What's that running out into the road?!?

The other day I was driving to work and had just got out of our neighbourhood when I had to slam on my brakes as something ran out into the road in front of me.

I'm sure you remember my adventures with the scruffy Yorkie who led me a merry dance a couple of months ago so you probably think we're used to stray dogs running out in front of the car.

Wrong.

It wasn't a dog.

It was a bloody peacock!

In the road!

Right in front of me!

Now, I'm not sure about where you live but where I live we don't have wild peacocks roaming around willy nilly.

I have no idea where it came from or where it was going.

Usually if something runs out in front of my car I get annoyed but this time I just laughed and phoned my wife.

Very random indeed.

I can't hear a bloody word you're saying!

I'm starting to really hate watching anything on ABC.

It started with Grey's Anatomy. This is one of my wife's favourite shows so I do tend to catch the odd episode, but the thing is, the sound is terrible.

They play thew back ground music so loud that I can't understand what anyone is saying.

We watched last week's episode and I couldn't hear most of the talking through out the entire episode.

There is something really wrong with how ABC does their sound. You can tell it is an ABC show just by the way everything sounds so different from other channels.

It's now started to creep into other shows on ABC. Flash Forward is going the same way.

If it continues then it's unlikely I can be bothered trying to work out what is going on.

Sort it out you muppets!

Chicken out

The other night I worked late and when I spoke to my wife before I left the office she said we needed to go to the shop to pick up something for dinner so she would wait until I got home so we could go together.

Being the good husband that I am, I decided I would just go on my way home.

While I was there I remembered that we had a packet of sliced chicken in the fridge so I bought some bread, mayonnaise and lettuce so I could make myself sandwiches to take to work for the rest of the week.

That night I made a sandwich for the next day and it was very nice so I was looking forward to having another one the next day.

However, that night when I went to make the sandwich, the chicken was no where to be found.

That day, my wife decided she was going to clean out the fridge and throw out the food that was no good. She thought the chicken had been open for weeks and was no good so she threw it out!

So I was left with bread, mayonnaise, and lettuce for my sandwich but no chicken!

It didn't even cross her mind that I might have opened it the night before when I made the chicken sandwich.

It's funny looking back now but at the time I was pretty upset.

I do love me some chicken!

Death of original ideas

I was watching TV last night when an advert came on for a new film starring Chris Rock, "Death at a funeral".

After a few seconds I started getting that Deja vu feeling that I'd seen this before then realised that yes, it reminded me of a British film called, erm, let me think, oh yes, "Death at a funeral".

From the preview on the TV it looks like they've remade the film using the exact same script, but replacing the well to do English characters with loud black Americans played by Chris Rock, Tracey Morgan and Danny Glover.

Fair enough, the story could probably do with some updating considering it was originally made way back in 2007. I didn't even realise they had films back then.

What is wrong with American audiences watching a film featuring some new talent they haven't seen before? Is it really worth it to remake the exact same film with a big name to attract the audience?

To be honest, the film wasn't all that great to begin with but I'm sure the remake is nowhere near as good.

Of course its a dead end when you don't want to see what's down that road!

Have you seen the new TV show "Who do you think you are"?

Well, I say new TV show. Its actually been on for years in the UK but they have just made an American version.

The only one we've seen so far featured Emmett Smith, an American football player who played for the Dallas Cowboys.

From the very beginning of the show he was keen to find out where in Africa he was from.

They traced his family back through Alabama and found his great great great great grandmother (or something) and great great great great grandfather.

His great great great great Grandmother did indeed come from Africa so off Emmett took himself to try and find out where she came from.

He found a place where slaves were sold and put on ships to the new world and his search ended here. Emmett was very disappointed that he had met a dead end and couldn't trace his family back any further.

But wait, what about his great great great great Grandfather?

He was white and from Alabama. Surely it would be much easier to trace this side of the family and continue the search?

Sadly this didn't seem to be an option as the show ended in disappointment that there were no records in Africa at the time. There was no further mention of his great great great great Grandfather. I suppose he didn't fit into the humble African beginnings Emmett Smith was looking for.

This whole episode reminded me of a show that was on the History channel last year "The Human Genome Project".

In this show, they took a scraping from the mouth of hundreds of people to trace their ancestry back over thousands of years.

There was one black guy, sorry African American, featured who was really excited to find out how his family left Africa and ended up in the US. Only when the research came back, it hadn't. There was nothing in his DNA that linked his family to Africa. His family actually traced back through Europe.

You could see the disappointment on his face. This guy had probably bored everyone he'd ever known with stories of how he was from Africa without even thinking to look into it and find out for certain.

And while I'm on, is referring to every single black person you encounter as 'African American' not a little bit racist? I know it seems to be the done thing but these types of TV programmes show that that may not be the case.

Actor Sidney Poitier is often referred to as an African American and continuously points out that 'no, actually, my family is from the Bahamas'.

Isn't terming an entire group of people the same regardless of where they are actually from what we were trying to get away from in the first place?

Policeman for hire? How about borrowing a brain for a few days instead??

Isn't it typical how when you're in a rush to get somewhere, it seems that everything in the world conspires to slow you down?

The other day, I needed to get home in a hurry. It was mid-morning so I knew the traffic wouldn't be bad so I went the same way I always go home from work.

Only this time I got to one set of lights on the way and just as the light was about to turn green, a police motorbike turned up with his lights flashing telling everyone to wait.

Next thing, a truck with a cherry picker on the top arrived and stopped in the middle of the road, followed by a truck carrying a very large big thing on the back. There was a man already in the cherry picker and it was his job to lift up any wires that were overhead so the truck could fit under it.

Houston is not a very technologically advanced city, despite being the home of NASA so pretty much every 10 yards there is another set of wires hanging over the road about 15- 20 feet up looking rather dangerous.

Obviously this truck carrying the very large big thing on its back was going exactly the same way I was so while the little man in his cherry picker had to lift all the wires for the truck to fit under, then drive passed the truck to get to the next wire so he could lift that one up too, and so on and so on and fucking on and on while an ever increasing queue of cars on both sides of the road waited for it all to end.

Bloody typical!

And while I'm on, why is it that any one can rent a copper in Houston and they'll gladly stop all other traffic on the roads while they fuck about playing silly beggers?

Surely the policeman should just say "wait a minute, you're thinking of driving that big truck with the very large big fuck off thing on the back down that little road while some poor bastard hurries alongside lifting up all the wires so you can fit under it, and you want me to stop every other sod going about their business so you don't have to wait? Never mind that, here's a ticket for being a stupid fucking twat now run along before I arrange for you to be locked up in a padded cell you stupid fucking bastard!".

Or something like that anyway.

New balls please!

If you read my other post over on Mancunian Moon you may know that I spent most of the day gardening.

I planted some nice Marigolds around the tree to give it some colour and make it look nice.

About 3 hours after I finished I looked out the window to admire my handy work when I noticed that two of the newly planted flowers had been smashed to pieces!

The culprit was long gone but what I think happened was some kids were playing basketball in the neighbours drive way and missed and only for the ball to land in my new flower bed. Yeah, good shot numb nuts.

I was pretty pissed of as you can imagine but I did the same many times when I was a kid kicking my football over the neighbours fence and they were only $10 for 12 plants so it's not a big deal.

I'd already beheaded one while trying to get it out of the tray anyway so I know they're brittle little things. And to be honest it was digging out the old stuff, clearing out the weeds and adding the soil and mulch that was the hard work, not the planting of the marigolds so I'll let it go this time but if I see anyone hitting them again with they'll think they're at Wimbledon as they'll be needing some new balls please!