I didn't really have a particular subject in mind for this week, so here's a selection of things that have been getting right on my tits this week. I suppose that now that qualifies as a subject, but whatever: I've got Prince on my stereo and I feel good.
He's not actually on my stereo, although that would be awesome. Anyway, here's my list.
People who turn up late to gigs
This is a relatively fresh one in my mind, as I've just come back from an awesome gig in Brighton. Now, I've got time for those people who want to play with their phones in order to take a picture or something like that. I've got less time for those people who have their phone out in order to send a text, because firstly I think it's a little rude to the artist to suggest in any way that you'd rather be somewhere else but there (although in the case of successful artists, they surely won't give a fuck about some insignificant jobber playing with their new iPhone - more on that later by the by), and secondly the light can be quite distracting. As I say, it's not so bad when it's for taking photos, because at least it shows involvement with the actual event that's taking place in front of you.
What really annoys me though is when people turn up late to the start of a gig, for similar reasons of distraction and a very slight contempt for the people around you, and to a lesser extent the artist involved. I should probably clarify that when I say "people who turn up late", I don't mean by a few minutes into the first act. That's understandable, that can happen for any number of reasons, like traffic or an over-long meal fiasco or something like that. I'm talking about when they turn up around an hour and a half into the show, and the answer is yes - I have seen it happen.
The main reason it annoys me is because of the following advertising slogan:
Gigs without Tall people
Can't understand the connection? I'll contextualise. Essentially, this is a genuine advertising slogan that decries tall people at gigs, suggesting that they somehow cause the show to be less awesome. It was a Coke Zero advert, and it's given me the right arse. Here's the deal, folks: I'm 6'7" tall, and I'm not exactly proud or ashamed of the fact that this is the case.
Yes, I make use of it where I can: I can always find someone in a crowd, and I rarely trip over forwards and fall. Most of the time, I lean like that Michael Jackson video. Takes some doing to get back from there without the use of industrial cable, I tell you. On the other hand, I tend to find that I bang my head on doors quite a bit. Also, buying shoes can be an absolute bitch unless you know where to shop. For instance, Dr Martens have an online shop that's really handy for tall people, and the prices don't really reflect that you have to pretty much kill and skin 4 cows to get the materials necessary to make a single shoe in UK Size 15, which is nice on the wallet.
But this advert doesn't focus on the woes that come just as frequently for the vertically blessed person as for the vertically challenged people. It instead suggests that tall people somehow ruin gigs. That's right, let's pick on the people who have no control over the problems they inadvertently cause, and let's forget that they pay the exact same ticket price as everyone else in that section. I'm also, incidentally, not calling for a tall person tax on gig tickets, because if that is to be brought in then they should endorse the Arsehole Tax I've been talking about for years and solve the recession based solely on the people in front of me on my drive to work.
He's not actually on my stereo, although that would be awesome. Anyway, here's my list.
People who turn up late to gigs
This is a relatively fresh one in my mind, as I've just come back from an awesome gig in Brighton. Now, I've got time for those people who want to play with their phones in order to take a picture or something like that. I've got less time for those people who have their phone out in order to send a text, because firstly I think it's a little rude to the artist to suggest in any way that you'd rather be somewhere else but there (although in the case of successful artists, they surely won't give a fuck about some insignificant jobber playing with their new iPhone - more on that later by the by), and secondly the light can be quite distracting. As I say, it's not so bad when it's for taking photos, because at least it shows involvement with the actual event that's taking place in front of you.
What really annoys me though is when people turn up late to the start of a gig, for similar reasons of distraction and a very slight contempt for the people around you, and to a lesser extent the artist involved. I should probably clarify that when I say "people who turn up late", I don't mean by a few minutes into the first act. That's understandable, that can happen for any number of reasons, like traffic or an over-long meal fiasco or something like that. I'm talking about when they turn up around an hour and a half into the show, and the answer is yes - I have seen it happen.
The main reason it annoys me is because of the following advertising slogan:
Gigs without Tall people
Can't understand the connection? I'll contextualise. Essentially, this is a genuine advertising slogan that decries tall people at gigs, suggesting that they somehow cause the show to be less awesome. It was a Coke Zero advert, and it's given me the right arse. Here's the deal, folks: I'm 6'7" tall, and I'm not exactly proud or ashamed of the fact that this is the case.
Yes, I make use of it where I can: I can always find someone in a crowd, and I rarely trip over forwards and fall. Most of the time, I lean like that Michael Jackson video. Takes some doing to get back from there without the use of industrial cable, I tell you. On the other hand, I tend to find that I bang my head on doors quite a bit. Also, buying shoes can be an absolute bitch unless you know where to shop. For instance, Dr Martens have an online shop that's really handy for tall people, and the prices don't really reflect that you have to pretty much kill and skin 4 cows to get the materials necessary to make a single shoe in UK Size 15, which is nice on the wallet.
But this advert doesn't focus on the woes that come just as frequently for the vertically blessed person as for the vertically challenged people. It instead suggests that tall people somehow ruin gigs. That's right, let's pick on the people who have no control over the problems they inadvertently cause, and let's forget that they pay the exact same ticket price as everyone else in that section. I'm also, incidentally, not calling for a tall person tax on gig tickets, because if that is to be brought in then they should endorse the Arsehole Tax I've been talking about for years and solve the recession based solely on the people in front of me on my drive to work.
The news this weekThe news this week has been prevalent with a couple of principal subjects. Firstly, the massively underwhelming performance by England in this year's World Cup has occupied a fair few headlines. What annoyed me the most about this was Capello's idea that the team was "tired" when playing poorly. Here's an idea, players: Buy some fucking energy drinks. If I feel like crap, I dose up on Monster or Relentless just to be able to give 100% on a shift. If I've got the money, you certainly fucking have: you make my yearly wage in about three days. Stop fucking whining, you utter cunts. Plus you've put James Corden on TV more. Wankers.
Aside from that, apparently, about ten people have been arrested on suspicion of being Russian spies. That doesn't actually piss me off, as I think the idea of spies in the information technology age is bloody hilarious, particularly as if you want to find out major secrets of the world's defence bodies, you can usually find them in coffee shops on left-behind work laptops. But I digress.
The main political news aside from this in the UK has been the announcement of a referendum on voting reform, giving the public the chance to decide if the existing system needs to be changed, which I already chipped in my two cents on Here (if you're a lazy reader, I essentially said "yes"). What has the Prime Minister said on the subject? He's planning on campaigning against the changes to the voting system.
What's the point of doing it then? If the main guy in charge of the running of the country's affairs is against the change, he's going to do everything in his power to stop it from happening. In case you forgot, we gave him a fuckton of power when we gave him enough votes to get most of a majority, along with giving the Liberal Democrats enough votes to give one or the other party sufficient majority if they convinced the Lib Dems that their presence mattered. Essentially what happened in the election is that we swapped a lying wanker in a red tie for two lying wankers in blue and yellow ties, both of whom seem vaguely uncomfortable working together (as exhibited by situations like this).
I sense a bitchslap coming...
The other point on this week's news is about the new launch of the Apple iPhone 4, the supposed revolution from Apple which "changes everything. Again." I'm not even making this up, that was from their sales pitch. It's eerily reminiscient of Wrestlemania 20, where it all began again. All my friends and I were of the understanding that Wrestlemania 21 would see everything begin again again, but alas that was not to be.
The main issue, it seems, facing iPhone 4 users (although supposedly this does not affect all users, as drooling fanboys seem all too keen to point out) is that a few users experience signal droppage and lost call connections when holding the phone in a certain way. The advice of Apple, from the keyboard of Mr Kool-Aid himself, Steve Jobs, was simple. Essentially, he told the guy: If you're having a problem when you hold the phone in a certain way, hold it in a different way.
Incidentally, did you know that Apple pay people to be in their stores called Geniuses? How fucking patronising is that? "Oh, you're experiencing problems with your Mac? It's nothing to do with the fact that you've essentially bought a web designer/music tech's £1500 laptop in order to simply check your online banking, it's that you're not a Genius. We've got Geniuses. Come and speak to one of them. Oh, but you'll need to book in for a particular time, because although we pay these staff to essentially be repairmen in a retail store, we're going to treat it like a doctor's surgery and patronise you further. Oh, and even their orgasm faces are smug. Enjoy."
Nicely done, Mr Jobs. I cannot honestly understand how Apple products are still gobbled up by hungry fanboys and fangirls without so much as a complaint about the fact that although the iPad is supposedly this amazingly powerful device, it doesn't work out of the box and has to be synced up to a computer with a nice advanced USB 2.0 cable before it'll do anything. Wonderfully advanced, don't you agree? Well worth the £700 it costs for the top-end 3G version (which you can't use the net from without either a wireless network or a mobile broadband data plan).
Apple's response, or rather official response, to this handset defect? Blame the software, and in doing so imply that the software on every single iPhone ever made is gimped. They announced that they were "stunned" to discover that the software they use to calculate signal strength had been massively wrong all along. That's fine, except it doesn't answer two very important questions:
1) If the software is the issue, why is this the first time that the problem has been reported in large numbers on any iPhone release?
2) When you release the so-called software fix, and people are still having problems with their iPhone 4 when they hold it in their left hand, how are you going to spin that one?
"Left-handed? There's no app for that. Fuck you."
The other point on this week's news is about the new launch of the Apple iPhone 4, the supposed revolution from Apple which "changes everything. Again." I'm not even making this up, that was from their sales pitch. It's eerily reminiscient of Wrestlemania 20, where it all began again. All my friends and I were of the understanding that Wrestlemania 21 would see everything begin again again, but alas that was not to be.
The main issue, it seems, facing iPhone 4 users (although supposedly this does not affect all users, as drooling fanboys seem all too keen to point out) is that a few users experience signal droppage and lost call connections when holding the phone in a certain way. The advice of Apple, from the keyboard of Mr Kool-Aid himself, Steve Jobs, was simple. Essentially, he told the guy: If you're having a problem when you hold the phone in a certain way, hold it in a different way.
Incidentally, did you know that Apple pay people to be in their stores called Geniuses? How fucking patronising is that? "Oh, you're experiencing problems with your Mac? It's nothing to do with the fact that you've essentially bought a web designer/music tech's £1500 laptop in order to simply check your online banking, it's that you're not a Genius. We've got Geniuses. Come and speak to one of them. Oh, but you'll need to book in for a particular time, because although we pay these staff to essentially be repairmen in a retail store, we're going to treat it like a doctor's surgery and patronise you further. Oh, and even their orgasm faces are smug. Enjoy."
Nicely done, Mr Jobs. I cannot honestly understand how Apple products are still gobbled up by hungry fanboys and fangirls without so much as a complaint about the fact that although the iPad is supposedly this amazingly powerful device, it doesn't work out of the box and has to be synced up to a computer with a nice advanced USB 2.0 cable before it'll do anything. Wonderfully advanced, don't you agree? Well worth the £700 it costs for the top-end 3G version (which you can't use the net from without either a wireless network or a mobile broadband data plan).
Apple's response, or rather official response, to this handset defect? Blame the software, and in doing so imply that the software on every single iPhone ever made is gimped. They announced that they were "stunned" to discover that the software they use to calculate signal strength had been massively wrong all along. That's fine, except it doesn't answer two very important questions:
1) If the software is the issue, why is this the first time that the problem has been reported in large numbers on any iPhone release?
2) When you release the so-called software fix, and people are still having problems with their iPhone 4 when they hold it in their left hand, how are you going to spin that one?
"Left-handed? There's no app for that. Fuck you."
That's all from me this week. Fuck you, Coke Zero.
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