Eighteen wheels and a dozen roses

My good friends Princess Gwendolyn and the Button Monkey and their tribe are moving apartment next week and are running around like a blue-arsed fly packing at the minute. Well, Gwen is. Terry's busy earning a crust so they can continue to eat and pay the bills and save up for their RV and all. Sadly as of tomorrow they will be offline for somewhile, so the following is a day early. And 27 is nothing to complain about either - I'm 35 in three months! OK - Curtis, Gus, Edward, Jacques - gather round now, please. I need your assistance.

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Gweeeeee-en
Happy birthday to you!

Do I have to do everything around here?

Rather Snappish: just call me domestic goddess.
Rather Snappish: well, don't actually. I don't want it getting out.
gw3nd0lyn: are ya? :-)
Rather Snappish: oh yeah. how can you tell it's 1am? because Simon is cleaning the bathroom and kitchen.
Rather Snappish: see - I can do this domestic goddess stuff. my ex would be fucking amazed.
gw3nd0lyn: :-) I would say "You go girl!" but 1) You aren't a girl. and 2) I never say that :-)
gw3nd0lyn: that is cool and when you wake up and it is all sparkly you will feel so good
Rather Snappish: I appreciate the sentiment :-)
gw3nd0lyn: maybe you should call her up and say neener neener I bet he isn't up right now cleaning your house
gw3nd0lyn: but i would do that because i am rude
gw3nd0lyn: you are too nice for that *
Rather Snappish: yeah! that would have the added bonus of waking them both up too!
gw3nd0lyn: then say "put that in yer book" because I do always say that
Rather Snappish: what next?
gw3nd0lyn: well...you could dust
gw3nd0lyn: i never dust. haven't got anything to dust
Rather Snappish: i dust occasionally.
Rather Snappish: shit. that leaves tidying up. and arranging clothes and other dull stuff. I did the vacuuming already.
gw3nd0lyn: you could come pack for me
Rather Snappish: that'll have to wait until the morning. no flights at night from Heathrow.
gw3nd0lyn: hee you could clean the windows
gw3nd0lyn: but that is generally against all the rules of domestic goddessness
Rather Snappish: what is? cleaning windows?
gw3nd0lyn: yeah
Rather Snappish: I'll bear that in mind. is that in the handbook?
gw3nd0lyn: if you do windows you are just domestic. if you are a goddess you are exempt from windows
Rather Snappish: cool. since Curtis does nothing here - pets, honestly, these days they do nothing to earn their keep - I have to do everything, which I believe elevates me to goddess status.
gw3nd0lyn: yeah she can clean the windows
Rather Snappish: true. she can just dip her butt in the bucket and wiggle it as normal.

* - I have no clue where Gwen got this idea. She obviously doesn't know me very well.

Simple pleasures

It's bright, warm and sunny, I have beer in the house, my rabbit is being very well-behaved and cute, my neighbours are all out so I can play "Common People" by Pulp very loud, today's a bank holiday so I don't have to pretend to be "working from home" and I have 512Kbps of bandwidth to play with. I submitted two mixes to mix-tapes.diaryland.com this afternoon. I may even do some more stuff around the house that needs doing later.

Everyman speaks

I received the following ICQ message from one of my colleagues this evening. I believe he speaks for us all, or at the very least anyone who spends more than about five minutes a week online. The same thing does my head in too.

Thecko: I swear ... if you see on the news something like "And a man in Warrington today savagely killed anyone he could find, claiming that the number of popups on internet websites led him to do it" - it'll be me - even fucking search engines appear to be doing it now!!

Little Bastard Choo Choo

Went to see Sparklehorse at the Zodiac in Oxford last night. Complete and total pony. Never seen a band fanny around so much between songs no matter what technical difficulties they encounter - most of the band left the stage for 10 minutes at one point. I'm amazed the crowd was so patient and enthusiastic, since this resulted in there being less atmosphere than at a municipal morgue. There'd have been a riot at other places. I'll hold off until I've heard some of their records before I decide whether the music was okay and the band were arse, or whether the band were okay and the music was arse. Either way the Rather Snappish verdict on the live Sparklehorse experience: not recommended. At least not recommended to anyone I like.

Look around you, what do you see?

Open up your CD player, what's inside? My CD player is in its box upstairs as I haven't put the stereo together since I moved house. My CD-ROM drive contains the new Blackmore's Night album Fires At Midnight. My CD-R has a compilation of various female singers that I burned for my ex's sister.

Look in your VCR, is there a movie? Nope. The VCR is in its box in the loft since I moved here three months ago. The DVD-ROM drive in my laptop contains Being John Malkovich though.

If there happens to be music playing right now, what is it? My favourite Rammstein song, "Wollt Ihr das Bett in Flammen sehen?", from their first album Herzeleid. What a great band. A truly monstrous, brutal sound, no compromise whatsoever. They even manage to be commercially successful in America whilst singing in German, which is too, too cool.

What are you wearing? Thinkgeek t-shirt and last season's 1.FC Kaiserslautern away shorts.

Look down, what's the first thing that catches your eye? My Apple Pro Mouse.

Turn on your TV if it's not on already, what network is it? I don't have a TV. And if the TV Licensing people are watching, that's why I don't have a TV licence, you arseholes. Because I don't need one, so quit harassing me about it. But if I did have a TV it would undoubtedly be tuned to Sky Sports.

Look out the window, what's the weather like? Night, very cool and clear. Was a warm, sunny day.

If you were to hit redial on your phone right now, where would it call? Nowhere. I haven't used it since the new line was installed two days ago. My other line would call my mother. My mobile would call a guy in Germany who is responsible for backing up our enterprise monitoring system.

Say "hello?" out loud, did anyone answer? No, but Curtis is sitting on the arm of the sofa next to my desk and she looked round at me, hoping for a noserub, I expect.

What are you planning on doing next as soon as you get offline? Offline? I have cable at home and I work for an ISP. I'm never offline. But I suppose sleeping counts. That's what I'm doing next. Reading a few pages of The Third Reich: a new history by Michael Burleigh first.

Goodbye to the information goat path

So finally, finally, after six years of dialup hell - especially recently, when BT's initially great Anytime service has been next to useless, due to inability to connect remotely reguarly - the broadband revolution has reached my little corner of Oxfordshire, thanks to the fine folks at NTL. I now have a 512Kbps cable modem connexion and boy am I pleased with it. I've gone from 48Kbps on an analogue modem and downloading stuff at 3.8KB/s if I was lucky to getting the full Windows 2000 Service Pack 2, all 101MB of it, in about 25 minutes, at over 67KB/s. Bit of an improvement there. I got an mp3 off the Guitarist magazine web site last night at 85KB/s. I'm sure that shouldn't be possible. But I'm not complaining.

Alison's getting her tit pierced

"Alison's Starting To Happen". What a great song. Great tune, catchy chords, infectiously silly words. So I said earlier to the Evil Pixie. She didn't know it. Nor had she heard of the Lemonheads either. ¿Qué? I know their version of "Mrs Robinson" wasn't exactly yesterday but both it and "It's A Shame About Ray" were sizeable hits only eight years ago. It seems more and more common that people have no idea about any music that wasn't in the charts in the last couple of years, let alone anything either old or in some way esoteric. And this is people who are into music I'm talking about. Which I find very strange indeed.

Here's an example. At work a few months ago there were half a dozen or so of us jamming regularly. One of the web team, about 19 and into all this nu-metal wank like Limp Bizkit and Papa Roach, proudly played me this little tune-ette he'd written. I said "hmm, cool, but it's been done before". He didn't know what I was talking about so I went and grabbed an mp3 and played it. He was gutted because it was the same chords in the same order. But he'd never heard the song, and the title meant nothing to him. It was "Pinball Wizard", for Christ's sake. How the F.U.C.K. can anyone be into guitar music and not only not know "Pinball Wizard", but not even have heard of it?

Kids these days. Tsk tsk. No sense of history or culture. Shocking, it is.

Rosehip-flavoured euphemisms

The amount of trouble one can land oneself in whilst discussing fruit-based herbal infusions is quite alarming. One minute you're describing the ingredients of cinnamon, honey and vanilla tea bags, the next minute you're in danger of being challenged to a duel. It's a dicy business, I tell you.

eatonte: Are you flirting with my wife?
Rather Snappish: not that I'm aware of - unless fruit tea has become a subject of flirting...
eatonte: You English folks and all of your fruit tea talk...
Rather Snappish: I know, it's shocking really.
eatonte: You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Rather Snappish: I consider myself duly admonished. Won't happen again, Mistah Terry sir.
eatonte: 'Tis okay.

It's just as well the Button Monkey is a reasonable man, really.

Cor blimey, guv. Would you Adam & Eve it?

Here's one for my fellow natives of old Blighty. Have you ever tried explaining Cockney rhyming slang to an American? You know and I know that it's all a bit silly really. No, not a bit silly. Absolutely risible, in fact. Once you try explaining it to an native English-speaking foreigner with the aid of examples, as I did whilst chatting with Princess Gwendolyn and the Button Monkey, it becomes abundantly clear how fundamentally utterly stupid it is. No wonder they think we're weird over here.

Rather Snappish: mmm. as predicted, right out of the oven. chicken burgers and oven chips. sorry, fries I believe you septics call them.
gw3nd0lyn: septics?
gw3nd0lyn: i have never been refered to as a septic
gw3nd0lyn: at least not to my face
Rather Snappish: sorry - Cockney rhyming slang. Cockneys are real Londoners. they have a curious rhyming slang where a phrase means something it rhymes with, but the second word is usually omitted. e.g. septic = septic tank = yank
gw3nd0lyn: ah ok
gw3nd0lyn: how the hell do you ever figure that out?
Rather Snappish: have a butcher's (butcher's hook) = take a look
boat (boat race) = face
Chevy Chase = face
Rather Snappish:you get a feel for it.
gw3nd0lyn: ummmmm i will have to study up i guess
Rather Snappish: some are really arcane, like iron = homosexual
gw3nd0lyn: how is that?
Rather Snappish: iron hoof = poof
Rather Snappish: ruby = curry (Ruby Murray)
trouble = wife (trouble and strife)
gw3nd0lyn: i could never be a true londoner
Rather Snappish: no, well, they sure as shit don't speak the Queen's English
Rather Snappish: there's a ton more but I can't think of any at the moment
gw3nd0lyn: that is quite alright i am dizzy now
Rather Snappish: cup of Rosie = tea (Rosie Lee)
<pause>
eatonte: That is some entirely fucked up shit you are talking about...
eatonte: Do you have to be altered mentally to figure it out?
Rather Snappish: it helps. Londoners are weird fuckers.
eatonte: And people say Americans ruined the English language...

Now that's what I call a pissed-off band

I make no apologies for re-posting this cracking notice from the Cowboy Junkies website in its entirety, not least because I'm certain that the band would thoroughly approve of my doing so. Plus, as a big fan of the band, I totally agree with them. If you're going to say "fuck you" to a former record company, this is how to do it.

Cowboy Junkies - Greatest Hits
Sometime this month RCA/BMG will be releasing a "greatest hits" compilation. We have absolutely nothing to do with this release. We have not been consulted about any details, from the track selection to the artwork, and were not even given the courtesy of a phone call to let us know that this release was being scheduled.

This release is a huge insult to us and we ask that if you are a fan of the band that you please don't buy it. All of the tracks on this compilation are available on our other studio releases, which are available through the Junk Store. If you must have these specific tracks in this specific order then: find them on the Internet, download them for free and burn them on to a CD....you have our blessing.

August 8, 1995 - November 14, 2000

Today should be a day of celebration. But it's not.

New job, schmew job

So I didn't get the SGI gig. This didn't exactly come as any great surprise. What did come as a great surprise was why. Bearing in mind what I previously mentioned about the requirements, you might ask whether I spoke German well enough; I did - in fact I was told that I had a better command of the language than most of the people they already had. So was my UNIX knowledge not up to snuff? No, that was fine, apparently, not a problem. So I must have been asking for too much money, right? That's gotta be it. No, that was not mentioned.

No. Apparently I was too fucking nervous. They thought I would be flustered when John Q. Knobhead calls up with a giant bug up his ass and wouldn't handle it properly. Well, fuck me with a fishfork. This begs the question of just what the F.U.C.K. I been doing for most of the last four years. You work in tech support for an ISP and you meet every conceivable form of stupidity, ignorance and tantrum. I have dealt with some of the biggest assholes, the most unreasonable, insulting, arrogant, patronising bastards you're ever likely to encounter and I have not once fucked up the call or lost my cool. I once swore at a customer, but that was only repeating back to him what he'd said to demonstrate that he was out of line. I am very good at this job.

So I was almost lost for words at first when the recruiter told me this stuff, not least because I wasn't actually nervous at the interview. He took this back to SGI who repeated their impression. They did say that they would consider me again in a few months when they recruit again. Additionally they voiced the view that I would be well suited for their second level support roles as my UNIX was good enough, which again will be recruited for in a few months. The irony of this is that level 2 is above the level I was interviewed for and attracts significantly higher salaries. Is that ass-backwards, or what?

EU hamster integration experiment is a flop

I'm sorry, I tried, honestly I did, but finding a title that beats the original one for this story just defeats me. It's one of those items that provides virtually limitless ammunition for the anti-EU brigade in this country. *Sigh*.

Dialing for dollars is trying to find me

This is just too excellent. Princess Gwendolyn loves "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin too. That's one of my all-time favourite tunes. I might add that the two photos of said Princess and her Dominican firestick at ButtonMonkey are very cool indeed in a rather San Francisco, 1967, Janis Joplin kind of way.

Choking on moths

Another observation I am led to make, having listened to the people around me for a whole day, is that everything I've previously been informed about the Dutch language is complete pony. At least two three people I knew who spoke German assured me that it was a piece of cake to speak Dutch as it was just like German, but pronouced a bit funny. Well, it's not. The written languages bear an obvious similarity but the spoken tongues are a whole different ballgame. I reckon I can squeak by when attempting to understand simple written Dutch, but when surrounded by people speaking Dutch I have not the remotest idea what the hell anyone is saying. They could be discussing the Dutch version of Big Brother, the geo-political situation on the Indian subcontinent or the weather for all I know. It sounds nothing like German at all. If anything it sound like it might be from the same linguistic branch as Klingon.

In fact what it reminds me of most powerfully is a passage in Bill Bryson's second travel book, Neither Here Nor There, about his travels in Europe. When in the Netherlands and confronted with the same alien-sounding tongue I describe above, he repeats a tale from his days working on The Times in London, where he once asked a Dutch colleague whether the correct pronunciation was Van Gok or Van Go. His colleague said, "No, no. It's Vincent Van -" and proceeded to make a noise like a man choking on a moth, whereupon several people offered him a glass of water.

I'm willing to believe that Dutch is an easy language to learn if you already have German, which I do, but I'm unconvinced that my tonsils would forgive me anytime soon.