Michael Jackson,
Your death was rather sad and all, got a bit annoying after that, has started to quieten now and will probably be long forgotten by the time I post this but I would like to thank you for dying.
Your death has filled a big gap in my heart, somehow the excessive radio play of your songs has spread so far now that it's even gone to supermarket radio, and it's not just the big hits. For some reason the supermarkets have decided that they partially hold the duty of mourning by playing the Best of the Jackson 5, Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad and HIStory(which is actually okay) all day long. This is a wonderful improvement over the usual Alanis Morrisettes who all seem to base their songs around one line they think is intelligent(eg. "I miss you like the desert misses the rain"X238904092749 are the lyrics for one song... can't remember any others now, maybe I will), rather similar to me with this blog so!
So yeah, thanks for filling the void left by Gary Barlow, I'll miss your music when everyone else stops missing you.
B
PS. Pass the letter on to Quincy
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Thanks
Monday, July 06, 2009
Why did you do this to me?
You used to speak in such a determined, buoyant tone. You used to be so uplifting.
With your hopeful words in your beautiful voice, you kept me going through all the difficult times.
Why did you have to change? The new words of inspiration which you utter seem forced and lacking. Refusing to even repeat the great ones from the past, you appear to be a broken man.
So tell me, Gary Barlow, why on earth did you release such a terrible album?
...and why, why in the name of Christ, did you decide to not let supermarkets play the older songs any more?
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Maybe Opening My Mouth Will Make It End
This is an atrociously long set of tennis, going on and on forever... it's gonna end with someone quitting due to injury(blisters on the soles of their feet making it impossible to continue) and that's gonna lead to a long campaign of adverts about the importance of good sports socks.
END!!
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Alcohol(y) Trinity
Thursdays are brilliant round here. Well, they're actually absolute hell for me but for the general populace around here, it's a great day, like a giant party... it's welfare day, y'see.
One thing which generally occurs when you're doing nothing long term is that you fall into a ridiculously strict schedule. So every Thursday, I get to see the exact same things happen as every week before that.
The best example of this is the old bachelors. This does not mean every old bachelor, rather a special trio. They all look the same, combed hair, in a suit and all that, would be counted as very well dressed were it not for the fact that they gave up on the idea of ever changing clothes around the same time as they gave up on meeting a woman. Each one begins their journey into the town at about 6am in the morning, I walk by two of them on the way into the shop. Gradually, they'll work their way into the post office to be there for opening time and collect their pensions. At ten, they all appear at the door of the supermarket, being this close makes each one instantly distance themselves from the rest, one of them going to the checkout, another to the off-license, the third stands still.
The third fella is a strong believer in the old fashioned style of supermarket where the shopkeeper handed everything to you. The smell off of them works as a siren for attracting whoever is in charge to serve him.
All three buy the exact same thing;
- 2 pints of Monaghan milk(rather than a considerably cheaper litre),
- loaf of Pat the Baker bread,
- package of McVities Digestives
...and - 2 Fyffes bananas.
"What's that? I wanted bloody Digestives!"
"Which brand though?"
"Digestives! F*cking Digestives!"
"There's no such brand, sir"
*Also have to save some Fyffes stickers at all times under the weighing machine just in case they pop in and there's another brand.
Anyways after finishing at the shop, they'll each wander off to a different pub. There's three in the town so it's okay, last year there was another fella alive and it always resulted into a bit of a battle, like a weird, super slow and ridiculously complex version of musical chairs... the one who didn't get a pub had to go home.
Once in the pubs, they'll get absolutely pissed, drinking away as much of the pension as the barmen will allow them too.
I'm usually on my lunch break when they finally get thrown out of their respective pubs. -For my lunch, which is at most 15 minutes long, I just rush away from the shop so no one can bother me and eat about 5 of those super energy bar things that look like giant blocks of feces with bits of poorly digested porridge- My old regular resting point was on a bench at one corner of a T-junction. On another side there's checkout and at the 3rd side there's off license... checkout always stares drunkenly over at off license and off license stared over at me... took me some time to realise he was actually looking over at old fashioned, who was standing creepily close behind me.
Started having my teeny break at slightly differing times each week to see what the next step was in their little game.
Here it is, in dodgy image form:
The different coloured lines mark different periods where they lights let them cross the road. The numbers represent each one of them.
The short lines the same colour as the numbers represent where they came from.
The blue line marks the start of the road crossing situation. Number 3 moves across to number 1's side, which immediately sets number one on his journey to get away from 3. Next up is the gray line, where number 2 goes directly to the pub which 3 was in. This leaves 1 capable of going across, at the next red light, to 2's former pub.
I'm not quite sure why they work so hard to avoid each other, they all live terribly lonely lives, at the very least, they could have some drinking buddies that way... but something completely stupid must've happened about a million years ago which made them all fall out, now they've forgotten what it was and are incapable of making up.
Bit of a waste of time considering in a few hours they've poured their whole pension into their stomach in alcohol form, and are singing songs together outside the shop, together, as if they were my best friends... their one hour or so of companionship each week.
I still think these miserable gits aren't worthy of a full pension, but always leaves me smiling anyway... much better than wasting their pensions gradually over the week, to lead to seven miserable drunken walks home.
Amazing title, eh? No? Okay.
Monday, June 29, 2009
An Actual Post With Words And Lies And Substance And Whatnot
On a curriculum vitae I filled out during the college year for some job applications, I had some trouble trying to come up with things to put on my "achievements" section. Unfortunately, achievements are one thing I'm kinda lacking in, even for my age. In my desperation to come up with ones, I included the slightly jokey, 100% serious entry of "Sober every Sunday morning shift Oct 07-Aug 08".
While something makes me think all my potential employers went "...but what about the other 6 days?" they should've been acknowledging how big of an achievement that is. EVERYONE is pissed outta their skulls, everyone, that is, except me.
Work starts at 9am, but most people aren't in til half. Every last one of them comes in, zombielike, with a terrible mixture of sweat and alcohol... the girls looking lovely with last nights makeup smeared all over their faces.
They're generally not at hangover point just yet, moreso sleepy drunk. So there's no bad moods or landmines walking about just yet. They are all terribly useless though, even incapable of communication.
That is to say, incapable of proper communication, they do, however, make sure to learn off the following conversation.
"How was last night?"
"Oh I got absolutely hammered last night, must've drank X pints/glasses of Y"
Doesn't work too well with the customers though.
"Excuse me, is there anyway operating the checkout?"
"Oh I got absolutely hammered last night, must've drank X pints/glasses of Y"
"That's all well and good, but are you supposed to be operating the till?"
"How was last night?"
"What're you on about? Get someone to serve me!"
"Eh, um, how was last n-"
"You said that!"
"Oh I got absolutely hammered last night, must've drank X pints/glasses of Y"
"Jesus Christ, I'm leaving, getting out now, saying it because you cannot see it... what with being blind from drink(and to make it visible to readers)"
Yep, overall, the majority of them aren't very useful. Not sure if the shop is accommodating this fact or not, but work on Sundays is always easy, peasy, lemon, squeezey... which is just as well because I've to do quite a lot of the work. Also has to be completed within a strict time limit because around 11am, the staff begin to get a bit cranky, be it from dehydration, exhaustion or, most commonly, the realisation it was an extremely crappy, rather pricey night out in one of Longford's esteemed nightclubs where there's always the scarily high likelihood that anyone you meet may be related to you... they're generally super mad on mornings after that happens.
So I was thinking about putting it down like this in CVs from now on
Achievements:Sober For Every Sunday Morning Shift: Being the only sober person working on Sunday mornings, I had a large number of responsibilities to undertake. With no help, asides from the slight assistance of several drunken employees who followed me as if I was the Pied Piper of hungover Longfordinians, I had to complete these tasks alone.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Nerve
(This is a cop out as the post I actually had for here seems legally risky, potential GBH and all)
I see it somehow didn't post on the scheduled date, what on earth's that about?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Drafting
Customer: Excuse me, excuse me!
Me: Yeah?
Customer: I was just going in to buy this *waves offer leaflet*, but I can't see it on sale in here.
Me: Ohhh, that's because the company's currently only producing 100% extra free packages.
Customer: Sure... why'd they advertise this 2-for-1 offer then?
Me: Must've been short notice or something.
Customer: I can't use this offer? Typical of you to be fleecing us for all we're worth in the recession.
Me: You're getting the same as 2-for-1 anyway, 100% extra free!
Customer: ...no, I want 2 for the price of 1. That's 2 packages.
Me: but they'd be each half the size.
Customer: Why?
Me: because they wouldn't have the 100% extra free.
Customer: What on earth are you on about?
Me: 100% extra free, is the same as a full pack-
Customer: *sigh, walks off*
5 Min Later
Customer: I was just talking to the manager and they say that the voucher will work.
Me: Hmph, must have the same barcode as the originals. Normally they give a different one, sorry bout that.
Customer: No need to make up excuses, just don't be so certain of yourself when you're wrong. Lord knows, with this recession, the last thing we need is people causing us to spend more money.
Me: That's exactly what we do need though.
Customer: Little brat, I wasn't even rude.
Me: No, no, you weren't, I know that. It's just that the biggest problem with the economy, every economy, is a lack of faith, people aren't spending money which results in less money going through the economy which is needed to cause economic growth.
Customer: You're probably having everything bought for you by mammy and daddy, telling us all to spend as much as possible, we'd starve. Sure what would you know?
Me: Asides from basic economic theory, not a lot.
Customer: I was nice, just wanted to warn you about your error. You won't be seeing me round here again.
Me: I'm sorry.
Customer: So you admit to being wrong?
Me: No, I'm right.
Customer: About what?
Me: I dunno.
Customer: You used to be a lot more tolerant, this is no fun. *leaves*
