...it's really difficult to teach yourself to do that stick-your-fingers-in-your-mouth whistle from a website when you're at work and you can't do it loudly.

James Blunt is sooooooo posh. And punch-inducing.

The Hungarian for 'wooden spoon' is phonetically similar to 'fucking hell'. So whenever you say "fucking hell" in front of a Hungarian person, they hear "wooden spoon".

And an affectionate way to say goodbye in Hungarian sounds like "pussy".

My mom is getting a Blackberry as part of her work as an advocate/support worker for foster carers. She has no idea what a Blackberry is. She will use it as just an ordinary mobile phone, if she ever has it switched on.

It's strange how people you didn't speak to much at school talk like they were your best mates on Facebook. And it's annoying when one of them who is now a DJ in some loose interpretation of the word uses Facebook to invite his entire friends list to every single night he DJs at some shitty club in Birmingham. And it's perplexing when some people who really should know better actually go (or at least say they are "attending").

I had more, but I have forgotten them. Wooden spoon. This will have to do.

An email forwarded from a work colleague.

What, you ask, is "Butt dust?" Read on and you'll discover the
joy in it! These have to be original and genuine; no adult is this
creative!!

JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby
sister. After a while he asked: "Mom, why have you got two? Is
one for hot and one for cold milk?"

MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old! she was. Granny
replied she was so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie
said, "If you don't remember you must look in the back of your
panties. Mine say five to six."

STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom goodnight. "I love you
so much, that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my
bedroom window."

BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a painkiller. She
tried in vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her
frustration, her Mom explained it was a childproof cap and
she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with wonder, the
little girl asked: "How does it know it's me?"

SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups.
"Please don't give me this juice again," she said, "It makes my
teeth cough."

D.I. (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: "How
much do I cost?"

MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging
and kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them,
he asked his dad: "Why is he whispering in her mouth?"

CLINTON (age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried. When his
Mom asked what was troubling him, he replied, "I don't know
what'll happen with this bed when I get married. How will my
wife fit in?"

JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read:
"The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of
the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt
Concerned, James asked: "What happened to the flea?"

TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly,
rather wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a
while and then asked, "Why doesn't your skin fit your face?"

The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget this particular
Sunday sermon... "Dear Lord," the minister began, with arms
extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned
face. "Without you, we are but dust." He would have continued
but at that moment my very obedient daughter (who was
listening!) leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her
shrill little girl voice, "Mom, what is butt dust?

What happened to the flea made me laugh out loud!

Another lazy post, but I'm quite busy today - mainly due to all the procrastinating I've been doing all week catching up with me.

Three kids in a playground talking about their dads and how great they are.

The first one says, "My dad is the fastest man in the world, he can outrun a tiger."

The second says, "Yeah, well mine can outrun a cheetah, he's so quick."

The third is unimpressed and laughs, " Mine works for the council, so he's the fastest."

"What do you mean?" the others ask.

"He finishes work at 5:30 but he's home by 2:00."

I don't want to appear ungrateful, but...

One of the Hungarian guys we have working in the office here just made me a coffee. He always refuses when I offer to make him one, but I'm not proud.

I don't know what he's done to it, but it's vile! I mean, it's only instant, how can you do that wrong?

Maybe that's how they drink it in Hungary. Maybe that's why he never wants a cup when I offer - I make it wrong for him.

Bleugh.

Have you heard about the new service that British Airways are offering their business class passengers?

Apparently, they fly you directly to the car park.

*takes a deep breath after laughing for aaaaages*

Oh god, I think this is the funniest Youtube video I've ever seen, and believe me I've see a few...

My favourite is the one at around 35 seconds!

*wees*

Oh, balls.

The message on the ESB helpline has changed, our area isn't mentioned any more. Do you think that means it's sorted?

If so, I have to vacuum the stairs when I get home, before Landers gets back from the airport with his parents.

Grrr.

(Some people are never happy, are they?!)

...but when it does it fupping throws it down, then hails, then there's thunder and lightning, and then the power goes and Landers is left sitting in the dark.

A recorded message on the ESB helpline:

We regret that we have a major fault in the general area of Landers and Brad's house. We do not have an estimated restoration time at present.

I don't remember ever having a thunderstorm in England in the winter...

OK, he's home. My boss took me to pick him up, and then took us both to the garage where the company I work for has all their work done.

They are going to pick up the car - which is parked on double yellers outside the bank cos he was just nipping to the cashpoint - and sort it out (once and for all, hopefully!), bill the company, and I can pay it back out of my wages. Sorted.

Landers went to the auto parts place while he was in town looking for wheel nuts for my car, only to be told that they have to order them. The guy at the garage said the same thing, but there is a place in Galway that will have them, and our friend said he'd pick them up if we needed him to.

And now for the Numpty entry.

The nuts we needed? They're the ones that held the spare onto the back of the car. Landers just found em.

So, my car is back on the road - albeit without a spare. Hope he drives carefully!

I just read an article on the dangers of heavy drinking...

It scared the shit out of me!

So that's it. After today, no more reading.

Landers just went into town.

Landers stopped at the bank to get some cash out.

Landers' fucking car won't fucking start.

I guess it wasn't the battery...

There were four things discussed at the Apple event yesterday:

First, a wireless network device with a built-in hard drive, for automatic backups and storage. Pretty good idea, especially if you use Apple's newest version of OSX with Time Machine.

Next, new features for the iPhone and iPod Touch - these were leaked last week, so no surprised. Some cool mapping features and some customisation options were the best bits.

Third, the iTunes movie rentals I mentioned. US customers can now rent movies via iTunes, and those with newer iPods can put them on those to watch on the go. Also, AppleTV was updated to enable it to access this feature, and a few others that should have been included in the first place.

Finally, the biggy, was a new ultra-portable laptop. The Macbook Air (MBA) is so thin, it fits in a manilla envelope!

And no, it's not a huge manilla envelope, that's on a big screen.

Look how thin it is:

Absolutely tiny.

It's a decent spec laptop, it has a full-size screen and keyboard, not a tiny little fiddly thing where you press four keys at once if you're not a 12-year-old girl, and it also has a "multi-touch" track pad - same sort of thing as you get on an iPhone, where you can move stuff around and rotate things on screen using different gestures on the little pad. It's perfectly fine for browsing the web and light office tasks, a bit of photo editing, that sort of thing, but not really geared up for large scale video editing or 3D gaming.

The really odd thing about it is that it has no CD/DVD drive. I was a astonished at first, but then I thought about it and I can't remember the last time I installed something off a CD. I download everything, and more and more software is becoming available this way.

But even if you have to have a CD for something, Apple have come up with a solution: Remote Disk. Software (that ironically comes on a disk) that you install on another computer (Mac or PC) that lets the MBA use that computer's CD/DVD drive. Clever, eh?! I would imagine that installations take a bit longer than normal, but like I said, I rarely install stuff from CD now anyway!

Remote disk doesn't let you burn CDs, but Apple have also released a USB DVD writer to match the MBA - costs extra, though.

Which brings me neatly to another potential sticking point - there's only one USB port. So if you have the USB DVD writer, you can't use anything else while you're using it. Of course you can get a hub but really, would it be so hard to put two ports in there?

There's no wired ethernet port either (it has wireless networking built in), but you can get a USB one - using up your USB port, of course. Hope you don't want to burn any DVDs if you don't have a wireless network!

One more niggle, and I'm done - the case is sealed tight, with no user-replaceable battery.

I've had my Macbook for about 18 months now, and the battery is still useable - for now. But they don't last forever, and I already get noticably less time to play without being plugged into the mains before I have to recharge it. I have the option of just ordering a new battery, and that little annoyance will go away. So such luck for MBA users - they will have to send their computer in to have the battery replaced.

So, all in all a very pretty little device, lightweight and speedy, but not for me. Especially with the price they want for it - £1200.

Click here to see the Macbook Air in detail.

Gah! Need something to happen before I have to go home!

Clicky if you're interested in Macworld 2008.

Clicky if you're not interested in Macworld 2008.

It's that time again!

Apple event time! It's Macworld 2008, and traditionally this is when new Apple products are released or at least announced. Last year, in his keynote speech, Steve Jobs' told the world about the iPhone.

"There's something in the air." That conjures up wireless stuff, and it's been pretty much confirmed that iTunes is going to offer movie rentals, which could be streamed wirelessly to iPhones anf iPod Touches. Boooring. I hope it's hardware related - a super-small tablet computer, full of Maccy goodness. So small it's lighter than air! Only time will tell.

The Apple online store is down, the keynote is due to start at 5pm GMT - and I go home at 5:30. You know, home, where there's no internet access so I can't follow the announcements as they go up on the tech blogs.

*sob*

Hope my feed reader on my phone is up to the task!

Since the end of November, I have had three coldsores. Three. I must be really run down. I don't feel it - although I did have that snotty cough for a good while. I suppose it's been a stressful time, moving and being skint for Christmas, and now all this car trouble.

This current one is massive! It's actually almost two, one either side of my top lip! Luckily, I have plenty of generic-Zovirax-type-stuff to slather all over it and stop it erupting too badly.

As long as I can restrain myself from picking at it.

My car is still off the road, due to dodgy wheel nuts. I'm not prepared to drive it without the proper nuts.

Landers got his car back on Saturday, with a reconditioned started motor. It started fine on Saturday at the garage, when we left Helen and MJ's, when we left Tuam, when we left the supermarket, when we left for him to drop me at work this morning, when he left to take Helen's mom to the airport, and when he left the airport to come home.

He decided to stop at Tesco, about halfway home.

He got back to the car, and it won't start.

I can't get to him to help him, he can't get home, BUNCH OF FUCKING ARSE!!

EDIT: He's walked to a garage, they're fitting a new battery for €100. Hope that was the problem!

EDIT 2: He's on his way home. *phew*

I was disappointed that only one person commented on my rather smashing t-shirt in this picture, originally posted on Landers' blog.

I mean, come on! It's Thundercats! And my eyes are glowing too, like someone put that little pushy thing in the button on my back!

...I found the glove! It's fine. A bit damp, a bit of mud, but it'll just brush off when it's dry.

I hope.

Do you know what the most annoying thing about walking home last night / to work this morning was?

My house is actually about half a mile from my work.

But the roads all go the wrong way!

Look:

I know it may be hard to believe given the level of detail, but that map is just a drawing, not a screen grab from Google Earth, and is therefore not to scale.

If I could traipse through muddy fields and traverse the currently swollen and fast-flowing river, I could be here in ten minutes!

Sorted!

One of the guys from the workshop lifted the car with a forklift, the axle seems fine, we took the wheel off, put the spare on (although the wheel is different and the nuts don't go all the way on...) and I can drive it home tonight! It seems like the jack supplied with the car is just not up to lifting the car high enough.

The wheel needs replacing though - whatever happened has wrecked it - it's burst inwards. Hope they're not too expensive over here.

Can't drive it far with dodgy nuts!

So last week, Landers' car died.

It's currently at a garage, hopefully being sorted. When Landers has needed to go out, he's used my car, dropping me off at work.

That's what happened yesterday. I finish at 5:30pm, and at 5:29pm I received a text message from him that read:

I'm here, but we're not going far.

He was just pulling into the carpark when he heard a BANG and when he got out and looked, he found out that one of the rear tyres was flat. He drove the car out of the way a bit, and by this time I was out there too, and we set about changing the tyre for the spare one.

I say we, I watched and held my phone up as a makeshift torch, while Landers set about changing the tyre for the spare one.

After much fiddling with silly covers and locking wheel nuts, he got the jack out and starting lifting the car. The car went up and up, and the wheel stayed exactly where it was on the ground. It's a little jeep type thing, so the suspension is good - but it's not that good!

We were unable to change the tyre, so we put it in a parking space, locked it up and walked home. In the miserable drizzly rain. It's only about 3 miles, took about 50 mins or so. But it was horrible in the dark and the rain. It's a little country road, and the cars come flying down it at 50MPH - scary!

Of course, that meant that I had to walk to work this morning as well. I set off in the dark at 7:40, and as I walked, it gradually got lighter and lighter, and I saw that it was the most beautiful frosty and misty morning. But it was fucking freezing.

Due to the cold, I had stolen borrowed a pair of gloves that Landers had from his mom and dad for Christmas. Nice soft suede ones, with a strap round the wrist to keep 'em snug.

I was about 5 mins from work when my mobile rang - a friend who is hopefully sorting out getting my car moved for me. I took one of the gloves off to answer the call. I chatted for a couple of minutes. I hung up.

I couldn't find the glove.

I'm more upset about that than my car!

Going back to look at lunchtime.

It was reported last night that Beyonce is in fact the love child of the
late and great Record Breakers presenter, Roy Castle.

A spokesperson from Beyonce's record company has said that she is
pleased by the recent discovery, but will not be taking her newly
discovered father's surname.

*wees*

From sickipedia.

Prepare yourselves.

Clicky!

I had an opinion changed last night.

BBC3 have a series running this week - Kill It, Cook It, Eat It.

They follow animals from walking into the abbatoir until the meat gets to the plate. Very interesting, nothing left out. Quite graphic, you see the slaughter and the process of removing the skin and offal and everything.

They've done it before, but this time the emphasis is on young animals. Monday was suckling pigs, Tuesday was kids (baby goats), tonight it's lamb.

Last night, it was veal.

Now, I knew the rules had changed and the calves had to be treated better and allowed more space and whatever, but I still had a sort of instinctive feeling of wrongness about the whole thing. Quite probably a lingering mental image of poor animals in crates for the entirity of their short lives, unable to lie down or even see another calf, living in fear and discomfort so that the meat stayed pale and tender.

Animals now have to be able to socialise, they have room to move about (although they don't have to be allowed outdoors - but it's better than it was) and they have a better diet. Previously, they were purely milk fed to keep the meat as pale as possible. Now they have to have some fibre - the meat isn't as pale, but that's the law!

So that was all news to me.

The real clincher though, the thing that has made me want to actually go and buy some veal right now, is this:

Veal calves are actually a by-product of the dairy industry. In order to produce milk, cows have to have calves. Obviously some of these calves are male. Bulls don't produce milk - no good for the dairy industry!

The breed of cows used for dairy production doesn't make great eating apparently (unless they are raised on milk as veal), so they're no good for that. Nobody will pay good money for an adult bull for the meat - the farmer would make a huge loss when you consider the cost of raising the animal.

The only options are to either sell it as a very young calf where the tough meat is used in ready meals and pies, sell it as veal calf to foreign countries where the rules are not quite the same and the animal has the stress of being taken on such a long journey...

...or, the more common option, the animal is simply shot and incinerated.

That's right. One of the consequences of all the milk, cheese and butter produced in this country is that every year, thousands of animals are shot and incinerated because they serve no purpose for the farmer and he needs to cut his losses. I think that is absolutely unconscionable.

The calves are sold abroad because veal is such a niche product over here. If there was more of a market for veal, if more people were aware of how it was produced, educated about the changes that have been made, these calves could be providing food - their lives would actually be used for something other than fuel for a funeral pyre.

Of course I would rather the calves were allowed to grow up and live in a field and have a lovely life full of frolic, but that would only result in the above mentioned unsellable product that farmers - who are already battling Supermarkets to make ends meet - cannot afford to keep. There is no market for the meat they produce as adults.

In short - if you drink milk, eat cheese or use butter, you should eat veal.

This post is based almost entirely on what I saw last night, please feel free to educate me if I am wrong!

EDIT: If you're in the UK (I'm not) you can watch the programme on the BBC's iPlayer service until next Wednesday (16/01/08). Click here (hope it works!). Be warned, it's pretty graphic in places.

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce the Liar Paradox!

This statement is false.

From Wikipedia.

I was all set to hate Dancing on Ice. Again. Except for the whole "annoying celebrities smacking their heads off the ice at high velocities" thing, obviously.

But now I've got to watch it.

*sigh*

But really, "celebrity" supporters - Diane Louise Jordan? Come off it, Timmy.

Lazy blogpost, I know, but they made me laugh so I wanted to share:

The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

My wife was so excited when we went to the grand canyon,but when she eventually saw it her face dropped a mile. It was my fault really, I pushed her over the edge.

From www.sickipedia.org

...until I go home.

Which is fantastic news cos I need to *ahem* download some James Brown, and I'm not using the toilets here!