like time – only more so …
Archive for October, 2009
iPhone blogging
Oct 30th
One of the cooler apps I’ve got for my iPhone is a wordpress blogging tool. Using this I can update my blog from anywhere and indeed include photos taken wherever I happen to be.
The second coolest app I’ve got is a fart machine which made my dad laugh so much that he nearly choked on a Twix he was eating.
Traffic …
Oct 29th
Have you ever had one of those commutes? The sort of drive to or from work which can dull even the brightest of ‘all is right with the world’ moods? I had one of those today. I left work in a pretty good mood all things considered, because it’s the start of my weekend. However it soon became apparent to me that every single set of traffic lights I was going to encounter on my drive home, was going to be red. Not only were the lights going to be red, but they were going to heavily favour traffic heading in the opposite direction.
I had a look on my iPhone and Google Maps showed that traffic was virtually stationary on South Dowling Street – a shitty bit of road that runs alongside the Eastern Distributer. So I decided to head further south before cutting on to Southern Cross Drive (though a more accurate name would be Southern Cross Crawl) and down through the airport tunnel. Big mistake on my part – that route turned out to be traffic lights ever 200 metres (all red) and an obligatory shunt closing the lane I was sat in.
It normally takes me 30 minutes to get out the other side of the airport tunnel, but it was nearly an hour before I got there today. I managed to pick the wrong lane with amazing precision all the way along Presidents Avenue. When I got to the Princes Highway, an endless succession of people cut me up. First a Mercedes, I beeped my horn and flipped the bird and it was returned on the end of an arm clad in undoubtedly expensive pink sweater. Then a Lancer with three lads in it – I mouthed ‘prick’ and the guy waved back and proceeded to make far better progress than me up through the rush hour traffic.
By the time I made it to the freeway I’d had to turn the podcasts off I was so pissed off. Despite the fact that I was stuck behind another driver, endless waves of cars tried to undertake me thinking I was sat there doing 10 under the speed limit through choice. I of course cut them off, but they just putted down the inside lane a bit further and emerged 20 cars further on.
When I reached Albion Park I’d managed to pass through irritation, frustration and anger and emerge in that almost zen-like state of dejected acceptance. I stopped off at the KFC drive-thru for a Zinger Burger and watched the endless waves of traffic pouring down the Princes Highway through Albion Park Rail and then drove the rest of the way home, arriving, eventually at my front door at ten past seven. On a normal day I’m usually pulling onto the drive by quarter past six. Happy travels commuters, wherever you are.
Happy birthday …
Oct 26th
So, I am another year fatter and 12 months closer to the grave. My birthday has been and gone and it was, I must say, considerably better than last year’s, which I think came and went without incident or mention.
My birthday treats began in Sydney last Thursday. I was given a day-in-lieu by my employers on account of having to work on Friday (usually my day off). We went to the big city because the sprog was on his school holidays and everyone fancied doing something. So I drove into town a little later than I would do if I was working and we parked in the Opera House car park.
We wandered up through the botanic garden and up to the Australian Museum which is next to Hyde Park. It’s not, it must be said, a patch on those empire-robbing showrooms, the Natural History Museum and the British Museum in London – but it was still good. We mainly visited in order to see the dinosaurs, which were nice and all that, but pretty much every one of the exhibits had the word (cast) next to its label indicating that the dinosaur in question was probably younger than my eight year old son. We also paid extra to see the Egyptian exhibit which had considerably better provenance than the dinosaurs, but again – when you’ve been to the British Museum …
After the museum we hit the shops and it was then that the missus dropped her bomb shell. I could, she said, get myself a decent camera (proper DSLR) or an iPhone for my birthday present. Let me tell you, I was a) genuinely surprsied and b) torn. We looked at some cameras in Myers which seemed excellent and then walked down the block to the Apple store to find out about the iPhone.
Like all Apple stores, the one in Sydney is a sumptuously designed emporium to shiny objects. We went upstairs to the iPhone floor and had a look and it was there that I decided that it had to be the iPhone for me. I plumped for the 32Gb 3G[S] model. In black. I also got a funky black rubber case for it.
I’ve had the phone for over a week now and it is, without doubt, the coolest gizmo I’ve ever owned. I’m sure you’re all more than familiar with its features so I’ll just say that my favourite features are the touch-sensitive keyboard entry (god it’s a relief after a decade of hideous predictivie texting), the app store (yes, the phone’s rapidly filling up) and the way that Google Maps utilises both the GPS and the compass to not only guide you, but orient you in the right direction. I’m sorry to say that I’ve turned into one of those iPhone saddoes who strokes their phone at every opportunity. At least I can say I’ve always been a gadget obsessed geek.
Anyway – after a bit more shopping in Sydney (some new CDs c/o of the out-laws), some ‘treats-from-home’ indulgence in the sweet store (Galaxy for me, Reeces for the missus and Space Dust for the sprog), we walk back to the car via Circular Quay and drive home.
X Factor …
So would someone who currently lives in the UK kindly tell me what in the name of all that’s fucking holy is going on with the X Factor. Let me tell you I wasn’t the biggest fan of Randy Pain, or indeed of Ricky Looney or Miss Frank Butcher – but I’d take any one of ‘em over those Zig and Zag-like Irish spods John and Edward. Who the fuck is voting for them? Have they taken leave of their senses?
Above and beyond the road-crash TV that is John and Edward, things seem to be taking their traditional British course, whereby all the black people that can actually sing get voted off and it turns into a battle of personalities between a couple of waif-like angl0-saxon cherries.
Danyl appears to be getting a kicking in the British press seemingly on account of the fact that he’s showing a bit of nacent professionalism on a show otherwise full of amateurs. And (so the missus tells me) because he opens his mouth really wide(!). But more probably because he’s black. And as we all know, the last time the British public voted a black person to victory in a variety show, we had to endure 20 years of Lenny Henry.
The transformation of Rachael was, I must admit, a bit mental. One minute she’s carrying on like the pall bearer at a Victorian funeral – the next she’s buzzing her tits off like Stacey on acid. I’m prepared to believe that she was given a stern talking-to by her sad-sack mentor Danni ‘Nope still nowhere near as famous as my sister’ Minogue, but still. Think I prefered the old morose Rachael with the oil slick hairdo.
Anyway – people of Britain – pleae do not vote for the spods next week, my gag reflex can’t take much more.
Faecal plume …
Oct 19th
For a long time, toilet lids struck me as being a bit surplus to requirements. I mean, it’s not as if they contain the smell – and most of them aren’t much good for sitting on when you’re having a conversation with someone (as opposed to taking a dump). Then I read this article about faecal plumes and suddenly toilet lids seemed like the most eminently sensible piece of aparatus in the whole house.
The reason the lid is there is to stop something called faecal plume. What happens is that when you flush the bog (assuming you have a water closet and not some hemp-wearing hippie style composting affair) tiny water droplets are turned into aerosol form and they, along with the shit, urine and whatever else you’ve just expelled from your arse are sent flying up into the air. Those shit-laden molecules will drop on you and anything with several metres of them. So if you’ve got a toilet in the bathroom, you might want to buy yourself a new toothbrush.
Reseach has shown that ladies will fairly consistently put the lid down before flushing, but blokes prefer to take a shit-shower. No great surprises there then. The same scientist responsible for this research also points out that the place you’re most likely to find bacterial infestations is the common or garden kitchen cloth. Nice.
Twat factor …
So another weekend of the X Factor has come and gone. I never thought I’d say it, but I actually missed that gurning Irish plonker, Louis Walsh. Louis had, of course, jetted off to Majorca (‘The water, in Majorca, don’t taste like what it oughter’) to comfort his meal ticket. The show was lacking something without him.
Stand-out performance for me was Olly, doing a Tina Turner number. Had a definite air of Hairspray about it, that little number, complete with the shiny suit. Can’t say I’m sorry to see the back of that sobbing sadsack, Ricky Looney – if I had to hear him say, “Eye whant thus murr thun annie-thun,” one more time I think I’d have flown 12,000 miles back to the UK, snatched that dumb-ass pork-pie hat off his gremlin-like face, shat in it and then crowned him King of Shite. Bloody muppet. And what’s up with his eyebrows anyway?
And as for John and Edward – their Britney performance plumbed new depths of awfulness. I can honestly say I’d rather watch back to back episodes of The Sullivans, while sitting on on rusty razor blades with a bare arse and Keith Chegwin on my lap, than watch those utterly talentless wankers gurn into the camera lens again. Their days are, I hope, numbered, because the novelty acts are slowly dropping by the way-side now. Though I expect that no matter when the British public see sense and eject them from the competition, they’ll live on like the Chico-lite nonces they are.
Targetted marketing …
Oct 12th
Got an email from the CINE BUZZ Club today (loyalty card thing at my local multiplex) which had the title ‘Andre Rieu Live Via Satellite From Acer Arena’. And I’m thinking to myself, that unless this is a live beheading, their marketing effort is definitely wasted on me.
And anyway – what the fuck would possess anyone to watch a ‘live’ concert in a cinema? Cheapskate bastards I guess who won’t spring for the price of a full ticket, but will pony up ten bucks to watch turgid Mozart-lite conducted by a man whose hair seems to have a radioactive half-life and who, in all the promotional posters I’ve seen, appears to have just realised belatedly that he’s shat himself.
X-Factor …
Since we gave the satellite TV the old heave-ho, our viewing habits are even more in sync with the current big shows on UK telly. Some appear pretty promptly on the ABC, but some we download. We like watching the X-Factor at the weekends – it’s a bit of a family ritual – takeout (pizza for the sprog, noodles for the wife and satay chicken for me) and telly on a Sunday night. Enjoying the new season of the show – we all have our favourites. Liz likes Stacey who I read in the Daily Mirror, “talks like someone about to wet herself, a female Frank Spencer”. Jack likes Lloyd, the blonde-haired sacharine sick 16 year old (described as “the new Adam Rickitt”) . Somewhat predictably I guess, I like Jamie ‘Afro’ Archer. The act I’d most like to see impaled mouth-first on spears are John & Edward who Louis Walsh seems to have picked just to piss off as many people as possible.
The show’s down to the final 12 now and the manufactured spats between the judges has started kicking off. Danii ‘I bet you 500 quid you can’t name a single record she’s made’ Minogue managed to ‘out’ the show’s best singer, Danyl. I’d liked to have heard what Louis Walsh had to say about it, but he’d had to fly to Majorca to console more talentless plebs he plucked from supermarket shelf-stacking obscurity after Stephen Gately choked to death on his own vomit. Perhaps he’d just seen John & Edward perform.