Disparate ties

"Terrorists must be communicating acts of vileness against us by using the net!"

"It's the pedos under every kiddies bed communicating and practising their vileness using the net!"

"It's the godless, if only they would turned to god and be saved, if not we'll have to kill them to save them!"

"It's the criminals making our online lives a vile misery by using the net when all we want to do is spend, spend, spend - save us!"

So goes the neutering cry, as another avenue of anodyne blandness is restored.

Language

Sometimes when waking in the morning and uttering words in regard to breakfast (lunch), english comes across not as a first language but a second, no scratch that, third, fourth… two hundred and fifty sixth language, and all without the aid of anything remotely exotically toxic; perhaps it’s just anything longer than a twitterance.

Buses and TfL

After picking up the phone and verbally complaining - in measured tones (apart from a slight hysterical rant towards the end - which i'm putting down to the frequency of my virtual phone/fax software assistant oscillating in synchronisation with the guest & hosted os's) to tfls customer services (buses division) about the constant idling (no not drivers asleep at the whee- although saying that should really post some of those pictures) of bus engines been constantly left on idling (ticking over) let alone the revving of them, sometimes you could almost be forgiven for thinking you were at a formula one starting grid, on top of the increasing frequency of brake squeals and horn use; and sorry but no, using a horn 16 times outside of rush hour with no traffic holding you up in a residential area is not acceptable.

Sadly it would seem that yesterdays boy/girl racers have turned into todays bus drivers - even the aged ones.

So i was impressed with the attention given by customer services at tfl despite having to numerously repeat the bus numbers every other sentence so they could work out which companies to send the complaints to, indeed I was so impressed that 11 minutes later i detected a slight thawing in my attitude. So much so, my original mad bashings titled 'lies, lies, and tfl customer services' that i was going to put online (which for those who have somewhat followed the odd post can just imagine with that headline what the body of burblings contained) has been temporarily put to one side, not deleted, just placed on hold to allow sufficient time for those extra chances (as though five years isn't long enough) to see how well things could improve over the next couple of weeks - although the ongoing chugging (and screech of heavy brakes at four minutes to midnight) seems to indicate which side of the hill this particular saga's continuing to slide down on.

Because you just know that if the sound was on the other foot, which would be the equivalent of burning down the bus garage, finding every relation of every bus-y driver who refuses to switch off their engines and doing a dexter - whilst the driver is watching, then doing away with the driver too, then ferkling out every official supervisor who has received and read complaints from residents (anywhere) in relation to noise issues yet singularly done nothing about it, to subject them to 24/7/365/4 years worth of 200db taped noise (and yes I know eardrums burst at 120db - remember this trail of mayhem murder and mischief is bit of fiction simply added for indicative effect - and to slowly work ones way up the "chain of command" to the directors, place them into cannons and launch them (feet first) from one side of the channel to the other (and yes I know the success rate of cannoning a person from the english shores to the french has been zero - they simply needed to add more bloody powder) however many times it takes until they get the message: that this is how ignored environmental events can impact on those in the nearby surrounds... i'd be tasered every millimetre of the way to a prison cell and deemed a severe menace (well bar any knicker scorcher flying over that is), until the end of my days.

Loud? When is loud too loud? Maybe i'm just becoming more sensitive as the years tick on by, which would be bloody sad as i was quite looking forward to incipient drooling senility, and the only time i would need to inanely socialise is when been digested and shit out by earthworms - but despite full-ear fitting ear-plugs, over which is a full-ear covering set of headphones i can still hear the squeals of brakes or bus horns, and all through double glazed windows - believe me it's loud; and i am not the only person complaining about it.

To think only a few years ago I was fondly thinking of bricking up all the windows...

Oh my, maybe it really is time to move to the country - middle of antartica about 200m below the surface, or maybe i should install secondary glazing (it already has double before some smarky tit interjects)-, no tertiary glazing and turn one room into a panic/silent/two-fingers to the noise, room with air-purification, lots of plants, foam backed walls to absorb sound, slightly lower the ceiling with padded foam on the other side, suspended floor with noise cancelling inch rubber thick matting and wooden panels... it might just make at least one room semi-nice to live in once more, even if it no longer has the space to swing a dead newborn rat.

Update 30/01/10 15:44 slightly amended to improve readability.

E-perts

A source from experts said that the moon will disappear from Earths orbit, in a few years; but a few years before that fateful time the earths oceans will boil, mars will be our new home and jupiter will be turned into the solar systems biggest diamond.

Another source said all of that was a pile of rubbish and shouldn't be taken with anything but a crate of prozac to calm the first source down.

A third source said they were both barmy and that if you sailed off into the sunset your boat would fall off the end of the world.

Another source said that everyone within a 50 mile area was providing terrorists with material that could possibly be of material benefit to said terrorists: so all sales of toilet paper, oyster cards, birthday cards, newspapers should be banned, corner shops, supermarkets, knicker shops should be cordoned off with everyone required to show their passports and id cards before reaching checkouts.

And as the wheel of the sensible bus hurtles after the bus over the edge and into the canyon below, just before exploding on impact the last thing to flash before your mind...

... our water's taxed - and poisoned, our foods taxed and value added along the line, our travel's taxed down to our shoes and scummy trainers (yet try to go down the street bare-feet and in the nude and you'll be arrested for shocking the public), so even if you grow your own: the land's taxed, the delivery of goods to you or from you is taxed, not to mention the water's taxed with tax on top which only leaves the air; the only thing they haven't yet manage to singularly tax - unless you're flying through it - will, once they finally get their way, be taxed as an environmentally sound thing to do and surprisingly, and naturally wont be spun as simply a tax just t-…

Unshaved sheep

"So how do you get to sleep?"

"Well I put my head down and within seconds I'm counting sheep."

"And what about you madam?"

"I have a cup of cocoa, put my head down and before I realise it, i'm dreaming of knitting odd socks."

"Wonderful.  Excuse me Sir, how do you get to sleep?"

"Well, first of all i put in my ear plugs, then i cover them with dense cotton wool, then a thick towel, then i put on headphones and turn the volume up so i can just about hear it."

"Isn't that a bit extreme?"

"Not as extreme as what i'm doing to those bloody sheep!"

Quaking fallouts

Limbaugh reminds me of a sick puppy, one that scrambles around shitting itself at every opportunity because it just can't help it.

So he criticises obama for taking three days to give the nation his spleen over the attempted bombing of the airline over detroit - in which no one died, no plane was brought down, even "pants on fire" survived. But a country, not exactly a million miles away, suffers the most devastating natural disaster in over 200 years with many thousands (even hundreds of thousands) dead and he's critical that obama responds within 24hrs.

Perhaps mr p should have waited two weeks before responding, but no doubt that would have brought on the clamouring charge of indifference.

A sick, mad puppy.

And as for robertson… sick, mad, bad, nasty, viscous, hateful…

But those are just my idle thoughts, i could be wrong.

Linuxmania?

It's been an interesting time, after data breach, hdd loss and the like, i reverted to an os i've been wittering on about for a few years with a bit of hesitation, what with using a slower processor, a drive that under windows crashed with more regularity than a alcoholic trying to avoid that "final one for the road" has, with linux, done nothing of the sort; which is happily chugging along on a system xp choked over, but is allowing me to trudge on until the time arrives when some of the crap i'm working on finally succeeds in trimming the time i spend in front of a screen down to a manageable couple of hours – leaving the rest of the time to watch either a sunrise or a sunset whilst sipping a cooling refreshing breeze and contemplating my navels.

As a quick and easy back-up measure linux has more than proved itself. Quicker to set up and run, stable, hasn't crashed or seized up once since installing and that after putting on ubuntu 8.04 with a livecd, upgrading to 8.10 by streaming over the net, upgrading to 9.04 by another stream (and vowed never to do it again), then in moment of delirium and pitching all concern to the wind, i finished off by using the 9.10 alternative cd which upgraded the 9.04 in no time at all; an unexpected useful fall-back in an emergency, despite having to spend even more time in front of the bloody screen learning things anew.

The one thing this chapter has ensured is that after many abortive attempts linux is now my os of choice; and i am pleasantly pleased.

Hm. Bash? Man? Grep? Bash a mans grep, what the?...

Boodlynewyear

Well the old memorable decade and especially rubbish (starting to get the impression of a theme here) year are nearly neatly inturned, so with the usual nonsensical tradition of wishing in a better new year, my new years wish in best competition answering mode is "for an end to the mentality of ...

them against us, shaft or be shafted, law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, cops and robbers, beauty and the beast, good cop bad cop, good evil, god devil, angel demon, for us or against us, shitty options, shifty options, options that don't land us in the shit."

that always seem to hold us back.

Now, i just need to minutely examine my breath for an increase in superlatives.

Wishing everyone a wonderful, happy and more peaceful 2010.

The one day...

No buses polluting the air with revs, vibrations or fumes, no queues for thudding ear-splitting events "tossing the casket" with split pressure bangs, no relations nor relatives nor dogs slippering the streets, no cooking nor been cooked for bent double in the eve, no music, no crackers, in fact nothing pulled at all, no rubbish tv, no presents to open and say "thank you," before taking them back, no watching presents being opened and seeing them thinking of taking them back, no hordes of boy/girl racers outdoors, christmas in its own strange way is the most perfect day of all.

For a hermit.

Spiriting future

Day rotates thru night and the quiet, sulkily departs,

but, before the frost begins,

a screech rents the air.

"Punta. You tart," splits the silent night in twain.

When did I start dreaming in Spanish?

"Punta"

And i'm aroused...

To find the windows slight crack's filtering sounds,

no longer braced by fully formed foam.

A girl/wife/missus in flagrante with a brother/father/son's been found?

Then, as the fallen plug's popped, the last few hours skid,

into a filed abyss late 20 10,

riding blossoming morning sun.

Spiriting pasts

As 'mentalists in uganda pick up the cudgels and banners of hate, for the sake of "what is right", the ghost of amin past spins, if only half approvingly, in the knowledge a destructive legacy's still on the path.

Merrymass messages

In today's world you can't change your mind - changing your mind shows indecisiveness, caving in, being supine, falling under a guise, being a ditherer, neither martha nor arthur, in the air, air-head, wishful thinker; whilst going from birth to death in randomly different ways (even though on that final day our bodies slowly decay into worm food or take the quick flash-burn into energised atoms) is akin to a cardinal sin (to borrow from the floweriness of the rosary convention) unless, of course, you have the ability to snook-a-took at the mores, conventions and chains that tie you into our modern-cohesive-social-inequality prisons which dictate that you're doing okay, or will be okay, just as long as you put these blinkers on and don't deviate to far against the norms; sure make billions but don't obviously rip too many people off, or if you do (and get caught) don't look too smug; yes in the name of profit screw those far poorer just to cream that extra one tenth of a hundredth of a thousandth of a percent to show your competitor (or fellow presidents) who rules the roost, after all its only lip-service cutting the ribbon then adding an extra swiss zero: before flowing on to say things will get better as communities the world over cling to unending years of indentured hopefulness.

Oh, nearly forgot.

Merry cmas one and all.

Ho

Taxing happiness

It's amazing how people are quick to accept the worst (when it concurs) with what they expect, yet you can talk till your blue in the face and they just won't believe - but tell them what it is they wish to hear (true or false) and they'll hang onto those slivering scintillas like words of laws etched in stone.
So it was with the failed copenhagen climate summit - no really it was a momentous failure. We can already see the next bubble finding its feet, testing its bonds, flexing its teeth, as it will (in time) be another global behemoth added to the bills that we pay through sites which will have passed the veterinary test of anodyne inanity especially when they come to fully opening for your loyal injection or compulsory patriotic voluntary vote.
But things really go down hill after you pick the wrong contestant to win in the national v-factor, and you only evade communal-sanction by correctly placing your "x" next to the "correct" overlord in the nepac elections. Not to worry. Everything will be hunky everything will be dory; but above all, everyone will be happy!

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Passion and drama

A while ago, many years in fact, an advert used to run on terrestrial uk networks, in the papers, on the tube from a company whose brand has gone the way of many an old-world dinosaur institution (either been taken over or had a name change), saying “we never make a drama out of a crisis!”

It would seem that in the todays world things no longer need to be at crisis levels, before baby, bathwater, entire bathroom's pitched into the event horizon of despair by a misheard word, a misunderstood phrase, or just an "i" that haplessly wanders out of place.

Now though, we're conditioned upon hearing the words "terrorist" or "pedo" or (for those across the pond) "socialist", for the terms "no smoke without fire" or "they wouldn't go after anyone with proof" or "didn't know him/her/them well, they kept themselves to themselves" and so on, into mistakenly believing the kitty litter we're fed as being the only truth, the total truth and so true that nothing else can ever be true that contradicts what we've been told; otherwi- beepbeepbeepbeep...

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