mini-moan: what ever happened to bus conductors?

Being a sad and lonely individual I have to cook for myself and with the price of ready meals for one being so high I often have to cook from scratch. So I scour the shelves of Waitrose, Tesco and the Co-Operative Eagle-eyed watching for the reduced labels so I can afford to buy the ingredients for my often bizarre and rarely edible creations.

Today it was time for a cut price prawn stir-fry and every time I use the wok I ask myself the following question;

What fecking idiot at the Central Design Institute for Advance Wok Design decided to construct the handles for my wok entirely out of metal?

I'm assuming that there must be some ludicrously named 'institute' for those that design woks, there's an institute for everything nowadays.
Perhaps I'm the only person in the world that noticed that metal conducts heat and that when cooking a stir fry heat is in abundance. Therefore handles that conduct heat combined with heat equals hot handles, and hot handles plus hands equals hot hands, and hot hands equals me shouting obscenities at the top of my voice.

politics: like an onion

I'm an incredibly opinionated individual and pretty stuck in my ways, but I like to think that those opinions don't do any real harm.
For example I don't like black shoes or white trainers, and I believe only w@nkers wear jeans with holes in them, but in the grand scheme of things these opinions don't do any harm.
What really gets my goat is when politicians and groups attempt to impose their views on a nation. I might not be a homosexual but does that mean I should seek political power with the intention of limiting gay rights? I'm  not a pregnant woman so I certainly shouldn't be able to make abortion illegal.
These people can have their opinions, if you don't feel abortion is right that's your opinion, but you cannot impose that view on others, you can't fight a political campaign and use the hatred of others to gain you political authority.
Perhaps democracy doesn't work because the world is a frightened and idiotic place?
I bet some of you out there think I am thinking of Mitt Romney or Republicans, and these comments are certainly applicable to a man that seems to have changed so many of his platforms in the hope of obtaining the US presidency. But it's more general than that, I think political power will always appeal to those wanting to impose their views, often extremist but not always. Joe Average couldn't give a crap and has no motivation to become Prime Minister, President or Chancellor because it's a lot of work, but for somebody that wants to enforce their views on others it sure is an attractive and rewarding aspiration.

Vote tgwmcm for President of the Earth.

mini-moan: take no for an answer.

I've just been completing an online survey for shirts and giggles. When you are as bored and lonely as me sometimes a radio button is your closest friend.
The first question presented asked whether I watched one of about 15 different sports, anybody that knows me will not be surprised to hear I never watch sports.
So having answered NO to every sport the following questions were displayed, they are not word for word accurate but close enough for the purposes of an internet moan.

What digital devices do you watch each sport on?
Obviously none as I've just said I watch know sports.
Then it asks

Which sports do you record to watch later?
None, I watch no sports.

Which of these devices do you use to compliment your viewing of sport?
NONE!!!
Followed by.

How important would each of these XBOX Live features be to enhancing your experience of watching sport?
Why do you keep asking me these questions?

Surely it isn't beyond our technology to analyse the response to the first question and selectively screen out subsequent questions that will just massively annoy the people you are hoping will complete your survey?

mini-moan: loose ends.

Buying new shoes really annoys me, I have a high instep and wide feet so it's a bit of a challenge to find shoes that fit comfortably, though that is more of an inconvenience than an annoyance. What really annoys me when buying shoes is that shoe factories are obviously staffed by morons that don't know how to lace up shoes. Every single pair of shoes on the shelves are laced backwards, half laced, or sometimes not even laced at all. So I have to spend 5 minutes re-lacing every pair of shoes before I try them on. When coupled with most shoes being uncomfortable I can lace up 5, 6 or more pair of shoes in a single fitting.

Surely the first question on the application form for working at a shoe factory should be 'Can you lace a pair of shoes?', and the very first task at the shoe factory recruitment day should be a practical shoe lacing session.

Yet it seems this is not the case, perhaps shoe factories demand that their staff incorrect lace shoes during manufacture, but any self-respecting human would sooner go hungry than be forced to incorrectly lace thousands of shoes in their lifetime, so by science I can conclude shoe factories are indeed staff by morons or worshippers of Satan.

Special Event: so there you have it.

It's sure hasn't been fun these last few years has it? There's been rotten fruit on the back seat of cars parked badly outside a branch of the Halifax. Silly shaped cucumbers too large or too small to fill a hole. There have been strings and sacks that just won't stay together and special guests that never turned up. Computers that just don't work and toxic events that resulted in a massive relocation. Don't even get me started on the meaty feasts that turned out not to be.

So how am I going to punctuate all of this and mark over 2000 views of my blog? Then what am I going to do for my 150th post (this is number 144). The answer is pretty much nothing, I've run out of steam. Yes there are things that are sure to annoy me over the coming days, weeks or months, but the longer I go on the less I can be bothered.

It just seems a bit pointless at the moment.

mini-moan: give it a good squeeze.

Balls can be tricky things, sometimes you need to grab hold of one but can't get a good grip. That's the problem with round things, and the bigger they are the harder it is to maintain purchase.
So that's why Bowling Balls have holes in them, once you stick your fingers in a hole (or three) things become much easier, but sometimes the holes are too big and your fingers just flop around with no sensation, or too small which means you can get your fingers in just fine but trying to get them out can lead to all manner of trouble.
It always annoys me massively when Bowling alleys, who's only job is to ensure people throw balls at sticks, completely fail on the hole front. My nearest Bowlplex have the worst holes I've ever stuck my fingers into, some of the holes in the balls are so small that you'd practically need a microscope to see them, were it not for my fingers becoming rather jammed I'd have thought they'd forgotten to drill any, so you end up going for a ball that is too large and cumbersome, clinging onto it like Wil Wheaton trying to hold onto his last shred dignity.
I just wish I could find a couple of balls that feel comfortable in my hands.

daily life: last shred of dignity

The work on building a new Laboratoire after 'The Incident' has progressed well, I am now well into the furnishing and fixings stage so today I headed to my local boot fair to see what bargains I could obtain for fitting out the Laboratoire.

As you can probably imagine the Laboratoire works on a lot of highly secret projects and along with such projects a huge amount of sensitive paperwork is produced. So top of my shopping list was a shredder to ensure that none of these papers fall into the wrong hands. To my delight I saw 2 shredders available the first a standard shredder which simply wasn't capable of safely disposing of documents as sensitive as those produced by the Laboratoire, the second was a cross-cut shredder which would provide the appropriate level of protection. After a short haggling session where the seller guaranteed the shredder was in full working order I handed over my £2 and toddled off with my new security device.

Eager to start disposing of my sensitives I popped them into the shredder, I waited for the sound of 'peace of mind' to erupt but there was only the sound of disappointment (which I've grown used to). The shredder did not work, I even had the chief engineer from the 'Laboratoire Advanced Technology Division' poke at it with a screwdriver for several minutes but to no avail.

 I am absolutely outraged that anybody would sell an item at a boot fair that they clearly knew did not function, especially as they proclaimed so forcefully that it was fully functional whilst I negotiated the price. No wonder I hate humanity if this is how they behave.
It'll take me 200 days of clicking through to Kelkoo from TopCashback to recoup my loses, and that assumes a 100% tracking rate, if you believe that could happen you are truly living in a wonderland.