Toothache

I woke up this morning feeling ok, if a little dusty, following my wife’s birthday / England football game. My initial chipper demeanour has been slowly disappearing through the morning. It started when I was eating breakfast and realised my mouth didn’t want to chew on the left side. A slow dull ache then took over for an hour until I suddenly realised, about mid-morning I have toothache.

Toothache, if you don’t mind me saying so, is a cunt.

Already it feels like the whole left side of my head is going to FALL OFF any damned minute. I’m scrunching my inner cheek in to my molars so that I look like a cross between an actor playing someone having a stroke and a lobotomised barbary ape.

I have taken Paracetamol AND Ibuprofen, an hour apart because I know you can cycle them and yet I am still about to look up what the “real” amount of each you can take in 24 hours is on the internet in the hope it’s wildly different to the packet instructions. I have ordered Cognac online (yes a bottle) in case I want to operate on myself with some sort of steam powered implement. I have gargled every mouthwash in the house and brushed my teeth 12 times. Painfully.

If none of that has worked by mid-afternoon I am going to have to call the dentist.

This will result in one of two things. Either they will poke around my mouth WHILE MY TOOTHACHE IS STILL GOING ON before telling me it’s just an infection, prescribing anti-biotics and handing me a bill the size of Sweden or they will poke around my mouth WHILE MY TOOTHACHE IS STILL GOING ON and THEN inject it and THEN do drilling and THEN hand me a bill the size of Outer Mongolia and try to persuade me to come back for a deep clean next Tuesday, at additional cost.

I hate the dentist.

But the worst thing of all? Knowing that most of my readers are by now thinking “he doesn’t know he’s born. Try shitting a space hopper out of your front bottom with no drugs at all and then tell me that a little bit of toothache is painful.” And you know what? You’re probably right.

*mooches round a bit felling sorry for self*

*phones dentist*

Technology Wars

So today I made a mistake as you may have seen from the apology I posted. I am still angry though. Angry with technology.

You see the comments I thought had been removed from a post HAD if you only ever looked on an iPhone (and possibly other smartphones). When looked at on a p.c. they were there. Why? WHY? Why the giddy fark is this different? The code – the data and HTML and javascript and whatever else is the same and then the phone takes it and renders it differently. I just became the victim of technology wars.

Technology wars are absurd and they nearly always involve an emerging invention which has 2 big forms each made or promoted by a similar but different behemoth. It started for me with video players. VHS v Betamax. As wars go it was short  but you definitely didn’t want to be on the losing side. There was a kid at our school who had a Betamax recorder and he didn’t live it down for 5 years. Still to this day I bet he walks in to the pub and someone says ‘Alright Betamax?’

At around the same time the Sinclair was taking on the Commodore 64 in the first of computer wars. And guess what? They were fairly similar but with annoying subtle differences. One similarity though – half the time the games didn’t load.

The next generation was p.c. v Mac. WHY? Two computers with different operating systems that have slightly different things they are better at and yet people have fights over which is best. Why the actual fark is that?

DVD v Blu Ray. Haven’t a clue who’s going to win that. Got one of each so I don’t get laughed out of pubs.

Then there’s wars within wars. Android vs iPhone. Smartphone vs tablet. Smartphone vs tablet vs p.c. All doing more or less the same stuff but not quite and Vicente Rodriguez help you if you get it wrong.

But the worst has to be browsers. I use Google Chrome at the moment because I like the look and feel and rendering speed but I have used Firefox in the past and IE when I didn’t know better. Opera is probably the best yet no-one uses it so no-one codes or tests for it. Each one makes stuff look just a bit different.

This is where the real war is. Open the wrong browser in the wrong company and you’re toast. There seems to be a competition to use the most different or obscure software too. “Look at this new open-source browser, Genghis v5.0. It can render any page in a trillionth of a nano-second and it tugs you off while it does it”. “Gerald?” “Yes?” “it only comes in Mongolian and there’s no translate facility”. “Oh”.

And here’s a thing. For a good long while Apple have been famous for not running Flash. Astounding. Famous because your farking hardware won’t run something used by half the websites in Christendom.  And they’re proud of it. They wear it like a badge of honour.

It’s no wonder people get a little confused. I’m just the one that goes on instant rant mode over it instead of taking a while to think.

The Buggy Spaces on Buses Are For Buggies

*puts up another rant alert poster*

The buggy and wheelchair spaces on buses are for buggies and wheelchairs.

They’re not for your shopping trolley on wheels really. I know plastic bags are evil but everywhere does reusable non-plastic ones these days. A shopping trolley is either ostentatious or Old School. Either way don’t store it in the buggy bit. That’s for buggies.

They’re not for your suitcase either. Who the fuck takes a suitcase big enough for a 2 week holiday in Florida on a local bus trip anyway? I used to do a weekly commute with a case smaller than that. If you are going on a 2 week holiday to Florida, presumably it cost you a bit and you can afford to get a fucking taxi to the station. You’re not even getting off at the station are you? Anyhow, if you really, really need the case there’s a luggage rack for  it. Over there. Away from the buggies. *points*

They’re definitely not for you slouching teenagers. When I was a teenager and I went on a bus I slouched properly by GOING UPSTAIRS and slouching on the BACK SEAT. That’s what’s wrong with this feckless, flaccid, flatulent X-Box and PS3 generation. Can’t even be arsed to go up to the top bit of a double decker and slouch properly. The skinny trousered, floppy haired James Blunts.

It could be for you Old Lady struggling to get on but here, why don’t you have my seat. Don’t give me that filthy look, I’m getting up for you. “Have my seat”. I said “HAVE MY SEAT DEAR”. Oh. You’re getting off again. I forgot your free bus pass positively encourages you to ride the bus for one whole stop. Bye Bye. I said BYE BYE.

The buggy and wheelchair spaces on buses are for buggies and wheelchairs..