Archive for the ‘Rant’ Category

I don’t know how I do it, but I often eat food really fast, knowing fine well that it’s hot, only to moan for the rest of the day that I burned my mouth. Is it stupidity, or is it because I like to moan? Well yeah, I do like a moan, as anyone who’s read any of my posts in the past will say – “that guy likes having a moan.”

Well I can’t deny it, I love moaning about stuff. Things that have annoyed me, things that will annoy me in the future, people that annoy me, playing a game of football and not scoring, animals, drivers, idiotic football fans, people who tie a knot in the bread – why? Why would you intentionally ruin my morning, as I try to open a knot that is far too tight, on a slippy cellophane wrapper. What a nightmare.

I’m not by nature an angry person. I’m actually quite sedate in real life, but sometimes the people on this stupid planet do drive me insane. Like people who don’t indicate until they are three feet from the junction. Or what about people who insist on making your life difficult, or people who trigger your guilt.

Like the time an old granny queue jumped me in Tesco. I let it slide, she’s old, and has probably led an interesting life, but then she did it to the next person. Then the next. I watched as this be-hatted old woman played on the emotions of innocent shoppers to get herself to the front of the queue.

So what next. What should I direct my natural ability to have a moan at? Its cold, but my left side is too hot due to the heater. But if I turn it down, I’ll be cold all over…do I sacrifice having a half-flu next week because I wanted the vaguest amount of heat imaginable, or should I have a whole flu from turning it off.

I played football the other night. Did I score? Did I hell. I hit the bar twice, and the post once. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the ball in the net, but everyone else playing that night scored…I reckon my chi has been disturbed.

So how do I reign in my favourite hobby? Maybe I should become even more relaxed, but if I did that I’d never achieve anything. I think I’ll stick with moaning abut stuff. Its good to vent, and it doesn’t hurt anyone either as usually I’m only annoyed because I’ve done something dumb. Anyways, if you enjoy my rants, check back on Monday for the latest news on my stupid weekend.

Yesterday I had an insane drive in the car. I was at work and I had to leave at 2.45pm to go back to my flat and take the missus to the doctors for an appointment at 3.40pm. The journey was supposed to be easy, however it ended up more like a mix between Clockwise (cringe-worthy John Cleese film) and an Indiana Jones movie.

In classic Jack Bauer style, I’ll go by the clock:

2.40pm: I start switching my computer off at work, and I make a quick call to the missus to let her know I’m on my way home.

2.45: I pull out of the work car park, and get cut-across by a huge lorry with a cement mixer thing turning on the back of it…He’s being difficult and driving in the middle of the road on the way out to the main street, so I’m stuck behind him.

2.47: Finally approaching the junction, he signals right…sweet I say to myself, as I want to go left. He’s about two feet from the junction, and then he changes his mind and signals left. Damn!

2.50: I’m crawling through the winding roads of the village just outside my place of work at 20mph, cursing my luck. I start doing the maths: it normally takes me 15 minutes to get home from where I was, so if I could just get past him I’d be back for 5 past. The missus was sitting waiting, so I’d call her at the bridge, and we’d get back to the doctors at about 3.35pm.

2.51: I begin to pray to the traffic god. “Please make this guy turn off at the next junction/roundabout/whatever”, but no, instead he continues down the same way I want to go. Now I know I have to get past him before the back roads (about ten miles of near-single-track roads, but to my dismay, he decides he’s taking his 5 ton truck down the country roads, at about 25 mph. Aaaarrrrggghhhh…

2.59: I’m starting to lose my hair rapidly, I’ve called the missus to explain, and while talking an the phone, in front of my cement mixer lorry, was another car, led by another lorry.

3.02: The lorry in front pulls off at a farm. Sweet. The cement Mixer pulls off a few hundred yards later. Awesome. I zip past the other guy in the car. Nice. I pull out of the junction into my town. Great.

3.02 and 12 seconds: I’m sitting in a traffic jam. I contemplate getting out my car, and walking away never to be seen again… I call the missus and tell her to start walking, and she does.

3.10: I’m still in traffic when I pick up an un-amused girlfriend, and try to turn in the road, which I can’t do because some idiot in his Land Rover doesn’t understand how roundabouts work and is sitting half-out of it with a bemused look on his face.

3.15: Were on the road to the main town, we’ve got 25 minutes to get their and get parked. It’s a 40mph speed limit. So why in gods name is their a guy driving a chicoquento (the worlds most pathetic car) at 27mph, so far over to the right hand-side that none of the 3 cars in front of me can get past.

3.35: We approach the final round-about before the town. Sensing the chance to pull a fast one, I nip up the outside lane. I get past the three cars in front of me, but somehow the guy in the Chicoquento has found the accelerator, so I can’t overtake (I’m nervous about speeding theses days…), then he cuts in-front of me in to the second lane, but behind a transit van. Infuriated, I quickly signal and pull in to the left lane, but the transit van does the same, and I nearly lose the nose of my car.

3.39: Some swearing, beeping of the horn, and a general cloud of misery forming over my head, we pull into the car park, and my girlfriend makes it on time.

3.41: One minute after her appointment, she comes out with a prescription for painkillers. And that was that.

Now I know, no exciting end to the story – think of it like a Will Smith movie, but that was the most stressful hour of my year so far. So I’ve prepared this list of things that drive me insane when driving. Feel free to give me suggestions to add to the list!

• Driving considerably slower than the speed limit, and not letting people pass you easily
• Driving a chicoquento – it’s a girls car that most girls would refuse to drive
• Taking lorry’s up country roads
• Not looking in your mirrors
• Traffic Jams/lights

Everyone these days has a social networking profile, but some are better than others in my opinion. We all have our favourite, so in an effort to stem today’s boredom, and have a bit of a rant, I’ve done a comparison of the three main ones that I’ve used: Myspace, Facebook and Bebo.

Myspace

What is it: Myspace wants to introduce you to loads of new people, catch up with old friends and hear new music.

Who’s it for: Although initially Myspace was used by alternative types (yes I was within the first 15,000 members) as a place to met other people, more commonly referred to as scenesters. A scenester, as you may or may not know, is someone who attaches themselves to the scene of the moment. If dance music is cool then they listen to dance music, dress like they listen to dance music, and also play terrible music. The same can be said for most genre’s of music but none more so that the Emo scene, or Emotional Hardcore scene. This means big hair, black eyeliner (girls and boys) and loads of pictures of hearts, stars and self took ‘emotive’ pictures of themselves frowning, along with other stereotypical stuff you can see in Kerrang! Magazine every week.

Why’s it good: It’s good because you can find cool people who you know, and cooler people you don’t. Myspace Music is genius, and when it first arrived was an amazing way of letting thousands of people hear your band – believe me its amazing when you hit 10, then 20, then 30, the 40 then 50,000 plays. Other cool stuff are ease of use, the photo albums and the ability to design your own profile.

Why’s it bad: Myspace has become the place that not-cool people go. I like to think of it as the overspill from Bebo. The music section is now over saturated, and the excitement of finding new music has all but vanished, because they’re not just your band that only you and know one else has heard of. Also the new site design is horrible, and it slows your PC down to a grinding halt if you have a slow one.

Facebook

What is it: Facebook is a way for people in suits to talk to each other about business, their kids, and look at each other terrible photos. It’s also the place your boss looks to see what you get up to at weekends.

Who’s it for: Facebook is for people with no imagination, and who feel the need to spy on each other.

Why’s it good: Some nice user-made apps, and can be handy for spying on someone you want to see fail.

Why’s it bad: Facebook is rubbish. It looks rubbish. The back end is rubbish. Sending inane gifts to people is pathetic. The people you meet all work in an office (probably yours). You get found by people that gave you hell at school, and think because you haven’t seen them for ten years, you’ve forgave them. You can’t do anything cool with your profile, and you have to rely on user made content to make anything remotely amusing. Facebook can go to hell.

Bebo

What is it: This is where the dreg’s of society go. This is like that club beside the awesome club that only cool folk get in. This is a microcosm of how much or society is in trouble. Bebo has been responsible for the suicide of a hell of a lot of people.

Who’s it for: Bullys and Schoolkids

Why’s it good: Its not.

Why’s it bad: design is terrible. Back end is terrible. People are terrible. Photo function is terrible. It’s terrible. The designer needs to go back to stacking shelves in Tesco.

The moral of this story is this:  If you are a remotely decent person who wants to find good new music (and doesn’t mind hunting for hours) then head to Myspace. If you are a guy in a suit – Facebook’s for you. If you are lazy, and want to bully people till they can’t take it anymore – head to Bebo.

I visited animal prison yesterday, otherwise known as the local Zoo. I love seeing animal’s, they are often fluffy, toothy, trunky, smelly, funny… but after a short time I started to feel really sad. It’s the monkeys and apes. These awesome creatures share 99 percent of our genetic make-up, yet they are the ones locked in cages. I swore that they were looking at all the buck-toothed passers-by gawping at them, and thinking to themselves “why me”.

No I know that they are there for a reason. They are bred in captivity to preserve the species, etc etc, but you can’t help but feel terrible.

I look at it this way: As a nation, we pretty much suck. Knife crime is through the roof, robberies are common place, the police are useless, the courts are pathetic, the government seems to brush over areas of the country with a magic brush that hides over this nations pathetic excuses for human beings, yet we hold creatures that probably have more intelligence in their left nostril than the majority of the dregs that pollute of towns, shopping centres and public parks in tiny little enclosures, that doesn’t exactly look very fun.

Now I’m not having a go at the zoo keepers, or zoo’s for that matter. Do I think more could be done to make these animals lives more bearable? Yes I do, but I understand that the government can’t afford to subsidise the zoo’s, and other animal sanctuaries, as they are too busy subsidising Vicky Pollard look-a-like’s with seven kids called; Briteni, Kristina, Briteni 2, Beckum, Roonney, Cher and Crystal Dimonnd the third.

Perhaps I’m being shallow-minded? Perhaps as a nation we are secretly terrified of a monkey rebellion, and this is a government’s way of quelling any thoughts of a primate takeover.

Anyways, I saw some cool animals, tortoises, giraffes, and I was about five feet away from 4 African elephants – amazing. That’s the great side of zoo’s. In our world these creatures can’t walk around freely without fear of some poacher hunting them down, so at least they are safe. I just wish that the government would do something to make their stay a little bit more comfortable.

So I’m sitting in my car, just chilling on my way to work this morning. Stuck in my usual 45 minute traffic jam, I was listening to the fat idiot Chris Moyles on the radio, I had my hot air blower on to de-steam my windows, school kids were walking past shouting/screaming/being kids, cars were beeping their horns, a workie was drilling in the road, and I was rapidly becoming the opposite of “chilled”…I was becoming, not-chilled…

I felt like William ‘D-Fens’ Foster, in Falling Down, I groaned to myself as I was surrounded by wave after wave of obnoxious noise. This noise was horrible, painful, if it was a person it would be Jeremy Kyle, and if it was a car it would be a Humvee. The oppressive nature of this racket was swiftly becoming agonising. I must have looked like a man possessed as I childishly stuck my fingers in my ears, in a vain attempt at drowning out this cacophonous din.

Once the traffic got moving the sense of relief I felt at getting to work was unbelievable. The silence was truly golden. It’s got me thinking though, gone are the days when I used to listen to music screaming out my car at a ridiculous volume. I used to look at people glaring at me and think, ‘what’s their problem?’, as I’m getting older, I’m realising that this was dumb. Now I’m the old git looking at daft chavs with intolerable dance music blasting from their windows, believe me, there is NOTHING cool about a repetitive drum beat that shakes you to the core.

When it comes to noise, the most infuriating thing is the washing machine. I can’t describe the noise my machine makes. It’s like having a dentist drill attached to a wall of Marshall Amps screaming its way around your flat. When it hits the spin cycle, I have to leave the room. Watching the television becomes instantly pointless, as you have to turn that up to hear it, and when the washing machine stops – suddenly and without warning – you get your face practically blown off by the idiot box.

I need to invent an anti-hearing aid. I don’t want ear plugs, because they make everything sound tiny, and I want to hear some stuff normally. So I need something that will allow me to adjust the volume – down the way – so I can handle the insane noise created by the world. I’m sure there is something already available, and a short Google search might prove fruitful, but the tapping of my keys as I type this is driving me daft.

Do you ever watch TV programs for a series, get all excited about it then it goes off for its end of season break and when season two comes round you watch three episodes then wonder why you even bothered with the first one.

It happened to me most recently with Heroes. Now everyone is getting excited about the new series, but I’m not even going to give it the time of day. Yes, yes the cheerleader is great to look at, but I really can’t be bothered with the repetitive storylines and dull characters. I’ve seen X-Men, so another program about mutants does not do the trick for me.

The best example of a TV programme losing the plot (almost literally in this case) was the unfathomable: Lost. This program enthralled me for about eight episodes, but then I started to get lazy, missed an episode and lost the plot entirely. By the time the second series started, I’d lost interest completely, and that was that. As far as I know, I’m not alone with that one. I often hear people complain about its storyline being confusing. Confusing? No not really, Stupid? Yes - entirely.

I think today’s culture has a lot to blame for our disposability. I’m happy to take or leave a TV program. Perhaps it the sheer amount of choice is to blame, the fact I could (if I wanted to) record/pause live TV, and watch it back.

The truth is I have no time. I can’t fully relax to dedicate an hour of my time to watch a programme that will not do anything to me, or make a difference to my life. I enjoy the football, because something is happening live, you don’t know what could happen, and it’s the same with the internet, I have the full control. I can view anything I like, when I like, and I don’t need to wait for 12 episodes to know what happens next.

Even the internet drives me mad at times. There is so much choice that you just wish someone could point you in the right direction. I do enjoy stumble upon, but have no time to even think about sitting for hours on end (which you could using that toolbar). Digg is full of rubbish, finding the time to sift through a few thousand badly written articles, by people with a poor grasp of English is hardly a good use of my time. But I digress.

The only programmes that have had lasting appeal for me have been cartoons like The Simpson’s, Family Guy, Futurama and other 20 minute long bursts of fun.

So to those awaiting the next season of Heroes, I’ll let you into some spoilers… all through the series there will be loads of close up, dark pensive shots of the cheerleader, some dark and pensive shots of that art guy, and some dark pensive shots of the police guy, looking pensive. Powers will be used, some for good some for bad. People will die, Heroes nerds will pass out with joy, and just when you can’t take the excitement, and it’ll break for the summer. Joy.

I’m finding it harder and harder to wake up. The dark mornings are creeping in, and my brain/body hasn’t quite adjusted. Every morning for the last week, my alarm has been told to “shut up”, and I pull the covers over my head.

People say that a morning shower wakes you up, and you’ll be bright and breezy till the end of the day. These people are commonly referred to as liars. Already this week I’ve tried various body wash things from various manufacturers that are supposed to “awaken the senses”, or “re-vitalise you for the rest of the day”.

This is surely some kind of breach of trading standards, no? This morning I felt that un-re-vitalised, and the only sensation I was feeling was tiredness. So how can these products be marketed legally? Maybe I’m just being grumpy because I’m sleepy now, and I still have half of my day to go, and to me that just reinforces the fact that these products do not work.

That’s got me thinking about other products that don’t do what they say they do. If I put linxs deodorant on, yes I may smell ok, but I do not have models launching themselves at me trying to tear my clothes off (gutted), maybe it’s because 90 percent of the UK’s men wear the same smelling stuff, the stunning models are confused, and just can’t decide who is the best mate.

Look at these supposed ‘active-digestro-bifidum-coleoraophome’ additives that they have in food, hair and make-up products, and don’t get me started on anti-aging creams, honestly, I won’t believe they work until I see an advert with a baby covered in the stuff saying “sh#t, I’ve used too much”.

The whole thing is a con, the immense amount of money made from these companies that peddle there products with they’re made up benefits, and formulas that their scientists named by spinning round for three minutes, then trying to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, does my head in.

The sad thing is magazines, TV and the internet are rapidly turning this world in to something from a Flock of Seagulls video. Girls are caking on the make-up, and look pretty terrible for it. Ask yourself this: how many orange-skinned, bad-haired girls have you seen recently? Take it back ten years, and it was no where near as bad. It begs the question, what the hell are women going to look like ten years from now?

I’m sorry average Joe readers but I’m going to have to have another rant about Amy Winehouse. I actually cannot fully describe why exactly she drives me so insane. But I’ll give it my best shot.

So I woke up today and switched on the TV, then I opened my paper while enjoying my cereal, nothing unusual about that, however…One thing that I don’t like to see is an ugly, horse-faced, heroin junkie, with stupid Marge Simpson hair, no real talent, a tacky dress sense stumbling out of a club with a fag in her droopy mouth, and a oversized London bouncer holding her up.

Now, I’ve had my fair few rough nights out, its undeniable, however I don’t think I’ve ever looked as bad as this…

It’s not really the fag in her mouth, people smoke, whatever. It’s more the grubby skin, lank hair, cheap hooker look that disturbs me. She looks terrible; I had a real effort swallowing down my Cornflakes, and I felt a bit sick. Its probably one of the best reasons to stop drinking.

Her tattoos also suck, I have tattoos, I took my time to get custom work done so it wouldn’t look terrible, but I reckon hers were drawn on by a three year old, then coloured in by a cat with a brush.

And what amazes me is that people buy her album!!!! People need to stop this nonsense, why do you need to buy it. If you really want to hear it, download it for free somewhere, so that the record company gets annoyed and drop her, and she has no money, no fame, and I can eat my breakfast in peace.

I’m sure I heard she’s locked in her contract by her label for failing to produce a new album on time, but really they should buy an old Nova, attach a balloon to the exhaust, and rev that engine for 45 minutes, that’ll give you the same excruciatingly bad album as she’s likely to produce. And don’t get me started on “super producer” Mark Ronson - Noel Gallagher of Oasis put it right when he said, “some people don’t like me, but at least I write my own songs”.

I could easily rant all day about how much this is the UK’s fault. We love a car crash, but judging by the above picture its no wonder Americans think we all have wonky teeth and bad breath. Amy, you’re in the public eye, why not use it to do some good instead of perpetuating the English stereotype.

I’m calling a halt to the rant, because I don’t like swearing, and I’m getting angry. I’ll leave you with this: If you like Amy Winhouse, you are a fool.

Today’s words of wisdom are: “Never by a car from a greasy salesman.”

Sounds obvious right? But when they dangle that shiny new car in front of your eyes it’s pretty damn easy to get talked in to it, as I found out last week. A large car sales company, seen everywhere across the UK, should be trust worthy. It should be in their salesman’s contract: Be trust worthy-don’t be a total liar.

I bought a pretty mch brand new (2000 miles on clock/ex-display) car the other day, its nice to look at, and is fairly nippy, being a 1.9 turbo-diesel and all. I part-exchanged my older car (that too be fair had about 6 months left to live if I was lucky) and cut a great deal filled with wonderful promises. What I wasn’t promised is that I’d have it in the garage for a dodgy gearbox, broken window motor and a duff cd player.

So for the best part of the day I’ve sat getting angrier and angrier about my stupid luck. I should have known something would go wrong. I have a bad habit of getting the broken toy at Christmas, even though my brother got the exact same one - it even got to the point that my parents would wrap them both and swap them over loads of times before putting our names on it, but still each time I’d get the one that had battery acid pouring out, or something would blow up. When I was at school, I had a bad habit of wiping 3.5″ floppy disks (hands up if you remember those) by touching the metal slidy-bit and zapping it with my static power (always wanted to be a superhero).

So I have the car back, but I’m not happy. When I get home, I’ll be looking through the contract to see if i can take it back.

A hilarious US report published on Sunday claims that scales that prevent fish from the bites of rival fish may hold the key to the armour of the future. The ?groundbreaking’ study ?revealed’ that the lightweight, multi-layered design of its scales has helped the Polypterus senegalus survive for 96 million years, the team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reports.

The report appeared in the journal Nature Materials, the MIT team said they have unlocked the secret of how it works. Each scale is layered so it deflects the pressure of a crunching bite, they said.

Now, please allow me to interject - Us British folk are well aware of how scaled armour works…we had it over 4 centuries ago, not to mention the Greeks way, way back. The US didn’t have medieval times, yet somehow they believe they’ve gone and solved one of life’s great mysteries? Um, sorry chaps, but?someone else?got their first.

“Cracks do not travel far - the design forces cracks to run in a circle around the penetration site, rather than spreading through the entire scale and leading to catastrophic failure,” they said.

“Many of the design principles we describe - durable interfaces and energy-dissipating mechanisms, for instance - may be translatable to human armour systems,” MIT’s Christine Ortiz, who led the study, said in a statement.

With funding from the U.S. Army, Ortiz and colleagues carefully studied scales from P. senegalus, which lives at the bottom of freshwater, muddy shallows and estuaries in Africa.

What they should have done instead was rent out Monty Python and the Holy Grail. That would have saved them a whole load of work.

“The primary predators of P. senegalus are known to be its own species or its carnivorous vertebrate relatives, and biting takes place during territorial fighting and feeding,” Ortiz and colleagues wrote in their report.

It evolved the armour millions of years ago, when fearsome predators lurked. “In ancient times, many large invertebrate predators existed. For example, the carnivorous eurypterid was a giant arthropod that possessed biting mouth parts, grasping jaws, claws, spines and a spiked tail,” they wrote.

*slow clap*