Blog Archives
An open letter to the world’s manufacturers
Dear motherfuckers,
I’m not one for built in obsolescence type tin foil millinery but I’d quite happily pay more money for something that’s been slightly over engineered and is thus less likely to go tits up without warning in the middle of an important project, has shithouse customer support, and allegedly consists of absolutely no user serviceable parts whatever despite the English-as-a-second-language guy giving me a list of approved service centres where a man will almost certainly take a screwdriver to the bastard, remove a couple of panels, blast some air through it and put it back together for me with an invoice for a hundred bucks. Look, I can fucking do that myself if you tell me what fucking panels to remove, and if that doesn’t work then Mister One Hundred Dollars can have a look, okay? But only if he can give me a real fucking estimate over the phone.
Consider this customer feedback, you shower of cunts.
An extremely Angry Exile
This isn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel
The question is who will be Australia’s own “Snooki”, with Ten announcing its own TV reality series based on the hit US show Jersey Shore.
With its stunning beauty and “tribe-like” community, the Sutherland Shire, in Sydney’s south, has been chosen as the perfect location to shoot The Shire.
Network Ten has announced the commissioning of the series – which will follow the lives of a group of “charismatic” and “controversial” characters.
“The Shire is a fascinating look into a unique sub-culture in Australia and the first time a local dramality series is being introduced to the commercial television landscape,” says David Mott, chief programming officer, Network Ten.
[…]
“The genre has been a hit in the US (Jersey Shore) and the UK (The Only Way is Essex), changing the way people view television, and we intend to do the same,” says Mott.
Not so much scraping the bottom of the barrel as smashing right through it and tunnelling all the way through the Earth in order to scrape the underside of a barrel on the other side of the world. Gets some bloody good comments though (because unlike WordPress.com you can still comment at The Age).
My ex girlfriend lives in The Shire and looks like Snooki… and acts like Snooki.
Commenter M.O. – Location Sydney Date and time Mar 19, 2012, 02:52PM
Please Death – Just take me now.
Commenter Crackers – Location Any where but near a TV showing is ….. Date and time Mar 19, 2012, 01:05PM
Free to a good home. Sony 40″ TV
Commenter Sydney Fox – Location South Coast Woop Woop Date and time Mar 19, 2012, 11:07AM
The Shire…isn’t that where hobbits live?
Commenter Brendan – Location Date and time Mar 19, 2012, 08:31AM
every time I see something like this, that Mayan end times prophecy seems both more plausible and more appealing.
Commenter Roaster – Location Sydney Date and time Mar 19, 2012, 11:31AM
And the first and possibly best…
I’m emigrating to Pluto.
Goodbye and good luck.
Commenter pops – Location Melbourne Date and time Mar 19, 2012, 08:07AM
Quite a few commenters also mentioned a show here called Housos about people living in social housing, apparently with the expectation that they’ll be exactly the same kind of people doing the same kind of things. If that’s true then it really is time to arm up and run to the hills to prepare for the collapse of society – Housos was a satirical fiction portrayed by actors.
NSFW with the sound on.
What just happened?
What the hell’s going on? Yesterday evening I watched Adelaide (or Adeliade according to the on screen TV guide) win the pre-season NAB cup and today I see that Wales won the Grand Slam. If Lotus win the Grand Prix in a couple of hours I’ll be forced to assume that I fell through a hole into a parallel universe and everyone will be wondering why I keep slagging off their wonderful, super efficient governments.
2012 sees fiercest ever competition to be offended by Jeremy Clarkson
The annual competition to be outraged by something that Jeremy Clarkson said is shaping up to be hotter than ever this year, according to both organisers and participants.
First out of the blocks has been the Society for People with Lumpy Faces, whose complaint to Ofcom regarding Clarkson’s comment that a car with a bulge on the back looked like John Merrick and would be ignored by other cars at a party was timed almost perfectly, allowing most people to have forgotten whatever it was he said to upset the Indians. It’s expected that they’ll be followed swiftly by the usual complaints from short people that Richard Hammond never gets to drive the really good cars and shout “Power” a lot.
Adding to this year’s contest for the first time are some of the older and better known charities, who’ve begun to realise that for some years they’ve been neglecting the valuable source of publicity that the annual Clarkson Offence Competition has come to represent.
“Frankly, we’re kicking ourselves,” said Jacquie Russell from Battersea Dogs Home. “All these years Jeremy Clarkson has been describing shit cars as dogs and it didn’t occur to us to say anything about it. And now we find out that we’re too late this year because the RSPCA, Blue Cross, PDSA and Guide Dogs for the Blind are all ahead of us in the queue to complain if he says it again this season. We’re hoping he might say something rude about SW11 and we can join in local offence taking about that instead.”
Meanwhile the Cats Protection League are expected to do poorly with their complaint to the BBC about being marginalised in the competition due to the lack of offensive Clarkson remarks about cats. “It’s completely racist,” said a gorgeous little tabby kitten that you’d need a heart of stone not to adore.
Bookies have said that it’s early days and that there is no clear favourite as yet, while at a press conference the Top Gear producer and representatives for the BBC all insisted that the lucky winner will not be announced until the Christmas Special as in previous years.
“It’s like an elderly gypsy’s incontinence pants,” said Mr Clarkson at his home yesterday.
Today’s solution to a non-existent problem
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Occupy Wall Street activists are developing a social network called The Global Square for the generation of protesters.
“We don’t want to trust Facebook with private messages among activists,” developer Ed Knutson told Wired.
Of course, because nobody was able to send any messages before Facefuck came along, much less keep the contents secure, were they? Build it by all means, but it doesn’t sound like anything that couldn’t have been done before. What it does sound like is something that some Occupod-person will take out a patent on in an attempt to cash in. And who knows? Facefuck is looking a little tired these days and I can’t help thinking it’ll eventually go the way of MySpace and the rest, so if The Global Square became the next big interthing it could move whoever has that patent from the 99% they say they represent to the 1% they oppose.
All that glitters is not good
I hate to sound curmudgeonly but what the fuck is it with Christmas cards and glitter. I can sort of understand the idea, though not the appeal, in the northern hemisphere where it makes the front of the card vaguely reminiscent of that sparkle from frost, but why do they still do it on cards here where ’tis the season to be sunburned and wander about in boardies. There’s no frost and the closest thing to a light dusting of ice can probably be found on the local crystal meth dealer.
But more than that, even where it makes a sort of sense the fucking stuff is a colossal pain in the arse. It gets everywhere. I think it may have been Billy Connolly who described it as the greetings card equivalent of anthrax, and I completely get what he means. I’ve just opened several days worth of Christmas cards and there’s now so much bloody glitter on the table, the carpet and me that I wish I’d opened them in the garden, possibly with a lead lined box for the cards and some means of getting all the glitter off me before coming back into the house.
It goes against the grain to wish someone would ban the wretched stuff but if the greetings card industry can’t come up with a way of making sure the damn stuff sticks permanently to the card I’m going to start sending envelopes full of it to Hallmark. Nothing else, just glitter. And I’ll keep it up until they begin spraying some lacquer or something on the cards to keep the damn stuff on, or until the people I know stop buying them.
Is he allowed to say that?
Via Guido.
Funniest part for me was not Clarkson’s usual hyperbolic style, which is normally amusing but rarely to be taken too literally, but the look on Alex Jones’ face. At first it seemed as if she was wondering if anyone was allowed to say such things and was apologising for this crazy man with the grey pubes on his head who doesn’t say the kind of things BBC employees are supposed to, before switching to a stony expression suggesting she was as quietly appalled as if Jeremy Clarkson had said he wanted to put kittens in a blender. I’ve no idea if this impression is accurate or fair as I know nothing about Alex Jones or her politics and even had to google to find out her name, but I suspect that even if she didn’t feel embarrassed and appalled at Clarkson’s latest failure to be right-on and PC there will be many, many people at the BBC who do.
In Soviet Russia the news make you – UPDATED
Heh.
I don’t care if Tatyana Limanov’s fuck you finger was for technicians who were putting her off, if there’s any more to that than knee-jerk denial of the ‘Niet, we haff no tanks in Czechislowakia’ variety. The timing was sensational and if it really was aimed at the Obamessiah then fair dos, all I want to know is if she’s going to top it when she reads out something that mentions David Cameron and if so whether it’ll involve mooning the camera.
UPDATE – YouTube’s already pulled the video, by the sounds of things after a copyright dummyspit from the holders, REN TV. I’ve just changed it to one that’s still up but I expect that’ll get taken down before long too, so here’s a screencap for posterity.
Beiberporn and smashed dogs
With Bieberporn and smashed dogs appearing all over Faecesbook this week, no doubt giving the Zuckerfuckers another excuse in the not too distant future to demand your name, height, weight, gender, shoe size, proof of parentage and a DNA sample to satisfy them as to your real identity, this rant from Foamy the Squirrel seems appropriate.
Enjoy, and then get off Faecesbook if you haven’t already. You’ll feel soooo much better.
Occupy Hinton St Mary… inside village hall if raining
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The collection of 13 tents houses a group calling themselves Occupy Exeter, in tribute to similar movements which began in New York and spread around the world.
It comes after widespread criticism of the ongoing demonstration set up outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London, which last month forced the building to close for the first time since the Blitz.
The protesters did not disrupt either the Remembrance Sunday service or two minute silence held yesterday, which attracted hundreds of people to the cathedral’s main entrance, and laid their own ‘Occupy Exeter’ wreath covered with poppies next to their camp.
One of the group said: “We don’t want to antagonise people at the service. We have removed any placards which might have caused offence today.
“We are making sure the site is clean and we are recycling everything.”
Ah, well, fair enou… Wait, what? Exeter? For fuck’s sake, why Exeter? Was the train fare to London a bit out of reach or something? The grass a bit warmer on the bum than the cold slabs of paving outside St Paul’s?
Jeez, I thought Occupy Melbourne was a bit lame. Don’t get me wrong, I love Melbourne – I came ten thousand miles to live here – but despite a few banks and trading companies here I don’t think it’s really what you’d call a major hub of the financial world what with the Australian Stock Exchange being based in Sydney and all. Still, Sydney is 500 miles away and you can understand that that’s a bit of a trip. But Exeter? Nothing against Exeter either, but if I can’t put my hand on my heart and say Melbourne is a financial hub of teh ebil capitalist societeh then Exeter sure as hell isn’t, and it’s only a couple of hours or so on an express train from one of the most important financial centres in the world. Can you get much more tame without descending to the level of Occupy Budleigh Salterton or Occupy The Cricket Green, But Out Of The Way Just Behind The Sightscreen? Or, since on a worldwide level they’re almost certainly as much 1%ers as the ebil banksters they’re protesting against, the unbeatably slacktivist Occupy My Own Bedroom For A Bit?
Protest when and where you like by all means, but if you want to be taken seriously I’d suggest training, hitching or biking it to London and being in the place where the thing you’re complaining about actually is, which I thought was the whole bloody point of the Occupy thing in the first place. And if it means the inconvenience of travel and the discomfort of cold concrete I have good news – there’s a handy spray which can help.
Not feeling too flash
Tech stuff isn’t usually my thing but since I’m a moderate Flash hater – not because I’m an Adobe hater but because I know a few technophobes and I’ve been asked about a zillion times, “Oh, Angry, this thing keeps popping up on my computer, could you tell me if it’s okay” and it turns out to be yet another fucking Flash Player update and invariably prompting another conversation about why the damn thing’s needed at all – I’m not all that sad to hear about this:
IN a stunning move, software developer Adobe is reported to be throwing in the towel when it comes to getting multimedia platform Flash to run on mobile devices.
According to a report on ZDNet, the company is halting development on future mobile versions of Flash for Android and Research In Motion’s PlayBook, among other mobile operating systems.
The move would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.
It also would mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.
Admittedly I don’t own a mobile device that even needs Flash so this specific news doesn’t really affect me either way, but I do wonder if this might be the beginning of the end. If Adobe throw in the towel for Flash on regular operating systems as well that’d certainly affect me – not only would it be one less thing I get asked about but I could remove the Flash blocking apps from my computers.
Oh, I’d be just gutted.
PS…
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A new standard for "Too much information"
As reported already by Max Farquar and thoroughly pisstaken by The Daily Mash, The Daily Mail’s Liz Jones has given the world a new standard for TMI.
… I decided to steal it from him. I resolved to steal his sperm from him in the middle of the night. I thought it was my right, given that he was living with me and I had bought him many, many M&S ready meals.
Ugh. Between Dervla Kirwan’s soft porn voiceovers for M&S food ads and Jizz Loans’ revelation that she considers that buying some of their ready meals is a fair exchange for a Durex load of her other half’s baby gravy I’ll never be able to look at any ready meal ever again.
One night, after sex, I took the used condom and, in the privacy of the bathroom, I did what I had to do.
Stoppit, for Christ’s sake.
… I resorted to similarly secretive methods to conceive in my next relationship.
The saddest part of this for Jizz Loans is that having revealed herself to be a serial spunk thief – c’mon, Jizz, you knew damn well they weren’t just using a bag to avoid catching anything – her chances of finding anyone willing to play hide the sausage has, er, shrunk. There will be the usual blokey jokes about her looks and remarks along the lines of “I wouldn’t, eh, fellas?”, but with what the Mail calls her most shocking confession yet Jizz Loans has also shown a manipulative side that a lot of men will find a bit of a turn off.*
I’ll leave the last word to the Mash.
DAILY Mail experiment Liz Jones has urged men across Britain to send her their used condoms.
[…]
Jones said: “I can’t wait for the parcels to start arriving. It’ll be like a never-ending Christmas as I rip open each little packet and squeeze the contents into my trembling uterus.”
Meanwhile, she has urged donors not to include a photograph or any personal details as she wants her baby’s surprising DNA to provide up to five years worth of ground-breaking journalism.
Almost the last word. If anyone wants me I’ll be in the shed, upside down in a bucket of mind bleach.
* That wording implies the possibility of something even more shocking up her sleeve, or possibly on it. We can only hope not.
New £50
I’m going to take a punt and guess that the most significant new security feature is that it’ll soon be worth about thirty-six quid after the government tries to inflate away some of the national debt.
An old queen comes to Melbourne – UPDATED
Oh, hooray. An elderly queen comes to visit Melbourne today, and no it’s the proper one rather than a Priscilla variety so I shall be far too overcome with patriotic pride in the monarchy depressed to blog today. Normal ranting should be resumed late this evening as long as my natural curmudgeonly republicanism doesn’t get me strung up with red, white and blue bunting or thown before the Royal Tram. Yes, the Royal Tram. No, I didn’t know there was one either, and yes apparently we are supposed to so be ecstatic that a posh and very cashed up octogenarian tourist is going for a tram ride.
Melbourne’s custom-designed royal tram has been unveiled on the eve of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh’s visit to Melbourne.
Custom designed? Really?
The newly-painted Z-class tram will carry the royal couple from Federation Square, along Swanston Street to Government House Drive tomorrow.
[…]
Premier Ted Baillieu said the specially prepared tram would remain in public operation for the next year in honour of the Queen’s visit.
So “custom designed” means passing on tarting up one of Melbourne’s remaining iconic W-class trams, the ones still running on the routes tourists tend to use because they just look so good, in favour of a circa 1980 built Z class with a new paint job which, since it’s going to be used for normal passenger services as soon as she buggers off home, will be otherwise completely unmodified. Have I got that about right? Mind you, the last time I was on a W-class the bloody thing broke down, which is presumably why Oprah Winfrey had her boat race plastered across one of the big, new modern ones.
Anyway, for whatever reason Lizze’s got the tram equivalent of shoulderpads and a mullet, albeit with a coat of paint (can’t remember who but someone once remarked that the poor old dear probably thinks the whole world smells of fresh paint), but on the upside I’ll bet everybody’s too chickenshit to ask her to pay a fare. Even if she does I doubt anyone will check her ticket because despite seeing inspectors now and then in more than five years they’ve never checked mine.
UPDATE – Eating words time.
And like any other passenger the Queen had to pay her way, although her Australian equerry, Commander Andrew Willis, had the job of buying her ticket.
They used a myki – a pre-paid travel card – but it is not known if they chose the two-hour zone-one fare costing $3.80 or opted for the cheaper $2.80 dollar pensioner discount ticket.
Four mounted officers from Victoria Police escorted the royal tram which travelled at walking pace, during the eight minute journey.
Either way it’s a bloody good deal. Even if they didn’t go for the concession rate that means personal tram hire here comes out to $57 an hour, and that’s got to be one of the best value things for visitors to do in Melbou… what? What do you mean it’s not for everyone, just royalty?
Awwwwww!
The Angry Exile 