Lately I’ve started to notice that the Internet has ruined some words for me. These are perfectly good words (well, some of them are, anyway…); words I’ve even used myself, and probably still do from time to time. But their use on the Internet has totally ruined them, to the extent that a little part of me dies every time I see them used. (And a little part of me exaggerates every chance it gets, clearly. Sorry about that.) For instance:
“LOL”
OK, so my very first example and it’s not even a word. I know. But this is actually my point: “LOL” has started to be used on the Internet almost as if it was one. In fact, I bet there are kids out there now who don’t even know that “LOL” used to mean “laughing out loud.” Seriously. And it’s not like it’s often used these days to indicate that the person is actually laughing out loud, is it? No, it’s used almost as a kind of punctuation. Like, people will write, “I’m off to bed now, lol!” Or “I’m looking forward to eating dinner tonight, lol!” Or, “I’m really tired, lol!”
WHY? Why are they laughing out loud at these things? Oh, that’s right, they’re NOT. They’re just saying it. For no reason. I AM NOT LAUGHING. OUT LOUD OR OTHERWISE.
Note: Yes, I know I’ve done this too, so no need to go through my archives and point it out to me, lol!
“Cute”
I write about fashion for a living. This means that I also READ a lot about fashion. I’ve noticed that most people use the word “cute” a lot to describe items of clothing and shoes. This is perfectly fine, of course, but they use it almost as if there were no other words available to them. Seriously, I’ve had comments on The Fashion Police from people who’ve said stuff like, “Today I’m wearing a cute skirt with a cute sweater, some cute shoes and this really cute handbag. I think I look really cute!” And EVERYONE does this. If I post a picture of something that’s… er…beautiful, say, I will get twenty comments, all saying that the thing is “cute!”. (I’ll also get half a dozen saying I need to die now, but that’s another post altogether…)
I’m aware that this is irrational of me, but I’ve now started to cringe every time I see or hear the word “cute”. I have banned myself from using it. LOL!
“Sorry”
GOD. This word is currently my Public Enemy Number 1. Now, don’t get me wrong: “sorry” is absolutely fine, as long as the person IS ACTUALLY SORRY. And most of the time? They freaking aren’t. Yes, I’m talking about the good old “Sorry, but…” I think I may have mentioned this before. When someone starts a sentence with the words “Sorry, but…” you instantly know that they ARE NOT SORRY and are just going to try and make you feel bad. There are some days when almost ALL the comments I get at The Fashion Police start with the word “sorry”. And I don’t understand why, either, because often the people are actually agreeing with me. Like, I’ll post a picture of an ugly dress, and describe it as an “ugly dress” in the title. It will be filed in the “ugly dress” category and I’ll probably say something in the post to the effect of, “Hey, this is not very cute.” And then I’ll get a bunch of comments from people, all saying, “Sorry, but I think this dress is ugly.” Um, yeah, so do I. Why are you sorry?
Anyway. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned this, because when I mentioned my irritation with the misuse of “LOL” to Terry a few weeks ago, I suddenly started getting a bunch of text messages and emails. They all purported to be from Rubin, and they would all say things like, “Amber, I need a pee, lol!” Or “Amber, is time for my dinner yet, lol!” Sometimes they would just say, “LOL!” Today I received this:
 lol! And last month, when it snowed? Terry took the rubbish out one night, and when I looked out of the window afterwards, I saw this:
Which, actually, isn’t so bad, is it?
Tell me then, which words should I add to my Hate List?
Tagged lol, words I hate
Despite having been born with red hair, I’ve actually been pretty lucky in that I’ve never been physically attacked because of my universally reviled appearance. And come to think of it, although my mum got a lot of “don’t worry, she might grow out of it!” comments when I was a small baby, few people have been rude enough – or brave enough – to tell me to my face that they think my hair is ugly, either. Or, indeed, to kick me on the ass because of it.
(Note: one time in the shopping mall, a teenager did grab me by the collar, thrust his acne-ridden face into mine and scream, “You’re SO fucking ugly!” at me. I don’t know if that was because of my hair specifically, or just a more general observation, though, so I can’t really count it.)
No, most people tend to go for the more subtle, but just as offensive, method of telling me that hey, I’m not bad looking “for a redhead”. Or they’ll try to “comfort” me by reassuring me that I’m not actually a redhead at all, “it’s more of an auburn colour!” (This actually REALLY offends me because I don’t WANT to be “more of an auburn colour”, thanks – I’m happy with the colour I have and I don’t really need people trying to convince me I’m delusional, ya know?) Or, the all-time winner: “it’s OK on you, I guess, but when I see men with red hair I’m physically sick!” Yeah. Good job I’m not planning to breed then, or my offspring might really upset you…
So I’ve been lucky. Much luckier than the kid in this story, anyway, who was assaulted by a group of 13 teenagers, all taking part in “National Kick a Ginger Day”.
Let’s just take a minute to digest that. National. Kick. A. Ginger. Day. Doesn’t that sound fun? I mean, we already know that redheads have no soul so it stands to reason they have no feelings either, and therefore it’s perfectly acceptable to abuse them – whether physically or verbally – and expect them to just take the joke, isn’t it?
Because this is the thing. Almost every time I indulge in a rant about the hatred directed towards people with red hair in this country (or, in this case, in Canada, which surprised me, because it’s normally the UK that abuses its “gingers”), some bright spark comes along and tells me to “lighten up” or “get a sense of humour”.
A quote from the article I linked to above:
“Student Ken Logel said: “I have a few buddies with red hair, you just kind of kick them lightly just as a joke but when it gets carried away that’s not cool.”
No, that’s not “cool”, is it? I mean, a “light kick” is just fine, obviously. Because it’s SO FUNNY when people call you ugly and maybe leave you bruised and battered because of the colour of your hair, isn’t it? And that’s not AT ALL like abusing someone for the colour of their skin, or their religion or race, now, is it? On no, my mistake: IT IS. It is the same. And every time I write about prejudice against redheads, and compare it to prejudice against black people, or Jewish people, or < insert abused mimority group here > I’m told that I’m doing a disservice to victims of racism because what I’m talking about is SO MUCH LESS IMPORTANT, and is a JOKE, and doesn’t actually matter because for crying out loud it’s JUST HAIR.
Yes, it is. But now people are actually being physically attacked because of it. Now there are Facebook groups inciting violence against people with a certain colour of hair. How is this different from inciting violence against people with a certain colour of skin? Oh yeah: it isn’t. It really isn’t. And now I find myself wondering how many more attacks like this there will have to be before people start to admit that no, it’s really not cool. It’s not cool to beat people up for ANY REASON, be it skin colour, race, religion, or even hair colour. The fact that people think the first three are unacceptable (which they are) and the last is “just a joke” absolutely boggles my mind, it really does.
(Oh, and the “you can dye your hair - people can’t change the colour of their skin” argument? I SHOUDLN’T HAVE TO dye my hair to avoid abuse, any more than people with black skin should be forced to try and lighten it, or hide themselves away. People just shouldn’t abuse others, end of story.)
I’m glad to see that the police seem to be taking this incident seriously at least. But I can’t help wondering how much more of an outcry there would be if there was a “National Kick a Black Day” or a “National Kick a Jew Day”.
(Thanks to Emma for sending me the link to the story)
Ginger and proud
Tagged ginger, Gingerism, red hair, redhead
So, for the past couple of years, Terry and I have been doing our grocery shopping online, and having it delivered. Because we are lazy, basically. And actually, I say, “Terry and I”, but really, Terry does ALL of it by himself. That’s how lazy I am, and why, to this day, my parents thank their lucky stars each night that they somehow managed to pay him enough to take me of their hands.
Anyway, we get the shopping delivered, and this not only helps us in our quest to never leave the house, ever, it also helps us avoid The Others, who are always at their absolute worst at the supermarket, indulging in their usual behaviour of stopping randomly in the middle of aisles without warning, wielding screaming children like weapons, ramming shopping carts into the back of your legs, that sort of thing. Basically, the supermarket is like the seventh circle of hell to us, and that’s why we get the shopping delivered. That and the fact that I have that rare, incurable condition that forces me to buy a new pair of shoes or item of clothing every time I go near an actual shop. But I digress.
For most of the time we’ve been having the shopping delivered, we’ve been having it delivered by Asda. (Asda being Wal*Mart, for the benefit of those of you in the States) We’ve had a few brief flirtations with Tesco, but it’s just never really worked out with them for various reasons that are too boring to go into here. Yes, even more boring than an entire blog entry about grocery shopping. Look, I don’t get out much, OK?
For the most part, Asda have been OK at delivering our shopping. Sure, they’ve messed up. There was that time they brought us someone else’s shopping, and gave someone else most of our shopping, for instance. There was that other time they… did exactly the same thing. There have been times when they’ve forgotten things, brought things we didn’t order (if anyone needs a pack of baby wipes and some allergy tablets, by the way, we got them in stock. We’re keeping the 12 pack of quilted loo roll though. Swanky!), and just basically sucked, to be honest, but we have kept with them because, well, it’s better the devil you know, sometimes, and also because they do a really nice turkey and stuffing sandwich filler that I really like.
This month, though, Asda randomly decided to start sucking big time. They mostly did this by just not bothering to turn up when they said they would, leaving us starving to death and gnawing the furniture in hunger until they finally rolled up. Then on Friday? They just didn’t turn up at all. AT ALL, people. Of course, Terry called them. They apologised and said they’d bring us our shopping on Saturday afternoon instead. Then they just didn’t bother with that, either. So Terry called them again. “Sunday!” said Asda. “We will bring your shopping on Sunday! Until then, we will stick it in the freezer and hope it doesn’t reach its sell-by date in the meantime!” Actually, they didn’t say that last bit, but that IS what they did – we could tell by the way all the food was FREEZING COLD, and about to go out of date.
Not that we got the food when they said we would, mind you. Oh, they did turn up that time, which was very nice of them. But they only brought half our shopping with them. The rest, they said, would be right along – in fact, was leaving the store on a van RIGHT THAT SECOND! The store is a 20 minute drive from our house. (Told you we were lazy). It took them two and a half hours, and OK, they did send us a huge box of Quality Street by way of apology, but it was too late because by then I’d eaten the dog. Sorry, Rubin.
Yes, you’re right, we should totally just have jumped in the car and gone and picked up the shopping ourselves, only we couldn’t because a) lazy! b) we’d already paid for it, and it was on a van in some unspecified location and c) still lazy! So, basically, our ENTIRE WEEKEND was spent sitting around the house waiting for our time-saving online grocery delivery. Top tip: NEVER DO THAT. Try Tesco. Because even if they don’t have the turkey stuffing sandwich filler, they can’t possibly suck that hard, can they?
Tagged Rants, Things I Bought
The phone rings. I happen to be standing next to it at the time and Terry is downstairs, so I have no option but to answer the stupid ringy thing (See Phones, Amber’s Irrational Hatred Of for more info on this). I glare at it it for a couple of seconds, hoping it will somehow sense my hatred and stop ringing, but of course this doesn’t happen, so I heave a heavy sigh and pick it up.
Only to be greeted by a freaking ROBOT.
GOD. I hate this. Why are recorded messages allowed to call me in my home? Why is this not illegal? (Actually, come to think of it: is this illegal? And if so, what happens to the robot-voices when they’re caught? Is there some kind of Robot Jail they all go to? What if there was a mass breakout from the Robot Jail? WHAT IF, people? See, now I really wish I hadn’t set my imagination off down this track. Anyway…)
Now, the robot that calls us most frequently is a Stepford-sounding American woman who calls us up regularly and says, “CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve just won a… ” And actually, I have no idea what it is we’re supposed to have won because these days she only ever gets as far as “CONGRA….” before it’s a case of handset: meet cradle!
(Yes, we are signed up for the TPS. No, it does not stop The Robots. Nothing stops The Robots.)
Anyway, this time it wasn’t the Congratulating Woman. This time it was a rather gravelly-voiced Robot Voice who informed me that she was the BT Text Messaging Service, and that someone had sent a text message to my land line. A text message that I would get to hear simply by pressing “1″.
Now, we all know that you never, ever obey the commands of a Robot Voice, especially when you’re 99.8% sure it’s some kind of scam, don’t we? So I’m sure you can all guess what I did, can’t you?
I pressed “1″. No, I have no idea why. I mean, I don’t even like text messages. They confuse and panic me, making me feel like a pensioner as I am forced to take 30 minutes at a time away from my Important Work in order to battle with the predictive texting on my phone to produce a message that invariably says something like, “Ai! Aku dujk, aber!” But I digress.
I pressed “1″. And for my trouble, I got yet another robotic voice who informed me that the call had cost 12p (!), and that this amount could easily feed a small child in Afghanistan for a week. (Which kinda begged the question, why did they not just send the 12p to a small child in Afghanistan instead of using it to phone-spam me? Or did it cost me 12p? So many questions… Well, two.) And that I should now press another button to forward the robotic message on to seven of my friends (Why seven, I wonder? Lucky number, perhaps?) or else the small child in Afghanistan? Would DIE.
Eeek!
The upshot of all of this? I have inadvertently caused the death of a small child in Afghanistan. So sorry. SO going to hell. SO not answering the phone EVER again, lest I kill someone else without meaning to.
Let this be a lesson to you all, folks. Telephones = danger. Especially if you’re a small child in Afghanistan…
There’s a full moon tonight. Can you tell? I can. I can always tell, though, and I don’t even need the little “moon” symbol in my diary. No, I can tell when there’s a full moon because of the absolute 100% batshit craziness that goes down on my blogs at around this time every month. (Note: not this one, though! The people who comment on this blog are all lovely and totally non-crazy! Please don’t shout at me!)
Seriously, this happens without fail every month, and mostly involves the comments section over at The Fashion Police (Which was two years old today, by the way. I almost didn’t post about that over there because after the comments I’ve been getting lately, I was pretty sure some bright spark would use it as an excuse to comment saying, “Oh, the blog’s two today? That’s two whole years of SUCK, bitch!” or something. Because really, nothing would surprise me now. Not when the moon is full, anyway.) although the other blogs attract their fair share of Crazies too.
Now, fair enough, The Fashion Police is a blog which gives and solicits opinions on clothes, so it’s always going to be a little bit controversial. In so far as clothes can actually be controversial, that is. I mean, seriously: I enjoy fashion enough to write about it for a living, but jeez, they’re just clothes, folks. That you wear. Does it really matter so much if someone doesn’t share your exact opinion on them? Well, apparently it does. On Friday? I was called a “douchebag” in my comments section, just because I said I liked a certain hat. A HAT, people. That’s so messed up it’s almost beyond comprehension to me. I mean, what must it be like to get so angry over the fact that some random stranger on the Internet likes a freakin’ HAT that you find yourself verbally amusing them? Honestly, there are people out there killing puppies and torturing kittens, and yet I’m a douchebag because I like a HAT? For real? What must these people be like when they read something really upsetting? And how has their stupidity not killed them yet?
(Weirdly, it’s always the things I like that get the most abuse. I don’t really know why. I can say I hate a certain item and that’ll be fine, but as soon as I say I like something I get people telling me I should be shot in the head and calling me a “f&*^%&g bitch”. And those are example of real comments, by the way…)
This is just the tip of the iceberg, though. All weekend I’ve been dealing with this kind of crap. And sure, the site is getting around 10,000 visitors per day, so there’s always a good chance that at least some of them are going to be assholes, but it’s the Full Moon Effect that makes it so hard to deal with, because, for the most part, everything is fine. People are nice. They’re polite. Even when they disagree with me, they do it in a reasonable, measured kind of way. All month, things coast along just fine, and then suddenly, WHAM! Full Moon Fever! Suddenly every second comment is abuse. Suddenly everyone’s an idiot. Suddenly I’m spending so much time deleting comments and wondering if I actually DO deserve to die because I said I liked a certain dress that I don’t have time to actually write. And even although I know the wave of awfulness will pass, and tomorrow things will (hopefully) be back to normal… it’s hard. It hurts. It really puts a downer on things, and makes me want to crawl back into bed until sanity is restored once more. Oh, the humanity!
I don’t think there can be many jobs in the world which involve opening yourself up to such hatred and abuse every day. Other than call centres, obviously. (I speak as the voice of experience here, by the way: I used to work in a call centre, and we could always tell when there was a full moon there, too, because that’s what people would start threatening to kill us, rather than just threatening to break our legs. Again, not making this up…) Sadly, there is no intelligence test people must pass to be able to use the Internet, which means that growing a thick skin is one of the main requirements of blogging for a living. And I’m not quite there, yet. Oh, my skin is a helluva lot thicker than it used to be – today I was able to just laugh off the email from the person who said he “wouldn’t be able to live with himself” without ranting in all lowercase for a few hundred words, and to roll my eyes at the fellow blogger who commented on Dollface (a beauty blog, let me remind you) to tell me that I shouldn’t be writing about hairstyles and should be focusing on “actual news” instead, namely dresses and celebrity anorexia rumours. (Er, yeah, because that’s totally “actual news”. And it’s not AT ALL unfair to criticize a beauty blog for not being a fashion/celebrity gossip blog, is it now? )
So my skin is getting thicker, but it’s not quite thick enough, and sometimes, when there’s a full moon, it feels very thin indeed. Which is why, just this once, I felt the need to stamp my little feet and have a bit of a rant. Sorry. I’ll stop now.
I still get to have the last laugh, though because the sites are growing all the time, and yesterday was our best day ever, which means that I get to keep on working from my spare room, and earning a living from looking at pictures of shoes on the Internet. Not bad for a complete freaking douchebag, no?
Tagged OMG internet drama!
OK, so after my last post I’m glad to see we’re all in agreement: I get to rule the world. I promise to be a fair and benevolent ruler, and to only occasionally be totally freaking irrational and despotic, but there’s just one thing: can I start next week?
Because this week, I’m too busy dying.
Yes, on Sunday morning I woke up feeling like I had a bunch of really sharp knives in my throat. As knife-swallowing hadn’t been part of Saturday night’s entertainment, I quickly deduced that I was getting the cold, and this was Very Bad News because, as anyone who knows me will testify, I don’t get normal colds. No, I get them worse than everyone else. Worse than you, for sure. My head colds are more like mini bouts of pneumonia, which is why I’ve been feeling very sorry for myself over the last few days. Sadly, the "illness" wasn’t bad enough to stop me working, but it did stop me going to the gym so, you know, every cloud, silver lining and all that.
Anyway, your responses to my post about Word Domination reminded me of a few other things I want to ban, kicking off with a suggestion from Anne-Marie:
Public spitters – BANNED
I mean, WHY? Why do people feel the need to do this? Just last month, for instance, I was standing at the ATM getting some cash to pay for my Ghetto Haircut, on account of the Hammer House of Hairdressing Horrors not actually accepting debit or credit cards, and… DIGRESSION! DIGRESSION! INCOMING!…
Shops that don’t accept plastic – BANNED
Seriously, this shows you just how much of a backwater we live in: THERE ARE STORES THAT DON’T ACCEPT PLASTIC. Which totally boggles my mind, because really, I am like the Queen, and by that I don’t mean I’m in my 80s and mother to some slightly strange looking toffs, but that I don’t carry cash. Ever. Because… actually, I don’t really know why. I think it’s because I hate it when I have to take out £10 just to buy something that costs £2, and I end up with a whole bunch of change that will burn a hole in my pocket, and then I’ll walk around thinking, "OMG, I must find something that costs £8 and buy it! Because I CAN!" Basically, if I have cash, I WILL spend it, so I just use plastic all the time. (Yes, I am one of those people who uses a debit card for small amounts. I expect lots of you will want to ban me for that, so let me just remind you that I RULE THE WORLD, not you, mwahaha!.)
So, anyway, I’m standing there getting my cash out of the ATM, when suddenly a car pulls up next to me and a man in a tracksuit gets out.
(Men in tracksuits – BANNED!)
Now, this gave me some cause for concern anyway because I felt sure he would come and stand in line behind me, and would stand as close behind me as he could possibly get, breathing down my neck and looking on with interest as I typed in my PIN. I felt sure he would do this because EVERYONE DOES THIS IN LINE FOR THE ATM. Seriously, they do, don’t they? And in the line for everything else too, come to think of it. They do it to me, anyway. Time and time again, there I’ll be, standing there minding my own business when I suddenly become aware of warm breath on the back of my neck, I turn round and – yup – there’s a pensioner stuck to my back.
People who stand too close to you at the ATM, and in other places too, but mostly at the ATM – BANNED
I don’t know why it’s normally pensioners that do this. Maybe because pensioners have a reduced awareness of the concept of "personal space" or something? ("Ooh, when I were a lass we didn’t have no newfangled ‘personal space’, young ‘un! In fact, there were 35 of us all living in a shoebox and it didn’t do me no harm! Aaar!") (I have no idea why I made my fictional pensioner say "aaar" there, by the way. Maybe a pirate pensioner?)
Anyway, pensioners tend to be the biggest culprits when it comes to personal space-invading but other people do it too, which is why I experienced a prickle of fear as I saw Tracksuit Man approach the ATM. Remember where I live, here, folks. The Buckfast bottles, the locals howling at the moon – I’m pretty sure "mugging a girl at the ATM" wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for some of these people, especially given that most ATMs round here make that handy "BEEP! BEEP!" sound when your cash is ready, which, really, they’d be as well just replacing with a recording of someone shouting, "ATTENTION ALL MUGGERS! CASH STICKING OUT OF HOLE IN WALL HERE! VULNERABLE WEAKLING STANDING IN FRONT OF IT! NOW’S YOUR CHANCE!"
ATMs that make loud noises when your cash is ready – BANNED
Where was I? Oh yeah, so Tracksuit man gets out of his car, walks towards me, positions himself just a few centimeters away from my back, and then…
…makes a disgusting "hawking" noise (gag!) and spits a mouthful of… frothy phlegm… onto the pavement. Right next to my shoe. AAARRGH! Gag, gah, gag!
I seriously almost threw up. Once I’d brought the gagging impulse under control, though, I’m afraid to say I took my life in both hands, turned around and shot the idiot in the head.
Whoops, sorry, no, that was how the scenario played out in my own head. In real life, I just shot him with one of my Death Ray stares. Which was dangerous because remember where we live, people. If real life was anything like my imagination, though, that glare would have incinerated Tracksuit Man where he stood. All that would’ve been left of him would’ve been a football top, a pair of "trackie" bottoms and some expensive trainers. That I would’ve… spat on. Because, actually? Sometimes two wrongs DO make a right. And sometimes I would like to go round the houses of all the people who spit on the street, and spit on their floors. Or on their widescreen TVs or something. The fact that I can’t actually spit (Seriously. I can’t spit. I did try, out of curiosity, and I have no idea how they manage to get that much phlegm out of their systems. How do they do it? ) would clearly be An Issue here, but I’d find a way around it. Maybe I’d just let Rubin pee on their washing machines, instead.
Yes, it’s a strange kind of justice that will operate in the world with me as Supreme Ruler, but I totally think it will work, no?
So yes, basically the entire point of this entry was for me to give my wholehearted approval to the suggestion that people who spit in the street be BANNED. Clearly that annoys me much more than I had realised, maybe because the scenario above is actually all too common, and I seem to see men doing this ALL THE FREAKING TIME.
Also banned: bloggers who start out with the intention of writing a couple of simple paragraphs, and end up writing long, whiny rants filled with multiple digressions. Because seriously, what is WRONG with those people?
Oh, hai 1am on Saturday morning! Long time since I’ve seen you, no? Well, actually, that’s not strictly true, obviously. I mean, I did see you last Saturday morning, but that was by choice, because I’d been out on the tiles, having fun and partying like a rock star and stuff.* This Saturday morning, though, you and I met on account of the near-riot that was apparently happening a couple of streets away.
Fun times, 1am-on-Saturday-morning, fun times…
Yes, folks, the locals have been restless again. This happens every year when the football season starts, and is the main reason, other than those hideous “strips” British men wear all the freakin’ time (as if dressing up as a footballer is a valid outfit choice when you’re actually a 33-year-old accountant called Clive**, who hasn’t been near a football field in years. If ever.) why if I ruled the world, I would ban football, without a second thought. Yes, you heard me right, I would ban it. And yes, I know there are lots of you out there who enjoy watching a bunch of men chase a ball around a field, but that’s too bad, because this is my world-ruling fantasy, and in it I refuse to have my sleep disturbed every weekend because the people who watch football around here tend to want to fight about it afterwards. Seriously.
Actually, on second thoughts, maybe I won’t ban football. Because, as boring as football is to me, I have to concede that there are lots of football fans out there who do not morph into The Army of the Undead every time they watch a match. It’s just unfortunate that a large percentage of the ones that do happen to drink at the Ghetto Pub, which is in the estate behind ours. The Ghetto Pub is far enough way from us that it shouldn’t really bother us at all, but the people who frequent it have other ideas, and every time there’s a football match on (which is more or less EVERY WEEKEND at this time of year), they all come pouring out of it at midnight and start howling at the moon and chanting incantations to the devil, before finally succumbing to houting mindlessly at each other and engaging in running battles. This goes on for about an hour, by which time everyone within a half-mile radius is awake, and I’m fit to be tied.
No, the police don’t care.
The next day, should we try to take a walk around the area, we will find broken bottles, discarded takeaway cartons, and – yes – pools of vomit. Niiiice.
So, OK, football gets a reprieve. The Ghetto Pub is banned, though. Totally. In fact, all pubs on housing estates are banned under my rule. No good can come of them. If people want to get so drunk they stand in the street screaming and vomiting of a Friday night, they can go and do it in the town centres, where there’s a better chance of them being picked up by the police/run over by a bus. Sorry, people who live in town centres. Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?
Can you tell I’m feeling just a little bit sleep deprived this morning? Yes, indeed I am. Because, not only did I spent part of the night listening to the Lobotomised at Birth yodeling in the street, I was also woken up at around 8:30am this morning by The Dog Who Barks. Who barks incessantly. For hours. On end. Early. Late. All the freaking time. Soon, The Dog Who Barks will be joined by The Man Who Washes His Car With the Radio Cranked Up. And then they will both be joined by The Girl Who Hates Other People’s Noise And Who Is Just Grateful That Guns Are Illegal In This Country Or She Would Totally Be In Jail By Now. (That would be me, just in case you’re wondering.)
* Deep Breath *
Just while I’m here, though, and ruling the world, and all…
OTHER THINGS I WILL BAN WHEN I RULE THE WORLD:
Chewing gum
Crocs
Heelys
Those stupid “personal”
MP3 player things that have stupid little tinny SPEAKERS on them. THE HELL is that about?
Whistlers. Obviously.
People who walk really slowly in crowded areas.
The phrase “I could care less”. Because it’s “I couldn’t care less” and it’s driving me insane.
Feel free to add to this list, folks. Because I surely will…
* Not strictly true
** No offense to accountants called Clive, obviously. Hi, Clives! Love you!
Just a quick update on the Virgin Media/Broadbandgate saga I posted about last month… After my epic rant on the subject of how our Internet connection had died (Oh, the humanity!) and Virgin staff had hung up on Terry, Virgin did actually get in contact with us, and I thought it only fair to update here to say that we’re now totally happy with the service, and Best Friends Forever again.
We’ve now exchanged a few emails with the complaints department, and Terry spent some time on the phone today with a very helpful man from Virgin, who went through what had happened with us, and not only apologised again for the service we encountered, but explained why they won’t send out a network engineer until a certain number of calls have been received. Apparently there are sound technical reasons for this, and it’s not just a case of one person’s problem not being important enough to warrant attention, which is obviously the impression we were left with after our serious of disastrous phone calls.
Anyway, although Black Thursday will live forever in our memories, I thought it only fair to record that once Virgin’s UK headquarters were aware of the problem, they did their very best to resolve it with us, and to make us happy customers again, and all credit to them for that.
Also: no barking from Rubin for two nights now – looks like he really did just want a haircut after all…
Well, folks, I may not have much of my sanity left this week, but by God, do I have a clean house – and not just because of my borderline OCD interest in cleaning this time.
No, it’s because the Internet keeps going down. And when there’s no Internet, ain’t nothing to do but pace anxiously around the house, randomly cleaning things as a kind of frenzied displacement activity, right? Right?
It happened for the first time yesterday afternoon. There I was slogging womanfully through the massive amount of posts about shoes I had to write by the end of the week, and suddenly my computer went on a Go Slow. Each page would take five minutes to load, sometimes longer. Other times, it would time out altogether, leaving me frantically hitting the “refresh” button, because as we all know, THAT HELPS.
I put up with this for as long as I could stand it, which was about ten minutes, then I called Tech Support, who I know simply as “Terry”.
Terry did manage to get things back to normal again, but it took a while, and by the time I was able to get back to work, the house was sparkling, I kid you not. The work situation, meanwhile, wasn’t looking quite so good.
See, we’re going away this weekend. I may have mentioned it once or twice. Even although we’ll only be gone for one night, leaving early Saturday and getting back late Sunday, this trip has taken a helluva lot of arrangin’. I would say this is because we own a business, and it’s hard to go away for a break when you own a business, but actually, I think it’s just me. I am high maintenance. Packing for one-night away will take me hours. Hours. Let’s just say I don’t travel light – in fact, even although it’s one night away and we’re only travelling to the south of England, we’re having to take a suitcase rather than a carry-on, just so I can bring all of my makeup and toiletries. Oh, and the iron.
Anyway, so I’m high-maintenance, I know that. And because I know that, I had set aside all of Friday afternoon for packing. This meant that the work I would have normally done on Friday afternoon and evening had to be done earlier this week. I decided to do it on Wednesday, and when the Internet suddenly decided not to play along, I silently congratulated myself for this feat of forward planning, for I still had all of Thursday to do this massive chunk o’ work! Why, I was one clever cookie, no?
Well, no. Not really. Because today we came back to the office after Neighbours lunch, and the Internet wasn’t working AT ALL. D’oh!
Prompted by my shrieks of dismay, Terry got right on the phone to Virgin Media, who are our Internet providers, hereafter referred to as the Imps of Satan. After a few short minutes, they confirmed what we already knew: there was a problem with the network in our area. Would they be doing anything about it, though? Oh hell to the no. I mean, you must be joking, it’s not like we pay for this you know… oh no, wait. We do.
The Imps of Satan, you see, have a policy. The policy is that when a customer makes them aware of a problem with the Internet connection in a particular area, Virgin Media do absolutely nothing about this. At all. Instead, they wait until other people from that area call to complain. Only when a certain Magic Number of complaints is reached will they send someone to fix the problem. Until then? Nothing.
Now, this is clearly the dumbest policy in the world, ever. I mean, if you’re eating in a restaurant and you complain to the server that hey, there was a severed finger in your soup, they don’t just shrug and say, “So? We’ll wait until we get complaints about the other four before we do anything about that,” do they? No. (Well, it depends where you’re eating I guess.) No, if a customer has a problem, you try your best to fix that problem, you don’t just yawn and say, “Well, yaknow, if there were lots of people with the problem, we’d care, but seeing as it’s just you…” Or, to put it another way, “Screw you, suckers! We’re not going to fix your stupid Internet until an angry mob beats a path to our door and demands we FIX THE INTERNET NOW.”
Trust me, I was totally willing to arrange this. I’m sure Rubin and I could totally act like an “angry mob”. No, really.
Anyway, that wasn’t the worst thing The Imps of Satan did to us today. No, the worst thing they did was slam down the phone when Terry called them back an hour later to ask what was going on. (And trust me, Terry was perfectly polite to the operator. She just slammed the phone down on him because she was a bitch.) Oh, and they also blatantly lied to him at one point too, just to get him off the phone. This was confirmed by the supervisor he eventually got to speak to after about two hours of no Internet, and another mad bout of house cleaning from me.
After that we gave up and resorted to dial-up. I know! Rocking it 1999 style! It was more or less the same as the day before when the computer had been on the Go Slow, only worse, because by then I wanted to break something – preferably something at Virgin Media.
So, it’s now 9pm, and I’ve only just finished making up the time I’ve lost. I haven’t even had time to think about packing the iron and all that stuff, although I have found time to worry quite a bit about dying a fiery death as my plane plummets to the ground on Saturday, because that whole “Not worrying about the flying” thing I was talking about earlier this week?” Oh how young and naive I was back then! Thanks for all of the “plane crashing into the ocean” dreams you’ve served up in the intervening nights, subconscious! Is the hypochondria not enough of a stick for you to beat me with? Sheesh.
Anyway. The broadband connection is working again, although for how long, who knows. The work is finally either done or abandoned, because GOD, there’s only so much you can do with slow-speed dial-up, you know?
I have wine in the fridge. And a really, really clean house in which to drink it. And Virgin Media? I am SO coming to poke you in the eye, don’t you forget it…
UPDATE: For the benefit of anyone reading this in the future, as the result of a Google search, I am no longer intent on poking Virgin Media in the eye, and you can read the update to this story here.
Tagged virgin media
Today Terry and I didn’t have time to go to the gym, so I decided to do my bit for the ol’ waistline by going out for a run around the streets of the Ghetto.
Within ten minutes of leaving the house I was invited to "get my boobies out". About thirty seconds later I was called a "ho" (No, I didn’t obey the first command, in case you’re wondering if that was why…). And OK, both of these comments came from pre-teens, but seriously: the fact that I can’t even go for a walk run within a few hundred metres of my own front door without being verbally abused by kids who clearly aren’t mature enough to be allowed out in public without a minder is pretty disgusting to me. Seriously.
On the plus side, though, at least I can give up running now.
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