Power Play

Sat in the cinema, waiting for the film to start, another couple come in. They start to discuss where to sit. She wants to be near the front. He – it’s safe to say – doesn’t.

Her : “I want to sit here, it’ll be fine”
Him : “let’s go to the back. There’ll be less people” (wrong, but hey ho)
Her : “I want to sit here”
Him : “fine babe, you pick where you want to sit”
She does.
Him : “well I’m not sitting there” and walks off, expecting her to follow.
She doesn’t.

Five minutes later, he comes back, and sits next to her.

Funny as hell, to the observer. 🙂


All in One – or Not

Currently, Persil have some adverts running on TV about their new “All in One” washing capsules. (There’s no youtube version of it so far that I could find.)

Except, if you read the “terms and conditions” text (also known as “the bit where we need to be a bit more honest”)…

“Capsules do not contain fabric softener”

So – not really ‘All in One” at all then?

Lying fuckstick bastard advertisers.


More Broken

It’s obviously the month for tech stuff to break.

Following on from the laptop, the iPhone battery pack, and the iPhone cable, the Kindle’s just died.  (I know, I know, “That doesn’t happen with books”, blah blah)  My own fault, out with friends last night, had the Kindle (in a case) in my pocket all night, and somewhere along the line it’s got squished, and the screen has cracked in the way eInk ones do, so it’s no damn use to anyone.

I *should* have left it in the car, but forgot.  That’s the way of things sometimes. No idea exactly when it happened, although it was probably when five of us crammed into a taxi, which was fairly tight.

Ah well, live and learn.


Bastardry

Over the last year, one particular section of my daily commute has made me realise two things

  1. People are really fucking stupid
  2. I’m a complete bastard, and still get amused by watching stupid people screw things up

The road section is this one – Junction 13 of the M1.  The particularly bad section is at the top – I come off the Motorway at the bottom right of the photo, have to go all the way round the first roundabout, over the motorway bridge, and straight over the second one to head towards home.

Map of J14 of the M1

Junction 13 of the M1

However, rule #1 above says that people are really fucking stupid. This means that

  • At least once a week, I see people on the first roundabout wanting to turn right (i.e. the same way I go), get confused, and drive back on to the M1, instead of taking the next turn off.
  • Pretty much every day I see people in the wrong lanes on the first roundabout, being in the left-hand lane to turn right, right-hand lane to turn left or go straight-on, cutting lanes across the roundabout, etc. etc.
  • Probably three times out of five, I’ll see people come off the other roundabout, and be totally confused about where to go next. That turn-off has two lanes – the left one to go straight on, the right one to – yes! – turn right. The number of people I follow who are in the wrong lane, and completely bemused by the junction is just unreal.

Of course, with option two there is also the – very minor – justification that it’s a confusing or badly designed junction (and in my opinion it is a bit shit) but it actually isn’t that bad. Slightly obscure, but not bad – so long as drivers read the signs and the roads.  Which is, of course, the underlying problem.

And rule #2 is that I’m still a bastard. I can’t help but laugh at the fuck-knuckles who drive back onto the M1, and also (to a lesser degree) to the ones who fuck up the second roundabout.

I’m not perfect when it comes to driving – and I’d never claim to be – but at least I can read the road and don’t screw up the simple things.


Sweary Hypocrisy

I’ve found a new source of amusement – the “Parental Guides” for films on IMDB.

A perfect example is here, for the new Tom Cruise film “Oblivion

Why is it so amusing? For wondrous things like this…

bitch used 2 times bastard 1 time ass 4 times shit 6 times 1 use of fuck. Son-of-a-b***h is used once.

It’s the hypocrisy of it all – coupled with the tweeness.  In the example above, it’s OK to write bitch, bastard and fuck, but son-of-a-bitch gets asterisked out? Fuck me.


Blessed Relief

So, today is Comic Relief day (AKA Red Nose Day) – one of those shit fund-raising days that encourage people to be “crazy” and “funny” by getting dressed up and acting like tossbags. “It’s all for charidee, innit?” Fuck off.

For the record, I don’t mind Comic Relief – the charity, not the activity.  They do good stuff, both in the UK and everywhere else, and I think that’s good.  I just can’t stand the way people go stupid about it. (Let’s be honest, I’m not a fan of people most of the time anyway)  It’s always the “I’m mad, me” bell-ends that love it, along with (sometimes) some of the quieter office people who normally don’t say a word, but do something special “for charity” (or out of peer-pressure, I don’t know) At least the quiet ones are amusing to watch, because they’re so mortified and teeth-grindingly awkward about the entire thing.

My main amusement this year has come from the changes at Radio 1. (Yes, I still listen to it, despite the increasing ass-hattery of the presenters)  In previous years, Chris Moyles has raised millions of pounds on his show for Comic Relief. Just in 2011, his “longest radio show” raised £2.4million on its own, and there was other stuff that year as well.  When he left last year, Comic Relief came in and revealed that Moyles’ show had raised just under £11 million.

This year, the new Breakfast Show presenter did a show yesterday for Comic Relief, and raised … £250,000.

Of course that’s still a decent amount, don’t get me wrong. But he’s all impressed with himself for getting that figure, and I’m thinking “Moyles managed that in about an hour”

So, that’s been amusing.

In the meantime, though, tonight I’ll be avoiding the TV (and any thought of shopping etc. can sod right off) and doing absolutely nothing Comic Relief related. This is A Good Thing.


Foggy

Last night and this morning, my drive from/to work was extremely foggy.  This morning was worse, but even last night was pretty entertaining.

What always gets me though is the way people handle foggy conditions when they’re driving – particularly with regard to one of the banes of my life, foglights.

At night, it’s exceptionally rare to need foglights – they’re only for times where visibility is exceptionally low, and you’ve no chance of seeing the vehicle in front of you without the additional lights. The good old Highway Code says

Rule 236 : You MUST NOT use front or rear fog lights unless visibility is seriously reduced (see Rule 226)

Rule 226 : “You MUST use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced, generally when you cannot see for more than 100 metres (328 feet). You may also use front or rear fog lights but you MUST switch them off when visibility improves.”

With lights on at night, it’s exceptionally rare to not be able to see the car 100 metres ahead of you.Yet most of the fuckknuckle cunts are there, belting along with their foglights on.

And yet this morning, when it was actually really bad visibility, most people didn’t put their lights on at all, let alone the foglights.

I truly do not understand people.