Aaarrgh!

Aaarrgh! I can’t stand it anymore I have to rant about the stupid advert for cashing in your old mobile phone to save the Enviroment, if you haven’t seen it here’s a brief description it starts with some woman rummaging through her draws(which sounds better than it is) then she gets a cheque and a big smile, then some  guy who looks like he was animated by the people who brought us Wallace and Gromit(and he’s wearing a fucking Cardigan!) does the same thing big fucking grin, cheque in is hand, then him and this woman drive of in a fucking Smart car, I hate them stupid fucking thing’s what’s so damn smart about them apart from the smug vegetarians who drive them thinking they’re saving the planet(I believe that they cause more pollution in the process of building them than a fecking BMW).

Every time it comes on I just wanna hurt someone, fucking stupid fucking advert.

The end is nigh or so this idiot would have you believe.

To nick a phrase from a mate of mine “let me tell you a story”…..

…my older Brother has, shall we say some mental problems which to some extent can make him a bit gullible and so when he said to me that he had heard that “they were shutting down XboxLive and the Wii online stuff cos they stopped the internet for 24 hrs” I was a little taken aback  “eh, what, eh, where did you here this” I ask him to which he did this look he gets sometimes when he’s not too sure of the facts  “come on, where did you hear this” I ask, he replies with that same look on his face  “I think someone may be bullshitting me”  “who’s the fucking moron who told you this rubbish” I had my suspicion’s but he confirmed it with “lee”

I should explain who this Lee is, he is my Mother’s, Boyfriend’s, son and on the few occasions when I’ve met him I get the feeling he fancies himself as a bit of an expert on all thing’s computer and gaming but doesn’t actually know a lot, I’ve met a few people like him over the years who claim to be experts in various things, now I’m not saying that I am an expert but I do know some stuff, so when one encounters these types I have a tendancy to ignore anything that comes out of their stupid mouths, but sometimes they come out with something so magnificently stupid that I have no choice but to listen, mouth wide open in utter aghast.

It turns out Lee was attempting to login to his XboxLive account on Tuesday and on repeated failed attempts came up with this theory (I wonder if these people have a little box or something in which they keep them). Now if it was me, I would check to see if my internet connection was working first before I jumped to any conclusions but  he obviously has no concept of how the whole interweb thingy works, Fucking moron.  I try to explain to my Brother, how it works, I even did a little diagram thingy to show how virtually impossible it was to shut down the entire internet for any period of time, I think I got through to him, it’s hard to tell sometimes.

Later that same day as if the Gods are confirming what a complete fucking moron this Lee is, three different people, with no prompting from me I might add, come into the Pub saying that their XboxLive was down all day Tuesday for maintenance, ah yes that exlpains it thinks I  (can I say one more time for clarity, what a fucking moron).

It’s wierd when that happens, several seemingly unconnected events suddenly become… well, er,  connected, I remember one time I was having a conversation with that Celtic scum  about Capitol punishment, don’t know why, can’t even rember how it started, but I said there was no crime punishable by death in this country any more to which he said he was sure there was something to do with the Queen’s dockyards, I wasn’t sure about that but later that night I happened to be watching QI (with the genius that is Stephen Fry!) and one of the questions was about this very same subject! after freaking out I resolve to tell Celtic scum, turns out they abolished the Law about Queens docks.

Anyway, coming back to the plot, why do people do this, claim knowledge of thing’s when it’s quite obvious that they know very little, just fucking stop it, all you end up doing is making yourselves look like twats or just fuck off and actually learn about the thing you claim to know about.

Talk about over the top

Got a feeling mein host may have mentioned something about this to me a coupla weeks ago. Not that I was paying much attention. Pretty much par for the course with our conversations.
He says something. I don’t pay attention. Or I don’t hear. Amounts to the same thing really. Then I say something and he ignores me. Bastard Nordic oaf. Dunno why we bother talking at all really.

Anyway, got a sneaking suspicion he said something about this. About High Street pubs in the arse-end of the Universe that’s known as Bedford demanding to see ID before they’ll serve anyone with alcohol that they think may be under… wait for it… 30!

Yep. That’s what I said. 30. Three bloody zero!

As I say, I didn’t pay too much attention. Well, I wouldn’t, would I? What with me being way past that anyway.
Until I spotted this sign in the Bankers Draft (a pub just over the road from where I happened to be at the time).

Not quite believing what I was seeing I bunged on the long lens just to get a better look…

S’pose I could have gone across the road… but, dammit, that would have entailed walking!

Sure enough. If you look under 30 they’re gonna ask to see ID.

Now correct me if I’m wrong (and I’m sure mein host will, what with him being a bit of a know-it-all on things licensed trade related) but last time I looked I’m sure the minimum legal alcohol purchasing age was 18. In the good old U Nanny State K at least.

Now for alcohol-flogging establishments to check IDs up to say 21 I can understand. But 30? That’s just taking the piss.

There’s a coupla points here:

1) If I were, say, 29 years old and went into a pub for a drink and the idiot behind the bar asked for ID I’d likely as not tell him (or her even) to bugger off and I’d vacate that establishment for somewhere much friendlier (before being thrown out of course). And likely as not I wouldn’t go back there ever again. And if I were a moderately heavy drinker or regular pub goer then they would have lost a damn good customer. And money!
And I’d make sure to tell all my friends not to frequent the bloody nosey-parker place as well.
So a bit of an own goal really.

2) By implementing a policy such as that what they’re actually saying is that their bar staff can’t tell the difference between someone aged 17 and someone aged 30.
Now being unable to discern whether someone’s 17 or 19, or 20, or even 21 I can sort of understand. But 17 and 30? Oh get real. If they can’t distinguish between a 17-year-old and a 30-year-old then they should be bloody sacked. No right to be behind a bar in the first place.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised, either, if someone with the balls and the inclination could probably mount some sort of legal challenge to this stupid, utterly stupid, policy.

And as for Bedford’s Bankers Draft, and all the rest of the pubs of that ilk, well, they can just sling their hook. Hope they all go bust! And hope their stupid sodding bar staff that can’t tell someone who’s 17 from someone who’s 30 never work in a pub again.

Bloody idiots.

Vote for change, vote for C.H.A.N.G.E.

So the election reults are in and the Tories get a majority, no doubt with their rather dubious “vote for change” campaign……

….What could possibly change under a Tory government, less bloodthirsty war mungering (or shopping for oil, if you prefer), better NHS, lower taxes, less pilfering of our taxes, tighter immigration control, more jobs maybe,  somehow I don’t think so, all Politicians are the same (power hungry gutter snipes) and the different parties all seem to be interchangable these days.

On Thursday I was sitting at home watching the telly, when there’s a knock at the door, I go and answer it and there be one of those canvassers (think he was a LibDem..fucking hippies) asking me if I was going to vote to which I replied ” I’m not interested, all politicians are scum” and slammed the door in his face.

If you hadn’t guessed it I didn’t vote, who the hell would I vote for, I have so little faith in all the parties there isn’t any other option available to me so I didn’t, if only there was a way to show my dissatisfaction and have it count.

So what can be done to truly change thing’s, I suppose we could go the Guy Fawkes route….. I can see several problem’s with that, we could riot in the street’s but what good would come of it.

Now, there’s a mate of mine who has an idea… create a party who’s Manifesto is nothing, that’s right nothing, if they get elected they resign leaving all the seats empty forcing another election. I’ve got the perfect name for said party “Come Here And Negate General Elections” .

So if you want to change thing’s,  vote for C.H.A.N.G.E.

The idiot’s guide to getting online with AOL

Few days ago I get a phone call from a mate (yep, I do have more than one, strange as it may seem) asking if I can help him out with his brand new laptop that he’s just bought. First one he’s ever had in fact.

So I’m thinking “Probably wants to learn how to use the damn thing”. All basic stuff… like how to switch it on and what to do once it is on sorta thing.

Second thoughts: “Hmm… wonder if he’s got an internet connection yet?” Didn’t think to ask y’see.
So, trying to visualise all possible scenarios decide its prob’ly best for me to take along me little notebook and dongle thingy just in case we need to get on-line for something and he isn’t yet connected.

Yesterday then and comes to pick me up he does, kindly bloke that he is, and we wend our way to his pad.

Well, that’s encouraging. There’s laptop. Nice shiny new Toshiba. And there’s a router, lights flashing away merrily, wires strewn all over the floor, everything connected up.
So I ask him, “Right, where d’you wanna start then?” And this is where it all begins to go a bit downhill.

I get the first hint of a problem when he explains how he got the damn machine. One of those deals where you get a free computer if you sign up with an internet provider for a given time. A package deal that on the face of it sounds quite good but when you look at it in detail its obvious its a bit of a scam cos what you’ve effectively done is become locked into a contract with a particular internet provider (usually for two or three years) and paying an exorbitant amount for the internet connection to boot.
Oh well, that’s business for ya.

And in fairness, some of the types offering the deal aren’t too bad.

So who’s he signed up with, I tentatively ask.

AOL.

Oh shit! AO bloody L. Don’t like ‘em. Never have done. I could tell you some real horror stories about AOL based on experiences I’ve observed with other folk. Not that there’s anything wrong with the company as such (well, no moreso than any other company of that ilk) but its what happens to your machine once it becomes infected by them.

And “infected” is just the right word. They’re like a bloody virus. Embed themselves eveywhere, all over the damn show. And getting on-line with them is a real headache. Everything’s hunky-dory to begin with then suddenly, bang! You lose the connection. And what a right performance you have to go through to get it back again… usually entailing umpty-thousand phone calls to their support line (all at the caller’s expense of course), and having to fiddle with various settings and stuff.

That’s the way it used to be anyway, and I’ve not had any cause to suspect things have changed much over the years.

And there’s still all that “infecting the whole computer” business. In the past a few machines have come my way that had been tainted by bloody AOL and its very often taken me ages to get rid of all traces and get a machine working back to how it should. That’s to say, capable of getting an internet connection regardless of which provider is used, and free of all the branding that seems to appear on Internet Explorer and practically everwhere else. The little logo thingy that seems to pop up in some really bizarre place just as you think you’ve removed all trace of the damned company.
In fact, there was one machine I very nearly killed just getting rid of the infestation. Was a hair’s breadth away from having to reformat the C drive and reinstall everything from scratch. Just shouldn’t happen.

So, where was I?

Ah yes. Mate’s internet connection, and the fact that he hasn’t got one. Used to have, a few days back. Then suddenly, zap! No connection.
“Uh huh”, thinks I, “typical AOL”. And I’m now beginning to get a really bad feeling about this little session.

So, do a few diagnostics. Make sure his phone line’s “live” for starters. Look at the router. Bog-standard model. Netgear in fact. Not dissimlar to the one I’ve got, though a tad smaller. All seems to be working ok. No problems there.

Haul out me notebook then, plug in dongle and get online with same. Just to make sure I’m getting a connection from where he lives.
Yep. A bit slow, but definitely a connection.

Install dongle on his machine, coupla configurations, and bingo! Online. So machine’s fine. Can’t log in to his AOL account of course cos, surprise surprise, we’re not using an AOL connection. Well, we wouldn’t be, would we? Cos the damn thing don’t work. God how I hate AOL.

Anyway, give mate the third degree to make sure he’s not changed anything since last getting on line. Not tampered with the computer settings at all? Or the router’s? Not even unplugged the router since last successful connection. Nope. All as was.

Set up a wired LAN then between his router and my notebook. Still no connection.

Repetition of the third degree to satisfy myself he’s not changed anything with the router or any of the hard-wire connections. Nope. Still all as was when he was getting a connection.

Hmm. This could prove to be a bit tricky. Sounds to me like one of those dreaded calls to AOL support may be in the offing. Oh shit.

One final little test though. Shoulda thought of this first actually, but I hadn’t. Bit of an oversight on my part. Absent-mindedness I guess.

“Let’s restart everything” sez I. And this is where I begin to get my first hint that it may not all be entirely AOL’s fault.

Now p’raps I should mention at this stage that there were a couple of other little issues with his laptop that I’d put off sorting out cos they’d seemed they were gonna be fairly easy to deal with. Sort the major problem first was my approach.
Silly little things like his touchpad wasn’t working quite right. And a coupla anomalies with his desktop. Stupid stuff like that. Which I hadn’t paid too much attention to but really should have. Cos they were symptomatic.

So mate goes to switch the computer off.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” yells I as his finger hovers over the power button.

“Switching the machine off” sez he, all innocent like.

“Don’t you dare touch that button” sez I as his finger still hovers.
“You never, but never, switch the machine off using that button unless there’s NO OTHER OPTION!” (Which then entails a lengthy and detailed conversation about the possible scenarios in which you’d simply kill the power to switch off. With snide references to the bloody BS of D and that damn stupid message about not having powered down correctly so chkdsk has to be run blah blah blah. Of course it has to be bloody run and of course you didn’t switch off in the right way cos the bloody machine had bloody frozen on you. Cos Microsoft bloody sucks basically. Stupid damn facetious message. Like that other stupid message “You have performed an illegal operation etc etc”. So arrest me why don’t you. Microsoft? Pah!)

Hence follows an idiot’s step-by-step guide on how to power off a laptop.

Now don’t get me wrong. Mate’s a lovely chap, and not unintelligent in his own way. Just that he knows sod all about computers. Never having had one before. And clearly, like me, much preferring the “hands on” approach than having to wade through a load of poxy manuals.

So, we get the machine off (finally) and then we power down the router.

Quick beer and a refresher course on a few basics like the difference between powering off and hibernating whilst we give everything a chance to cool down. Real nice beer it was too. Apparently a cheapie “Sainsbury’s own” brand, but very tasty. Hmm.

Time to fire everything up again then.

“Right, switch on power to the router” sez I. Mate obliges.

“What? What? Stop! DON’T DO THAT!” screams I, panic-stricken, as I watch aghast whilst mate clearly is going to prod the reset button on the back of the router with a cocktail stick while thing’s still running through its power-on routine.
“And just precisely what do you think you’re about to do?” in a voice so reminiscent of a parent having caught their kid in the act of getting up to naughties.

“Resetting the modem” sez he, innocent-like again. Big sigh from me, with half an eye still on that hand of his which hasn’t yet moved away from the back of the router.
“Just put the cocktail stick down why don’t you. Like NOW!”
Lengthy explanation then about how powering off and then powering on the router is, strangely enough, equivalent to a soft reset. Better in some ways, in fact.

Phew. We’re finally getting somewhere. And I begin to suspect that maybe, just maybe, this ‘ere loss of connection may not have been entirely AOL’s fault. In fact, I’m feeling rather hopeful that we may get online first time around.

A hope soon dashed when it comes to trying to do the foul deed. Not a flicker. Time for the dreaded call to AOL then (I’m really gonna hate this. I just know I am).

Oddly, I end up (having negotiated their inevitable automated menu system) finally talking to a real live human. In quite a short time in fact. Even more oddly, he’s quite friendly in a genuine sort of way. And quite helpful. Actually seems to know his stuff. Bizarre.

So I explain the situation and he seems to accept everything as gospel, surprisingly not running me through the idiot’s guide to all the basics as I was fully anticipating. Takes my word that I’ve done all this diagnostic type stuff and just might have some clue what I’m talking about. Wow. Impressive.

“Let’s log into the router then” sez he, so we do. And as soon as he begins to step me through the settings I get an inkling. More than an inkling in fact. All the settings appear to have reverted to their factory defaults and quite clearly this is the cause of the problem.
Must have been something to do with mate and his perishing cocktail stick after all.

All done then. New settings saved. So I ask helpful AOL guy (I really can’t get over that. He’s clearly not in the right job and hasn’t sussed out what’s expected of him yet) if he’d mind staying on the phone whilst I see if I can get online. So he does. And I do.

Profuse thanks, phone called ended, and we’re in business.

Only we’re not.

Pull up Internet Explorer (gonna have to initiate mate into the joys of using Firefox… once he’s started to master the art of websurfing that is), AOL login screen and… pooh! Doesn’t work. Login not accepted! Screen name or password not recognised!

‘Nother half-hour wasted in repeated attempts to log in, each of us taking turns to slowly and laboriously moron-fashion type in the relevant details whilst the other slowly and laboriously (again moron-fashion) reads them out from the AOL “welcome” letter (and there’s a misnomer if ever there was one).

Further call to AOL then (this time ending up talking to someone obviously on the other side of the world) and get them to reset the password for us.
“How long does it take to type in a few characters?” thinks I as I roll another fag whilst listening to the ubiquitous muzak. Polish off the beer too.
But we’re finally there so with lass still on phone I try the new details.

Wow! They don’t work. Try again. Nope. Still don’t work. “Hah… gotcha” thinks I.
Lass t’other end says to me “Did you click the AOL icon on the desktop or are you using Internet Explorer?”
“Huh?” grunts I, idiot-fashion. “I’m in IE of course…” (“…stupid girl” under breath).

“Ah” sez she. “In that case you need to type in the full user name including at aol dot com”.

Then follows a rather amusing and surprisingly lengthy conversation something along the following lines:

MOI: So I type in the username plus the at and dot com?

SHE: No, username at aol dot com.

MOI: Yeah, username plus the at etc.

SHE: No, there’s no plus, just the at. The little a with the circle around it.

MOI: Yeah, I know what the at symbol is. So its not just the user name like it says on the screen but the user name plus the at followed by aol dot com.

SHE: No, you mustn’t type a plus before the at.

And so on, and so on, for a good five minutes. Me getting increasingly snappy and her clearly trying harder and harder to remain patient with this total thicko on the other end of the line.

Get there in the end though and excellent! We’re finally in, logged on, and everything.

Two things though. And two more reasons why I still hate (p’raps “despise” is a better word now though) AOL.

First; all those router settings. You’d think they’d include all those at least somewhere in all the bumpf they send out initially to new users. Wouldn’t you?

And second; wouldn’t you also think there’d be some message somewhere (at least on the login screen) that the user needs to type in their full AOL email address as the username when logging in through IE instead of just the screen name as they state. Wouldn’t you?

Bloody AOL!

Have to admit though, they seem to have done away with their habit of rebranding practically every single app on the computer with their own stupid logo. And they now let you use some other browser to get online instead of the default and almost at one time mandatory IE. (I know, cos I installed Firefox for mate once we were finally in business, and it worked fine).

But finessing their service like that ain’t gonna suddenly make me like them. Still think they suck. So there!

A small victory

Fucking bus drivers I hate ‘em, just cos they’ve got a great big bus to drive they think they rule the road….

On my way home from work, I was halfway across a road when I hear a loud honking of a horn and so I turn to look, what do I see but a great big fucking double decker bearing down on me, wanting me to move out of his way well fuck you I think to meself and carry on walking the way i am, I’m not moving any faster for you, arsehole.

A small victory, even if it is in my own mind.

The very first time!

Aha… looks like I’m some sort of guest contributor or author or summat like that. (Heh heh. He’ll regret that!) Jolly good. Finally somewhere I can rant away to me heart’s content without worrying about offending any potential visitors (visitors? what visitors?) cos anything I may have to say (or rather, the language I use to say it) isn’t gonna be anywhere close to that used by mein host.

Excellent… now lemme see… of all the millions of things that really piss me off where shall I start?

Um… er… dammit! Its like when someone says “What are you thinking?” and suddenly and quite miraculously your mind goes a complete blank. Its amazing… and its bloody irritating. So this is probably the very first time that I can’t think of anything to have a rant about. Bugger!

And suddenly… oh yes I can.

Just about to tag and categorise this post prior to hitting the publish button and wha’do I find? No suitable bloody category! You’d think, wouldn’t you, that someone who’d invited you to have a rant on their blog would at least have the common sense and decency to create a category entitled “rants” or something. Wouldn’t you? But oh no, not him.

Sheer damned incompetence I call it.

So come on thingy… get yer act together and lets have some decent categories to bung stuff in. Huh!

[Posted by someone who isn't him]

They don’t deserve a manly punch!

Changed my blog, haven’t really used it much, was a bit weary of being myself and ranting too much. Having read some other blogs, I have realised that I can be a bit more, how shall I put this…. well rude (people who know me know how much of a potty mouth I can be, especially when someone or something pisses me off and that does seem to happen quite frequently).

So I make no appologies for what I may post here, I can’t help the way I feel, which if you haven’t guessed yet is pissed off most of the time due to the stupid fuckwits that seem to be everywhere in all shapes and sizes it doesn’t matter what race, colour or creed, there’s always a few dickheads who ruin the world for everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong, I can and have made mistakes for which I  accept responibility and try to attone for, but there are many, many people who don’t and won’t take responsiblity and it’s those arseholes who piss me off so much that, if were a different man, would quite happliy give them a bitch slap (they don’t deserve a manly punch!).

Typical

My new modem arrived today WAHOO! and it doesn’t work, had to phone up to get it activated and what a surprise, there is a problem.

After talking to some chap in outer Mongolia, my problem has been refered to some one else which can take 3 to 5 days! bugger that thinks I, I’ll just plug in the old one (not gonna be out of the interweb for 5 days) Aaarrgh! expletive, expletive, that’s not working either, spent ages unpluging and rebooting to no avail, time to phone Mongolia again.

And so, I phone them up and  get through the automatic response thingy, press all the right button’s and finally I get Ghengis on the line, I start to explain that my new modem has arrived and that there was a problem, at this point he interupts to ask me if I want to activate the modem, no says I, I’ve already tried that and there was a problem, at which point he interupts again, to tell me that it has been refered to some other department, so I start again and this time I keep going till I get to the question of why my old modem isn’t working, so we go through all the setup stuff until finally after a long and bloody battle, victory, I’m back online and ranting to the world.

Except my new modem is still not working and I’ll have to wait to find out why. All that hassle just to get back where I was 2 hours ago…..typical.

It’s been a while..

It has been a while, when I set up this blog thing I wasn’t sure what I would do with it and so I haven’t really done anything at all with it.

So here I am sitting here not knowing what to write, I get the feeling this might just be a random babbling on about nothing just to fill space, that is of course if my interweb connection stays with me, when I got up yesterday and tried to check my emails before going to work, I found that I had no connection so I left it and went to work, when I got home last night, still no connection, too late to phone the people who supply my service bugger! ok I’ll wait til the morning and check it then.

Got up this morning turn on the old trusty? machine and dammit no interweb, so I phone up the nice peole to see what’s happening automated voice thingy asking me if I want this service press this number or if I want this service press this other number, so on and so forth till I get to the music which means I will get to speak to somebody but not until I’ve been driven mad by the god awful music which is being pumped into my brain. Eventually I hear a frienndly voice asking “can I help you ?” no, I just wanted to listen to some crap music for 10 minutes, I didn’t say that of course, but the temptation was there.

After talking to the guy for 5 mins, I find out that my modem is out dated and it can’t handle my connection so they will send me a brand spanking new one which is “future proof” what ever that’s supposed to mean, can anything be truly  “future proof” no one knows what the future has in store for us, unless they’re David Icke he seems to know , we all gonna be eaten by lizard people or something like that.

I’m off now just in case my connection goes on me again so seeya.