My continuing search for seemingly unrelated jobs that go together continues.
Pharmacist and passport photo taker. Combined in Ireland, Italy and Poland but not in France. Completely inexplicable multitasking
Musicians and moving companies. Public enemy meet working in a moving company. What was that company’s slogan “We move your furniture with the righteous anger of warriors standing up the hypocritical hegemony that oppresses us, or your money back”? How many clocks do you reckon actually made it to the other houses? Flav probably had grandfather clocks hanging from his neck.
Also I just read this on wikipedia
"Phil Glass and I had a moving company for a short period of time. I
did all kinds of odd jobs" Steve Reich
Imagine that.
Customer: "be careful with that vase"
Glass: "huhuhuhuhuhuhu the Snoooooow"
Reich "baa baa baa baa baa baa"
"baa baa baa baa baa baa"
"baa baa baa baa baa baa"
There is a side of a van sign you do not see every day
“Minimalist avant-garde moving company. If it does not arrive you did not need it.”
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
Road Safety Adverts
Did you ever think you really do not get the point of something? I happens me all the time with films. I think "Forrest Gump" is the most biting satire I have ever seen and that "Leaving Las Vegas" was a comedy.
One thing that I always seem to take up wrong are those safety adverts on television. Most of my childhood was spent in terror of losing a frisbee in an electricity substation. This appeared to be the main cause of death amongst the jumper wearing freckle faced youths of our third world childhoods.
The latest batch of car safety adverts have all sorts of subtle messages subliminally inserted into them. The one of the guy who gets pissed after football and mows down the weird loner footballing on his own child. This is telling us not to drink drive during the day when children are likely to be around.
The main message in these ads is some sort of Taliban "women are evil temptresses, who should be locked away" screed. One is of a guy who is so girl crazy by his hormones he texts away onto a road and gets hit by a car. The message of stay away from the wanton bints is clear. One has a woman collecting her kid from school when a boy racer eying a saucy wench plows into the two of them. In the updated version the woman will be wearing a Niqab and no accident occurs. A "women showing your flesh drives men crazy causing them to kill people" message will then flash up.
While on the subject I think i should confess that I once made a mix tape of songs used in road safety commercials to subliminally try to get a friend of mine to slow down enough not to kill me.
One thing that I always seem to take up wrong are those safety adverts on television. Most of my childhood was spent in terror of losing a frisbee in an electricity substation. This appeared to be the main cause of death amongst the jumper wearing freckle faced youths of our third world childhoods.
The latest batch of car safety adverts have all sorts of subtle messages subliminally inserted into them. The one of the guy who gets pissed after football and mows down the weird loner footballing on his own child. This is telling us not to drink drive during the day when children are likely to be around.
The main message in these ads is some sort of Taliban "women are evil temptresses, who should be locked away" screed. One is of a guy who is so girl crazy by his hormones he texts away onto a road and gets hit by a car. The message of stay away from the wanton bints is clear. One has a woman collecting her kid from school when a boy racer eying a saucy wench plows into the two of them. In the updated version the woman will be wearing a Niqab and no accident occurs. A "women showing your flesh drives men crazy causing them to kill people" message will then flash up.
While on the subject I think i should confess that I once made a mix tape of songs used in road safety commercials to subliminally try to get a friend of mine to slow down enough not to kill me.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Get a Half Life
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Big Brother Eats Itself
So you feed cows to other cows and the cannibalism results in BSE a prion based disease that rots the cows brains.
You put a porcine wench of sub normal intelligence into a celebrity reality program. She is a celebrity because she was previously in the reality program. She turns into a mad cow. Live and don’t learn?
So you feed cows to other cows and the cannibalism results in BSE a prion based disease that rots the cows brains.
You put a porcine wench of sub normal intelligence into a celebrity reality program. She is a celebrity because she was previously in the reality program. She turns into a mad cow. Live and don’t learn?
Thursday, January 18, 2007
How to be Annoying
How about "A Hundred and One Ways to Start a Fight"?
Proprietor: ...By?
Customer: An Irish gentleman whose name eludes me for the moment.
I have a vast talent for being annoying and feel it is time to share this rich resource with the world. Follow this advice and you can turn your life into a Larry David like struggle with everything.
The key point to being really obnoxious is to act in a way that to an untrained observer seems perfectly friendly but to the intended target is incredibly insulting. Body language is a great way to wind up people, particularly if they are of a different culture. Most people will not accept that you thought it was de rigueur to blow your nose in a strangers t-shirt but equally annoying habits can be passed of as lack of cultural knowledge.
There now follows a list of completely innocent body language mistakes I have made in the past.
1. Attempting to tell the head of the Saudi Arabian Special Olympics delegation that everything was ok I made the divers ok sign. This is index finger touching your thumb with your other fingers relaxed. This to him meant “you are an asshole”. The diplomatic incident part of the evening then ensued.
2. Jogging your legs. Harmless appendage over activity to a Westerner is about as pleasant as hearing nails run down a blackboard while watching someone poking at their eyeball to the Nipponese. Try this next time you are at a Japanese restaurant it has the same effect as a pet scarer at a seeing eye dog centre.
3. Soles of your feet. Again with the Arabs. I seem to have some sort of unintentional social hari-kari when it comes to Mohammedians. Engaged in a nice chat cross your legs so your foot rests on your knee with your sole pointing towards an Arab. It is pretty equivalent to wiping your dick on their curtains.
4. Thumbs up sign to a Sicilian. There are a lot of holes in the desert and I nearly ended up in one.
Tragically this list could continue but the remembered embarrassment has started constrict me so I am going to leave it there. Still things are looking up now Ireland has gone from bad to diverse. I do not even need to go leave the country to cause an international incident.
Proprietor: ...By?
Customer: An Irish gentleman whose name eludes me for the moment.
I have a vast talent for being annoying and feel it is time to share this rich resource with the world. Follow this advice and you can turn your life into a Larry David like struggle with everything.
The key point to being really obnoxious is to act in a way that to an untrained observer seems perfectly friendly but to the intended target is incredibly insulting. Body language is a great way to wind up people, particularly if they are of a different culture. Most people will not accept that you thought it was de rigueur to blow your nose in a strangers t-shirt but equally annoying habits can be passed of as lack of cultural knowledge.
There now follows a list of completely innocent body language mistakes I have made in the past.
1. Attempting to tell the head of the Saudi Arabian Special Olympics delegation that everything was ok I made the divers ok sign. This is index finger touching your thumb with your other fingers relaxed. This to him meant “you are an asshole”. The diplomatic incident part of the evening then ensued.
2. Jogging your legs. Harmless appendage over activity to a Westerner is about as pleasant as hearing nails run down a blackboard while watching someone poking at their eyeball to the Nipponese. Try this next time you are at a Japanese restaurant it has the same effect as a pet scarer at a seeing eye dog centre.
3. Soles of your feet. Again with the Arabs. I seem to have some sort of unintentional social hari-kari when it comes to Mohammedians. Engaged in a nice chat cross your legs so your foot rests on your knee with your sole pointing towards an Arab. It is pretty equivalent to wiping your dick on their curtains.
4. Thumbs up sign to a Sicilian. There are a lot of holes in the desert and I nearly ended up in one.
Tragically this list could continue but the remembered embarrassment has started constrict me so I am going to leave it there. Still things are looking up now Ireland has gone from bad to diverse. I do not even need to go leave the country to cause an international incident.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Black beetle voodoo lounge Jan 15th 2007
The band seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves which makes a change from the deliberately grumpy careerists that you see a lot. They play driven repetitive rock like QOTSA which means they are, like Jesus, at their best when angry
The playing is pretty simple which is a good thing as it results in a cleaner sound then with Veto. Veto are a band whom black beetle have cannibalized for members. The future of this band probably depends on the singer. As his voice relaxed during the gig and became louder in the mix the whole sound and feel of the band improved.
One stand out track, mainly because all the audience bounced along was "stink bomb" which sounds like a cross between the Stunning’s "half past two" and Simon and Garfunkel’s "feeling groovy". None of these songs are actually called that.
The band seemed to play this as a joke which is good as it improved the mood but bad in that there is nothing to be ashamed of in writing good tunes.
The band seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves which makes a change from the deliberately grumpy careerists that you see a lot. They play driven repetitive rock like QOTSA which means they are, like Jesus, at their best when angry
The playing is pretty simple which is a good thing as it results in a cleaner sound then with Veto. Veto are a band whom black beetle have cannibalized for members. The future of this band probably depends on the singer. As his voice relaxed during the gig and became louder in the mix the whole sound and feel of the band improved.
One stand out track, mainly because all the audience bounced along was "stink bomb" which sounds like a cross between the Stunning’s "half past two" and Simon and Garfunkel’s "feeling groovy". None of these songs are actually called that.
The band seemed to play this as a joke which is good as it improved the mood but bad in that there is nothing to be ashamed of in writing good tunes.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Why is everyone so insufferably smug about global warming?
Every time you turn on Sky news it is a head talking about those hard steps of less air travel we have to take and the newscasters grin happily and slap each other on the back. Everyone suggesting changes to our use of carbon should stop sucking each others dicks for a moment and recognise
1. Wearing a jumper is pissing on a fire it will not stop global warming.
2. Putting solar panels onto your house is you trying to make yourself feel better for those weekend flights to cities with trendy wine bars.
3. Yes Fusion power and sea energy would solve the problem but so would magic pixie dust. As a general rule only solutions that involve things that actually exist tend to be realistic.
Why is everyone so happy about the idea of returning to 1950’s Ireland? This is a world with no foreign travel or even foreign food. Where the local food you do get is worse quality and more infested. Where you have to bicycle to work if you have a job. There are less jobs because things cost more so people buy less.
Changes will have to be made. We live in a society based on energy consumption. Energy which is rapidly running out and which is negatively affecting the planet. I am not disputing this just wondering why this fact gives us a warm fuzzy feeling inside rather then the abject terror it should illicit.
Every time you turn on Sky news it is a head talking about those hard steps of less air travel we have to take and the newscasters grin happily and slap each other on the back. Everyone suggesting changes to our use of carbon should stop sucking each others dicks for a moment and recognise
1. Wearing a jumper is pissing on a fire it will not stop global warming.
2. Putting solar panels onto your house is you trying to make yourself feel better for those weekend flights to cities with trendy wine bars.
3. Yes Fusion power and sea energy would solve the problem but so would magic pixie dust. As a general rule only solutions that involve things that actually exist tend to be realistic.
Why is everyone so happy about the idea of returning to 1950’s Ireland? This is a world with no foreign travel or even foreign food. Where the local food you do get is worse quality and more infested. Where you have to bicycle to work if you have a job. There are less jobs because things cost more so people buy less.
Changes will have to be made. We live in a society based on energy consumption. Energy which is rapidly running out and which is negatively affecting the planet. I am not disputing this just wondering why this fact gives us a warm fuzzy feeling inside rather then the abject terror it should illicit.