Saturday 31 December 2011

Blogger...

A short rant today, about a very small, but something that annoys the merry fuck out of me. When I'm using my laptop to access my blogs, I use the finger pad to left click (the left click button is very 'clicky' and annoying) and when I click on the 'Dashboard' link it doesn't always look as if it works straight away, so I click it again.... then guess what happens, it works twice, and guess what is in exactly the same place on the 'Dashboard' page....?
'Sign Out'.
Which is fucking annoying to say the least!

Friday 30 December 2011

CGI Fridays...

Last night Mistress R and I started watching the new version of 'Dorian Gray', I had high hopes for it since the original film is excellent, and Colin Firth is pretty reliable (even if he does play himself in every film). But within the first ten minutes Mistress R turned to me and said, those buildings don't look very real. Those building's being Victorian London, which unless I'm very much mistaken are STILL THERE. But no, in their infinite wisdom the producers had decided to recreate the buildings with CGI, the curse of the modern film.
Don't get me wrong, CGI has it's place. Films like Shrek, Toy Story and all those other films that used to be called cartoons are perfect for it, and if it's well done it can add to sci-fi, action and horror films, but then again it can also be horrendous.
You only have to think back to the trailer for the first Mission Impossible film and Tom Cruise's hilariously ridiculous jump from helicopter to train (I think), which kind of brought back memories of the brilliantly executed 'Carry On Don't Lose Your Head' and Charles Hawtrey's chandelier leap!
Or the second US Ring film...
In the first film CGI was used brilliantly, but sparingly, but in the second.... we had several deer straight out of Shrek attacking Naomi Watts in her car.


Ring 2 was a bit shit anyway (in the first film that kid was kinda spooky, but this time he's overacting like crazy), but once I'd seen this atrocious scene, any credibility it had left went completely out the window. Still apparently they are making Ring 3D, which will be out next year. And there's another thing, 3D. What a waste of everyone's time and money. I watched The Final Destination in 3D the other day and I have to say I'd rather have just watched it normally thanks, it added precisely nothing to the experience, other than draining all the colour out of the film and making my head hurt. 
Thankfully it seems that (as Mark Kermode predicted in his latest book) the 3D fad is already starting to lose steam, and a couple of nights ago 'Producers making films in 3D' were listed among the most annoying people of 2011 in a TV show. About time too! 

Thursday 29 December 2011

I've heard it all now...

Mistress R has a cousin with a 3yr old and a 6yr old. For Christmas the 6yr old wanted a Nintendo DS, which at well over £100 seems a bit excessive to me, but whatever. However, in the interests of keeping the peace, they decided that it would be easier to buy the three year old one too. Whatever happened to learning to share? Fucked if I know. But then I'm an only child. Not that that meant I was spoiled. Not fucking likely. If I'd wanted a DS as a three year old I would have been given a short bloody answer.
Furthermore, I can't remember exactly when I stopped believing in Santa, but actually I can't ever actually remember believing in him. I probably came out of the womb a sceptic. I can well imagine my mother putting me to bed on Christmas Eve, my pipe and slippers neatly tidied away in the corner as she told me to go to sleep or Santa wouldn't come.
"Don't be ridiculous mother, everyone knows that Santa is a fictional character... next you'll be telling me that there's an actual tooth fairy. Preposterous!"
Actually, Mistress R's cousin told us the tale of one of her friends who took her child to one of those Santa's Grotto type places a few days before Christmas, whereupon he sat on Santa's knee and told him he wanted a Nintendo DS (ah, yes, that again!). Unfortunately it seems the little sod had taken this whole thing at face value and had forgotten to mention this to his parents, which therefore left them in the unenviable position of having spent oh, several hundred pounds on what they thought he actually wanted, only to be left DS'less just a few days before the big day.
Now my first thought would be 'tough shit', followed by 'now would be a good time to explain that Santa doesn't exist', or perhaps explaining that 'while Santa does listen to what you ask he is bound by the fiscal realities of life just as we all are'. But no, it turns out this little shit had played a blinder. Now his parents would have to buy him a DS because they had told him not minutes before that he should tell Santa what he wanted and he would definitely get it.
Brilliant. Well in that case I want a ten inch cock, a six pack and a bigger house.
Ludicrous as this was, this all happened last year, and this year we hear that another child (or perhaps the same one?) was given an i-Pad for Chistmas. A three year old child with an i-Pad. That's fucking pathetic. I'm 42 and I've only just got a laptop!
The only good that I can see coming of this is that perhaps the child might look up Santa Claus on wikipedia and discover that actually he doesn't exist. Result for the parents, perhaps a book mark might be in order (or perhaps an actual book mark would be a more suitable present for a three year old?).

Tuesday 20 December 2011

Pippa Middleton's arse...

I just don't get it. What is the big deal with Pippa Middleton's arse. For a start you can hardly call it an arse, I've seen more curve on a teenage boy (ooh... better rephrase that!), erm, anyway... I'm not saying she's unattractive, she's alright, but she's being made out to be this humdinging sex bucket that every man wants to bed and I just don't see that at all.
It seems to me that the only people actually bothered are the press. It's almost like they were frustrated because they'd had this good looking woman (Kate) thrust into their grubby clutches and then as soon as she actually got married and became 'Royal' they thought they'd better tone it down a bit, so come the day of the wedding there was her sister, who looks not unlike her and she was an easy target.
You'd have thought they could've given her a bit of grace though, and not actually done it on her sister's wedding day. Then again maybe they thought if they didn't strike while the iron was hot (and Pippa's non-existent arse was on the telly) then they would miss their chance and she would slip back into obscurity, and what a shame that would have been.
Contrarily they are now claiming that she is pretty much undate-able, which is probably true to a degree. I mean what bloke in his right mind would want to lay himself open to the sort of attention that dating her is going to bring, even if he does get to touch her non-existent arse?


I bet Beyonce's worried.

Friday 2 December 2011

Price fixing in the 'air' industry....

Recently I have noticed that the price of air has gone up. Not only has it gone up, it's absolutely rocketed. Seriously, next to air the price of oil has barely even moved! I pulled up in my local garage to pump up the tyres on my car and went to put my 20p in the slot only to find that, actually it's gone up to 50p. A measly 150% increase.
Fuck that, I thought, I'm not paying 50 fucking pence for air. So I continued my journey and came to a garage where I knew they had free air. Not any more. Suddenly not only had they started charging for air, but they too were charging 50p. Several other garages were visited on my travels, but they had all seemingly overnight started charging fifty pence for air.
Now, it seems to me that if all the petrol companies suddenly put their prices up 150% there would be all sorts of recriminations and accusations of price fixing. So why not with air? I accept that maybe they have to put it up now and again, and if it had gone up to 30p then no big deal, but 50p is just profiteering in my eyes.

Thursday 1 December 2011

Starbucks...

No this rant isn't about coffee, I don't even drink the stuff. Nor is it about the evils of big brand coffee houses closing down local business, or the fact that Starbucks probably tastes nothing like 'real' coffee. I have no idea, McDonalds tastes fuck all like beef but a lot of people seem to like it (I had a McBurger once when I was about 15, never bothered again, disgusting. The fries are okay when you eat them but they leave a disgusting taste in your mouth for the rest of the day).
No, this morning on the news Starbucks announced that they would be creating 5000 new jobs in the UK by opening 300 new stores over the next five years. I'm not knocking that in itself, good on them, if I was out of work I would whore myself to Starbucks in a heartbeat, but what amazes and astonishes me is that in the worst financial crisis in decades, Starbucks have the potential to grow their business to such an extent.
I thought people's disposable income was in terminal decline? So why are people giving what little money they have to Starbucks when they could save a fortune by purchasing a mug, some milk and a jar of coffee. Sure it probably doesn't taste like Starbucks (and that's probably a good thing) but so what? You'll get used to it and save yourself a fortune.
And another thing, don't spend £4 a day on sandwiches, buy a loaf of bread, some meat (or whatever) and a lettuce. Don't tell me we are in a financial black hole, I won't believe it until people actually stop spending money on this crap.