You Maniacs!
Click to view larger You finally, really did it. You maniacs! You voted for him! Aw, damn you! God damn you all to hell! Okay, so it may not be completely over as I type this but I doubt the power behind the throne of America will let recounts and legality stand in the way of their puppet King reclaiming his crown. There will probably be some considerable pressure for Kerry to concede before any shenanigans are uncovered. Sure, we could spend some time flinging excuses around – inefficient voting system causes youth not to vote, key states have too high a percentage of the mentally ill among their populations, the clocks going back last weekend confused the elderly – but perhaps it’s best we think to the future instead. What do the next four years hold in store? Well, if there really is a God then every person who voted Republican will lose their job, be forced to join the army as the only employer around, suffer some horrible maiming in some distant land, catch skin cancer through a hole in the ozone layer (I know you really can’t just catch skin cancer; I’m well aware it’s injected by parrot beaks) while lying on the stretcher waiting to be bussed home, and discover they have no health cover and the military pension scheme has gone bankrupt. On the slight chance that there is no God or He is still distracted by the opening rounds of the fifty-bosomed warrior women mud-wrestling tournament on Tau Hydra III, though, it may be up to us both in America and the rest of the world to stop this happening again. We need to attack the source of neo-conservative power and destroy it as soon as possible. That source is not actually the miniature leprechaun that George W. Bush keeps tied to his back hair and which can sometimes be seen as a bulge under his jacket. That leprechaun is for decorative purposes only. The target of the attack must be the media. Specifically: the Murdoch-controlled media. Specifically specifically: The Sun and Fox News. Tim at Bloggerheads proposes that we endeavour to own the bulk of real estate for every major search query relating to Murdoch assets and show what role those assets play, show people the lies they’ve been told, the people behind those lies, and the purpose of those lies. Since that may have a faster and less bloody result than Project Right-Wing-Brain-Mushing-Biotoxin-Carrying Flying Monkey Squadron which is currently on the drawing board at neOnbubble Mansion I think I’ll sign up to that and have a go. This means I’m going...
Whacked out on Scooby Snacks
To celebrate Scooby Doo reaching the milestone of three hundred and fifty episodes I thought it would be apt to list some of my favourite episodes from the long-running cartoon series and why I liked them so much. Foul Play In Fred’s Funhouse Synopsis: This episode first introduces us to the idea that Fred has a life outside of solving diabolical mysteries with the rest of the gang. When the workers at Fred’s Funhouse, a fake jeans-manufacturing sweatshop in Indonesia, start to disappear, hitting Fred’s massive profit margin and threatening to curtail his partying and ghost-debunking lifestyle, Fred brings the rest of Mystery Inc. into the picture to help him track down the cause behind it. A trip to Southern Asia, a villagers’ tale about the terrifying Jungle Gorilla Ghost, and trouble clearing Scooby Snacks through customs are just some of the highlights in this exciting adventure. With hilarious consequences! Why I really liked this: The conclusion of this episode was the first to vary from the normal formula used up until then (the "surprise" unmasking of someone pretending to be something supernatural) when it transpires that most of Fred’s workers have merely been labelled as "enemy combatants" and spirited out of the country by U.S. special forces, leaving Fred no option but to burn the plant down for the insurance. Chaotic Chaos At Chaos Circus On Chaos Beach Synopsis: The gang receive free passes to a travelling circus that has set up on the beach along with a message for help, apparently from the Bearded Lady, and attend an evening’s show. When they can’t find the Bearded Lady and everybody they speak to claims no knowledge of her or her hirsute face they decide to launch an investigation in the only way they know how: Scooby and Shaggy pretend to be an hilarious knife-throwing act, Velma makes some startling discoveries in the clown car, and Fred and Daphne are noticeable by their absence. With hilarious consequences! Why I really liked this: Children need to know that success isn’t guaranteed no matter how spunky you are. I knew that at an early age but cartoons never expressed this lifetruth until this groundbreaking episode when it transpires at the end that Daphne’s secret dyslexia has led the gang to the wrong circus and the Bearded Lady, a heroin addict at Cosy Circus on Comfy Beach, purposely overdosed when she thought that Mystery Inc. didn’t care about her after all. Haunted Hammock Synopsis: Shaggy falls asleep in his hammock leaving a box of Scooby Snacks open on his stomach. Scooby’s keen nose sniffs them out and he decides to help himself....
The mouth ulcer: friend or bastard?
I was present when God was designing humans. I told Him "The eyes, those I like. Round. Moveable. Good colour range. Top notch." And I mentioned that God had "nailed those boobies. I don’t think you’ll get much complaint from those!" I even stood and applauded when Project Opposable Thumb was given the, er, opposable thumb’s up. But it wasn’t all great. My own suggestion for swappable, detachable, plug-and-play noses was met with a stern look and when I supported Lucifer’s recommendation that seven legs were better than two I was told in no uncertain terms that my presence would be tolerated only so long as I kept my mouth shut from them onwards. Subsequently, I was merely an observer during the big Deliberate Design Flaw debate. God and his legion of developers/toadies put forward the argument that by making bits and pieces often fail in some way or another at irregular intervals it would make humans appreciate what they had more. The counterpoint was that was awfully cruel and the phrase "you bloody great bully" was expressed momentarily before one debating team found themselves transformed into protozoa on a small planet fated to be engulfed by a supernova exactly three minutes later. Design flaws made the final cut. All of this explains why I have a mouth ulcer at the moment. On the right side of my mouth. Right at the back. Perfectly positioned in line with the rearmost teeth of each row. Perfectly positioned so that certain often-performed tasks rub against the mouth ulcer sending lightning bolts of agonising torture through my head. Often-performed tasks such as: talking, eating, drinking, not talking, not eating, and not drinking. Thankyou God for the unending pain I am suffering at the moment. It’s not "so painful you have to scream" pain because, eventually, your body gets used to that or, more usually, gets sick and tired of your whining and either switches off the pain receptors or renders you unconscious. No, this is "dull, dull, fading, rising, not-so-dull, sharp shock, dull, dull, sharp shock" pain, the pain that effectively reboots your neural connections every so often so that it’s just like the first time all over again. God, you’ve surpassed yourself. A marvel! I truly do appreciate my mouth more. Why do we get mouth ulcers? Well, as far as I can determine without looking anything up on the internet because IT’S ALL A LIE the precursors to any mouth ulcer are as follows: Burning Yourself Mouth ulcers often follow eating something far too hot that you should have known better than to place in your mouth. Most typically this...
A short(ish) story
It was a warm day but not unusually warm for the time of year. It was perfectly pleasant. In the field across from my front door I saw the tortoises gambolling through the long stalks of beer wheat, their undulating, high-pitched songs carrying across on the gentlest of breezes. From the higher elevation on the porch the field appeared as a near-still, golden honey sea with the barest of waves broken only occasionally by a shell or happy prehistoric head surfacing to snap at a thrill-seeking insect, real or imagined. A wind chime nailed to the underside of the porch roof (probably long overdue a repainting) – it must have been five years or more now that it had hung there – turned slowly in my eyeline but never quite enough to cause any of its components to come together and add to the soothing white noise of nature. I might have drifted off to sleep on some other, near-identical day but for the constant attention from the house rabbit who was busy waxing my tertiary head. It needed doing; the quills were coming back through and I’d noticed some small rips in the pillow case that same morning. There was a time when I might have given it no thought, thrown out the bedding, and replaced it with a higher grade steel wool, but that would have been in the early days of working for the government. Money wasn’t quite an issue yet but I wasn’t foolish enough to fail to realise it would be, and the days passed so much quicker during the final third of the year when the twins sped up to cross orbit. I had a book, open and laying flat across my stomach, that I’d long given up trying to read. The tranquility of the surroundings had been surprisingly more distracting than they should have been and now that Mr Fluffsibobs was busying himself, running across my head – that reminded me; he needed declawing too – , dragging the strips in his mouth, patting them down, then tearing them off with a leap to the porch boards, the simple act of catching up with some light war poetry had become too much of an effort entirely. I suppose I was more alert then and I heard the airship when it was still far off. I angled both of my free heads to determine from which direction the low-level whump-whump-whump was coming from and realised that the trees on the barrow behind the water storage cube in the southwest corner of the farm were probably obscuring the approach of the – listen, listen...
Update: Legal news!
Follow up to Seward Fiat Havant article. Just received phonecall. Apparently, Seward Fiat, Havant aren’t happy about my last article. I understand. I felt it could have been improved too. And apparently, their solicitor will be contacting me. I doubt it’s to apologise but I might be wrong. Man, talk about taking a situation and making it worse. I was only merely moderately upset at the quality of service I received. Now I’m pretty livid – and somewhat stressed after that phonecall – that, rather than ignore the problem or perhaps offer to talk about the issue (which would have led to a nice positive update) as good customer service might dictate, I was, instead all but threatened. Here’s hoping that their solicitor understands that facts aren’t illegal and opinions aren’t either as far as I know, knows how to read disclaimers, understands that this site is for entertainment purposes primarily, and fully comprehends the intricacies of dealing with content physically located in America by a Malaysian host and capable – thanks to the creative commons licence employed – of being mirrored to hundreds of websites worldwide and viewed by tens of thousands of people rather than the handful who probably actually read it, especially if a load of other website owners got the idea into their heads that I might be being victimised, bullied, or coerced in some fashion. Not that I think I am at the moment, of course. So, make sure you hold your horses if you’re a website owner and are thinking of writing about this or preparing to mirror this page in some other country. If I got a nice letter I’d probably comply with whatever legal issues were brought forth; it would be nice to know just what boundaries I might have inadvertently crossed. I hope I don’t get a nasty or threatening one. Or, better still, if the matter were simply let slide then this would probably all just blow over. Let’s wait and...
Seward Fiat, Havant: you made my list
A follow-up post to this article is located here. A cautionary tale of one man’s dealings with one garage. That man would be me. That garage would be the Fiat garage run by the Seward dealership in Havant, Hampshire. Let me tell you what I know about cars: 1. Cars get you to work. They do this in a faster and drier or cooler way than, say, walking or, heavens forbid!, taking the bike. They do this by taking you from the front door of your home to the car parking space right outside your office thereby making them preferable to public transport which requires two changes and two additional pedestrian-mode manoeuvres afterwards adding approximately one hour to the journey time. 2. Cars go vroom. That’s the general overview as I see it. I know a few technical things too: I know that V16 engines have 8 more Vs than a V8. I don’t know what a V is or whether my Punto has any. There don’t appear to be any on the outside although some of the birdshit patterns might count so I could be wrong. I know that lifting up the bonnet is only to be attempted when the windscreen washer fluid runs out as dirty hands and confused panic is the price to pay. I know where to pour in the fluid. I know that my car runs on unleaded petrol. That’s the green pumps. Basically, if I haven’t covered it already, then anything else requires a trip to the garage. So, yesterday I got out to my car to find my driver’s-side wing mirror hanging at an odd angle. It had been hit. It happens a fair bit. Usually, it flicks back into place because that appears to be a design feature. There were a few problems this time though. Firstly, because of where my car was parked it was clear that the wing mirror had been hit by a pedestrian. A blind one, obviously. Secondly, and more importantly, it hadn’t been hit forwards or backwards, it had been hit down. Down is bad. Down equals broken. I haven’t ruled out the possibility that this was done on purpose as I hate all my neighbours (well, most people in general to tell the truth) and I think they know it but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for once. Driving around with a wing mirror bouncing up and down alternately presenting views of the road, the wheels, the sky, that truck, my terrified face, that truck again, the road, etc. was not a pleasant experience. It was distracting and stressful. It also wasn’t...
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