A Good Old Rant #123763

It's been a funny old week for me.

When I say funny I actually mean not funny at all.

In fact it would be more accurate to say it's been quite a painful week.

Both physically and emotionally draining.

I been a bit ill for most of this week.

Not ill enough to be able to have time of work, or a lie in or sympathy from loved ones. But ill enough for it to make a difference to my every waking moment... and there's been a lot of those moments because, due to the slight uncomfortable pain I have, I have not had much sleep.

Not being able to sleep means that I am tired and grumpy. Grumpier than usual.

On top of this the internet has been playing funny buggers with me.. In fact - just as I have written that very sentence the whole page has jumped half an inch to the left.

This means that I can no longer see the edge of the screen.

Why has this happened? I do not know.

I pressed a button by accident and now can not get the screen to look right.

This is a typical example of the kind of issues I have been having. Small, silly little errors that build up like a snowball that rolls down a mountain side and turns into an unstoppable avalanche, just as I've stepped outside to "write my name in the snow".

On top of this the internet has been running really slow and crashing all over the place and I don't know why.

It really creams my corn.

I'm usually careful with the internet. I don't go on websites I shouldn't, I never click links unless I know where they will send me, I don't even get spam emails.

In the many years I have mooched around the web I have never received an email telling me I could extend parts of my body, boost my wealth and sexual prowess or even make $$$'s from home.

Maybe I'm missing out. Maybe if I had taken the small risk of clicking those "too good to be true" links I could now be a multi millionaire, living on my gold plated luxury speed boat who has saved a foreign prince from exile, married a Russian gymnast and now have the ability to satisfy women from across the room without trying.

Alas - none of that is in anyway close to how my life has panned out since I first logged on to the internet in the mid 1990's with that AOL CD that came threw the post.

Instead I sit here with bad guts, an ingrowing toenail, huge bags under my eyes, a laptop with a suicidal "down button" on it's keyboard and await the wife to come home from work ready to give me a right good bollocking for not doing the washing up...... again.

I'm also quite hungry.


So all in all it's not been a funny old week at all really, unless you get off on that sort of thing.

What are you, a wierdo or something!

Emergency Post: I Have Broken The Internet (again)

Something seems to have gone terribly wrong.

I have been fiddling with the internet and it appears to have destroyed ALL the pictures on the blog.

God knows how I have managed to break the internet (again) but I have.

Thanks to Rob for bringing this to my attention.

After I have had a little cry to myself and gone for a long walk..... I will try and put things right.

But don't expect any miracles....



bugger.

*sad face*

How Does Steven Hawkins Manage?

As we near the end of April I also find myself reaching the end of my patience with technology.

Yet again my teeth are being ground down to the nerve by the never ending gnashing and grinding of my jaw.

I have very little faith that I would be of any use whatsoever in the event of some kind of global catastrophe.

WHY MEEEEEEEE!!!!

Never before in the history of the human race have we become so utterly dependant so very quickly upon little tiny machines made of cheap plastic and wires.

In the week that celebrates the 30^th anniversary of the Spectrum ZX I find myself cursing the invention of electricity.

30 Years old and as useless today as I am!

From the buzzing noise of the fan from my laptop to the failure of Sky Go to... well- GO! To the resounding sulkiness of my mobile phone refusing to accept an update.

The other night I wanted to watch the football. However MRs H had taken control of the remote control and was in charge so it was zombies all the way (until it got dark anyway – she won’t watch horror after dark – the wimp!)

But not being able to watch a game of kicking ball on the big screen is not the end of the world anymore. We now have the ability to view live action from across the world on the little boxes on our laps. And so that is what I set out to do.

Clicking on the link I eagerly awaited the screen to launch into the Chelsea v Barcelona game.

But alas this is what popped up in front of my eyes instead.

Bastards!

After many attempts and a little swearing I gave up and decided to speak to somebody at sky TV direct to resolve this issue of mine.

Here is an extract from my conversion...

Click to Englarge - as the acress said to the bishop...

Alas I missed what I am led to believe was a very entertaining example of Millionaires’ running about for a bit.

It seems apparent that with all this doodads and gadgets we now have in our lives to make things easier all we have is done is make things even more complicated and when something that we take for granted suddenly stops working... the whole world might as well take a tea break.

That’s how it seems to me anyway.

Oh yea – and Blogger doesn’t help itself either.

Rant over.

Carry on.

Self Pity And The Illusion of Popularity

First things first...

This is not a sympathy post – nor is it a begging post either. While reading this self deprecating post please be aware that I am incredibly bored and don’t know what I am doing with, well .  .  . all will become clear (I think).

I apologise now if this post is somewhat me me me and down beat, but a made up man has got to do what a made up man has got to do - even if I don't actually have to do it.

Now carry on.

In the never ending quest to occupy the time between any given moment and that point in existence when it all stops and nothing matters anymore I often find myself staring at the screen of my laptop in awe and wonder.

Boo Hoo - Im soooo alone...

The internet, as we all know, is full of nonsense and idiots (like this and me), but hidden amongst the highly unnecessary and quite vulgar amount of pictures involving naked women/men/various farm animals/household objects and any variation thereof not to mention the cornucopia  of puerile antics of faceless celebrities doing or not doing things. . . hidden somewhere in the darkest recesses behind the video of some pointy faced millionaires’ daughter doing things to a man and a couple of clicks away from the photo of “her off the telly who used to do that thing” is a thing called Google plus or Google+ for the internet savvy out there.

I however am not one of these internet savvy illuminati.

I am a bloke who has got far too much time on his hands although that does not excuse me for what I have done.

Waa-Waa I am interesting in real life...HONEST!!!

For some unfathomable reason I clicked a couple of buttons and ended up putting my face and name and DNA and inside leg measurement up on the web for all to see on the afore mentioned Google+.

For two weeks I have been staring at the pages of Google+ in mild confusion. Reading page after page of media types slowly changing their views on this new social website and how is becoming more and more popular, I thought I would take the leap of uncertainty and join up and learn what it’s all about.

Doing so, however, has left me feeling more alone than Lonely Len McSaddo from the village of solidarity.

When reviewing my so called circle of friends it really is laughably pathetic to include the BBC website and NASA (who are only there because they are the only things on Google+ that I recognise).

And so I find myself clicking on Google+ for no other reason than to play Millionare city. A game for children that is also available on Facebook, another screen to stare at but one which contains real life fleshy people I have physically touched in a none sexual manner (with their consent) at some point of my life. A time wasting exercise of futility that does nothing but mirror my own online existence.

*Sigh* Nobody knows the REAL me!

This is what happens when you go online using your real name.

Dicking about as Bumferry Hogart means I can pretty much say what I want about whatever subject I care and do what I choose without any real fear of consequence because. . .well, its not really me. I mean, it is me. I’m the one doing it, but the internet doesn’t know that (i think) and even if it did, I very rarely if ever do anything illegal or bad enough to warrant some policeman to drive all the way out here to extradite me to the US of A because if that did happen, I would just sulk my out of any argument they wish to put in front of.

So take THAT F.B.I.

And it’s amazing how little spam I get in my email.

In conclusion: I am an idiot. I know nothing other than I guess we’ll call it draw. I win in the anonymity stakes and the internet shows me just how much of a pointless battle it is because nobody was even watching, not even a spambot.

HA-HA! Screw you guys - I can lick my own balls!!

*ps – if anyone from the F.B.I. or C.I.A or Mossad or MI6 is reading this for any reason... that was just a joke y’know... don’t shoot me or anything... thanks.

Calm down

Sometimes it’s worth remembering that in the real world things can get scary.

Times can be hard.

There are those of us who live in fear of pain, death and torture each and every day.

Those of us who are lucky enough to have hot and cold CLEAN running water, a job, a roof over our heads sometimes forget just how lucky we are.

But then there are guys like Francis...

Please watch the video below all the way through.

I hope to which ever God is real that this is not a fake. I wish that this person actually exists, because if he does my self esteem just raised a little higher.

There are at least two points in this video i thought he was going to die...

The last 10 seconds made me do a little wee.

I’m not sure what it is he is so angry about, but boy, is he one angry fat guy!

Enjoy!

Is Anybody Out There?

Sometimes it’s no fun living in a caravan in the middle of nowhere.

As I write this I have intermittent internet access. I’m lucky if I can log on to my email account. 

Reading them is another matter. I have just pressed open for one email and have been watching the little thinking circle go round and round for over three minutes.

Any second now a nice friendly little message will pop up to tell me that my session has timed out and to try again.

... And there it is.

As you can see, the three opinions it has are: to wait - im not supposed to wiat, im am supposed to click a button and get what i want at the speed of electricity!

Then it starts to blame my computer. its blaming my equipment. the utter cheek!

Finally it likes to add insult to injury by telling because i dont want viruses and junk on my computer and have responisbly set up the weakest of protection, THAT could be the problem.

What a nerve.

Maybe I should jump into a pile of used needles. would that Firefox? WOULD IT!?!?!?!

SHOULD I NOT LOOK BOTH WAYS WHEN I'M CROSSING THE STREET. WILL I BE ABLE TO HAVE A CLEAR THIRTY SECONDS OF INTERNET THEN EH?

b'stard.

At no point does my browser take any responsibility for being useless. it just wants to pass the buck onto somebody else.

On top of this my mobile signal has been down for over four days.

My mobile phone is quite adamant that I must only be allowed to make SOS calls.

Text messages are arriving slower than second class mail and I am now in a position to communicate with the outside world.

It’s at times like this I realise just how dependant I am on technology. Each and every day I use my mobile, laptop or the computer in reception to do things. To calculate prices or take bookings. To receive my income.

I NEED a computer to check my bank account and pay my bills.

Without electricity I am unable to say hello to friends and family.

I am lost.

I am a victim of the modern world.

It has taken less than one week for my life to stall and come to complete stand still.

Right now there could be a world war going on. The bombs could be dropping and I wouldn’t have a clue.

Aliens could have landed or Jesus may have returned to tell everyone how Derren Brown did that 

lottery trick.

I would be totally unaware of any of this.

..Oh, its back up now... hang on a sec...

 

Good grief – Hightower from the police academy films is dead!

Do you see what can happen when I don’t have access to the internet? 

Someone is dead now!

Shit a brick!

It really is a scary world out there when you don’t know what’s going on.

Rest in peace Hightower.