OFF YER BIKE!

Richard (of Richard's Bass Bag), another grumpy old man sometimes rants and raves about cyclists. Recently I have had experiences that make me understand where he is coming from.
What's worse than one of those multi-coloured imitation Italian nancies on a fragile and wobbly machine? Answer- two of them riding side-by-side taking up a whole lane. Twice recently I have rounded a corner and nearly collected the idiots while they meander along chatting to each other.
Get a tandem or, better still, go to the gym!

ARE ALL CEO'S SHITS, OR JUST MOST OF THEM?

Admittedly it is the really bad ones that get the exposure - Fay, Richwhite, Petrocivic, all the various leaders of recently collapsed finance companies, the old 'corporation' bandits of 1987 - but there are many out there that I know who are self-serving and uncaring. Their mantra (which disguises their own golden parachute production) is 'we must get the best return for our shareholders'. They pay lip-service to staff by incorporating crap phrases into their mission statements like 'our people are our most important asset". Yeah right - this 'most important asset' is the first to get dumped when shareholders investments are a bit down - look at Cadbury, Feltex and a host of other producers recently.

I don't buy into 'CEO's are really nice people'.

BLASPHEMY

The Wine Guy is being a bit blasphemous taking the piss out of Popes in Robert's latest blog.

I did think it funny though so looked up blasphemy and was led to a blog named "the Stubborn Curmudgeon' - a man after my own heart (he can't have it - it's gone!).

In his blog he has this funny picture of blasphemeous behaviour.

THE REWARDS OF COMPLAINING

Last week when The Old Girl was returning from overseas I bought flowers to brighten up the house for her arrival. As I was running late the night before I bought the flowers at Foodtown supermarket being attracted by the 'Fresh' signs all over the cellophane wrappers. I bought many bunches of them outlaying (in men's terms) a small fortune.

I was bitterly disappointed when putting them in vases to find that they were nowhere near fresh and were looking a bit sad - not at all like the ones I get from our local florist. As it was 8PM and T.O.G. was arriving at 5AM next morning there was nothing I could do to remedy the situation. I wasn't going to let it go though so I sent a letter of complaint via the web to Foodtown, quoting the purchase docket details and my dissatisfaction. After several days of to and fro e-mails, Kristin from Foodtown customer services came through brilliantly, personally delivering a very nice bunch of flowers and a beautiful cymbidium plant . This was much appreciated and I have told her so.

Now, whilst I still am disappointed in general with supermarkets offerings (carefully check out the fruit and veg and don't buy anything in cellophane) I am impressed with the handling of my complaint.

Sometimes it pays to be a curmudgeon and complain

MISERABLE BASTARDS

There are some really miserable bastards out there you know. Now I have been known to complain a bit but I see myself as a grumpy bastard with all rights to be so having served a long apprenticeship in living. I don't see myself as a miserable bastard. I do try and help out where I can and when the recipient is deserving.

The other day there was a Sideswipe report (Sideswipe is a column in the NZ Herald that has interesting stories from everyday life in New Zealand) that some miserable bastard sent a text message along the lines of "... can't you read. What part of 'no unsolicited mail' can't you understand etc..." to a woman who put little slips of paper in letter boxes in Point Chevalier advertising that her cat was missing and put her cell-phone number as a contact.

Life is hard enough without fuckwits like this grinding us all down further.

I hope that cat gets its own back on the MB!

E.T. YOU'RE FUCKED - YOU CAN"T PHONE HOME!

Remember when there were phone boxes on every corner in the city and reliably in each little suburb usually by the bus stop next to the grocery store or dairy? Sure sometimes some drunks in the city or kids in the suburbs would piss in them occasionally but normally they were functional.
Then our telecommunications provider, previously the good old Post Office got rid of the phone boxes and gave us little cubicles - I guess so people would feel less inclined to piss in them.
Next our telecommunications provider(s) decided that too many public phones in cubicles (with or without the piss) made it too easy for the public to choose not to buy those cute little (and hellishly expensive to run) cellphones, so, they have conspired to get rid of the public pay-phone system.
When they do feel obliged to provide them (in areas easy for them to service) and cosmetically very rarely placed on public streets, they don't accept coins they are cards only. Another barrier?
Today I was out and about and really needed to find a telephone box or cubicle or kiosk - anything. I drove for miles up and down streets to no avail. Eventually after about a half hour I found a kiosk (card only). The thing is though I wasn't looking for a telephone box to use a phone, I've got two of those horrible mobile devices of my own - I was looking for a telephone book (white pages) to find an address I needed.
Hey! Guess what I found?
Some useless, waste of space bastard had taken the white pages and shredded the yellow ones.
Now why would anyone do that? What is the point?
On the one hand we have evil corporates steering us in directions they want us to go whilst telling us it is all for our benefit and giving us greater choices (yeah right), and on the other hand we have a great portion of the public who piss on, trash, burn, break and ruin the public assets, the very things that they can truly 'own' and that are useful to them like bus shelters, telephone boxes, railway stations, buses etc. and being too fucking stupid to realise that by doing this they are playing into the hands of the Corporates......whew! Got that off my chest.

TAXI DRIVERS

I haven't complained much recently and I don't want people to think I'm going soft - I've just been busy. It doesn't mean that there haven't been hundreds of annoying things happening to me over the last few weeks. Take Taxi drivers (away please!). I remember when it was a treat to travel in a taxi. It was an expensive way to travel and the driver was aware of this and treated his customer with respect. Sometimes he would converse with you or at other times (unless he was Australian) would respect your wish for privacy and keep quiet, only making discreet enquiries as to the destination. A simple street address was sufficient with only on rare occasions an accompanying suburb (when it was a new street) needing to be added.
That all seems to have disappeared now unless you use Corporate Cabs which still have the old values but are more expensive and generally have to be booked well in advance.
The other night I called for a taxi which to be fair did turn up relatively quickly. I was going for a 25 minute journey to an established North Shore address in a very well known suburb. I may as well have been asking for an address at the other end of the universe. After map consultation we were on the way. Forget polite conversation. Forget silence as well. What I got was half an hour of the driver having a loud phone conversation in Ukranian or some other Eastern European nonsense with his wife or girlfriend (I couldn't even eavesdrop as there was no English spoken).
I ask you. Am I paying good money to sit and listen to gobbly-de-goop in one of the word's ugliest languages (Afrikaans, Dutch and American is worse though).
Taxi drivers seem to have a different road code to drive by. Stop signs are treated as Give Way signs. Give Way signs don't exist and red lights seem to say 'hurry up and get through'.
Well we got there eventually (more map consultation - hey shouldn't this be deducted from the fare?)
Now I'm thinking. How the hell do you get your own back from a bad experience in a cab. There's really no way as you can't tell everyone else about this particular driver. I have come up with an idea though. You should carry a piece of fish with you when travelling by taxi. If you have a good experience then take the fish home with you and cook it or give it to the cat. If you have a bad experience then slip it under a seat or in the map pouch at the back of the seat in front of you. In a couple of days the fish will get really ripe and the bastard driver probably won't be able to find it (or notice it if he is one of those bad-breath, B.O. infested farters). His potential customers will notice it though and won't step inside.

TANGENTS

7.15PM the phone rings. Is it the Old Girl ringing to say she will be late? Is it an emergency?
No, as usual when the phone rings between 6PM and 8.30PM on a weeknight it is probably some unsolicited advertising or promotional call offering home finance, holidays, special furnishing deals or a market research company wanting to know how often you go to the toilet.
Generally the calls are from somewhere in India or the Philippines. The Old Girl always asks them where they are calling from and won't accept anything but the truth on this - she's tough.
Although my name is The Curmudgeon I still find it hard to be too rude to these annoying callers as I know they are just trying to make a living.
Recently we have adopted a new way of dealing with the calls -obfuscation and obtuseness.
When we realise what the call is (Indian accents asking May I please speak to Mr...etc) we may do any of the following:

Caller: May I please speak to Mr...
Us: (delay...) Hello
Caller: May I please speak to Mr..
Us: Hello...Hello.. Is anyone there?
Caller: Yes Hello, may I please speak to Mr...
Us: Hello...Hello...Damn it. I'm sure there's someone there.. Hello.. Hello...

This can go on for a while with the caller getting more and more frustrated until they hang up.

or,

When we realise what the call is we say, "Just one moment" and put the phone down and finish dinner or watching a TV programme. Generally the caller has gone once you get back to the phone 15 minutes later.

or,
and this is the one I like best

Caller: May I please speak to Mr,..
Us: Right! I've been waiting days for you to call you Bastard. We ordered that (garage door, curtains, carpets, elephant ..whatever) weeks ago and still the bloody thing hasn't turned up. What are you going to do about it., We don't have time to wait around (etc etc for about 2 minutes) Generally the caller rings off.

BUSKING AT THE OLYMPICS

AS I said busking as a sport at the olympics would be OK as long as it was combined with Archery.
Rumour has it that St Sebastian was a Bass Player and we know what happened to him.
I wonder if the marksman won a Gold Medal?

TIDDLYWINKS GOLD MEDAL

I love the Olympics and ever since I was a kid have looked forward to the 2 week spectacle. I take as much time as I can to watch all sorts of events (but of course especially the ones New Zealand is involved in - I am so proud to see us at number 15 on the medal tally ahead of so many other countries).
Its a great feeling being a mixture of nostalgia and excitement and unnusual in that we are exposed to so much sport on TV nowadays its a wonder at all that the Olympics can command so much respect and attention.
I find it a shame though that the great ideals are being diluted by the inclusion of sports and so-called sports that in my my don't meet the criteria. It used to be tennis and soccor that I thought don't need to be included. Now it is white water kayaking, handball, beach volleyball, trampoline and other weird and unnusual events.
What's next? Tiddlywinks, darts, snooker or that old University games event to 'chunder mile' running, drinking and pie eating event.