The sand is a billion degrees and I do not feel like wearing flip flops!

We went down to Galveston this weekend which was supposed to be a nice relaxing break.

We'd been there approximately before I almost collapsed from exhaustion for the first time.

If you've never been to Galveston then I will explain that all of the beach houses there are up on stilts as it has a habit of getting in the way of hurricanes which bring devastation, along with flooding.

This means that when you empty the car to take your things into the house you have to climb a flight of stairs before you even get in the house.

Then, some bright spark decided that the living room and kitchen area would be up another flight of stairs.

We only go for the weekend but when you have a Wife and two dogs, it takes a number of trips to empty the car. Did I mention that this is in 100 degree heat?

The second time I almost died on my relaxing weekend, I was carrying a bag of stuff, a couple of chairs and an umbrella to the beach. Oh, and two dogs who were sharing a lead so one was pulling the other all over the place.

As soon as we set foot on the sand Busby started screaming in pain which was his way of telling us that the sand was about a thousand degrees and we must be joking. I took the dogs back to the house and set off back to the beach, carrying my bag of stuff, two chairs and umbrella and also burning my own feet on the thousand degree sand because my Wife insisted I wear flip flops like 'a normal person'.

The third time my Wife almost killed me (it was her idea to go for a relaxing weekend at the beach house) was when we headed down to the beach on Sunday with some friends.

This time as there were more of us going you'd expect that there were more people to carry the load but oh no, it just meant that we had to take a lot more stuff so add all of their own belongings to the extra chairs, and an additional gazebo thingy that weighed a ton. Luckily the gazebo thingy was on wheels which was useful, until we got to the sandy part of the beach anyway.

Despite being a hurricane survivor, this latest trip to the beach was too much for the gazebo thingy and it refused to be as easy to assemble as the directions promised.

Trying to keep spirits high the male fraternity decided to play some football on the beach and despite putting Zidane to shame with my silky skills, my feet decided they disagreed with the sandy surface and decided to blister, badly. The sand was helpful as it attempted to fill the blisters which meant I had to spend the afternoon ripping the skin off my right foot and trying not to scream like Drogba while trying to clean it.

The fourth and final time I almost dropped dead was when it came time to reload the car and make the same trips up and down the many flights of stairs in the same billion degree heat.

The good news is it's the 4th of July this week so we have a long weekend coming up and we can do it all again.

The King is dead

Michael Jackson died today. This is sad news but while watching one news channel there was a definite sign of how far we have fallen from reality and real 'news' when across the bottom of the screen there was a scrolling bar with "Breaking News".

And do you know what the breaking news was? I quote:

"MC Hammer Tweets: I have no words. I loved Michael Jackson. RIP."

Hold the phone a minute... MC Hammer...on Twitter...is news??

Fair enough, the death of one of the most famous musicians of our time is big news, but bringing us MC Hammers' thoughts via Twitter? Seriously?

Are we so desperate to hear the thoughts of 'celebrities', and I use that term in the loosest possible sense, rather than medical experts etc?

It is indeed sad news, and at times like this you can't help but think of the kids.

Obviously the biggest part of all this insania is that we now need a new King of Pop. My vote goes to Peter Andre, or Coca-Cola but Andre could do with the boost since splitting up with Jordan.

I'm tempted to wear black to work tomorrow as a mark of respect. Or maybe white. It makes no difference.

Michael Jackson will be missed. He may not have been relevant recently but he really touched me when I was younger.

Out of all this though I mostly feel sorry for Farrah Fawcett. She finally succumbed to cancer today only to have her thunder stolen by Michael Jackson.

Managing for four year olds

I'm on a course with work this week called 'Managing for Performance'.

It's intended to give you skills on getting the best out of your team. Fair enough so far but I found the first day very American and childish. It'd be much better titled 'Managing for four year olds.

I'm 31 now but I'm over all the 'introduce yourself to these people you've never met and will never see again and tell them a little bit about yourself that they do not give a shit about and probably won't even listen to.'

There are some interesting things we covered on day 1 but there was far too much 'hey, here's something to read, now split into groups and discuss it amongst yourselves.' It's a pretty easy gig for the 'instructor' who can sit at the back of the room while the people who are there presumably because they don't know much about the topic in hand try and some up with thew answers themselves and generally talk shite to each other.

You always get the same kind of people at these things as well. There's always the old guy who questions everything the instructor says even though he knows everything already. There's always the joker who is easily the funniest person he knows, and the older lady who's a bit scatty and has to be told everything 11 times.

There's one woman who sounds exactly like Whoopi Goldberg who turns every example round to Manager's not treating everybody fairly and the same. After the third mention of this in the first 10 minutes I realised she must have been talking from experience. But you know what, I still didn't give a shit because I don't know you Whoopi, and we will never meet again.

Did I mention that anyone who returns from a break late or whose cell phone rings has to sing in front of everybody? Seriously, we had adults, who are all Manager's within the company remember, singing I'm a little teapot (with actions), or Old MacDonald had a farm (with pig noises).

The icing on the cake was just as we were leaving when the instructor told us to make sure we took everything with us, except for our nameplates because she's going to move everyone around like musical fucking chairs so tomorrow I have to look forward to a different muppet trying to show me how great they are and how they should actually be giving the class.

And I have three days of this. At least they provided lunch.

Stop spoiling my viewing, I do not have the attention span of a 1 year old!

Why do TV channels show you what is coming up on the show you're watching during the commercials?

I can understand it if it's a chat show but some channels will reveal spoilers for no apparent reason as though they think we'll just stop watching half way through if we don't know how it will end!

Do American audiences really have such short attention spans that they have to know what they're about to watch instead of waiting and seeing the show develop in it's natural order?

BBC America are one of the worst culprits. We were watching Primeval the other night and during each commercial break they show you what is going to happen later in the show. They even show you what is going to happen later in the series, including the return of long gone or presumed dead characters.

What is the point in that? Thanks very much. Now I won't need to watch the whole thing so your plan backfired.

The BBC in Britain is a commercial free station funded by the licence fee so I can understand how they have to stretch a forty minute show into an hour for BBC America (which is a commercial station) but do they really have to reveal plot spoilers?

It's probably because I watch a lot of BBC America but other channels do it and it is very annoying!

Up early

Why is it impossible to have a lie in at weekends?

We get up early in the week as Houston society dictates that 7am is a reasonable time to start work everyday so at night I find myself falling asleep in front of the TV.

This also gets me in trouble as for some reason my Wive hates the fact that I might be tired and want to sleep. I get poked, have things thrown at me or she goes the old fashioned way and just shouts at me to wake me up again. Apparently we have to watch the TV 'together'!

Anyway, because we're in the habit of getting up early in the week, the same thing happens automatically at weekends. It's 8am now but I've already been awake for over an hour.

Actually, it might be a good job I'm up early as our gardener has just turned up! Why would anyone think it was a good idea to cut someones grass at 8am on a Saturday?!? Even if I hadn't woken up the sound of a lawnmower right outside my bedroom window would wake me up!

London Town

Britney Spears took her "Circus" to Manchester this week and while on stage shouted to the crowd "How are you doing London?".

I'm sick of the complete and utter morons in the US who do not know the difference between England, Britain, and London!

I am Mancunian first, then I am English, and finally British. Do not even think about calling me European.

Don't tell your friends you know someone from London. Not if you're talking about me anyway.

And while I'm on, no I don't know John from London who you met on holiday a few years ago. I am not related to the Queen and no, I don't know what it is she does all day.

Do some research. Learn some Geography, then come back and talk to me.

No 'wear' to be found

I've just been to the shop to buy some new camouflage pants and I couldn't find them anywhere!

I've been trying to find some for weeks no but no where has them.

What is going on?!?

Dead arm

How is it that women know just where to hit a man's arm to cause it to go numb and be very uncomfortable?

Is it something they teach you in school when they send the boys out to play football so they can talk to the girls about periods and then use any time at the end to throw in a few useful things like dead arms and manipulation?

My Wife is the master of the dead arm but as usual I was the innocent party. She was commenting how one of my armpits creates a lot more sweat than the other and when I pointed out the huge spot on her forehead to deflect attention from me she administered the shot in the arm asking "why would you say such a thing?". Because it nearly had my eye out that's why!

Then she tries telling me that another whack in the exact same spot will miraculously take the pain away.

I may have been born at night love, but it wasn't last night. Nice try!

Real news has the night off

I've posted before about the local 'news' and tonight was one of those rare nights where I switch on the TV and before I can put on a dvd or flick through the recordings on my DVR I caught a few seconds of news.

I switched off after a few seconds but unfortunately not before the two (w)anchors introduced themselves before informing me that Greg Hirst has the night off.

I'm sorry...what? Greg Hirst has the night off? Well why didn't you say so? Surely news this fucking groundbreaking should've interrupted all media outlets as soon as it was known? A full page ad in all national newspapers should surely have been taken out the minute his vacation request form was signed?

I have no idea who Greg Hirst is but I'm guessing he's that fella who seems to be the only white person on any of the local news channels in Houston.

Why not take this one step further and actually make Greg's night off the first item on the news? One of the none entities who has just told me their name can tell us all about Greg's night off. "Greg was seen in the Starbucks drive through before heading off to the Target store just off Westheimer. He followed that up with an unbelievable trip to the movies with his wife after shockingly being turned away from Bowl-a-rama as it was senior couples intermediate league night and he hadn't booked a lane. Maybe they could even interview a couple of eye witnesses from the bowling alley to give us the inside story.

And while I'm on, why do they have to tell us their names? I don't give a shit who you are. You're just some muppet reading an autocue wearing very thick make up, thick hair, and even thicker facial expression. And why are all the women seemingly cross eyed? Is it the wonderful make up job or are they trying really hard to read the words while looking both intelligent, sophisticated and sexy all at once?

Newsreaders are not celebrities. We don't tune in to see them. It isn't the Greg Hirst show. His absence doesn't need explaining because it would not be noticed!

Untitled (with red rage)

A few days ago over on Mancunian Moon, I posted about a trip to The Menil Collection in Houston. While worth a visit, there are some aspects of 'art' that I just don't get.

We moved swiftly through the surrealist section and came to the abstract art exhibit featuring artists such as Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. Ok so far, at least their art is fairly recognisable but as we moved further into this section I got a little confused by what I was seeing.

In my view, hanging a piece of black cloth on the wall is not art. It doesn't take a lot of thought, or four years at art college, or thousands of dollars in donations to create something like that. It added absolutely nothing to my experience and the only thought it provoked was why someone would consider such an item as art.

Then we came across an empty glass cube. On closer inspection, it was indeed empty. And that was 'art' apparently. It was basically one of those display cases you get when you have a football signed by your team and want to display it while keeping it safe and in good condition. I could get the exact same item from Academy sports for around $60 and recreate the exhibit in my living room. But we weren't done there.

Perhaps the most pointless exhibit we came across was called "Untitled (with green sides)". It was the title, or actually, the lack of title that made this item completely pointless. The artist couldn't even be bothered to come up with an arty name for what was basically a green shelf hung on the wall. Don't be fooled by the brackets in the (none) title either, not just the sides were green. In fact, the entire shelf, sorry, piece, was green. This was nothing I couldn't buy at Home Depot but somebody somewhere had paid good money for it and decided people like me should see it!

In the next room was a piece that may have rivalled the green shelf for sheer pointlessness. Get this, right, imagine you had a cardboard box, and then you broke it down so that it was flat and no longer a box, but just a piece of cardboard. Now hang it on a wall. Job done. You're now a (con) artist.

I can't help thinking about the old fable of The Emperor's new clothes here. People with too much money being convinced that an old table cloth or empty box is a piece of art and worth thousands of dollars.

Maybe I'm just in the wrong business.

Killing is murder!

Am I the only person who finds it strange that an abortion doctor was killed by anti-abortionists?

Whatever your thoughts on abortion, we live in a country where it is legal, as is free speech.

Abortion is murder? Yeah? So is actual murder!

Did anyone really hear about this incident and think "hold on, you know what, the murder of that doctor has shown me that killing is wrong. Let's have a baby."

I already thought murder was wrong (and I'm not talking about abortion here). I don't need some dullard with a placard to tell me that.

Do you not have better things to do than terrorise already frightened women and kill the doctors who give them legal treatment they probably spent hours, or days agonising over?

Anyone who attempts to force their views on others is a bully and anyone who spends their time trying to stop people going about their daily lives holding up signs is a sad loser who almost makes me want to stand outside their house 24 hours a day holding a banner and chanting "I hate signs"! Muppets!

Could care less?

You know what else bugs me?

People who say "I could care less".

What exactly does this mean?

This is an American thing admittedly so maybe that is my answer as in England we correctly say "I couldn't care less" or "I could not care less.

When I say I couldn't care less about something, it means that it is not possible for me to care less about it than I already do. Or, to be clear, I do not give a shit about it!

If you say you could care less about it, it means that you care about it, at least a little bit. So in effect you are saying the exact opposite of what you actually mean.

I could not care less if I upset anyone with this rant, just sort it out!

Morons.

www.wtf??

You know what bugs me about the internet?

It's how all internet addresses start with www. Never mind that w is one of the more complicated letters to say, now we have three of them in a row, and we have to say them every time we talk about the internet!

And in case you weren't aware, the internet contains pretty much everything in the world, ever, so we talk about it quite a lot.

The three w's in www actually stand for world wide web. Think about that for a second.

So, in essence, we say www as it's short for world wide web.

Say both of those out loud.

www. World wide web.

Which was faster to say? Saying the letter W, it has three syllables. Times that by the three times you have to say it and that makes nine syllables.

World wide web has a total of three syllables, so every time we say www we're wasting six syllables.

You know what you can do with six syllables? Not to mention the extra time it take to say them? There must be something. Think for yourselves!

Just because some nerd in silicon valley decided it should be said www, doesn't mean we have to go along with this lie!

Rise up my good people!

There aren't many things worth causing a revolution these days but surely this is one of them!

A dog's life

I care about a lot of things, but you know what I don't care about? I don't care about the fact that the US President has a dog.

I also do not give a shit that the same groundsman has walked all President's dogs since Nixon!

Is this really news??

I don't watch much news on the TV these days as the news on American TV is not actual news. It is a series of items totally unrelated to anything newsworthy.

If the President does or says something newsworthy, fine, tell us but are people's lives really that devoid of anything that they actually sit there watching someone they've never seen walking a dog, followed by an experienced reporter who really should know better, around the grounds of the White House?

If you didn't know it was the grounds of the White House, it could just be an old man walking his dog in the park. And we're supposed to watch this crap?

Like I said, I only stumbled upon this 'news' on NBC by accident but I'm insulted that somebody somewhere though this would be relevant to my life!

Netflix

I love Blockbuster video. I've been a loyal customer for years and as I would rather watch a movie than the latest tv reality show I joined their online store to have movies sent to me through the mail.

For four years we had a great relationship. I paid them $18 a month and they sent me the three movies at the top of my queue. If I ever found myself without a movie to watch, instead of mailing back a dvd and waiting for them to send me something else, I could take myself down to the local store to exchange it, for free, for any dvd they had. This was in addition to the three movies at a time from their online service.

I'd heard reports that Blockbuster's online service was struggling and wasn't really making any money so it was no surprise when earlier this year they changed the terms of service and instead of being able to exchange movies in store for no additional cost, you could use them as a coupon to get half price in store rentals.

I wasn't really that bothered about this change as we didn't really need to drive to the store to get additional movies to watch but on one occasion in March this year I did just that. Only this time, the rules had changed once more.

Instead of mailing back the movie we'd just watched, I went to the store to pick up something else to watch over the weekend, knowing that if I mailed it back in, I would have to wait until Wednesday for the next movie to arrive.

When I got home, I logged on to my online account to remove the movie I'd just rented from my queue so I didn't receive the same one twice. While updating my queue, I noticed that the dvd I'd just rented from the store was now showing on my account and it said the next movie would not be sent until the store rental had been returned.

So now any in store exchanges count towards your online allowance but a big company like Blockbuster doesn't need to inform it's customers about such changes.

The very next day, I returned the movie to the store (after watching it) and checked my online queue. The movie had not been checked in online. I waited a couple of days and it had still not cleared my queue. After about half an hour of trying to find a way to actually get in touch with someone about the problem, I sent them an e-mail and waited for the problem to be resolved.

Why is it that some companies make it so hard for you to actually speak to someone and instead of giving you a phone number or e-mail address they try to pre-empt your query by picking out keywords and referring you to their frequently asked questions?

I received a reply telling me that this was the new policy and as soon as I returned the movie to the store, it would clear my queue and the next movie would be sent. This was despite my original e-mail telling them I had returned the movie to the store and it hadn't cleared my queue.

Numerous further e-mails received various responses, either telling me that when I returned the movie to the store it would clear my queue, or advising that there was a system problem that they were aware of and working on fixing and the returned movie should clear my queue in 24-48 hours.

Two months later, the store rental is still showing as outstanding in my queue so despite paying for three movies at a time, I was only receiving two. They did send me coupons for free store rentals whenever I complained but despite them continually 'reporting the problem to the relevant department', the problem was never resolved.

I really didn't want to leave Blockbuster online which is the only reason why I gave them so long to fix the error. The store confirmed very early on that I had in fact returned the dvd to them, and even the people at Blockbuster online confirmed the same but no one was able to fix the problem.

Last week would be the start of a new billing cycle so before they took any more money from my account, I cancelled my membership with Blockbuster online. I'm now enjoying a two week free trial with Netflix that I already know will continue long after that.