Hehehe
For the people among you who have mathematical leanings...
A
mathematical gag, with pleasing nods toward the obvious effort involved in making the joke.
I applaud you, unknown campers.
Why do parents hate their offspring?
So. I am enjoying a rather relaxing weekend, and am gently meandering around
this rather interesting place in the company of a charming and intelligent friend, when I am dragged from my intake of the wonders of the world around us by a young (and I shall be generous here) lady, calling her son. She is wearing a white track suit and a couple of gold chains (I kid you not, I know I make some shit up, but this is
not some of it!)and is trying to point out the large fish in the adjacent tank to the young lad. He can be all of 4 or 5, is my guess. I don't know. He was pretty damn small, anyway, and had no car keys in his hand so I am assuming he was a minor. Anyway, I digress (there's a thing, eh?), and the young 'lady' is uttering the following:
"Come and look at the big fish! Look! Come on,
Neo, come and look!"
Oh. My. God. What the FUCK was she thinking of? Is there anything that will mark you as a council house-dwelling, benefit claiming, fuckwit than naming your offspring after a Sci-Fi character? It's not even a
real fucking name!!! I had to fight the urge to laugh in her face.
I have always had this obsession with the thought that if I was blighting someone with a naming convention that was (at least nominally) going to last their entire life, that I would attempt to be sympathetic to their ensuing plight through the school system. Calling a child after a film character of such growing cult status as that will undoubtedly earn that child years of torture and abuse. I had a double whammy of a pisstake-worthy name (as those that know it will be aware) and it was
not fun. Regardless of the effects in later life.
Imagine being in your forties and being called "Neo"? That would be as bad as being called "Obi Wan" now, or "Chewbacca" or some other such bollocks.
Kill them now, or at the very least sterilise the parents. If we let them breed, our civilization will descend to the lowest common denominator.
"Tricia for Prime Minister!!! She knows what our lives are about!!!"
Christ it doesn't bear thinking about.
Sunset 1
Sunset 1
Originally uploaded by Brock. There's a hill near my house, and there is a bit of common land on top of it.
It's dead pretty, so I decided to go up there this evening and take some pictures of the sunset.
I was going to take some shots of the cows that roam free on the common land up there but it was dark by the time I got back to where they were from fear of missing the sunset. They did manage to leave their mark, though. They obviously eat a lot because they definitely shit a lot. This makes it quite hard to walk over a large expanse of long grass with fading light without a slightly squelchy moment...
Ah, the price we pay for art, eh?
New photies
I have finally got around to sticking some new piccies up on
flickr.
They include several of my new flat in a state of disarray, after I moved in, and also some of a
house that I want to own. It is truly lovely, and huge, and lovely, and seems to have half of Oxfordshire as a garden.
I want.
Have a little trawl. All the pics are for contacts only. If you wish to see, and aren't on there, then add your email/profile into the comments, and I'll see about fixing that...
If you want, obviously.
Me is going all tecnikal
Um. Although I am very pleased that a some of my mates have followed me (That's right.
Followed me!!! That's gotta sting!) into this blogging lark with
pretty impressive results so far, it's becoming harder for me to keep track of people. I had a hell of a time keeping up before this recent influx, and now am looking for more useful and cool ways to tell me the new things that are around, preferably without me needing to raise any of my slothful fingers.
I am most impressed by the concept of
Firefox's live bookmarks features, but all my lazy bastard mates haven't posted anything new since I found out about it, so I don't know if it does anything shiny if there's something new to report.
Hmmmmm. If only there was a way to trial it. If only there was a blog that I could add as a bookmark and then see if it does something clever when it gets new content. Wouldn't that be cool...
By jove I think this post may do it, dagnabbit!! Ha-har! I have you under my thumb, technology! You are my servant! My lackey! My bitch! My slut!.... ooops. Gone too far again.
The creative juices
I have been champing at the bit to get back on the interweb after such an enforced absence.
Um....
So now my mind goes
completely blank. Bugger.
What is it about not being able to do something that makes you want it an inordinate, and slightly obsessive, amount? (any ideas, Sue? xx)
I kept thinking of things to rant about, and then getting all het up about not being able to 'throw it down', as the hip kids probably say. If they don't now, they will soon, mark my words. They'll have some damn stupid name for 'typing in a universally available format with public access and option to post comments', I bet you. Just saying 'Blogging' will be "
Soooo '04. You have no idea about the modern world".
Aren't young people bastards.
Ah, there we go. I seem to have squeezed out a rant. So to speak.
Next?!!!
Back in the Blog-us-us-are
Tomorrow, we shall have another entry for "Shittest blog post title in the world ever!".
Well, what do you expect? I've been away so long, I think my vital creative juices have well and truly dried up. I've been trying to check my emails (some of which are a month old) and I was sat here for an hour and a half waiting till I remembered that sellotaping the phone handset to the speaker wasn't the way I used to connect to the internet...
I eventually found my modem lead in the bathroom. I was trying to charge my shaver with it, which is odd, as I have a wet razor. I think I might be losing it.
(Although I could be making this all up. Who knows? Answers on a postcard to...)
Christ I have so much to do on the web. I have accounts that have lain untouched for a month, I have all my addresses to change, and all the people I know to email (do you have any idea how hard it is to email 3 people all in one sitting?). Not to mention all the little communities that I frequent to catch up on. I don't know where to start.
Ooooh. I'll try the beginning. Or at least, at the least taxing and demanding of those. Let's see what happens, eh? I sense procrastination, lost mail, countless bank charges and pointless posting on random blogs....
Back to normal so soon? Amazing.
Fixing
Well, after noticing (finally) that I managed to chop off half of the "Well that's that" post, I have now fixed it.
I am so fast and slick, I bet hardly anyone noticed, eh?
*sigh*
In case anyone cares
For all you bods out there (yeah, both of you) that have wondered what
the hell I have been doing for the last few weeks, I am now able to
post with the following method:
It is more comfortable to type my mails out on my PC, as I have a desk
and all that, and can listen to iTunes at the same time. So I am
writing them on this, saving them to my Psion over the link, then
cutting and pasting into an EPOC mail file and sending them from there
via my mobile.
Still awake? Good.
As you can imagine, this is rather a testicle-chafe. Such is the amount
that I am hacked off with all this waiting for my connection that I am
prepared to go through all this so that I can bitch to you all about it.
BT? Wankers more like. I have all this technology here in front of me,
and I am having to resort to a 5 year old palmtop and a 4 year old
phone (My T610 has shat it's pants and is in with Carphone warehouse
for repair). And they say that progress if frightening in the modern
world. No shit. Just not in the way that they think...
Must be the wrong kind of rain...
I have been patiently (kind of) waiting for my new phone line to be
installed so that I can continue my on-line life, my inter-life, my
weblife, inter-existence, etherlife, time vacuum. Whatever you wish to
call it.
I was informed today that I will have to wait a further 2 weeks for my
phone line. That was PHONE LINE. Not broadband, that will be a further
10 days after that! I am at the point of trying not to spit fire through
gritted teeth. I am SO pissed off with this. I have pictures to share
with my mates, I have people to chat to, to flirt with and to generally
stalk (you know who you are!). Of all the times to be without the web,
just as you move to a new town and don't know anyone.
Arse.
This could really screw with my desire to stay out of the pub. Well.
When I say "Stay out", I mean more "Not spend every night in one". I've
been there and done that, and have the belly to prove it. It's on it's
way out now (finally) and I aim to keep it going that way!
Apparently the reason for the massive delay with the phone line is that
British Telecom have had lots of problems recently with lines going
down, and all their personnel (they called them engineers, for some
reason) are digging holes in fields to repair all these lines. I ask
you. Engineers? Digging muddy holes? What is the world coming to? It
seems that if someone can manage to pick up an object that could be
considered a tool, they get called an engineer. I assume it is all to
placate the poor dears that don't want to be called "Technician" (as
that is taken to mean "One who can tell their arse from their elbow") or
maybe even just "BT employee". I went to University for 4 years to be
called an "Engineer" (I will get abuse for this, as I refer to myself as
one often enough, mainly by way of apologising for my logical and
pedantic nature. Ho hum), but I am qualified and this is my
profession. Some bloke picks up a shovel, they tag it onto your
poxy job title to make you feel special, and it instantly makes somewhat
a mockery of my (rather long and expensive) education. Thanks Dad, by
the way, being as you paid for it. Because the chances of you reading
this are somewhere down there with the chances of Liz Hurley sleeping
with me, I don't mind saying "Ta" for once, either. Such is the family
harmony and closeness we enjoy.
Anyway, back to the point, this isn't here to talk about me...
Everyone wants a fancy title these days, and I even find myself being
unwillingly dragged into it by association. The sort of title that I
would consider appropriate for, or reasonably descriptive of, my job
would be woefully inadequate when it came to functioning within the role
because customers and suppliers (especially) wouldn't take me seriously
without a wanky title. I have had to be called a 'Manager' for the last
18 months, even though the only thing I was 'managing' was not to belt
the Directors in the chops for not finding us the money to refinance the
company enough for us to go into the next phase. The next phase being
actually having more than just me in my department...
Only in the last 2 weeks have I started to employ people to work for me.
The end
sort of justifies the means, but it has been a bit hard
to sit there and spout a job title that meant nothing to me. I always
fudged and sort of said "Well, I run
this bit", only to have them
wanting to speak to someone with a label that they felt they ought to be
speaking to before they were actually prepared to negotiate and talk
money. Arseholes.
I reckon, and this is in no way tainted by my lack of a phone line I
assure you, that all the blame for this modern bullshit falls squarely
at the door of British Telecom. The fuckers.
Where's my Broadband, you bastards, eh? Bring back Busby, I say. At
least you were shit then but had a stupid animated bird on the adverts.
You had
something going for you...
Ok, it didn't work last time
So I am trying again with my attempt to post on the move from my palmtop and mobile phone...
Let's see if technology really
is marvellous, eh?
