Notification
Posted: Mon 12 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Technology, Weirdness 4 Comments »In the course of my current work, I use laptops a lot. I suppose desktop machines may do this too, but I don’t know – the one I use at home doesn’t really have that problem.
Anyway – whenever I turn on the laptop (whether my own, or the one at work) in the office, it’ll flag up a little notifier in the bottom-right hand corner of the screen saying something about “Unable to detect any wireless networks”.
Now, fair enough, I don’t mind it telling me that it can’t find the network. What really annoys me though, is that – particularly in the case of the work laptop – I have wireless networking switched off at the hardware switch. It’s not operating. Full stop. There’s no wireless network in the office, so it’s pointless having the damn thing turned on.
But Windows is unable to detect that actually, there’s no active hardware for finding a wireless network – so there’s no flaming chance at all of discovering that network. But it still flags up the message, every bloody day. I know there’s no wireless networks found, because the bloody sodding wireless network card is turned off, you stupid, stupid machine.
Grrrrr.
Changing Lanes
Posted: Thu 8 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Driving, Travel 4 Comments »I know, I know, every time I rent a car, I end up having a rant about bad drivers.
And this time is no different, you’ll be pleased to know.
But for once it’s not about those tossers who sit in the middle lane and never fucking move.
No, in this case it’s all based around roadworks. Now I suspect the roadworks is something that most people could rant about – particularly the fact that you can go past entire sets of roadworks and not see one single bloody person is working, or even visible.
But what gets me – unsurprisingly – is certain people’s driving ability. Or lack of.
I just don’t understand the mind-set that comes up when one lane is closed – and signposted as such from a good two miles off – and people still drive right to where the lane is coned off before trying to pull in to the still-open lane. It screws up the traffic flow, and leads to those self-same tailbacks that they’ve just cruised past. Cunts. But of course, that’s not their problem, so long as they’ve managed to get past all the other drivers.
Mind you, it’s bloody funny when some smeghead scrote BMW driver who’s gone roaring past everyone is then blocked entry by all those same drivers…
MOTB #3
Posted: Tue 6 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, MOTB 2 Comments »Last night on the train…
Announcer on the train’s PA system : Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the train for Norwich, stopping at Brandon, Thetford, Attleborough, Wymondham and Norwich.
Idiot, having listened to the announcement : Excuse me, is this the train for Birmingham?
Yours Truly : Yes, I think so.
Month of the Bastard is turning into real fun…
Missing in Action
Posted: Sat 3 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Music, Sweary Leave a comment »You know, I’m beginning to think I’m cursed when it comes to gigs – particularly at Brixton Academy.
Last time I was supposed to go, to see Massive Attack, it snowed, and I didn’t go.
This time, I’m supposed to be going to see Nine Inch Nails next Wednesday, only I haven’t yet received the ticket from cunty fucking Ticketmaster. Yeah, sure, I’ve moved since I ordered the tickets, but I’ve also registered that change of address with the useless bastards, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Yesterday it took me half an hour just to get to, fill in, and send the form to ask where my tickets are. I still haven’t heard back. Useless fuckers. The site has been ‘improved’ and now lags to chuff, blows up the browser, and is generally now just as broken as Ticketmaster’s ‘service’ in the first place. So I suppose that at least it’s representative…
So far, the odds of me seeing NIN are emphatically not good. I stand to be signally unimpressed…
Quotes
Posted: Fri 2 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School Leave a comment »Now this is the way to do it…
Lady: You think wearing the skin of a dead cow is cool or something? You’re promoting murder by wearing that.
Leather jacket guy: I don’t wear this because I like leather. I wear this because I hate cows. My father was gored to death by a bull. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to Burger King.
MOTB #2
Posted: Fri 2 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, MOTB Leave a comment »Isn’t it fascinating just how difficult it is for cyclists who insist on using footpaths to steer around people?
In fact, you could almost think they try to intimidate pedestrians into getting out of the way, rather than having to steer at all. And it really befuddles them when someone (can’t think who, of course) refuses to move aside for the bell-tinkling fuckers.
However, no matter how pissed off that cyclist may get, it’s really not a good idea to then try swiping said pedestrian with the handlebars as the cyclist goes past. It really buggers up their ability to steer forwards, and tends instead to result in said cyclist wobbling all over the place, then coming off their bike completely.
All together now, “Aawwwwww, shame“. *grin*
MOTB #1
Posted: Thu 1 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, MOTB 3 Comments »Ah, Month of the Bastard has started well…
Getting on the train this morning, one nong had got his stuff spread across the table of an entire 4-seater, and showed no signs of moving or doing anything.
So I sat on the chair diagonally opposite him – i.e. about as far from him as possible, in order to be fair about space allocation and so on – and got out the laptop. To be fair, he moved his paper across a little bit, so that there was room for it. Why he couldn’t pick the sodding thing up I have no idea. Maybe he only had intermittent use of his arms. He certainly preferred to keep them down by his side, with the paper on the table, along with all the files that he didn’t even open. But I had a plan…
Come the next station, there’s another surge of people getting on, and one pair ask whether the other seats at the table I’m using are free. Yeah, no worries. So I have to scoot across, and now sit opposite MonkeyBoy. Still using the laptop, of course. So he should move his shit from taking up all the space. Only he doesn’t. (And I was pretty sure he wouldn’t)
So having given him the opportunity to move his crap (which wasn’t getting looked at, remember) I just plonked the laptop on top of his files (and some of the newspaper that was also spread out, and that he couldn’t/wouldn’t pick up) and carried on.
Annoying? Hell yeah. Funny as chuff. Even more so.