community or region during a given time period” where an excess of body fat can hardly be classed as a disease, is apparently irrelevant.

Step three is just gaining momentum here.  Up ‘til now only smoking caused heart attacks and cancer.  Now they are including obesity and alcohol.  Suddenly smoking is not the unique killer they claimed it was, and now everyone is under threat.

Step four is the really clever one.  They know damn well that the majority don’t give a flying fuck about obese people, so they have to get everyone on board to ‘denormalise’ the concept of a spreading waistline.  Here they introduce the concept of ‘second hand obesity’, no matter how ludicrous that concept is.  They are already producing ‘studies’ which ‘prove’ that obesity is somehow communicable.  They want us to fear the overweight in order to have us clamouring for legislation.

Step five is now on the table.  Let’s tax sugar.  Fair enough you might say [if you’re a fucking sheep], but next it will be fats, then salt, then spices, then a whole clatter of things until tofu flavoured with vitamin pills and health food supplements is the only untaxed food left.  By then though, it’s too late as the gubmint can’t backtrack – it would be ‘giving out the wrong signals’.

Step six and seven have yet to happen, but they are coming down the line.  Mark my words.

How do I know all this?

Simple.

Ask any smoker.

The ultimate source of power

October 19th, 2011

I am only kicking myself.

The electrical fella arrived at nine this morning.  Why the fuck he started at such an ungodly hour is anyone’s guess.  I mean, who the hell is up at that hour?

Luckily I managed to boil a kettle before he plunged the Manor into a state of powerlessness.

I sat there all morning, contemplating my navel, sipping an ever colder mug of tea and wondering what the hell I had done to deserve this.

Then I had my little ‘light bulb over the head’ moment.

Or rather, I didn’t as there was no power for the light bulb.

Let’s just say I had one of my great and famous inspirations.

I remembered that the neighbours are away.

I nipped into their boiler house and sure enough, it is fully wired.  They had even left me a spare socket, so out came the extension reel and the job is oxo.  I am now sitting pretty with full Interweb access and the kettle is merrily boiling away.

I’m not sure when the neighbours are due back so just in case, I’ll do a better job of concealing the cables tonight and also tap neatly into the circuit so they won’t accidentally remove my power.  I know they would hate to see me discommoded.

I’m just kicking myself that I didn’t think of this earlier.

I can sack the electrical bloke now.  My fuse problem is sorted.

I hope the neighbour’s fuses are OK though.

An abuse of power

October 18th, 2011

We had one of those electrical fellas around yesterday.

I mentioned before how we had been having a little problem with fuses blowing all over the shop, so I thought it was time to let someone else have a look at the wiring.

When I first helped wire this house back in the 60s, life was relatively simple.  All you needed beside a bed was a single socket for a bedside lamp, as alarm clocks were all clockwork.  Now you need a fucking power station beside each bed to power the bedside lamp, the alarm clock, the vibrator mobile phone charger and fifty other fucking annoying things.  And that is a simple example.  My little office needs about five hundred sockets for all the shit that goes on in there such as printers, broadband, phone, ‘puter, radio and a moxy load of other yokes.

You get the drift?

Over the years I have had to adapt the house wiring slightly.

The bloke yesterday had a look at the wiring and immediately told us to move out of the house.  He claimed that The Manor is in imminent danger of bursting into flames.  Personally I think he has just been following the  Priory Hall story a bit too closely.  Fucking drama queen!

Anyhows, I asked him what the panic was and he pointed at one of my extensions and screamed something about bell-wire not being suitable for power.  I pointed out that it provided a nice bit of background heat whenever something was plugged in.  He wasn’t impressed.  I don’t know why as surely wall heating is better than under-floor heating as the cables don’t get walked on?

He carried on around the house muttering to himself about amateurs, which was a bit fucking rude.  I pointed out to him that I had probably forgotten more about electricity than he had ever learned.  He replied that that was probably part of the problem.  Cheeky fucker.

He reckons there is a lot of work to be done, and this means that I will probably have no electrification for the next while.  Bang goes my broadband and my cuppa tea.

Personally I think it would be a lot simpler just to bypass the fuse board.

High five

October 17th, 2011

I can never remember exactly when I started at this scribbling lark.

It was somewhere around the 17th or 18th of October 2006.  Maybe it was the 23rd?  Who cares?

One way or another, it represents five fucking years of wasted time.

Five fucking years!  When I think of all the things I could have done instead of wasting my time here, the mind boggles.  Herself never misses an opportunity to tell me that it’s a complete waste of bloody time and that nobody reads it anyway.  I just point out that so far nearly half a million people have read it [actually it's 457,630 but who's counting?] and that can’t all have been searching for a bit of porn.  If I eliminate the porn seekers, that still leaves nearly 10,000 visitors which isn’t bad.

Apart from three very sharp angles, 5 is a nice round number.  Not quite as round as 0 or 6, or even 8 for that matter.  Come to think of it, 5 is the least round number apart maybe from 4?  Anyhows, it is still a notable number and I think it deserves a few pints tonight in celebration.

I suppose it’s about time I put its name down for secondary school?

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