Well, that’s not strictly true as the vast majority of you are not living here [lucky sods], so most Irish don’t find me appealing.

Anyway, this is for the few who do live here.

You may have heard that one of our ministers [a little cunt by the name of Sherlock] is trying to implement a bill that will effectively hand over control of the Interweb to our gubmint and the music industry.  It is essentially the same as the American SOPA thing in that they can shut down a site if they don’t like its content. 

Seeing as our shower are just puppets for the EU, that means we hand over control to Brussels.  They claim that it’s to prevent copyright infringement, but knowing the EU, it will go much further than that.  Even this humble little site could be under threat as once or twice [*cough*] I have said a few things that could be construed to be anti-EU.

In a few days, they hope to implement this bill without even a vote [democracy at its best again?] so there ain’t much time.

The only way we can stop this is by lobbying. and that is very simple.

Get your arses over to Stop SOPA Ireland and sign the petition.

It has occurred to me that they can’t tell the nationality of the signature if the email address is a .com but of course I would never ask all you non-Irish .coms to sign now, would I? [*cough cough*]

So do you want the likes of EMI to dictate what sites we visit?  Do you trust our gubmint?  Do you trust the EU?

If the answer to any of those is no, then sign the damned thing.

If the answer to any of those is yes, then you are nothing short of a fucking moron.

So just sign the fucking thing.

OK?

Or would you like to see me wiped off the airwaves?

A lot of you seem to be very keen to log into this site so you can write your own stuff.

Some of you try several times until you get locked out.  You wait until the lockout expires and then you try several more times.  Some of you have tried so many times that I think you may have an obsessional complex.  Yes.  I keep track of these things.

I could make life a little easier for you by telling you that I don’t log into this site using “admin” or “Grandad”, as I have deleted those accounts but why should I make life easier for you?

I could tell you that my password isn’t “password”, “Gandalf”, “Sandy” or “admin” but again, you’re on your own.

What I can tell you is that my password is a bitch to remember.  In fact I keep forgetting it, and if it wasn’t written on a certain part of my anatomy, nothing would ever get done here.

So if you are really that desperate to write stuff on the Interweb, I would suggest that you start your own site and fuck off out of mine.

Yours etc,

Grandad

Some people seem to think this is a Good Thing so I decided yesterday to have a look at them.  I just wanted to see what the fuss was about.

I typed the name into the browser and it came up with a company that makes clips to fix a net to a goalpost.  I pondered this for a moment and decided something was wrong.  I was right.  I had misspelled their name.

I got into the site and had a look around.

OK, so it’s another variation on the video shop theme.  I have had membership of a video shop in the past, and have also been a member of one of those places that sends you your DVD of choice through the post.

I had a poke around the offerings of this latest crowd and as I suspected, it’s a load of crap.  I’m not blaming the company, but there just aren’t many decent films out there.  There are some, but I have either seen them or I can live without them.  There wasn’t a single offering in Netflix that I wanted to see.

Then I noticed something strange.

That white square on their front page is trying to entice me to sign up.  And the strange thing is that it lists four of my Facebook contacts.  I thought that this must be just a remarkable coincidence that they should happen to pick four people that I know.

I reloaded the page.  The four “friends” changed all right but I still knew them all.  Each time I loaded the page it threw up people I know.

I have a very simple question at this point.

To list my Facebook “friends” they must know who I am.

How?

How the fuck do they know that it’s me looking at their site?  I never gave them my name, address or anything.  I just typed their address into the browser without giving any hint as to who I am.  I didn’t follow a link that might have all those strings of letters that let the site know my identity.

I can only come up with one answer and that is that somewhere I have one of those “cookie” yokes belonging to Facebook sitting on my puter, and somehow Netflix have managed to read it, which I thought wasn’t possible.

One way or another, I find it rather creepy.

And no.  I won’t be joining.

It was bad enough when there was just Facebook and Twitter.  Now there is a clatter of other wannabe Facebooks around trying to cash in.  Frankly I can’t see the point in this as presumably anyone who wants to live their lives in the full public gaze have already joined Facebook.

One of those sites is a thing called Badoo.

I started getting mails from Badoo a few days ago and I have been receiving them at the rate of several a day since then.  Apparently someone left a message for in in there, and the site started sending me emails telling me to log in.  Now I don’t remember ever hearing about the site before, but presumably in a moment of weakness and curiosity I must have joined it.  As I don’t remember joining, there is fat chance of my remembering the password so I asked for a new on.  This of course led to six or seven mails all telling me that someone is trying to hack my account and at the same time welcoming me to Badoo.

Having changed my password I entered the site.  The first thing I see is that apparently a whole bunch of people are only dying to see my photograph and could I paste one up immediately.  The can fuck off with that one.  Anyone who wants a photograph of me will have to join the queue and pay for it through the normal channels.

I am also told that there is a gaggle of wimmin who live in my area who are dying to meet me.  Seeing as I gave my address as Dublin, they will have to remain frustrated.  And do I want to meet someone who is so fucking desperate that they will pine to go out with me just because they have my name?  I know I am legendary but that’s pushing it a bit.

Now that I have a password I also have The Power.  Yup, I can now control every aspect of my account.  There was one item I wanted so I searched through all the pages and eventually I found it….

The Delete Account button.

*Click*

All those wimmin will have to find someone else to pine over.

Heh!

If you have a query about any subject on earth, that you will find the answer on the Interweb.

Not so.

I mentioned before how our dog has developed a rather unsavoury habit of plunging her head down between her hind legs and then making a loud series of gulping sloshing noises.  To say it is a tad nauseating is to put it politely, particularly as she loves doing it at mealtimes.

Last night I thought I would try to find a solution to this little problem so I did a little search on Google.

I used the words “dog licking”.

All I got was a massive list of sites telling me all I wanted to know about dogs licking their paws.

Not much use.

I decided to be a little more specific. 

I tried “dog licking fanny”.

For some reason, presumably only known to Google, it assumed I wanted “dog licking pussy”.

……

……

FUCK!!!!

That is fucking DISGUSTING!

I didn’t know that kind of thing was allowed on the Interweb.

I really feel quite ill.

I suppose I’ll just have to bring her to the vet instead.

I was quietly sitting here minding my own business, listening to the radio and half dozing when Plop.

Yes, Plop.

The dreaded sound of a sudden powercut.

When power is restored, there is usually a cacophony of whirrs, clicks and buzzes and all the technology comes back to live, but the act of dying merely produces a Plop.

I checked a few sockets and found that it was only a fuse that had blown. That happens on a regular basis so it’s no worry. I just bunged in a higher rating fuse. I was out of 30s to I whacked in a 60. That’ll teach it.

After all the whirrs, clicks and buzzes ceased I thought I would check the Interweb.

No fucking Interweb!

For some reason, my little wireless thingy with the little aerials has ceased to function. I couldn’t connect.

I tried running a cable to my laptop, but that didn’t work either.

Fuck!

Then I remembered I had an old one lying around. I don’t know where it came from, but it was there being used as a book stand. I’ll let the Other Fella poke around in the dud one. He actually enjoys that sort of shite.

It works. Not very well, but I suppose it’s better than nothing. After all, you lot would have a fit if I didn’t make an appearance.

Fucking technology!

I try to write in a way that most English speaking people can read.  I’m not always successful in that endeavour but fuckit, I try.

It is somewhat strange then to come across references to this place in a language that is quite frankly foreign to me.

One of the sites that links here is Weirdo.  Now it looks interesting but I can’t understand a single word, as it’s all in Welsh.  I always thought that the Welsh language had a particular beauty, but I think it’s a bit late to learn it, considering that I’m still struggling with English.

Recently another site wrote an entire piece about this place, and I haven’t a fucking clue what they are on about as the whole thing is in Russian.  My Russian is [to put put mildly] a tad on the rusty side, and Google Translate isn’t much better, so I’ll just have to hope that what they wrote is reasonably positive. 

I received my first Russian comment the other day.  I’m not counting those ones from people who call themselves “Get a cheap mortgage” or whatever and then try to flatter me into posting their link.  No.  I’m talking about a short succinct comment that was aimed directly at me.  Unfortunately their link was one of those casino sites, so under my rules that does in fact class them as spam.  And what did they say?

“Давай, дедуля жги еще!”

According to Google, that means “Come on, Grandpa still burn!“.  I’m still not quite sure what to make of that.  Maybe something got lost in translation?  Anyway, thanks Max.  I think.

Just out of interest, I tried taking the fist sentence of this scribble and translating it into Russian.  Apparently it is “Я все время забываю, как международные этом межсети вещь.”.  Now that means nothing to me so I translated it back again.  “I keep forgetting how international this interweb thing.”  I’m impressed.  But it has missed out on the last “is” which subtly changes the whole meaning.  In fact it doesn’t really make any sense at all.  So I then wonder what my musings come out as when translated into other languages?

Fuckit.

I think I’ll stick with English.

I have even been know to mention Facebook in passing.

The reason I am mentioning them again is that I think I may have confused some people.  In fact that is more than likely as they have confused me.

Take Twitter for example.  Every now and then, the nice people at Twitter write to me to tell me that someone new is following me.  Can anyone tell me what I am supposed to do about this none too covert stalking?  Am I supposed to thank Twitter?  Am I supposed to thank the new follower and do I then start following them?  That could be a tad awkward as we would just follow each other in ever decreasing circles until we vanished up our own arses. 

There is another thing that puzzles me too.  Every so often someone shouts my name with FF attached.  What the hell is this?  Funny Fellow?  Fucking Fool?  Am I supposed to thank them or curse them?

Facebook is another matter altogether and frankly is even more confusing.  People don’t stalk you there.  Oh no, they are quite up front about it and demand to be your friend.  There are lots of people who want to be my friend but my parents warned me about them.  “Beware of strangers who offer you sweets” they said, though in Facebook it’s more a case of “Beware of strangers who want to poke you”.  I suppose Facebook is at least a bit more honest about it?

I get quite a few emails from Facebook every week.  They all say the same thing though I have never bothered to read them all.  They all whinge on about my family and how they have found two possible relatives of mine.  Ok, so one is a niece-in law [is there such a thing?] and the other is that K8 one that I have been trying to disown for years, so I’ll give Facebook half marks for effort.  I would join up with their fucking Family Tree just to stop the fucking mails, but then they would have won.  So no fucking chance!

The one little yoke that I do use quite a lot is Skype.  I don’t shout about it because it would be boring.  I have friends that I call up and have a chat with, or who will trade long text messages with me.  However, like any ordinary phone, I’m picky about who calls me.  I have enough problems with cold callers without inviting them onto my computer too.  The odd time I will get a request from some total stranger who wants me to let them see when I am on line.  Why?  Do they want to phone me?  Or do they just want to see when I am up and about?  The sad news for them is that I only go on line at certain times.  My friends know when those times are, but no one else does, so those total strangers could be waiting a very long time.

I think on the whole I’m better off leaving all this Social Media shite to the young people.  They can happily spend their time swapping boring photos and even more boring videos and telling each other that they have just arrived in Burger King.

I’m off to the pub.

Now that’s social!

Or it could be a stray bolt of lightning.

Or a meteorite.

Or something.

Leastwise, as some wise old sage was once heard to mutter into his cornflakes – “you never know the day nor the hour”.

With that in mind, I started wondering about all my Interweb shit.  Herself wouldn’t be able to access anything that I have done on line.  There is a lot of important shit in there that she would need to access.  There is also a lot of shit in there that I don’t want her to access. *cough*

I did a quick guess as to how many user names and passwords that I had. 

I guessed at twenty, give or take a few.

I was wrong.

One hundred and ninety fucking one accounts.

Holy shit!!!

Where did they all come from?  I haven’t a clue what half them are, but I must have signed in at some stage or other.  Other accounts have several user names, and I don’t know why. 

I have managed to write them all down and will leave her the file in my will……

minus all the sites I don’t want her to know about, of course.

That should bring the figure nearer twenty.

Heh!

Here I am on a blustery Sunday afternoon trying to download some porn download some pirated films research the decline of the honeybee, and the fucking Interweb is acting like I am using an old modem thingy.  It’s not only slow, but it keeps disconnecting.  Fucking irritating.

It could be that the lightning we had last night screwed something up in which case there is fuck all I can do about it.

Or it could be that the trees and hedges have gotten a little out of control and are blocking the signal.

I’ll tell you one thing -

It’s a piss poor state of affairs if the fucking Interweb is nagging me to do some gardening.