Head Rambles

Grandad July 2nd, 2009

Things have been a bit chaotic here in Head Rambles Manor of late.

You may have noticed a passing mention of computers going belly up?  That was just part of it.

For some reason, every time I start a day, which I seem to be doing now on a daily basis, something conspires to thwart my efforts at a quiet life.

I actually managed to allocate myself a quiet afternoon the other day.  No sooner had I sat down than the place was invaded by a K8, two grandchildren, an idiotic dog and a kitten.

Actually, the kitten was fun.  It decided that it didn’t like guinea pigs for some reason, and did its damndest to attack our Minnie.  For the sake of peace and quiet, our Minnie was in her cage, so the kitten climbed on top and tried to take swipes at her through the bars.  Minnie, being a very wise guinea pig, just ignored the kitten which didn’t help matters, and just made it all the more determined.

I forgot I had left the trapdoor on the top of the cage open, and the daft kitten went and fell into the cage.

I have never seen a kitten move so fast.

The fucking thing shot out like a scalded cat [even though it was quite cool in the cage] and decided that guinea pigs were enormous dangerous creatures to be avoided at all costs.  Minnie, of course just carried on munching whatever she was munching and never turned a hair.  I like her attitude.  She takes after me.

I have also been busy with the business of shutting down the business, whenever I can get on line.

I have decided that the best tactic, that involves the maximum profit and the least hassle is to send bills out to everyone, and wait for the responses.  So far it’s quite good.  One punter paid a couple of grand and he was just a name I plucked out of the phone book.  As soon as I get all the cheques in, I will just switch off the servers.  I honestly couldn’t be bothered with all the nightmares of shifting them to other servers.  Too messy.  They’ll thank me in the end when they stop getting any spam.

On top of all that, I have had the usual routine stuff, like gardening, games with the dog and hunting the odd American.

So you see, I haven’t had that much time for updating this thing.

But then, no one reads it anyway.

• Rambles
• Comments(17)

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.

• Around the garden , Rambles
• Comments(9)

Grandad June 21st, 2009

Some people wonder why I turn my sporting talents to hunting tourists when there is so much wildlife around.

I love wildlife, and wouldn’t harm a hair/feather/scale/whatever on its head.

I was browsing around this morning and I came across a wee article. It wasn’t exactly earth shattering news, but it makes a change from the miserable crap that fills most of the papers these days.

Apparently, a Mistle Thrush built a nest in a gutter.

Nothing strange in that?  No.  Not really.  But it went and built it at the bottom end of the slope so that when rain fell, the gutter was blocked by the nest.  As a result, after a good rainfall the nest and the chicks would get drenched.

Being extremely intelligent, they sorted the problem.

While the male carried on the business of feeding the chicks, the female puffed out her feathers and sat in the gutter [a good place for the female?] and dammed the water.

Now that is clever.

A lot more clever than any damned tourist I have ever seen.

• Rambles
• Comments(12)

Grandad June 18th, 2009

For a long time, the people of Ireland have been complaining about the level of secrecy in government and big business.

They introduced the Freedom of Information Act, but that is a tedious way of gaining information, and you have to know exactly what you are looking for.

I am delighted therefore to see that there has been a change of heart.

Not only are the government and Big Business making information available, they are actually giving it away.

They started at the weekend, when our illustrious HSE [the Death Squad that runs our health service] gave away fifteen laptops containing information on people who have approached community welfare officers seeking assistance.  I think that is very fair of them.  It is only right that we should all know who is looking for assistance, and why.

Unfortunately, in a massive cock-up, on a scale which only the HSE can achieve, some twat had encrypted fourteen of the laptops, thus rendering the information useless.  There are rumours abounding that they are about to make the encryption keys available, to rectify this mistake.

Yesterday, Bord Gáis showed the HSE how it should be done.

They released a laptop containing 75,000 customers’ banking details, and being far more efficient, they left the laptop unencrypted.

Again, the rumour mill has gone into overdrive and there is a strong possibility that the ESB in a counter-strike is going to publish all their customers banking details in the national papers.

In times of recession it is only right that we should have the freedom to spend.  It is, in fact our civic duty to spend as much as possible in order to get the economy back on its feet.  To this end, these account details are being circulated in order that we have sufficient funds to boost trade.

Maybe they are not as stupid as I thought?  

• Rambles
• Comments(10)

Grandad June 11th, 2009

I am starting a campaign to save the letter ‘T’.

I have noticed of late that there is a terrible tendency to replace it in speech with the letter ‘D’, which is totally unnecessary but is also extremely grating on the ears.

I don’t know where this awful habit comes from, but I suspect it is more of this Mid Atlantic bastardisation of our spoken word. 

I had the misfortune last night to accidentally hear one of the announcers on TV3 who seem to delight in employing bimbos with the most horrendous accents.  She announced something about some ‘celebriddy’ programme that was on ‘lader’ ‘afder’ some other programme.

I’m not attacking TV3 specifically, though they do have an obvious policy of employing women for their looks rather than their brains.  RTE is another occasional offender, where you get some flashy little size zero troll who insists on using the same irritating habits [or should I say ‘irridading habids’?]

I know there is quite a vigorous campaign in Dublin to support my cause.  My old friend Bertie was one of the leading lights in this campaign where ‘th’ was replaced with ‘t’ as a mark of sympathy. Unfortunately, while I laud their efforts they still have frequent lapses where they would refer to ‘dis Tursday’ or ‘dat tunder’.

Maybe I’m being too hard?

Anyway, I will leave you to ponder over my taughts while I go and make a cup of d. 

• Rambles
• Comments(20)

Grandad June 8th, 2009

Will someone please tell me what it is about U2 that makes them so popular?

They are reputed to be one of the biggest bands in the world, and their concerts are generally sold out within minutes, but there is one small fact that people seem to overlook…

They are fucking woeful.

There isn’t a single decent instrumentalist among them, and their singing [if you can call it that] is somewhat reminiscent of the sound of a tom cat being de-knackered.

Every now and then I am subjected to a piece of one of their efforts, and they always sound like they are playing the same tune.  I admit to not listening very carefully as I would rather experience a thousand volts through my testicles [and I guarantee, I would sound better], but they seem to have about as much variety as a cream cracker.

This does seem to be an Irish phenomenon.

Van Morisson is another one who seems to be able to captivate audiences with his ability to croak out death dirges.  He always seems to perform as if it is his last wish before execution.  Yet people talk about him in reverent tones as if he could actually sing.  Weird.

Of course if I really want to plunge myself into the depths of despair, I listen to Mary Coughlan.  It doesn’t really matter which one.  The one in government is bad enough, but to scrape the barrel of depression, one can’t beat the other one.  Jayzus!  If you replaced her entire bloodstream with liquid Prozac I doubt it would be enough.

Maybe I’m missing something?

Is there some secret trick to listening to these acts? 

Is there some magic potion I haven’t heard about that you take, and it somehow transforms their efforts into real music?

I’m baffled.

Or maybe I should just take more drugs?

• Rambles
• Comments(31)