Monday 25 September 2006

Easy money :O)

I read on the Politics bard that some aol members were offered broadband for £9.99 per month and as I currently pay £17.99 I thought I'd pursue this with Billing. 

I phoned on 0870 3202020, chose the option to talk about pricing/technical and just hung on for 10 minutes to speak to a human being (interestingly for the first time ever I heard Paul Brady being played as muzac - if you've never heard his band then make sure you do soon). 

I asked about the  £9.99 offer and was told it didn't apply to me, but only to some lucky people chosen by computer.  That's outrageous, sez I, I won't put up with this unfair treatment, put me through to cancellations. 

Cancellations - by name of gorgeous Laura O'Neill - said she quite understood my anger at the unfairness of it all and she could either cancel my account if that's what I wanted, or alternatively she would put me on the £9.99 per month immediately.  I got the official email within 5 minutes.  I thus easily saved myself almost £100 pa.  Try it yourself if you're paying more than £9.99, but do it quickly because this 'offer' is time limited.

I'm off shopping now  :O)

Sunday 24 September 2006

The right sort of terrorist

From Time magazine:
The Bush Administration prefers to paint the War on Terror in stark terms of good and evil, but the reality is that not all terror suspects are considered equal. That much was clear on the same day that the nation solemnly recalled the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, when a federal magistrate recommended freeing a man being held on immigration charges who is also awaiting retrial in Venezuela for the bombing of a Cuban airliner 30 years ago that resulted in the death of all aboard, including the Cuban national fencing team.
Why is the Bush administration so unconcerned about terrorists like Posada? The answer is simple and obvious. As Time points out, "Posada, a self-styled freedom fighter, has been involved in anti-Castro activities for decades."

If you are an anti-Castro terrorist, according to the US government, then you are a good terrorist. I am sure that the families of the victims of that bombing of an airliner will be happy to know that the US government sees things that way.

Friday 22 September 2006

Trying to turn a leaf out of Oprah's book

When in the past I've been extremely unhappy with my life I've made lists of the good things in it and found that it helped me put things into perpective.  Now apparently Oprah Winfrey recommends keeping a "grateful journal" in which you "list five things that happened this day that you are grateful for. What it will begin to do is change your perspective of your day and your life. If you can learn to focus on what you have, you will always see that the universe is abundant; you will have more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never have enough."
I think that positive thinking is a useful psychological tool, and so I'm going to do this, every day, until I - and perhaps my Blog - turn from gloomy cynicism towards the cheerily optimistic.  Here then is my list for today:
 
1. The tomatoes still on the vines are reducing in number and soon my culinary labours in that direction will be over for the year.
2. My new washing machine may make scarey noises but I've now done 2 washes and it has neither walked across the floor nor ripped any clothes into shreds.
3, The Shield is on TV tonight.
4. I have a loving and very understanding husband who doesn't ask me to accompany him walking the dog when it's raining.
5. My granddaughter Connie managed to get hold of her reception teacher's 'Good Girl' stamp, and marked her school uniform shirt indelibly with that valediction, smart cookie Connie!
 
Just call me Pollyanna, and then have a go yourself  :O)
 
Sod it, it's 18.24 and I've just discovered that The Shield ended last Friday!  Grrrrr.

It's just like a Cosmo quiz, honest! :O)

Take this quiz and see how suited to marriage you are - and yes I'm guessing you're already married but even so, have a go : Click here: The Premarital Quiz!
 
The multiple choice questions include the following gems:
 
When the Bible says that the “husband is the head of the wife” it means:
The husband always has the final say on all matters.
The husband is in a position of honor above the wife.
The husband’s behavior is the model for the wife’s behavior. In other words, husbands are required to “go first” or do what is good, beneficial, and necessary first.

When the Bible says that the wife should submit to the husband,it means:
The wife should do everything the husband says.
The wife should repress her life’s goals if they are different from the husband’s goals.
The wife should stand by her husband even if he says or does something wrong.

 
40% is all I got so I failed   Fortunately this means only that I chose alternative responses to those that the quizmaster intended me to choose - luckily it's possible to take the test again after you've been emailed the 'correct' answers.  Next time, were I to bother, I'd be 100% top marriage material  <gg>
 
So on balance I think it's fair to say that this 'quiz' is all about indoctrination and bugger all to do with helping people who are intending to marry.  Pity the poor young people dum enough to fall for it and then think their marriages doomed before they begin.

Thursday 21 September 2006

Sick sick Cindy

Think of the last time you saw a photo of a 5 year old in her swimming coggie.  She probably had sand on her legs and was more interested in finding seashells than in posing for the camera, right?

Now imagine your 5 year old posing, looking coyly over her shoulder at the camera, arm in that 'guess what I'm hiding' position, and a tattoo right in the small of her little back, just above her bottom, a bit like a bull's eye.  Nice image huh?

Well Cindy Crawford thinks so.  Know what I think?  Prostituting your 5 year old daughter is the pits, and it's also pandering to paedophilia.  Poor child, to be the daughter of such a media slut.

Have a looksee and make your own mind up:   http://i9.tinypic.com/48p1anl.jpg           

HP kin Sauce.

From time to time I feel impelled to diet, either when my clothes get a bit on the tight side or when one of our ultra skinny-fit daughters comes to stay and spends hours running up and down the local hills and then talks about missing her cross-trainer when she's away from home.  The only other thing that makes me want to be thinner more than it makes me want to eat more chocolate is when I see an unflattering photo of myself - usually standing next to one of said daughters.

Imagine my joy then at seeing this:  Slimming photos with HP digital cameras - HP Digital Photography Center

On the other hand and having given it slightly more than 10 seconds thought of course, the actuality is that I think Hewlett Packard will have to go and lick a dead bear's bum before I buy any of their products again.  Sizist bastards.

Sunday 17 September 2006

Saturday 16 September 2006

Happy days

Can I just say, in public, that cervical smears hurt, that having IUDs inserted or removed hurts, that mammograms performed by evil harridans hurt and that all male medics lie through their teeth and women shouldn't collude with their lies!

I was a bloody well woman before I went to the Clinic!

My other happy news is that I have a stinker of a cold.

Oh, and my washing machine has died a grisly death.

Further, if I see another tomato I shall stomp it.

What's more, I want to know why my daughter thinks it's a better idea for me to cut up extremely decent Egyptian cotton sheets to make Felix some cot sheets than for her to 'traipse down to the shops' in her new people-carrier and just buy some.

Shoot me now.

Wednesday 13 September 2006

Warning, I'm talking about sex!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

El Presidente

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming and forming a terrorism-victim shield around me. September 11th. September 11th. Towers down. Box-cutters. Action time!

They're still out there. But we're safe because of all the things I've done. But not safe. It's a real chin-scratcher. But we are bringing everybody to justice without actually doing anything remotely justice-related, and many times to a bunch of people who had nothing to do with anything. That shows you how serious we are.

So serious that we set up secret prisons and some not-secret prisons with lots of secret things, things so juicy that those notorious gossips in the Red Cross couldn't even get to them. Those guys are always saying "He should have water" or "Maybe you shouldn't suspend him by his shoulders for 48 hours at a time" and blah blah blah.

Some of the detainees said bad things. Maybe it was after we held them for four years without charges and for no reason, maybe it was before. Who knows? Now the double-super-secret detainees: they really are terrorists. So bad that we can't even charge them with anything because the charges would eat right through the paper and onto the floor and through the floor towards the center of the Earth like the blood of a Queen Bitch alien.

I'm going to tell you know how bad these guys are through the example of one guy, but me tell you all these details it isn't divulging anything important, because it became unimportant and non-securitally compromising the moment I decided to utter it, and midterm electoral success trumps security. The illegal ends justify the means. Really, our hands were tied, and by ours I mean theirs and very uncomfortably. Honestly, you'd all be dead if we hadn't had done this in exactly this way, and I don't want to hear any back-sass from any of you.

Which is why we're entirely changing the perfectly legal, maximally effective thing we were doing. The non-torture torture was absolutely essential to producing the dividends paid by the program. If we didn't non-torture torture, and instead just non-tortured, God only knows how many smoking craters would be dotting our great landscape.

By the way, that shit down in Cuba: also totally legal, despite what every person who doesn't get paid by the White House. And those rotten Supreme Court justices. So we'll try again, and see if we can't stick an infected finger in those robed tyrants' eyes, aye what, mate?

So here's the long and short of it: they get lawyers (boo!).. I know, I know... they're presumed innocent (laughter), and they get food and medical care (shrill hissing). But don't worry, we know they're guilty and a hand-picked tribunal hearing limited evidence and denying basic fairness protocols will know that as well. Maybe. Because frankly I don't care what happens after I'm in office.

Now that everyone finally disagrees with our methods, it's time to pass this vitally important legislation so that the world can now that a slim majority of partisan legislators right before a midterm election also agree with us.

September 11th. Think of your grandchildren, whether they exist or not.

Source: http://norbizness.com/archives/001838.html

Tuesday 12 September 2006

Bye Bri

Yesterday I had to say bye bye to my GP because after 4 years <since we moved house> of prevaricating and obfuscating about our address my husband couldn't take the embarrassment of being asked to confirm it yet again.  Personally I found that 'For goodness sakes, how many times are you going to ask me' served me well but my hub tended to clam up and go pink so we finally reached the end of his road.
 
My doc Brian, when I fessed up, asked hopefully if our old address was maybe now our holiday cottage, and then said that he'd guessed ages ago that we'd moved but certainly didn't feel the need to take us off his list.  It seems mad, we see him twice a year for humdrum check-up things and in any event his out-of-hours service covers the whole of the region including both my old and new address.  But there you go - that's the outcome of the dire influence of receptionist dragons who harrass poor husbands for their correct address.
 
It took me quite some time to break Brian in to my little ways and after our initial differences we'd become firm friends.  Now I'm faced with locating another surgery and slowly working through the docs until I find one to suit me.  I really do think GPs should have to publish their CVs so that patients can make an informed choice.
 
Anyway, Brian Johnson GP of Chirk, you're a star and I'll miss your little jokes and nervous chuckle  :O))

Monday 11 September 2006

So how does this work??

1. Grab a calculator. (You won't be able to do this one in your head)
2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the area code)
3. Multiply by 80
4. Add 1
5. Multiply by 250
6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again.
8. Subtract 250
9. Divide number by 2

Do you recognise the answer?

Saturday 9 September 2006

Wednesday 6 September 2006

Ooooh, daddy's so stiff! :O)

Guard families cope in two dimensions `Flat Daddy' cutouts ease longing

Maine National Guard members in Iraq and Afghanistan are never far from the thoughts of their loved ones.But now, thanks to a popular family-support program, they're even closer.

Welcome to the ``Flat Daddy" and ``Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.

The Flat Daddies ride in cars, sit at the dinner table, visit the dentist, and even are brought to confession, according to their significant others on the home front.

``I prop him up in a chair, or sometimes put him on the couch and cover him up with a blanket," said Kay Judkins of Caribou, whose husband, Jim, is a minesweeper mechanic in Afghanistan. ``The cat will curl up on the blanket, and it looks kind of weird. I've tricked several people by that. They think he's home again."

At the request of relatives, about 200 Flat Daddy and Flat Mommy photos have been enlarged and printed at the state National Guard headquarters in Augusta. The families cut out the photos, which show the Guard members from the waist up, and glue them to a $2 piece of foam board.

Sergeant First Class Barbara Claudel, the state family-support director who began the program, said the response from Guard families has been giddily enthusiastic.

``If there's something we can do to make it a little easier on the families, then that's our job and our responsibility. It brings them a little bit closer and might help them somewhere down the line," Claudel said yesterday.

``You know, this is my motto: `Deployment isn't a big thing, it's a million little things.' These families go through a lot."

Do you sometimes wonder if you belong to the same species as some Americans?

Mind you, there have been times in my family life when a cardboard Daddy might have been slightly more use than the real one was.    :O)

Condi can do it too

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attempting to broaden discussion of Iraq by invoking slavery and the American Civil War said:  "I'm sure there are people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold."
 
This equating of the widespread and growing disapproval of failing American military and political tactics in Iraq with support for negro slavery in 19C America is certain to be a winning argument for the White House.  Not.
 
Now if you say you think Bush made the wrong decision in invading Iraq, or if you think the whole venture has turned into a bloody screwed up mess, then you're no different from people who think negros should be enslaved to whites. 
 
Love Bush and all his works or be told officially that you're inhuman scum.
 
Nice whoever said it, but somehow even nicer coming from a black woman who knows how many black Americans oppose the Iraq war.  Perhaps she also knows that the overwhelming majority of US troops in Iraq are recruited from the poorest (and Blackest) sections of US society.

More Bushisms

 
President Bush said about Osama bin Laden today: “Bin Laden and his terrorists' allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. …The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?”

On March 13th 2002 he said of Bin Laden “I just don't spend that much time on him. …[W]e haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I — I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

Riiiight...... So in four and a half years, bin Laden has gone from being someone on whom the president should not waste his time thinking about to as grave a threat as Lenin and Hitler.  Interesting.

You know, a sentient person might conclude that either:

A) Bin Laden’s potency and influence have significantly increased over the last few years, meaning Bush’s war on terror is an abject failure;

B) Bush was full of shit and/or incompetent on March 13, 2002;

C) Bush is full of shit and/or incompetent today, September 5, 2006; or

D) All of the above.

I’m going with D.

Starter for 10

You stumble upon a lamp in the Blackpool sands and out pops a genie who's willing to grant you one wish. The catch is he's only able to grant one wish, that wish is removing a single person from the House of Commons.  No death involved or anything; they're just relocated to a cashier's job at Asda... and a scorching case of genital herpes.

Who would you nominate?

Tuesday 5 September 2006

Just a little reminder

President Bush today reminded Americans that the United States is a nation at war on the same day his administration proclaimed significant progress in the war on terror but said the enemy has adjusted to US defenses and that "America is safer but we are not yet safe".
 
Well, blow me down.  Americans need reminding.  Maybe he ought to mention it more often.
 
Oh, no.  Perhaps not.  Mentioning it would bring the number of servicemen and women killed to the forefront of the American mind.  It might make them recall where the National Guard were when Katrina struck.  It may remind them of the incredible amount of their hard earned taxes being spent every day by the military.  It may remind them of his claim that the US had won the war in Iraq.  And that before that they'd won the war against the Taliban and Bin Laden.
 
It may remind them that Bush ignored the fact that the WTC terrorists came from Saudi Arabia.  It may remind them that Bin Laden is still out there, still hating America.  It may remind them what a mendacious onanist they have for President. 
Best keep shtum in future Georgie, then they'll never guess.

Monday 4 September 2006

Who's the sick bastard?

 
A man terrorised women for 3 years, seizing them on the street, tieing them up and raping them, and stealing their shoes as mementoes of happy times.  Police traced him via dna and found over 100 women's shoes in his home.
He was charged with 4 rapes and 2 attempted rapes and admitted guilt.
 
The Judge said this was one of the most serious sexual crimes and if found guilty by trial would have meant a minimum 35 years sentence.  So he gave him 15 years. 
15 years for a possible 50+ rapes. 
Some justice.
Some Judge.