The Ranting Room

Oh. Okay. Then what am I gonna do with ALL THIS neuro-genetics equipment?!?

Your mom wouldn't let you have that sequin cape again? Look, I KNOW that Rick Wakeman's sweat is all over that mother f**ker, but I don't think we can clone him. For various legal, moral, medical AND decency reasons.

James,

Your story reminds me of the time that I was 'cold- called' by a company selling conservatories. I was at a loose end and agreed to meet one of their reps.

I made certain that I was out on the day that he was supposed to come around...

We live upstairs in a converted house.

Edited by Man Erg - March 27 2007 at 04:06

OK James, I'll have a go...

This one only really applies to the English among us, so my apologies to those of a foreign persuasion...

Three letters representing the peak of British cable television:

NTL

Early last week and for no apparent reason, we started to lose TV/Cable channels; after a couple of days, I summoned up the courage, set aside a long period of time, sat down on the sofa with a cold drink & a cigarette... and phoned them.

After the usual 10 minutes or so of being arbitrarily cut off for no reason & therefore having to go through the usual "if you want to be patronised, press 1, if you want a 17 year old drone to insult your intelligence, press 2, if you are obsessive compulsive, press 3 repeatedly" type menus, I was eventually put on hold for a further 15 minutes (having to listen to a room full of psychotically drunken session musicians murdering a selection of popular songs on a broken stylophone), after which a young lady for whom the words "brain stem death" were not so much a diagnosis as the basis of her CV advised me I would have to phone a different number.

Bcks!

So I did...

+++new cold drink, new cigarette, quick wee+++

After the usual waiting period (see above re menus, inexplicable cutoffs etc), I eventually got through to a very nice man from NTL's "technical services team" who I suspect was sitting in a cubicle in a faceless office block somewhere in the outskirts of Mumbai - with no disrespect to the man and no underlying agenda here, English was neither his first, nor second language, and he was definitely reading from a script...

written by an idiot...

with no knowledge of English.

Somehow, by the use of sign language (well, I was gesticulating wildly at this point, anyway) I managed to explain the problem, at which point he asked me to re-boot the cable-box; I told him I already had, & he said he was going to send a booster signal at the same time; so I did so...

...and we immediately lost all channels.

Bcks! (#2)

The "engineer" then said there must be a problem with the box itself & he would send an engineer round that afternoon, at which point I said something to the effect of "I don't know what time it is there, but here, it's 8:15 in the evening"

+++sigh+++

Aaaaaaaaanyway - eventually we arranged an engineer to call after 5:00 pm later this week (approx 10 days after the problem started).

Three hours later, the box re-booted itself & since then we've had no problem.

Oh, for F's sake!

There's an hour of my life I'll never see again.




That OK, James??

^^^

Aw! Bless the Swarb

Jim Garten wrote: Is Seth Lakeman the Australian surf "dooood" who released an album of 12 identical songs which has apparently caught the zeitgeist, and is therefore "soooooo relevant", even though he cannot sing and all his songs sound exactly the same due to his woefully inadequate guitar technique...? ...or is that somebody else?

Isn't that Pat Cash?

Jim Garten wrote: Is Seth Lakeman the Australian surf "dooood" who released an album of 12 identical songs which has apparently caught the zeitgeist, and is therefore "soooooo relevant", even though he cannot sing and all his songs sound exactly the same due to his woefully inadequate guitar technique...? ...or is that somebody else?

He's a Devonshire farmer's son who plays folk music inspired by Dartmoor.According to Mrs Erg,he's prime beefcake.

Before I go, I want to add two others to my above list:

Jamie Cullum
Seth Lakeman

Argh!

She's a singer, apparently.  She's also an alcoholic, possibly a drug addict and possesses a large head.  She's all the rage at the moment in the popular music world.  Not only do I find her annoying, but I also find her voice and music annoying too.  She's trying to be Shirley Bassey, but fails miserably.

Infact, it should be "Sir Alan Sugar and The Apprentice". 

Surely you've come across Amy Winehouse?  Maybe I can find a photograph of her, it may trigger something.

Yes, Asia is more my gripe, but John Wetton is the more disappointing one out of that bunch.  I've never been a huge Yes fan, so Steve Howe's presence doesn't bother me and E.L.P. and The Buggles have never been a favourite either, but King Crimson are a favourite of mine, especially Wetton era, so to see him in Asia is especially annoying.  They're even releasing a new album in 2008!

As I said elsewhere, it's more of a problem of apologising for something 200 years ago.  I'm completely against Slavery, but why apologise for something a minority of our forefathers/mothers were involved in?

Just looking at Noel Edmonds makes me feel ill, he looks quite ill himself, I have to say.  Very pasty (or is that pastie?) faced.

Teenagers and Popular Culture kind of link in with eachother.  The whole trend-following, peer-pressure nonsense that teenagers seem to complain about really irks me.

You're spot on about politicians.

Oh yes, Amy Wino-house...






Edited by Geck0 - March 26 2007 at 08:17