Grandad October 5th, 2011
I watched that film the other night.
You know the one I mean? That one about Facebook?
There were two things that struck me about the film. One was that the sound was fucking terrible in it – they seemed determined to drown out the voices with the background noises, so I missed a lot of the dialog. Not that I think I missed much. The other thing that struck me was that it made Yer Man Mark Zimmerframe out to be a right little cunt. I’m surprised he didn’t sue.
Anyhows, it got me thinking about Facebook once more.
One of the things about Facebook is the weird fenomimin femonim phenomyn thing where people insist on putting the most intimate details about their lives out there for everyone to see. Some bloke updates his status – “Had sex with a sheep last night. Felt a bit woolly this morning”, and then wonders why the fuck he didn’t get the teaching job he had just applied for. People are very strange.
Another thing that baffles me is the latest craze for starting a group and begging people to join. As soon as A Cause presents itself, someone creates a group and expects us all to follow it. They then get themselves into the meeja and spout on about how their Cause has attracted 500 members in Facebook, as it that is the ultimate supreme court in the land and the final arbiter. Speaking for myself, I get a few invites to join Causes and all I do is go into my Facebook thing and click a button at random. I haven’t a clue what Causes I am supporting or rejecting. The simplest job in the world is clicking a mouse button. It means nothing.
And I wish companies would stop this shite of begging people to “follow” them on Facebook and Twitter. If you want to advertise your wares, then build a fucking website. Fucking cheapskate. It is pointless “following” a company unless you are going to have hourly updates about your products. And if your products have to be updated every hour or so they are either crap products or you are Microsoft.
I joined Facebook for the laugh. Then for a long time I ignored it. Now it’s just plain annoying me. I wish it had never been invented.
The film is right.
Mark Zimmerframe is a cunt.
Grandad October 4th, 2011
I found a neat little yoke when booking my trip on Irish Ferries.
For an extra tenner you can book a priority thing for the car.
When we arrived in Rosslare, we were given a wee card to hang off the mirror, and then were stuck into a special queue before boarding. When they started loading the cars, our lane was first on so I was well into my first pint while they were still loading cars.
When we arrived in Roscoff, once again, we were amongst the first cars off. Brilliant.
The fun happened on the return journey though.
We drove up to the reception kiosk in Cherbourg and Yer Wan gave us the card to hand from the mirror and told me to switch on the hazard lights [I had to search for the switch. I don’t think I have ever used them before]. We then drove onto the quay and were put into a short lane beside the normal huge lines of cars. The bugger in front of us had spotted the hazard lights trick, and he too was put into our lane. I noticed though that he had no card on his mirror. A chancer? Heh!
When they started the loading, once again we were first on, but not Chancer in front! The bastard was pulled to one side and then sent back to the tail end of the longest queue. Prat!
The one place where there is always a huge holdup is in Rosslare where the customs are a pain in the hole. The last time we came through there, it took over an hour. This time was different. We were the third car off the ferry and so had the pick of the customs slots. I drove and wound down the window. “Where are ye from?” asks the customs bloke. “Wickla” says I. He laughed. Only a Wicklow man will call it Wickla. “Go on outa that” says he.
Thirty seconds through customs.
Sweet.
And they never even checked the luggage.
Just as well…….
Grandad October 3rd, 2011
You have to laugh.
Or cry.
I came across a snippet the other day. Apparently our Department of Health [hah! If ever there was an ironic title….] has decided that Cheddar Cheese is a lethal substance. This vile food is to be banned from our television screens until after the watershed. Having spent years advertising the stuff as an excellent source of protein and even giving it away free as a gesture of benevolence they have now decided that this evil muck is dangerous. So dangerous, in fact that it’s worse for the health than Diet Coke.
Then I hear that the National Substance Misuse Strategy Steering Group [Fuck!! What a great title!] wants all drink company sponsorship to cease for arts events.
Things can’t get much better can they?
They are really getting the old ball rolling on both the alcohol and the obesity fronts. Advertising is always the first salvo. Then we’ll have second-hand obesity and second-hand alcoholism. Maybe a few third-hands?
Next we’ll be hearing that there is no safe level of alcohol.
Oh, wait.
The WHO have already said it.
Yes. It’s there. Second paragraph under “The harm done by alcohol”. First there was no safe level of nicotine, now there is no safe level of alcohol. Is there anything with a safe level?
So all you people who just shrugged when the smoking ban came in had better watch out.
Sooner or later it will be your turn.
Grandad October 2nd, 2011
Is it any wonder this country pisses me off?
While we have had days of constant rain and flooding, our neighbours and the rest of Europe are basking in a heatwave and record temperatures.
Grandad October 1st, 2011
The phone rang just now.
I checked the display as always and it told me the number was “withheld”. Those calls always put me on full alert.
Sure enough, it was some Asian fucker inquiring whether I had a computer.
Of course I knew straight away what this was – the scam of talking me through fixing a non-existent problem that sooner or later would either involve hard cash or a compromised computer.
I gave him a bit of a lecture. I told him that he was exploiting the innocent and that he really shouldn’t do it. I told him that telling porkies about computers being faulty was only going to worry the old and vulnerable. I told him that there was nothing wrong with my computer and that his information was in any case incorrect as I was using Linux and that his little “fixes” wouldn’t work. I told him that he should really mend the errors of his ways and that he should get himself an honest job.
Actually I didn’t say any of that.
I had more than a sneaking suspicion that he has used some kind of callback device and that I was paying for the call.
So I just told him to go fuck himself, before slamming down the phone.
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