F*** My Life!

Today on Twitter I was lucky enough to catch a tweet from @TormenTed whom some of you might remember from various blogging sites.  She shared a link to one of the most funny websites I had the pleasure of reading.  It certainly makes me much happier about myself as it's all about people landing themselves in the shit.

http://www.fmylife.com/

I have subscribed to their RSS feed and each new story brings a little smile to my face.  Perhaps I'm a sadist at heart, but knowing that there are people out there who are having a worse time of it than me makes me feel that the world is ticking along quite nicely.  Don't get me wrong, they are not stories about people losing a leg or dying of cancer or anything like that, just embarrassing anecdotes.

I suggest you all take a peek, I have wasted hours on there today.  Thanks Ted!

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Hoisted With Her Own Petard

Or for those of you not into Hamlet, 'to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else'.

I can't help myself but to pass comment on what is happening at a site I have never visited, nor am I likely to. I am of course referring to 'The Old Place'.  Those of you who don't know about the 'Old Place', worry not, this will make absolutely no sense whatsoever to you.

In fact, I can't call it 'The Old Place' anymore as they have begun on their fourth/fifth incarnation as all other attempts have failed, I doubt if this version will survive long either, because of what is happening there at the moment.

It's only been brought to my attention by a couple of bloggers here at Vox and a few e-mails sent to me by people who do not agree with what the site admin has been writing, so forgive me if I'm out of context as I only hear things 2nd hand.

What I have heard is that she's been very unprofessional and petulant about a complaint on a private blog and her response was made very public on the homepage of the site.

I have also heard that I have a finger in the pie as it were, just for the record, I had nothing to do with it and I have nothing to do with the person who made the complaint, nor do I have any contact with the site admin there. I've also heard that the powers that be over there are censoring content, which I disagree with.

It does however raise a few questions, are these people so paranoid about their inability to provide a good service that they need to jump on anyone that complains, even to involve someone who left the community nearly two years ago and has never returned?  This continual mob rule over there will only destroy what greater people have built, and from what I hear, a lot of people are disgusted with the response that the admin posted and have decided only to use the place to mirror or to comment on the die-hards blogs, not really a good start to a new social blogging site.

Personally I gave up on 'The Old Place' a long time ago and found Vox, here you are allowed to post whatever you want, you can complain to your hearts content and the admin staff answer all your queries with a level head and never make anything personal. 

In fact, I am between two minds whether to publish this or not, as all that has happened has nothing to do with me, but after finding out that I was mentioned as a reason for this event, I suppose I had to say something.

I just feel that there is a lot of bitterness over there, people need to grow up and remember that there are greater problems in life than a third rate blogging service and the people that use it.

Long live Voxers!!!

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Eep!

I had a slight 'shit myself' moment today.

I was having a little afternoon nap and something made me wake up with a start, I don't know what, but something compelled me to get up and go into my living room, nothing seemed out of place.

I was about to go back to the bedroom for a stint on the computer when I heard a sad little flapping noise, hardly loud enough for me to hear.  My first thought was that there was a bird in the house, but all the windows were shut.

I went around to the kitchen and what I saw on the floor made my heart miss a beat.  It was Foxy, my Rabbitfish.  He'd decided to take a walk on the wild side of the tank.

Foxy

I promptly picked him up, quite carefully I may add as his spines are poisonous, and returned him to his home.  At the time he looked terrible, all the yellow had drained from his body and he looked very sad indeed.  But after a few minutes rest and gulps of aerated water, he seemed fine.  None the worse for his little escapade.

I was quite surprised at his size actually, in the tank he looks much smaller due to the refraction of the glass and the water, He's much bigger in real life!

I am amazed at how I managed to find him, especially since I was asleep when he decided to make the bid for freedom, I must have a fishy sixth sense, or the poor guy must have screamed!

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Puffy

Who said that fish have the brains of a maggot?  Mine certainly don't.  I heard that you could train your Puffer Fish to do tricks and suchlike, and because I've had so many hours to kill in the day, that's what I've been doing.

My puffer now does a trick, when I stop at a certain part of the tank he will swim up to me and spit water at me.  I managed to time it with his feeds and now if I have a morsel for him he spits on command.

Jewel Puffer

It's not a small spit either, he can squirt a mouthful of water as far as three feet! Not bad for a critter that's only three inches long.

I'm thinking little hoops of fire above the tank for his next training session, if he manages to dive through the flaming hoop and spit water at me at the same time I'll take a video.

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AIG

We have yet another company who is taking the piss out of tax payers, but this time they are actually ignoring calls from the Attorney General and it seems to me that the President is helpless to intercede.  

I suppose it doesn't matter that AIG have received $170 billion in tax payers money because their staff brought the company to it's knees, I suppose it is well within its rights to pay the same staff $165 million in bonuses for bankrupting the company, I suppose it's ok that AIG have squandered millions in sponsoring the richest football team on the planet, Man U, but most of all, it's just fine that a private company can ignore the word of law and even make a mockery of the most powerful man on the planet.

Why not read this article to see if you can manage to get steam coming out of your ears like I did!

I really do hope that these private institutions have their comeuppance, personally I have always felt that they should have been left to wallow in their own demise, after all, it's their fault that they are in the trouble they are in.  Years of creaming off profits, making fat cats richer, has now come back to haunt them, and the sooner the people find a way of getting the money back from them and hopefully making the rich bastards walk off a tall building, the happier I will be.

The end is nigh, one hopes!

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Two Hairy Amos’

I promised a few people a new picture of me, so here it is…

Me & Rocky

Not a fantastic picture, obviously it wasn't me taking it.. But it's me, on the right, and my best friend Rocky.  I think he looks a lot like me.  He's actually a lot younger than I, he's just had a hard life.

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More Shootings in the US…..

When is America going to realise that the 'right to carry arms' is a bad thing?  How many people, or may I just say children, have to die before you take the weapons away from the rednecks?

The line in the constitution, not capitalised because I feel it's misconstrued, that allows people to carry guns is outdated.  The only reason you need a firearm nowadays is if you are a farmer or a hunter.  If you live in a large town or a city, the old excuse that you need a gun for defence is wasted on me, because however dangerous your neighbourhood is, you only make it more so if you carry a weapon.

Why would anyone want a pistol? You running drugs?  No, you are not, you could defend your castle better by being sensible, making sure your child is unable to pick up a gun.

I hear people say that offence is the better way to defend, I argue it will get you killed.  You carry a knife you will get cut or stabbed, you carry a gun, you will get shot and killed, unarmed, you might get away with a beating. I know what I prefer.

Whoever reads this, please think deeply why you have a gun in your house.

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Banking System?

Is anybody else other then me getting exasperated by the way our governments are handling the recession?

Almost on a weekly basis we hear of another multi-national financial institution filing for government aid, not just a helping hand either, we're talking multi-billions of pounds/dollars from the tax coffers.  That's money you and I have been struggling to pay, and by the look of it we'll still be paying for decades to come.

A lot of people don't understand the the reality of the numbers involved.  We all know and understand what a million is all about, it's a huge amount of money, we could live off the back of a million pounds quite easily for the rest of our lives, never wanting for anything.

Now think of what a billion is about…. But this recession is asking the tax payer to pay trillions of pounds to bail out the institutions who got us there in the first place.

Imagine if a single pound/dollar was a second, can you perceive how much time a trillion is?  It's actually 32,000 years.  Let me write that down for you, one trillion seconds is thirty two thousand years!

Remember folks, if you made a financial mistake or missed a few payments on your mortgage, you would have to file for bankruptcy or you would lose the roof over your head.  If you are a bank however, the government will stagger to its knees to bear the brunt of the reckless gambling that has been going on for over a decade.  You will also find that the money that is being injected into these institutions isn't finding its way back into credit solvency, no no, it's shoring up executives pensions and bonuses, a big reward for really fucking up beyond all recognition!

America has ploughed trillions into its financial system in the hope that it will kick-start their over-inflated country; the UK has managed to find capital of almost a trillion to save these ailing private companies, nationalising them and yet not regulating them in any way whatsoever, they're still free to make as many mistakes as is humanly possible, and knowing a few humans, we all know how many mistakes that can be.

I still can't understand why they have done this.  

I never took an economics course, nor do I know much about running a country, but what I do know about is the simple things that 'real' people understand.  Why couldn't our respective governments given the money to the people to invest in their own way.  I'd assume that many people would have been able to pay off their mortgages, clear debts on loans or even keep it as a nest egg for a rainy day.  The majority of the cash would have gone straight into the banking system to cover all of these toxic debts and it would have eased the pain that people are experiencing, it would also clear the insolvency of the banks themselves.  

But no, in reality those figures on the bottom of the banking sheet will still be there and the fat cats will inevitably get fatter whilst you and I will have to bear the brunt of higher taxes and higher bills on lower wages.

I know the above paragraph is a total fantasy, giving a huge lump sum to everybody in the country would be silly as it would boost inflation further than Zimbabwe's astronomical figures, but I'm sure something could and should be done to stop the banking system from taking the piss out of the people who are now lending them the money after the mistakes they made.

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Not Quite St.Patrick

Here we go again it seems.

For those of you who follow British news, you might have heard that the violence in Northern Ireland has begun again. Started off with the murder of a couple of soldiers the other day and a policeman has been shot dead today.  I think I'm right in saying that these are the first fatalities in the region in over twelve years.

Both Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland have been at an uneasy peace for a long time, so what has changed to bring about the resurgence of the Real IRA?  The unification process is well underway and the vast majority of British troops have been withdrawn and outposts taken down.  So why now?

Seems to me that there is a faction that doesn't like losing control of their grip on the lives of the Irish.  They don't want peace because as long as there is an air of fear and trepidation they manage to keep their criminal activities hidden and I suspect that they are getting quite rich from keeping this institutionalised oppression going.

I'm from a generation who grew up with 'The Troubles'; Wales was going through a similar strife to keep Wales Welsh, although to a much lesser degree, our 'freedom fighters' only burnt down a few holiday cottages and once tried to kill Prince Charles amongst other things.  Things could have quite easily turned just as bad in Wales, but other issues took over and the larger picture needed everyones attention, especially when Thatcher started closing the mines and the ensuing riots put the whole nation under a vast amount of pressure.

Today I'm pleased to say that Wales is a rejuvenated nation, mainly because you can't keep good people down and because Wales has had Welsh leaders who believed that politics is the only way forward to reach the ends the people want.

So back to Ireland, we have dubious leaders in McGuinness and Adams, both most likely carry innocent blood on their hands and have personal issues rather than a political agenda for the future of Ireland.  What Ireland desperately needs is new leadership from younger people who don't carry this continual baggage of revenge or vengeance that their peers seem to bring to the negotiating table.

What bothers me mostly is that on a worldwide scale, nobody could give a damn about the loyalist/republicans/unionists/etc, especially in today's world where terrorism has taken a differing route.  After all, who needs fundamentalists when the United Kingdom is still at war with itself!

One can only hope that the future will be brighter for Ireland and that those callous murderers are brought to justice.  Thoughts?

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Unfriending

Not really a word, but it will be, unfortunately…

What does it take for you to stop being a friend to someone? 

Easy question isn't it. Or is it?

I am a person who values his friends, I will not give up on anyone, if they need me, I'll be there.  I'll try my best to solve whatever they need me to, I'll even give them the shirt off my back.  It's just the way I am.  It is not required that they feel the same way because I can feel the friendship for all.  

Well, walk into any pub I have run and people are very happy to see me; as much as I hate it, people will buy me drinks all the time, even if I'm not the guy that is running the place.

People still come up to me and moan about how things should be… How I used to do things perhaps…

I'm a bit worse for wear, as you can tell, but I had an event this evening that has forced me to re-evaluate my friendship with someone I have known for nearly ten years.

I saw the hatred in his eyes, the potential for inflicting pain onto others.  I don't think I want to be friends with someone like that.

I've removed him from my FB, I'll also not sit at a table with him on Sunday evening because of this.

I may be a lot of things, but I have always been a man of my word.

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