February 27, 2014

Colemanballs

"Colemanballs: The art of letting the words come out before the brain is engaged, made famous by David Coleman but with very able disciples in Kevin Keegan, Bobby Robson, Ron Atkinson, Terry Venables....in fact it seems endemic amongst the football fraternity."

"I didn’t say them things that I said."
Glenn Hoddle

"For those of you watching in black and white, Spurs are in the all-yellow strip."
John Motson

"And now the goals from Carrow Road, where the game finished 0-0."
Elton Welsby

“Martin Jol has put his hands on his heads.”
Ray Parlour

“I don’t want Rooney to leave these shores but if he does, I think he’ll go abroad.”
Ian Wright

"If you can't stand the heat in the dressing-room, get out of the kitchen"
Terry Venables

"I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat."
Ron Atkinson, breaking the habit of a lifetime!



More here...

February 12, 2014

Ever had this happen? My shower door just suddenly exploded out of the blue.

We weren't even using the shower, nor had we suddenly heated the house up from near freezing or anything.

I was nearby, errm, reading, when suddenly, and totally without warning, the shower door next to me exploded with a huge bang in a very bowel evacuation-inducing fashion.

I haven't heard about any earthquakes (we're in the PNW) or tremors recently. Maybe the house just settled or else it's evil spirits.

It's safety glass so it didn't take my head off or anything inconvenient like that, but there are some tiny bits of glass on the floor now and in the tub.

Time to buy a Shop-Vac and call in an exorcist.

January 19, 2014

People...

Woohoo! Twenty whole megs of RAM! and a hard drive that's about 1/60th the capacity of my postage stamp-sized SD!

And yet, that would still beat having to be around people even today!

Forgive me, I'm in a mood today.

December 25, 2013

Chipmunks roasting on an open fire

I don't know how well known this is outside of Seattle or how many times this has been posted here before, but it always cracks me up:

From Bob Rivers' Twisted Christmas Tunes. Seattle's own Pat Cashman can be heard in this as well as in this one:

November 27, 2013

Sometimes I feel like screaming and punching people in the face.

Oh, not for any good reason or anything. I just like screaming and punching people in the face a lot.

November 12, 2013

What's your browser of choice?

I've been a Firefox man from the beginning but I can't deny that it's become a bit of a memory pig lately. The extensions, I'm running 12 of them, share in the blame I have no doubt. I also don't like their changes and attitude to complains about those changes.

I just recently bought a new laptop and experimented a bit. I thought Chrome was a bit too minimalist for my liking (hey, I like having a refresh button!), but I utterly resent having it install bundled with other packages without my consent (flash, avast, I'm looking at you!), and it's too closely tied to a company that makes money spying on me (google).

Opera is my new browser of choice. I'm running it with just two extensions, Adblock Plus and Ghostery, and it's been a dream. Fast, responsive and it works everywhere. I'm sticking with it.

What's your browser of choice?

November 7, 2013

When someone tells me they have three beautiful children

Whenever someone tells me they have three beautiful children or grandchildren, why am I always the only one to ask them how many ugly ones they have? Well, it's important information. It never seems to be appreciated either.

Why is that?

October 20, 2013

Made an ass of myself the other day.

The person ahead of me in line at the bank needed special help, and the teller suggested she needed to see Joe. Trying to catch his attention she shouted "hey Joe!", but Joe was busy with something else.

So everyone in the bank started shouting "hey Joe!", until Joe finally noticed and started walking over to the customer.

I sang "Where you going with that gun in your hand?"

He froze and looked terrified. Everyone in the bank did. The security guard put his hand on his weapon and everyone stared at me with fear and hostility.

Fuck me, hasn't everyone heard of Jimi Hendrix anymore? I feel like I don't belong in this world any longer sometimes.

So don't make jokes about guns in banks, people.

October 11, 2013

Dispute with a contractor: Am I unreasonable?

Some months ago, as part of a series of jobs, I had a contractor install some outdoor security lights. During this installation, both bathroom floor-heating thermostats got fried (smoked and blackened). We let them install replacement thermostats and everything is working fine now.

When they presented the bill, it merely had two items: parts & labour. I didn't trust them and asked them for a breakdown of the parts, which they finally came up with. Sure enough: they included the thermostats in the bill. I paid them in full, minus the cost of the thermostats, and included a note which said that I thought it was a lot of nerve to ask us to pay for something they broke.

Ever since, I've been getting daily harassments through the phone and email telling us to pay our bill in full. They claim the system was "wired wrong" and that's why the thermostats got fried.

Now, I'm a reasonable person, but I'm just flabbergasted at the unmitigated gall of these people. How could any reasonable person expect us to have to pay? Seriously?

I've complained to the Better Business Bureau, but the company has just changed names. That's another warning sign, in my opinion.

I'm not worried about it. I've stared down bullies before, but I've never been a situation before where I couldn't even begin to understand the other side's point of view.

Any thoughts or recommendations other than slamming them on every review site?

October 3, 2013

I've failed 5 CAPTCHAs in a row

On my new Lenovo laptop. Clearly I'm non-human or, at the very least, a drooling, senile old half-wit.