After the saga of the kettle, now it's alarm clocks that are pissing me off.
We've had a projecting alarm clock for about ten years now, which means the time is always visible on the ceiling all through the night. It's brilliant, but the lead broke yesterday and the projection only works when it's connected to the mains. So the obvious thing is to go buy a new one.
Except that's not as easy as it sounds and the ones we could find looked a bit shit.
So I managed to modify the clock to accept a generic lead but for reasons that are too boring to go into I needed to get a new simple, cheap alarm clock to use just for the alarm, leaving that clock to do just the projecting.
So the first one I bought was a really simple, dirt cheap clock with a simple on/off button on the top. Perfect. Except that it ticks really fucking loudly. Who the fuck wants a ticking bedside clock?
So I took that back and got a digital one, smart move I thought.
Wrong.
This one comes with a blue label over the display showing black letters on a blue background. Slightly strange but okay.... what this actually indicates is that when you press the snooze button the blue light comes on and you can see the time. Except you don't need to because when it's dark the the numbers are really bright, in a kind of phosphorescent way.... and in our particular case I don't need to see the numbers at night cos my other clock is projecting the time on the ceiling.
What I actually need, is a clock I can read when it's light and I'm gauging how many more minutes I can stay in bed before I really have to get up (cos when it's light you can't see the numbers on the ceiling).
The thing is, when it's light the display looks black and that's when you have to press the button to light up the display. I mean what the fuck is the point of that exactly? Who wants a fucking clock you need to light up in the day to see? I really do wonder who signed this piece of shit off, I really do.
Sunday 17 March 2013
Sunday 3 March 2013
Card-meggedon...
It's Mother's Day next Sunday and I've just been to buy a card. So far, so good... I don't have a problem with that, my mum is okay, we're not super best buddies or anything but I don't have a problem with her or anything. What I do have a problem with is the fucking cards on display in the shop.
Firstly, I don't want a card with 'To Mummy' on it, nor one that's clearly supposed to come from a pain in the arse teenager. I also don't want one that eulogises endlessly about how wonderful my mother is, cos, like I said, she's okay, we get on and we have the same sense of humour but really, I'm a grown man, and I've been a pretty much perfect child. So I really don't have an awful lot to be grateful for, over and above the normal stuff. You know, giving birth, feeding me, clothing me, putting a roof over my head etc etc....
What I mean is, I haven't been any kind of drain on them for a good twenty years, I never trashed my mum's car, or got into massive debts and needed bailing out, etc etc....
Anyway, I'm getting off topic here. The point is the shops can only stock a finite number of cards and as I said, excluding the nauseating, eulogising cards and the ones that are clearly meant for people still living at home, that usually leaves me with a choice of one or two at best.
This unacceptable situation is only made worse by the ridiculous number of bullshit cards doing the rounds. I'm sure you've noticed this when you go to buy a birthday card, and indeed, I may have mentioned this before on this blog. Bullshit cards are cards that are so fucking specific as to be ridiculous. Time was if you had some kind of unorthodox relationship you got a non-specific card and you wrote in it. Then they developed the 'from both of us' card to help you out, so that divorced people in new relationships could send cards without offending anybody.
Over the years more and more bullshit cards have appeared, Happy Birthday from the dog / cat / rabbit / iguana / pterodactyl.... you get the picture. So today I wasn't particularly surprised to see Mother's Day cards for Nan and Grannie, even though it's rather missing the point. It's Mother's Day, so you send your mother a card and she sends her mother a card and (if her mother is still alive) she sends her mother a card. It's not down to you to send your mother's mother a card, or your mother's mother's mother a card. It's fucking Mothers Day, not Nannies Day or Grannies Day for fucks sake.
But today, I saw a card which pushed me to the brink of sanity, a card so fucking ridiculous that I almost grabbed it right off the shelf, ripped it into tiny pieces and pissed on it, right there in the store. Happy Mother's Day to the Mother to Be!
The fucking Mother to Be!
What the fuck is that?
Plenty of time for this shit when she's a mother, not before. And when pray, is it acceptable to send this fucking card? When the baby's due at any time? When the baby's kicking? When the baby's first diagnosed (yes, diagnosed... it's a disease that will make you tired, poor, irritable, uncomfortable, and could even kill you). Perhaps when you're just trying for a baby? God this makes me angry. Perhaps it would be a good card to send a woman you're hoping to get lucky with, kind of a statement of intent?
No this card is bullshit of the worst kind, and how are you going to sign it? From the foetus?
And what if the baby miscarries? Is this bullshit card going to be clung to like some bullshit message from beyond the grave?
No, I think it would be best all round if these cards were boycotted altogether, because somewhere some poor bastard is going to get it in the neck come next Sunday because his wife has a tiny bump and her didn't get her a fucking stupid 'Mum-to-be' card. The poor schmuck didn't realise he had to start that until the baby was actually born, the ill advised buffoon.
Firstly, I don't want a card with 'To Mummy' on it, nor one that's clearly supposed to come from a pain in the arse teenager. I also don't want one that eulogises endlessly about how wonderful my mother is, cos, like I said, she's okay, we get on and we have the same sense of humour but really, I'm a grown man, and I've been a pretty much perfect child. So I really don't have an awful lot to be grateful for, over and above the normal stuff. You know, giving birth, feeding me, clothing me, putting a roof over my head etc etc....
What I mean is, I haven't been any kind of drain on them for a good twenty years, I never trashed my mum's car, or got into massive debts and needed bailing out, etc etc....
Anyway, I'm getting off topic here. The point is the shops can only stock a finite number of cards and as I said, excluding the nauseating, eulogising cards and the ones that are clearly meant for people still living at home, that usually leaves me with a choice of one or two at best.
This unacceptable situation is only made worse by the ridiculous number of bullshit cards doing the rounds. I'm sure you've noticed this when you go to buy a birthday card, and indeed, I may have mentioned this before on this blog. Bullshit cards are cards that are so fucking specific as to be ridiculous. Time was if you had some kind of unorthodox relationship you got a non-specific card and you wrote in it. Then they developed the 'from both of us' card to help you out, so that divorced people in new relationships could send cards without offending anybody.
Over the years more and more bullshit cards have appeared, Happy Birthday from the dog / cat / rabbit / iguana / pterodactyl.... you get the picture. So today I wasn't particularly surprised to see Mother's Day cards for Nan and Grannie, even though it's rather missing the point. It's Mother's Day, so you send your mother a card and she sends her mother a card and (if her mother is still alive) she sends her mother a card. It's not down to you to send your mother's mother a card, or your mother's mother's mother a card. It's fucking Mothers Day, not Nannies Day or Grannies Day for fucks sake.
But today, I saw a card which pushed me to the brink of sanity, a card so fucking ridiculous that I almost grabbed it right off the shelf, ripped it into tiny pieces and pissed on it, right there in the store. Happy Mother's Day to the Mother to Be!
The fucking Mother to Be!
What the fuck is that?
Plenty of time for this shit when she's a mother, not before. And when pray, is it acceptable to send this fucking card? When the baby's due at any time? When the baby's kicking? When the baby's first diagnosed (yes, diagnosed... it's a disease that will make you tired, poor, irritable, uncomfortable, and could even kill you). Perhaps when you're just trying for a baby? God this makes me angry. Perhaps it would be a good card to send a woman you're hoping to get lucky with, kind of a statement of intent?
No this card is bullshit of the worst kind, and how are you going to sign it? From the foetus?
And what if the baby miscarries? Is this bullshit card going to be clung to like some bullshit message from beyond the grave?
No, I think it would be best all round if these cards were boycotted altogether, because somewhere some poor bastard is going to get it in the neck come next Sunday because his wife has a tiny bump and her didn't get her a fucking stupid 'Mum-to-be' card. The poor schmuck didn't realise he had to start that until the baby was actually born, the ill advised buffoon.
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