Misleading titles

by Twenty Major on April 22nd, 2007

I was browing the shelves of Hodges & Figgis the other day and I saw a book called ‘The tenderness of wolves’. I’m always open to new things so I took myself off, at considerable expense, to hunt and kill a wolf in preparation.

After a mighty struggle and some loss of blood I got the carcass back home. I then went out and bought the book and there isn’t one fucking recipe in at all.

I feel swindled.

Barcamp? What’s it all about?

by Twenty Major on April 20th, 2007

The techy end of the Irish blogosphere is all excited about an event in Dublin tomorrow called ‘Barcamp’. I checked it out and was slightly disappointed to discover it has nothing to do with bars and I don’t see any mention of tents at all. The Ginger Avenger, Tom Raftery, will be talking about building a carbon neutral data centre. Look Tom, the weather for the last couple of weeks has been excellent, we don’t need anyone fucking it up by trying to stop global warming.

I’d set up a solid fuel powered data centre.

“Lads, the servers are running slow!”

“Not a problem. Get some more fossil fuels into that incinerator, and while we’re at it, let’s burn plastic cartons.”

“Mmmmmm, toxic smoke.”

Far be it for me to criticise but this event is not for me. It’s inspired me though. I might set up my own. I shall call it ‘Beercamp’ and people can spend all day drinking beer and telling stories about the great things beer has made them do like come home and go for a wee on a bedside table when you think you’re in the bathroom.

I might get a special guest speaker and I shall call him ‘Bergkamp’ and he can talk about all the great goals he scored while drinking beer. I mean, of course, he’d drink beer while telling the stories because it was very rare to see him with a can of Dutch Gold during a World Cup.

Of course we’d need to cover the ‘camp’ side of things as well so Graham Norton would be introduced as the host for the day. Then promptly shot in the face.

Who’s in?

It’s the little things

by Twenty Major on April 19th, 2007

With so much terror and horror and other double Rd bad things going on in the world we might overlook the fact that often it’s the little things that spark the most fury.

Look at Ho Chi Min who carried out the Virginia shootings. He was just another lonely sack of shit until some small thing made him flip out and go on the rampage which cost so many lives (and please let’s not use this as another debate for and against guns, go down to the Right to bear arms post for that).

Sometimes we get so caught up in the bigger picture we fail to notice the minor irritations that life presents us, such as:

- The scroll wheel on your mouse not working properly. Honestly, this makes me want to headbutt my iMac. It’ll scroll up but not down. Or down but not up. And it requires me to pick around at it with a needle or some other long thin thing, like Peter Crouch, to get it working again.

- Removing things from your dog’s arse. The other day Bastardface came into the house with a lego brick stuck up his hole. Some kid must have thrown it into the garden and the dog sat on it. It was long and blue and quite impacted. Oh joy.

- Taking a big slug of milk direct from the carton forgetting that you left the milk directly in the sun for most of the morning and that it had curdled.

- Biting your nail too far and/or taking a big chunk of skin off the side of your finger. While delicious this certainly does smart for some time.

- Hearing other people talk. If you use public transport for a period of time and have some kind of portable music device then travel anywhere without one it’s almost unbearable. Why can’t they just shut up?

- Clouds. Fuck off you cunts.

- People who say “Can I just” when you’ve already told them you’re not interested in whatever it is they’re selling. Especially if they’re trying to get you to sign up for a Direct Debit to some charity.

- Cunts who go on about how much they enjoyed a film even though it was complete crap and then justify it by saying shite like “I get a perverse pleasure from watching terrible movies”. Cram it you fat cunt. That whole ’so bad it’s good’ thing gets right on my tits.

- Dwarves.

So what are the little things that irritate you?

Election promises

by Twenty Major on April 18th, 2007

Oooooh, get this Fianna Fail is promising 250,000 new jobs if they’re returned to power in the upcoming general election.

It’s all going to go mad from here. What next? Fine Gael promises every man in Ireland a blowjob from Angelina Jolie? Labour promises to eliminate period pain? The Greens promise a hammock to every single person in the country?

The PDs promise to not be a pack of complete and utter cunts?

It’s hard to know what to call them

by Twenty Major on April 18th, 2007

Stinking Pete was queueing up in a shop yesterday and there was a bloke ahead of him. However, the shop keeper spoke to Pete as if he was the new customer.

Ever the gentleman Pete says, “I’m sorry, shopkeep, but this African American gentleman here is next.”

“What the fuck are you on about, ya bollix”, said the African American, “I’m not African American at all. I’m Irish. Born and bred in Coolock, so I was.”

“Jaysus, sorry about that”, says Pete. “Shopkeep, this African Irishman is next.”

“Listen you, you clown, I just told you I was Irish born and bred. I’m not an African Irishman. I’m just an Irishman.”

“Well, why do the African Americans in America insist on being called African Americans and not just Americans.”

“How the fuck would I know? Do you think because our skin is sort of the same colour that we have some kind of telepathic link?”

“Don’t be daft”, says Pete, “I was only asking, you cranky shite. It’s just that these African Americans and all those that call themselves Irish Americans and Italian Americans seem more eager to highlight the African and Irish and Italian part of themselves than the American part. I mean, surely a large number of English people have moved to the US and had children and such but you don’t hear of anyone calling themselves English Americans, do you?”

“Good point”, says yer man, “why can’t they just be plain old American like all the other Americans? In the same way I’m an Irishman they’re Americans.”

“Look here”, says the shopkeep, “I have a shop to run.”

“Ahh sorry”, says yer man, “I’ll have-”

“You had your chance you fucking Mick cunt”, says Pete, “Twenty Superkings and a box of matches, please.”

The right to bear arms

by Twenty Major on April 17th, 2007

“See there’s been another school massacre in the US?”, said Dirty Dave.

“Aye, shocking stuff”, I said.

“You really do have to question the mindset of these people. Now, I know students are scroungy, unwashed fuckers but they’re hardly the worst. What would make somebody want to kill 31 students?”

“True enough”, said Stinking Pete, “especially when there’s so many other groups deserving of a good massacre.”

“Yeah”, said Dirty Dave, “why does nobody come along to a KKK meeting and take out 31 despicable racists with a semi-automatic weapon?”

“Exactly”, said Pete. “Take that family who picket the funerals of dead soldiers because they think America is too gay. Would anybody really care if a madman, armed to the teeth, went in and cut them down with an Uzi or a Kalashnikov?”

“They certainly would not”, said Dave. “And can you get your head around why events such as the Oscars have remained slaughter free when the world would be a much better place with less, lovey-dovey, full of shit actors?”

“I realise”, said Pete, “that the right to bear arms and murder people indiscriminately is part of the constitution as set down by Charlton Heston but you’d think they might, seeing as this is not the first time this has happened, have tried to do something about it.”

“Don’t be silly, Pete”, said Dave, “at the end of the day guns don’t kill people. It’s people that kill people.”

“To be precise”, said Pete, “it’s bullets that kill people. It’d be very hard to carry out an atrocity like the one in Virginia if you had to club people over the back of the head with the handle of your weapon.”

“Good point”, said Dave, “the right to bear arms need not be changed. The NRA and those who love their guns can still have them. They just need to ban bullets and ammunition.”

“Problem solved”, said Pete. “You know something? We should go into politics.”

“Ah no”, said Dave, “I might be stupid but I’m not a complete and utter cunt.”

Ewwww, dreadlock

by Twenty Major on April 16th, 2007

A chap walked past me in a crowded place today and one of his hideous dreadlocks brushed off the side of my head.

It was all I could do to not vomit everywhere.

Isn’t there some kind of island or walled compound we can send these people?

Stop being so fucking vague

by Twenty Major on April 16th, 2007

You know those oracles and seers and other sorts that people come across in TV and films? You know, the ones where they climb a big fuck off mountain or smoke a load of really good stuff to get to another plane of consciousness.

The people are looking for advice, for wisdom, for counsel. They say “Please tell me how to deal with this situation” or “I am afraid of this circumstance, how can I make the best of it.”

The wise person nearly always speaks with a wry smile on their face and says something like:

“The answer you seek is within you.”

“You must look inside your heart to find the way.”

“The path which will lead you in the right direction is already known to you.”

What a pack of cunts they are. Jesus Christ. I’d be like “Here, you fucker, I’ve just climbed a poxy mountain, nearly fallen down it twice, bloodied my knees, got attacked by a lecherous condor and generally struggled like a bastard to get here so you could regale me with your foresight and knowledge and now you’re telling me the answer is inside me. You cunt. I’ll tell you what’s inside me. Some blood, guts, stomach acid, a hardened poo because I haven’t eaten in the three days, half a pint of wee and some water. What good are those things to me? Let me tell you. No fucking use at all. Now give me straight answer or I’ll kick your fucking head in.”

Honestly, if I ever had to consult one of them and they gave me one of those answers with that little grin on their face I’d kick their fucking bollocks out of their ears.

Friday the 13th

by Twenty Major on April 13th, 2007

Bad luck supposedly but if it was such bad luck it would be Friday the 13th all over the world so why is it not bad luck in Spain, for example, where it’s Tuesday the 13th that brings ill-fortune.

I’m beginning to think the whole thing is merely superstition.

Dirty Dave doesn’t think so though. He’s had some bad luck on Friday the 13ths, such as:

• When he was a little boy he fell down a well in the middle of nowhere and spent 10 days down there before being rescued. It was only then he realised it wasn’t a well at all but one of those grid things in the middle of the street in the city centre.
• He lost his virginity to Sheila Molloy who had the stinkiest gee in all of Ireland. He said it smelt like curdled Greek yoghurt mixed with gone off chicken
• He once went to school with odd socks on and was mercilessly teased by the other children, even by Darach O’Reilly who had a patch on his eye and who ‘L’ instead of ‘R’ (e.g ‘that was a vely good lollelcoastel’)
• One time he flew with Ryanair somewhere
• His best friend in the whole world, a hamster called Kurt, was kidnapped by a famous Hollywood star. When he got him back he had to put him down as he was completely the wrong colour.
• He discovered, one Friday the 13th, that his parents didn’t actually die in that car crash when he was a teenager and the whole thing, police, counsellors, removal and funeral and him being sent to an orphanage, was merely an elaborate hoax because they couldn’t fucking stand him.

I’m not sure what he’s got planned for today. He’ll probably stay at home where a giant chunk of icy wee from a passing airplane will land in his front garden and crush the new seeds and bulbs he planted and make his garden stink of piss.

Me, I’m going out to walk under ladders, step on cracks and when I come home I’ll be opening an umbrella indoors, but then I’m a devil-may-care kind of guy.

See what the lack of corporal punishment does?

by Twenty Major on April 12th, 2007

TEACHERS are calling for hospital-style notices to be posted in schools warning that the gardai will be called if someone is physically abusive - today’s Irish Independent (notice the credit).

Unbelievable. It really is.

“Sit down or I’m calling the police”, says the teacher.

What the fuck has happened to society where teachers feel the need for police protection in the classroom? When I was in school if you so much as thought about getting physical with a teacher you’d get fucking hammered. Or sexually abused.

Sure, of course there was bad behaviour (such as hiding the Career Guidance teacher’s zimmer frame - which he needed after an in classroom stroke, or one lad bringing his dog into class by hiding him in sport’s bag then letting him loose) but there was never any question of a student getting physical with a teacher.

All this namby-pamby bollocks about human rights and such is what’s caused it. A good slap or a strap or a cane or a sound bumming acted as a deterrent and made you think twice about misbehaving again.

Teacher’s unions need to address these issues head on rather than look for third parties to come and mop up their messes.

Come on INTO, come on ASTI, start buggering and beating more children. It’s for the sake of our children’s children.