Friday, March 27, 2009

New media strikes home


Well well, the promise of more posts didn't quite come to fruition this week. Never mind, there's always next week. As it happens one can but wonder if traditional blogging is dying out to be replaced by other entities such as Facebook and Twitter.

On that point I am now on Facebook and on Twitter.......I joined Facebook last year when we went through a raft of redundancies as it seemed a quick and simple method of keeping in touch with people. At first iIreally didn't get it ...possibly like most ...ahem...40-somethings......probably due to the fact that like most of these new Web 2.0 technologies they're not aimed at my age group. They seem strictly designed for teenage and 20-something serial texters and people of a certain youthful age who seem more at home communicating through electronic or internet mediums than face to face. Let's be honest teenagers will text people they're sitting next to rather than speak to them. But is that so different from the email culture? I work in an office where people will email the person next to them to ask them if they want to go for a coffee. If you'd have explained that to someone even 10 years ago that would have sounded ludicrous.

But with hindsight, this is exactly the reaction from my generation with regard to Facebook and Twitter and having now signed up to and used both, i wonder why we're so reticent and dismissive. Stephen Fry, a hero of mine (first on the fantasy dinner party list) is a fervent Twitterer and to date has about 390,000 'followers'. Why is this? Is it another example of our celebrity obsessed society? Well, Stephen Fry is hardly the usual celebrity fodder, in fact he's a normal 50-something bloke with a bloke-ish passion for technology and gadgets. I would surmise that having a large number of followers is more akin to the fact that he is genuinely interesting (more than Quite Interesting) and amusing.

Like most things it also takes the 40-something generation to adopt something for it to really take off. We write better stuff, we eventually see the benefit and then we make it work better. And the younger generations, as is their wont, flitter off to pastures new. It just begs the question why these bright ideas are always aimed primarily at 'yoof' culture rather than tapping into the vast experience of us oldies who rally know how to exploit the technologies.

'Tis the way of the new world I guess.

Some crap Friday jokes.......

Here's my nomination for 'Protester of the Year' Award....outside my local school there is a lady who every weekday morning and afternoon protesting. She dresses in bright yellow and holds up a small placard that says 'Stop Children'. That's real dedication to the cause and she deserves recognition.

Christianity; One woman's lie about having an affair that got seriously out of hand?

Apparently clumsy people are more likely to be obese. That's because they keep walking into things. Like MacDonalds.

Is Welsh a language that was invented by someone who was just shit at Scrabble?





Later, GJ




Friday, March 20, 2009

A librarian says......

My my, the posts are getting a bit infrequent, but hey, it's because I'm doing other things like...errr.........hmmmmm......well stuff!

In the past I have written vaguely about the injustice of health and the genetic package left to me.


You know...... the lovely little pre-disposition to high blood pressure and high cholesterol that has now come to fruition despite trying to live a balanced healthy lifestyle. Well I thought I'd write a few lines on how the changes have taken and what, if any difference they've made.Well I kept to my word and instigated a programme of exercise designed to reduce my weight and increase my fitness levels. I didn't set any target dates, rather I set a target weight and have logged all the exercise details on spreadsheets to track progress. I also decided that a slow sustained exercise programme gradually building up strength and stamina would be the best way rather than trying to do too much too soon. I also decided that rather than get pulled in by the usual exercise obsession that envelopes a lot of people I would cap any exercise period at an hour per day maximum. The only exceptions to this would be when out on the real bike on a nice day.

So I chose a light gym programme of resistance exercises, along with swimming and cycling as the cornerstones of the move back to fitness. The first thing was to start swimming again. Swimming is one of the few things I consider myself to be proficient at. Back in October I slowly re-introduced myself to the pool and started at 22 lengths. At 25m per length that's 550m Despite neck and shoulder problems from my dalliance with Monsieur Fuckwit that has now risen to 70 lengths, which works out at 1750m. I've even calculated the number of calories burnt per length. On the gym front, this was going well until they either lost, or someone stole my record card. Both seem improbable to me, but hey, I have a new card which will remain with me from now on. As for the cycling...well it is on an exercise bike until the weather and additional evening light kicks in, but that has gone from 15 minutes on a low resistance setting to 45 minutes on a 'fat burn' programme which means I cover about 16.5km per session and burn around 650 calories.

And the how has this affected my weight? I don't have any scales but the fact that I'm on the last belt notch tells me something is happening. My watch now slides up and down my arm, and when swimming I have to put my wedding ring in the holdall as it has started to fall off with each stroke.

One mystery though.........why can't I lose anything from the gut area? Why doesn't the body burn and lose the fat evenly all over? My waist size has dropped but the gut remains firmly in position. At best it's only lost a bit of its size. Surely that can't be genetic as well. Surely the laws of burning more calories than eating has to kick in on that at some point?

Otherwise, whats the fucking point?

Some Friday jokes and a half arsed promised to write a bit more next week.

A man walks into a library and says 'Have you got any books on suicide?'
The librarian replies 'Fuck off , you won't bring it back'

A woman walks into a library and just before she speaks
The librarian says' Fuck off, the supermarkets over the road'

A Scouser walks into a library and says 'I want to read a book'
The librarian replies 'Are you sure? There's a whore round the corner giving free blow jobs'
The Scouser replies 'Whoa, Are you joking?'
The librarian replies 'Well you fucking started it'

I walked into library the other day and before I could speak the librarian cut the bottom 3 inches of my trousers off and put them on a shelf.
I thought 'Fuck me, that's a turn up for the books'

Later, GJ

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

For the last time!!!!!

It's not

'....should of.....'

it's

'....should HAVE....'



It's not

'....could of....'

it's

'....could HAVE....'



It's NOT fucking

'....would of....'

For fucks sake it's

'....would HAVE....'

Now go back to bloody school and learn English.

Later, GJ

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

It can't be that far away can it?


Having flown once with this lot and reading about the plans to charge for the toilet.......well how long before this becomes real?


Later GJ

Moronic advertisers


Can someone answer me simple question? When did 5 year olds become the target for car advertisers? I'm just asking because the latest round of car adverts seems to consist of ads aimed at kids in their first year of school. Is it a subliminal effort to get kids putting pressure on Mums and Dads doing the school run to buy these cars? I'll give 3 examples, 2 of which are blatantly stupid adverts with background tunes you'd be lucky to hear in a modern day nursery school. The Audi Q5 advert with its irritating and baby-ish 'gonna go riding in the car car' tune The Land Rover Ad with some sort of Scat jazz shite in the background filmed in stop/start motion. The Ford Kuga advert, where the town is covered in paper and the earworm 'bong, bong' tune echoes in the foreground. And some idiot got paid to come up with this stuff. What did the agencies do.....recruit some kids in their playtime by wrenching them away from their Dairylea Dunker lunches with bags of Jelly Babies and ask them to draw some pictures and sing a song for the TV? Did the kids actually film the the Land Rover ad on a school video camera?

Please tell me if there any other ads as TV destroyingly irritating as these? I'm hoping that writing this is cathartic in some way but I fear I'm just giving myself 3 earworms for the day. They make me long for the days when cars were advertised by driving at high speeds on non-existent empty roads surrounded by mountains and lakes (actually go to Skye...they do exist there). Anything but these please!!!!

Apparently they call the ad designers 'creatives' in the industry. I have several other names for the twats who thought these ads were in any way relevant, innovative or attractive.

Mentals.
Fuckwits.
Morons....

...immediately spring to mind.

Later, GJ