Friday 17 April 2009

19. These are a few of my least favourite things...

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.


Sorry I haven't been on lately, work's gone a bit mad (or rather, I've gone a bit mad at work), and I just haven't had the time. The world, however, has carried on being stupid in my absence.

I'll admit now that a cameraphone is very handy for capturing the things that make you scratch your head and go "WTF? I'm on a Samsung D900 at the moment. It's got a shit lens, and I mostly keep it at a lo-res as it's easier to send MMS pics that way. What I'm trying to say is that some of the pics aren't great, but you'll get the idea.

What follows isn't earth-shatteringly puzzling, but how are we supposed to take care of the big questions in life when the minutiae makes no fucking sense?
Come on reality, sort your shit out.

Are you going to burn it or not?


Now, as usual, I know what they're trying to say, but someone was employed to write the copy for this sign.
There's a dye device in the machine which will stain the money in the event of machine-tampering, rendering it unspendable in (sensible) shops and banks.
But that's not "completely destroying" it, is it?
What the sign implies, to me, is that if you have a go at the machine with a screwdriver or a bulldozer, the cash, the machine and the surrounding area (probably about a half-mile radius) will be incinerated... and you along with it.
So it seems a bit of a waste of time "making it all red" it first, surely?

(Oh, and they've given "dye" a capital D for no apparent reason, and it just seems wrong without a full stop at the end - an exclamation mark would be even better)


Underground delight


They're putting a new foul sewer in.
...as opposed to a bright, fluffy, sewer with fairly lights on it.


In, out, shake it all about


Why would I need to know about this as I'm driving along? In case I acidentally veer off onto this side-road, confused by the lack of signage? Or maybe, just maybe, they mean I should be cautious of vehicles coming from this unknown region, and onto the same carriageway as me?
In which case, the words "Concealed EXIT" would be more useful, I think.


Pointless charity appeal


Take a look, this is happening next week. It's a charity truck-pull to aid the family of a British soldier killed in Afghanistan last year. No problem with that whatsoever. A few points though...
• The truck's going to be empty, and it'll be pulled by the whole regiment. It's not like Geoff Capes in the 70's or something.
• They'll have collection-buckets with them for the people cheering them on to donate to a worthy cause. Only... someone's organised this on a THURSDAY, when most people are going to be at work, and the only people there to cheer them on will be the spiritually-crushed unemployed who can't really be giving that much cash away anyway. They might as well be getting the local Cub Scouts to pull a cart through a ghost-town.

***** EDIT - TWO DAYS LATER *****
Thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that it's a general lack of excitement that's my problem here. They're pulling a bomb-disposal truck, so this could be solved one of two ways.

• The truck is armed with a time-bomb, and the only person who can diffuse it is back at the barracks, so they've got to make it in a certain timeframe.
• The truck is armed with a bomb like the one in Speed. We don't have to go daft, just set the trigger-limit at 4mph, so that if they stop or slow down dramatically...
Just a thought...
***** END OF EDIT *****

But good luck to them anyway (seriously).
And speaking of the army...


Two layers of pointless uniform


Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the army - they do I job I couldn't do for many reasons. It seems to be being run by some kind of dickhead though.
The guy above is patrolling the local barracks. You can see he's wearing a Hi-Vis waistcoat, with his regular camo-gear. What's the point of that? They're just cancelling each other out and he's perfectly visible without standing out.
They might as well just let him come to work in jeans and a cardigan. Speaking of jeans...


Free clothes? Really? :|


Saw this in Sainsburg's (oh yes, they of the beer-maths monstrosity). Now, in any clothes shop it wouldn't stand out, but Sainsburg's do those heavy-duty carrier bags where you pay 10p, and they replace it for free when it wears out. They (and many other supermarkets) call this scheme "a bag for life".

So am I to assume that if I buy a pair of jeans here, they'll replace them when they're on the way out? Yeah, I don't fucking think so, either.


The Megadeth cruet set?


Saw this recently in the window of an independent furniture shop. Nothing outstanding here is there? A pretty standard range of standardly-priced dining furniture. Except for...

They got Napster shut down for less than that! I'm telling.


Sack your IT "genius"


A local estate agent has a plasma monitor in the window that plays a slideshow of available properties etc. Presumably they also get to charge more for advertising folks' houses in this way, and it draws the attention of passers-by at night.
How very 21st century! Oh hang on...

It was hanging like this all night. A momentary blip, I know, and hardly devastating in terms of revenue-loss, but it made me laugh. Serves them right for using Norton. Fupping munts.


***** EDIT - TWO DAYS LATER *****
Been past again tonight, and things are looking even better for the Estate Agent...




Oh, I'll definitely consider them now, knowing they're looking at pron all day...
***** END OF EDIT *****


P.S. My Head's Inflated


Another Sainsburg classic. They must get seriously bored in there.
Saw this and thought, wouldn't it be a very different movie, if Gerard Butler was playing a man who'd died from having a giant orange for a head, which got infected after he had £5 crudely tattooed on it?
I don't think Swank would have to much to smile about then.
Unless she was after his fruit-insurance, of course.
Then she could take a trip out to Seville to follow a series of letters, or whatever that film's about.
Oh, and the Man from DelMonte would be the executor of his will.


Calling all perverts...


Train station. Photo-booth. Gents' Toilet.
Not unusual for them to be connected, but a built-in photo-booth next door to the gents is just asking for myopic-based comedy incidents.
I didn't wait around, the tension in the air was unbearable...


And last but not least...


This is quite old now. Saw it at Oxford train station, advertising their latest on-board magazine. This was approximately a month after being made redundant from light-furnishing company "The Pier" when the company folded as the administrators didn't sell it to ANY of the three interested parties that they said didn't fucking exist but we all know they fucking did because some of us had fucking SPOKEN to one of them.
Who says Karma doesn't have a sense of irony?
(actually, no-one. That's kind of the point of Karma, I suppose...)

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And those are just some of the things that have been bothering me recently. But I don't let it grind me down too much, because I have you beautiful people to share it all with...



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.