The vote is yes.

"It is amazing and laughable how effective the brainwashing of the vast majority of the planets bi-pedal sapient population has become; in fact, stupidly amazing.

Just give them another few years. The pendulum will have reached its moment of piquant apogee, before starting its rapid retreat to the other side and taking their civilisation with it..."

Ides

Andromeda

Source images from NASA

Puss & Boots

You are about to blow up a plane.

To kill hundreds of people in the air and possibly on the ground.

It doesn't matter whether you do it in the plain light of day, or tucked away out of sight; the end result will be the same.

But, then we have the two attempted plane bombers - who we shall call: puss & boots, if the intention was to bring the planes down, then why after flying for so long, why at the last moment do they miraculously lose their focus and turn from being martyrs of adoring waiting virgins, into a terrorist version of frank spencer?

Surely if the aim was to down a plane, wouldn't you inject your pants whilst sitting on the loo in the loo, at least you'd have minutes of peace to make numerous attempts without having those very same people you're attempting to murder trying to pummel your ineptitude into an orbit all of its own?

Remember, this is from the very people who planned the destruction of numerous iconic buildings whilst they cosseted it up thousands of miles away, in the dusty bleak wasteland of the mountainous east; managing to hijack planes and thwart the best that trillions in defence spending could offer on 9/11.

Is it me, or does each time this particular shoal manages to bob its way to the surface, it has a disturbing tendency of smelling like a trawler full of nasty old pollock?

Yipper-yapper

Despite all the yapper about an election year, it doesn't feel like an election year, in fact it feels more like an old grizzly lumbering its way to a scratching post and getting ready to aim a rump at the front row, just in time for the prime-time circus.

With less than four(?) months to go before a swarm of "x's" change the stripe of the same jacket, and despite the continual ya-bo-sucks-to-you politics in parliament, it feels as laden with energy as a fallen yorkshire pudding feeding a family of 20. 

I could, however, be mistaken and simply missed the pulsating venom of change coursing its way through the populace with each passing day; a case of casting out the old, by replacing with the same-old.

Notes in time

Total insanity has been achieved... tom tancredo... depressive webs... vitamins... money grows on trees and you are the tree... upgraded speeds... ah screw this, i'm off to bed.

Bubble prick, bubble prick

Scour... scour... scour...

Ah, how nice the austrialian internationaliased  porn watcher's managed to keep a hold of his job, after his fiporn escapade — no doubt in contravention of his employers (macquarie's group) terms & conditions of employment; you betcha if he was watching anything else 'appropriate' he'd  have been out on their ear, hounded and vilified for life, which shows that if you want to watch "appropriate" porn at work — move to australia!

Scour... scour... scour... 

South Wales Police said it had been called in to investigate a 61-year-old man from the Vale of Glamorgan on suspicion of possessing indecent porn.

Indecent, not appropriate and it hasn’t been splashed all across the globe, good to see no  avenue, branch or sprigs being left unturned in the collection of this damning evidence.

Scour... scour... scour

In new delhi the chief justice of india k g balakrishnan suggested on sunday that the government should impose a ban on websites that exclusively display pornography and hate speech. 

I'm only moderately surprised the term terrorism didn't pop it's wee head onto that list. 

So three different takes on the issue of porn dependent on where you are, who you are and how popular you are in the moment.

I would scour myself, but need to find a port.

Coldest, warmest, time for a stringy thermal?

Well the past few years have seen some of the warmest years since non-fudged records began: more floods, more mud slides, more heat-waves and associated fires, and even winterest winters; this year's already providing the worst snow fall on record to affect parts of the states, europe, the coldest in the uk (well at least for a while), each week seems to set another record before being surpassed by another-... ohh  circustainment's here...

"And what is going on with mps and their expenses?"

Damn, wrong channel....

"Yes studio it's a blood bath, the mobs beating the crap out of the chinchilla because it's deigned to snap a sneeze, whilst the great big st. bernard/rottweiler/gorilla combo — that's already bitten off a couple of arms and heads — is actually being given a box of treats by a flurry of trembling hands poking out from bloodied bitten, holed and shredded vests.  Amazing!"

Around the world in 80 sleeps

In 80 days time it will be international noise awareness day, for all of you who will weep on this day, i'll be there spiritually weeping alongside you; but, in the meantime i shall be sending out appropriate and timely emails to those entities that have shown as much regard for their neighbours as a dealer selling ingredients fit for inclusion in a victoria sponge claiming it would give you the best high since sliced bread.

The 28th April 2010 is the date, and this is it's 15th year.

I wonder how many cumulative years are spent by people who’s every waking moment is spent just battling against the rush of even more gadgets that you just want to smash, or break or shove wear the sun don't shine — sometimes when thoughts flicker across the idea of how devastating a major planet-wide calamity would be, it's quickly followed by thinking how peaceful it would be on a dead airless extinct planet, yep pretty peaceful. Selfish? Oh yes - remember this falls under that environment thing i mentioned a while back.

So if you're suffering noise of any kind that's a constant irritation: record, log, tabulate, contact your environmental department, get a pair of noise-cancelling headphones (a pair are on their way so i will test them out and see), which might be the thing that briefly helps you retain a scintilla of sanity, leaving you to querulously observe the approaching white van coming to take you away, before you start gibbering incoherently about stabbing speakers with a jug of ionised water.

As much as i doubt the council, the club and the centre for conveyancing (sorry but tfl just doesn't have the c*&?# in it), doing anything other than retort with the usual platitudinous response upon receipt of their emails, always but always give them a chance; if they do and things change, i'll eat my headphones*

Stick it in the diaries, 28th April 2010 — international noise awareness day, otherwise known as turn that bloody racket down day!

* sugar spun headphones contain 80% sugar and constitute 20% of your simple carbohydrate rda.

Soft and smelly chocy drops

So, it's the end of an era at Cadburys as the soon to be ex-chief (mr stitzer) will be leaving apparently with a potential package worth about £20m - no need to worry about contacting the jobcentre then, but it might be worthwhile as in a few years he'll be eligible for the winter fuel allowance and with fuel costs set to increase by 20% over the next decade, it might just be worth that call to prevent a horrid dent in his savings – well at least for an hour.

Once Kraft gets through with the takeover, and the job cuts (terry who?) start whether this or next year, i doubt the ex-employees will be given a severance package anywhere near as beneficial, which would probably be a good thing as anything over £6,000 and they'd have to fend for themselves as far as the government’s concerned.  But when 5,947 of them are worth the ceo’s leaving handshake, of course the government will have to take a very dim view of why they've made themselves deliberately unemployed by not working harder in the first place.

So remember the next time you don't receive a pay rise, or the pay rise is so small that it just covers the price of a second class stamp, that you are doing your bit by saving your company from rack and ruin, and ensuring that those who deserve it, get it.

New horizons

Hm, from every major disaster there's a silvery lining - or so that particular rubbish saying goes; as believing in the best, from the worst tragedy, is always our way of dealing with things when reality deigns to not play ball.

So nasa might have missed out on the extra cash they wanted for a manned base on the moon or a manned mission to mars; which is sad considering that it would have cost less than 10% of banks mega-bonus annual billion give-aways to bankers whose usefulness to the vast majority on the planet is a smidgen above zero - absolute zero.

But, i don't recall hearing anyone say anything about not building a base on an asteroid whether manned or automated, and i'm not talking those little small football sized asteroids, but asteroids a good few kilometres in size - something like ceres at 466km, they'd provide a vastly greater challenge than building on a planet or a moon - and just imagine the huge net of sensors with their only power requirement being to sense and transmit, as propulsion would be provided by the asteroids own motion as it zips its way through, round or out of the solar system, in the end even the greedy industrial corporations would scramble to get on board; the entire process for the fly-bys could be fully automated, eventually the  asteroids could be moved with small and regular gentle nudges to change their trajectories and speeds, until - over time -  the process could position them into a nice high orbit and make them available for mining, which would do away with having to destroy our environment, which would allow building to occur in space cheaper and even  (in time) maybe alleviate the need for countries to invade other countries for their resources whilst trotting out the usual specious excuse of "we're here to help the people" as there would be more than enough floating around for the most greediest of greediest power mad gits out there to be bathing in it until they breath their last.

Ah, keep on forgetting that for 100% greedy or power mad in the world, enough is never ever enough.

And at least the hawks in governments could put their loony star-wars-lets-rain-death-from-the-skies equipment to some useful use to point and take out stray asteroids, which may or may not suffer technical trajectory malfunctions ending up hurtling towards some major megacityburb.

Or we could just wait for a major disaster (a when not if) to come about, with those watching in their floating hotels been on the last technologically capable outpost, the last  survivors with only a couple of months supplies, until they too perished.

Choices choices…

"Eating decent food instead of junk crap is a lifestyle choice; deciding whether you'll be wearing levis, wranglers, dickies or slumps is another lifestyle choice, deciding whether you’ll hang with bums or swing with the stiffs is another lifestyle choice, wanting to believe that rock you stubbed your toe on whilst surfing is god - is a lifestyle choice..."

"Nothing to see here, be a good citizen and move along."

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.