As it has been pointed out to me by countless people, pots shouldn't go round calling kettles black. I often show that my grammar needs some work on it, especially if I post things to my blog without giving it a thorough read through first. But, hey, I'm not getting paid for it, so why should I bother?
Well... I should bother because for the most part, most of what people put on line is like putting it in print. it is there to potentially haunt you by coming back whenever you least expect it. Fortunately, most of the criticisms aimed at me are for things like split infinitives and bad tenses and most of the time I'm addressing a small group of people, many of who know me and hopefully will see that the majority of what I write is basically the way that I talk.
However, Facebook has for me provided loads of laughs in recent years, laughs and cringe-worthy sentences that just make you want to scream abuse at the writers. Take this for instance: Im cutting down 1st then gonna phase it out that way i was on 20+ a day and gone to 8/10 not bad for me dot cotton said she proud too pmsl .... you can do it *** will power and lots of chewing gum hehehe ...
What exactly does that mean? Or this: awwwwwwwwww but ull do any think for your ***** tho *** lol.xx ... What the f...? Don't get me wrong; these are comments made to one of my nieces in response to Facebook status updates, which is why I've put asterisks instead of peoples' names. Presumably my niece and the people who write this drivel will know what they're on about, but for bystanders like myself, it's a little like reading a foreign language.
It's just a shame that today's yoof (and I use that expression loosely as most of my nieces' friends are between the ages of 25 and 35) seems to think that writing like ignorant amoeba is acceptable. What is more worrying is that a lot of these people have children.
Oh the curse of text speak...
***
Fireworks are shit. It amazes me that so many people go out and spend between £50 and £100 on average to go 'ooh' and 'ahh' at pretty bright lights in sky? What amazes me even more is the fact that people don't seem to understand that Bonfire Night is November 5th, not the 4th or the 3rd or the 6th or even October 31st. And, what amazes me even more than that is that a lot of people hold firework parties, obviously not for their kids, and set fireworks off after midnight, thus disturbing every living thing for a 5 mile radius?
These people are obviously the biggest c*nts God ever deemed worthy of breath.
Okay, fireworks aren't shit and if I didn't have a third of a dozen dogs I might even enjoy them; but it does seem that this year, more than recent years, we've had far too many going off and they seem to have got louder and more invasive. Last night, at 12.30am, some twat (and at the risk of sounding racist, some fucking Eastern European twat) decided it would be a good idea to set off a banger that went bang 25 times and sounded a little how I'd imagine Hiroshima sounded the day Enola Gay came to visit; this was then followed by lots of drunken shouting and laughing. I'm afraid I had to stick my head out of the bedroom window and shout 'WANKER' as loud as I could - unfortunately the people letting off these thunderously expensive gunpowder tubes probably don't know what wanker means...
***
Dragging myself away from being a miserable old git and onto matters of television. After giving The Walking Dead a pretty wonderful review last week, I realised that while there are few programmes on television at the moment that I would consider classics, there are a few that I think are pretty damned fine. None more so than...
The Vampire Diaries
I know, I know. You're either thinking 'what the hell has gotten into him' or 'how can he think that pile of Twilight droppings be considered as good?' But the truth is, this has become one of the maddest TV shows on at the moment. VD as its called in our house is one of those shows that we should have dropped 20 minutes into the first episode; definitely should have given up on it after 3 episodes, but has now become one of the highlights of the week - albeit reluctantly.
The best way of summing up the vast improvement this show has taken is to look at a review from The Independent, where reviewer Sarah Hughes states: The Vampire Diaries turns into "a well-crafted, interestingly developed series", despite a poor opening episode. And that's basically it. The first three episodes of the first season were pretty crappy and I was pretty amazed that it managed to improve to the point where it easily got optioned for a second series. It's now like Twilight on crack and LSD and despite it being a Kevin Williamson series, that shouldn't really put you off.
Fringe
Is possibly my favourite TV show from the States at the moment, because like VD it's just a wee bit bonkers and you really have no idea where its going to go next. Also it's by that popular chap called JJ Abrams, the bloke who did Lost and more recently Cloverfield and the Star Trek reboot. My argument is that John Noble, who plays the stunningly fantastic mad scientist Walter Bishop is arguably the best character on TV at the moment. Plus it has fellow Antipodean Anna Torv in the lead role and if I didn't have a bad back and a lovely wife I'd consider stalking her until she let me do evil and despicably sex-related things to her!
The 2 other US TV shows that I'm watching are Smallville (yes, I'm still watching it) which seems to have forgotten how crap it was and the final series is moving along at a great pace and with some bloody good stories and Stargate Universe which apart from copping out big time at the start of season 2 has been a really grimly enjoyable watch. Even Robert Carlyle, totally miscast and out of place, adds some gravitas to a franchise that really started to wander up its own arse. However, the best thing in the show is undoubtedly Louis Ferreira who plays Colonel Everett Young, the commander of the show's Ancient-built star ship. Just watching him go quietly mad over the last 2 months has been a joy to watch.
***
MRI time on Tuesday, but not just that. The wife is going to look at a replacement car for her poor old Doblo. She's going common and taking a chance on a Vauxhall Zafira - depending on whether she feels comfortable driving it and if we can fit the dogs in the back without having to remove all the seats. My argument is that something as common as a Vauxhall is going to be easier for spares and should be cheaper to service. She would like a new Postman Pat van lookalike, but is facing the frightening reality of it having to be a French car and any one who knows us well enough will know that French cars and me don't mix... Hence why a specific make of French car will forever be known as a "Fucking Renault" rather than anything else!
I'm not too bothered by fireworks -- once you've seen one display, you've seen them all, surely? -- but I do love a great big roaring bonfire. Except they don't seem to do them any more. Bah.
ReplyDeleteI can't stop watching Fringe. I think it's awful, but John Noble is very good, and I do admire how it's not trying to be all serious and enigmatic like every other scifi show since Lost.
I'm quite fond of Burn Notice, which is in its third series on FX over here, and may be on its fourth in the US. It's a bit of a cheesy action series in the manner of all those shows from the 80's, but it has a lot of charm, and there's an element of The Prisoner to it.