.... random rants and rambles. no agenda. yet.

Am I glad it's the weekend? Very glad. I'm especially glad because me and C spent a lot of last weekend Doing Things, and this weekend the only thing we're doing is going to see this play, which should be quite exciting, partly because I've never seen subtitled theatre before.

I digress. One of the things we Did last weekend was spend a lot of time skidding about in the mud picking up loads of rubbish that stupid people had thrown all over the nice countryside. No, we didn't lose our minds, we joined in our local Clean Up thingy, along with quite a lot of other people who agree that people who throw rubbish all over the countryside are stupid. Me and C were lucky enough (!) to get a whole patch of our own at the bottom of a slope, which looked like this when we started:

Well, actually, that's only about 20% of it all. And that bike was HEAVY, but kind of useful, as I used it as a kind of pick to jam into the ground and hang onto when I was skidding back up the slope again. No idea if that made sense, but it's what I did. Oh, and the speaker (the black box thing in the photo) was EXTRA HEAVY, and kind of fell apart on the way up the slope, taking me back down with it about 3 times.

Which brings me to ask: WHY go to all the bother of dragging a really, really heavy professional DJ's speaker along a countryside path and then pushing it down a slope, where it stays for a few years before some stupid person (i.e. me) comes along and almost breaks her leg dragging it back up and sticking it in a skip? Seriously... why?!

People are weird.

But that's not the weirdest thing we found... there were several bikes, a fridge, a mouldy old dartboard, a cooker, a sewing machine, millions of cans and crisp packets and God knows what else, all strewn across the countryside. And. That. Makes. Me. Mad.

Here's some of the evidence:

And when we had finished our patch, it looked like this:

I can't tell you how satisfying that was. Like I said, people are weird.

Posted by j at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

42) The Dog. OK... probably not so much The Dog as The Dog's Farts. Jeesh, there is truly nothing like them, in this world, ever. His most annoying farts are definitely the really, really smelly ones that he will drop whilst sitting very close to you, and then he will get up and walk off into another room because he can't stand the smell. Like he did just now, the git. And that is why we don't have visitors very often - those who have been here know they should stay away because he is trying to kill all of (wo)mankind.

Posted by j at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

40) PMT. Because it is another down-side to being a woman, like being paid less for working harder, having your superior intelligence ignored and your (fully covered) breasts stared at in supermarkets. Because it makes me crazy, irrational and sexist, and because it makes me type stupid things that are so going to annoy my male friends, who are probably going to risk their lives by saying smartass things in my comment box right now, just to make me crazier.

41) MT. BECAUSE IT STILL ISN'T OVER EVEN WHEN I HAVE MY DAMN PERIOD!

AND NOW I FEEL LIBERATED!

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39) The fact that it seems to be snowing everywhere in the UK apart from in NW England. We always get the worst weather here! It's not fair! And it's even worse when it's raining here while certain people (you know who you are, oh yes!) brag about the 17 inches of snow in their back gardens and insist on sticking their webcams out of their windows to show you how it looks in all its crisp, white, ready-to-build-a-snowman-style glory. Pah!

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36) Homophobes who hide behind religion. OK so we elect a Government to run this country and no-one's meant to be above that. If the Government creates an Equality Bill, why should anyone be extempt from that?! Why should Catholics get away with saying they'd rather close down their adoption services than let lesbians and gay men adopt? Where in the bible does it say a queer cannot be a parent? That is blatant homophobia.

37) Tony Blair. For supporting the above homophobes and trying to persuade his cabinet members to do so too. Remember this is the man who claims God told him to go to war with Iraq(!). As well as by bombing Iraq, Bliar annoys me by being friends with Bush, getting the UK into a whole load of trouble, pretending not to be a war criminal and ignoring environmental issues. He is annoying just by being PM, I guess. Oh, just go away, Mr Bliar, and take your mate Bush with you. Roll on May!

38) George Bush (re-entry). For supporting the above, and basically being an idiot.

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35) Spam (again). I keep getting fake emails from fake people with fake names and fake subject headers, saying useless, nonsensical things like "Orange airport tree man pilot heart teddy bear television gun boat money." What is the point?! Aaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

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33) Spam. It's everywhere I look - in my email inbox, in my junk mail folder, my blog comment box and even on my doormat (in paper form). Get this, spammers - you are not welcome here. And if you dare to come, you will be junked. Bye!

34) Caterers who don't understand vegetarians. Putting cheese on top of meat is not a good idea. It's also not a good idea to hide ham inside a cheese sandwich. You never know who might bite into it! (I almost did, but C saved me at the last minute... as usual!)

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31) Bureaucracy (again, yes; very annoying!). Sending me a letter to tell me something I'd already been told twice yesterday via email is so not a good way to save trees.

32) Recycling bins. Why can't they make them so that they don't fall apart, or make everything else fall down when you open them, or blow away in the wind, or whatever?

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30) Touring caravans. They have to drive really, reallllllllly slowly, forcing everyone else who has the misfortune to be driving behind them to drive really, reallllllllly slowly too, thus creating long, longgggggggggggg traffic queues in hot, hotttttttttttttt weather. Aaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhh! What's wrong with a tent, I ask?!

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29) When people assume working from home is impossible. No, I don't spend all day in the garden. In fact, I spend all day upstairs in the office in my shorts and t-shirt, because I have work to do and I don't like the smell of melting laptops. I could work in the garden if I wanted to - that is the point - but I don't want to. The point is, I have the choice, and you don't. Hahahahahhahahaaaaaaaaaa *waggles thumb on nose*

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27) The Telephone. You know, when you email a hearing person you've never met before and ask them for information about whatever, and then they reply to you and ask for your phone number so that you can discuss it further, and then when you reply to say no, sorry, you are Deaf and therefore prefer email/MSN/whatever, you never hear from them again. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy this obsession with sound?!

28) The World Cup. Noooooooo! Enough already! No further comments, for I have too many of them. Hmph.

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26) Those stupid England flags that people attach to their car windows. Why?! They look ridiculous. I counted 18 in about an hour the other day. 18, in an hour, I tell you! It can only get worse... the World Cup doesn't start until next month!

And I won't be watching!! So there.

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25) Cycling in the rain. I might as well just have got on my bike and cycled through a swimming pool, fully clothed, this afternoon. Pointless. I hate Preston weather! It's wettttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt! Agh.

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24) Those stupid automated email things that try and force people to join their friends/share photos/find out a 'big secret'/whatever, in 'social' groups online. Grrrrr. I always just ignore them... and then I get more automated emails telling me I've forgotten to reply, when I haven't, I am ignoring them. If I do reply and say 'no thanks', they then have the cheek to ask me if I'm sure. I'm sure I'm sure. And the answer will always be no. No, no, nooooooooo. Geddit?

FFS, they aren't even sent by real people!

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23) Sultanas in Bombay Mix. Whoever decided that that was a good idea made a big mistake. It so wasn't! Just as well Harry likes them...

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21) Broadband equipment that blows up. Was offline for two days this week (and I have to say it was kind of peaceful) cos my router plug blew up inside and died. Funnily enough, A had the exact same problem last week, and so did the man in the shop, who said if we phoned Belkin they would send a new one. Phoned Belkin, who sent a new one, no questions asked. Well, I have a question for them: "If you KNOW your equipment is crappy, why sell it?! Some of us have jobs that depend on broadband, thankyouverymuchfornothing."

22) Being dependent on the Internet to the point of obesssion. See above. Life was so much simpler when people used inky pens and paper for work, was it not?

Discuss!

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19) Forms. They always want to know ridiculous things like exactly where you've lived for the past 17 years, exactly how long you lived at each place, and exactly how much you earn (f***ed if I know?! that's the point of being freelance, is it not?). Then you have to make sure you've ticked all the right boxes and provided all the right proof of ID, or you have to start filling them in all over again.

20) Being forced to start filling in forms all over again. This has happened to me twice, and I'm not sure which time was the most annoying; the time I had to fill in a long, long, longgggg form TWICE because my signature was like, one millimetre outside the box I was meant to sign it in and the guy at the Post Office said I had to fill it in again... or the time I had to fill in another form twice AND go and get my passport photo taken again because I was smiling too much in the first one, and the other guy in the Post Office wouldn't stamp it for me, and he made me go and have it done again, making absolutely sure that my eyes were completely open and my mouth was shut.

Heavensakes. Down with forms!

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18) Our plumber. Firstly, cos he made us get up an hour early this morning (bearing in mind today is MONDAY, so that was extra cruel). Then, AFTER we had got out of bed and taken everything out of the boiler cupboard so that he could actually see the boiler, and we were sat in the kitchen trying to wake up properly, his office phoned to say he couldn't come today.

AND when he comes, just like last time, I know he won't tell us what's wrong with it, and I won't be able to lipread him (not even when I ask a simple thing like "would you like a cup of tea?"). And then he will come back about three times, and charge us millions of pounds for it all. AND ONE WEEK LATER THE BOILER WILL BREAK DOWN AGAIN!

If anyone knows of a good plumber in the Preston area, please do let me know! :o)

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15) Huge piles of Xmas rubbish. My Toxic Waste Neighbours have made an excellent start to the year by piling up enough, er, toxic waste to destroy a couple of small planets. Thank God I'm not Victor Meldrew-like enough (yet) to email the Council...
Instead, I think I will write them a note to say something along the lines of RECYCLEEEEEE PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAGHHHHHHH!

16) 'Fitness' DVD Overkill. Is there a rule somewhere that says all people who were in Big Brother and other 'celebrities' have to do this? What's wrong with a run round your local park?

17) January. The month of resolutions and no money. And it seems to have snowed everywhere except here, where it's raining as usual.

Bye! :-)

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I realised today with shock that I haven't been annoyed for over a month, so I thought I had better be, if only to keep up my grumpy old reputation. Here goes...

12) Xmas shopping online. Well it's great cos you manage to hide from all those obsessive crazy shoppers who crush you to death, but it's also a bit crap when you wait ages for, like, 8 parcels, and they all arrive at random places. IE you have to drive to industrial estates in the middle of nowhere to pick them up, or the delivery guy just dumps them with a random neighbour. Stress!
13) Outdoor xmas lights. Especially the ones that people put on their houses and flashflashflash: why?! The worst ones are the ones with a fake Santa/sleigh on the roof. God. Bizarrely, last weekend I saw a house with big lights like that, and a collection box nailed to the garden gate. Next to the box, there was a sign: "Please leave a donation for old people in residential homes who may not be lucky enough to see these lights." Bloody cheek! I'd pay for them NOT to see that eyesore..!
14) Xmas. See above!

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11) Bureaucracy. Today I wanted to book a room with a computer to work in, but first I wasn't allowed because the woman in charge of room bookings thought I was a student (that always happens), and then I wasn't allowed because all the rooms for two people with computers were booked, and THEN I wasn't allowed because she decided I should be booking under another department.

So I went to the other department and the woman there said I wasn't allowed to book their room either, and should book a room in another building. I pointed out that the rooms in the other building did not have computers, so she said I should book with the original woman who I tried to book with in the first place. I told her that Woman 1 wouldn't let me.

Woman 2 then went to have a "word" with Woman 1, and came back and told me to go and see Woman 1 again and everything would be fine. So I went to see Woman 1 again and instead of biting my head off, she was all nice and smiles. And she wrote my name down again, on top of the tippex which she had put on top of my original booking.

When I left the building about 30 minutes later, she was still drawing pink lines in her room bookings book with her highlighter pen.

I am like, WHAT?!

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9) Periods. They take so long to come, and do strange things to your mind and body while you wait. And why don't men have to have periods?! That fact makes me even more annoyed, although I do feel a bit better when I remember it'll probably be cos they simply couldn't cope. After all, women are the stronger sex. We have to be, thinking about the amount of crap we have to put up with.
10) Me. I'm the grumpiest bugger I know!

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8) Mornings. When everything goes wrong. “You really, really do allow yourself to be irritated by the smallest things in life,” C said this morning, after I grumbled how untidy the recycling pile was looking. And as usual, she was absolutely right. Bugger. I’m annoyed and its not even 9am(!)

*goes off to get a life* ;)

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6) Students who puke in the streets. You know it's the start of a new university semester when you see last night's sick and pizza boxes thrown all over the road/pavements when you're walking to work. Why can't they wait until they get home?! And for the record, I didn't do that when I was a student. I just stole road signs and things... much more hygenic.
7) MSN Emoticon Obsessives. Make them stop! Especially the flashy one that hurts my eyes! Bring back conversations not cartoons!

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..... Many things annoy me, so I think I'll just create an ongoing Annoyed list that I can add to from time to time. Offloading in this way should a) make me feel calm and nice inside, and, so, b) make me less grumpy, and, so, c) make me nicer to people in general.

Here goes, in no particular order!

1) People Who Don't Reply to Emails. Even when they're urgent! Or even when you KNOW they've read your email, but can't be arsed to answer your question/say they're busy/tell you to go away and get a life.
2) Internet forms that time out. You know what I mean? Those forms that you spend ages filling in, for example typing an email... you press "send" and whoosh! They've disappeared. And then you have to START ALL OVER AGAIN. Grr.
3) George Bush. Nothing specific; just a general thing.
4) Preston (UK) weather. You leave home in the morning and it's freezing, so you take a thick coat. By lunchtime, it's really hot. Then it rains.
5) Junk Emails. I DO have a sense of humour, honest! I just don't like reading jokes all day every day! And I don't like the ones where people/animals get squashed either!

... Think that's enough for today... now everyone's gonna think "what a misery guts" and stop reading my blog. Fine. At least now I feel better after getting all that off my chest :-D

Am off now to be nice to someone(!)

Grumpy Old Me xx

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