bamboozle
[this post is dedicated to our last remaining reader]
i created the “challenge the diva” competition so long ago that i don’t remember even why but what the hell, it’s a new year. so here goes…
1. to cheat; mislead
2. to confuse
[of unknown origin]
bamboozler n
bamboozlement n
i want to make a philosophical observation with this post (because that’s the kind of diva i am). life is weird. yep, that’s it. life is weird. as you know, dear reader, i am a working person now. strange as it might sound, i have joined the milling masses and now spend a 1/12 of my life (don’t forget the name of the band) on public transport, a 1/3 of my life slaving away for pocket money and another 1/3 asleep (well, that’s an exageration but i can’t do fractions). that leaves… about an hour a day to do things i enjoy.
people. we have been misled! we have been cheated. all the films we watch tell us to “seize the day”, to “embrace life”, to “live life to the fullest”. and how the f*@%ing hell are we supposed to do this in the one hour we have between the washing, cooking, cleaning our teeth, getting ready to go to work, winding down after work, shopping (boring grocery shopping not the good kind), staring into space unsure whether we’re actually still breathing and worrying about all the things we failed to do by not “seizing the f*@%#ing day.
life is a big fat bamboozler and i am full of bamboozlement.
there. it’s done. the silence is broken and i can breathe a sigh of relief that i’ve returned to the blog. and now i’ve used up 15 minutes of “seizing” time and you’ve spent 2 and half minutes of yours reading this nonsense.
enjoy!
and by the way…
a very happy new year.
mini diva
i’ve neglected the blog again! well, it’s hard to come up with a new piece of nonsense four or five times a week. so let’s have a look back over my week. after all, this place is all about me. contrary to popular belief, i am not out gallivanting every night. chance would be a fine thing. no, i’ve been working on various bits and pieces of grown-up stuff, hoping to make a pound or two in the future. but the big news this week is the inauguration of mini diva!
i was paid for a project that is in development (on the very serious issue of human trafficking. more on that later) and bought the new mac mini! it’s sooooooo cute. and lovely. and cuddly. and, for all of you who don’t care about looks, fast! i’d got so used to waiting for hours for programmes to open, being unable to watch videos and basically having to do everything at half the speed of a sheep’s brain, that i’ve been like a kid in woolworth’s on a saturday morning with 50 pence from granddad to spend. apart from peeing myself with all the excitement, i am now able to work on grown-up things like……. a grown-up! although i have played two episodes of tales of monkey island (very cool game if you like that kind of thing).
so what, you may ask, about the other members of the band? well, our crazy creative bass player vishy, is creating an online design services company called fluxink. it’s pretty brilliant (of course) and will be offering all manner of arty and creative bits and bobs, like logos and website templates and pretty much anything else you could think of. all online and therefore saving you at least the bus fare to get to a design office. more on that later too.
andreas has been furiously playing mafia wars, farmville and frontierthingy and recovering from his motorbike accident. if you are squeamish, don’t go to his facebook profile photo. it shows the scaffolding that is keeping his lower leg bones together. not for the faint-hearted.
michalis, the only real grown-up in the band, is busy working at a real job. did you know he’s a photojournalist? chances are you’ve seen his work in the national papers and he pops up on the news whenever there’s a riot in athens. he’s the one with the huge camera, not the one with the molotov.
so once again, i have nothing to report on the music front. you would be forgiven for thinking that we’re not a real band after all. ah well, world tours can always be re-arranged. legs have to mend first.
a trillion dollar problem
so i was doing a search for “bad mathematics” (as you do) and the third result down was “bad mathematics: a trillion dollar problem” well, blow me over with a feather. we don’t have a bean to share between us but we are probably responsible for much of the present financial crisis. tell you what… give us the trillion and we’ll go away! problem solved.
the article is actually comparing the mathematics portrayed in films and “real mathematics”. it’s a long article and i fell asleep a quarter of the way through, so if you’re interested you’ll have to go over there and read it. it has 23 facebook likes, which is more than the sum total of likes our blog has ever had. i will be writing a long email to the egghead author, mr mcgowen, to see if we can come to some arrangement. the poor man. he seemed to be quite worked up.
silly, silly people
i am rather shocked today. i was innocently surfing about (wishing there was some actual sea involved) and came across several lists of stupid 999 calls and, of course, i immediately wanted to share this idiocy with my six readers. so here we go with my top ten in no particular order.
Caller: My wife’s left me two salmon sandwiches which was left over from last night… and I’m a sat in the chair here and she’s out there decorating. She won’t put any food on or anything for anybody, I don’t know what….
Caller: Hello… I know this is gonna sound stupid but a pigeon’s been run over… and I’ve got no money to phone the RSPCA or anything…
Caller: I want to know what year the internet first came out I can’t remember.
Caller: Hi. I’m next to the M32, city centre… there’s an M32 city centre sign. Can you inform Animal Rescue that there’s a grey squirrel with no hazelnut trees please.”
Caller: The emergency is… I am at Lockleaze… and I would like to get home…
Caller: There’s no emergency except that there are no buses in Crow Lane…
Caller: Well, I don’t know who to call. Can you tell me how to cook a turkey? I?ve never cooked one before.
Caller: I’m in Huntingdon, looking for Homebase and I can’t find it.
Caller: “I’ve dropped the remote down the back of the settee and I need someone to change the television channel.”
Caller:“I’ve had a dream that I was unconscious and I’ve just collapsed.”
while it’s generally very amusing to poke fun at the foolishness of people, i am disturbed that people with genuine emergencies often complain about not being able to get through to 999. what am i supposed to do next time there’s a spider in the bath?
wobbly bits
i’ve often wished that there was a language plugin for humans. imagine being instantly fluent in spanish, mandarin or navajo. i’d also like a delete button for stupid things that come out of my mouth. and a restart button for those days when i wake up feeling crap. and the ability to chuck out the old useless files in my sluggish brain and make space for new ones.
and while we’re at it, let’s add real life photoshop to the wishlist. having a bad hair day? no problem. photoshop! had an overindulgent night before? whoopee. photoshop! bad lighting showing up your wrinkles? abracadabra. photoshop! put on a few pounds over christmas? forget diets. photoshop!
we’d all have the ability to look flawless. all the time. sadly, at the moment, the boffins have been unable to invent these applications for us so we will have to amuse ourselves some other way. oh, i know! let’s look at “before” and “after” pictures of celebrities and laugh at their wobbly bits.
keira knightley grows boobs and cameron diaz gets symmetrical ones. kelly clarkson loses weight, serena williams loses a mole and tyra banks loses her moustache. kim kardashian’s cellulite disappears, eva longoria gets see-through clothing and britney spears head moves. justin timberlake de-shines and de-creases, naomi watts changes skin and heidi klum misplaces an ankle bone.
go on. click the link. it’ll make you feel better…
having an open mind
i often pride myself on being open-minded but i came across this quote the other day and it got me thinking…
if you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it
william ornton
the dictionary defination of open-minded is being receptive to new and different ideas or the opinions of others. this can often be detrimental to one’s health especially mental. it means that you actually have to listen to the ideas and opinions of insane people before you make up your mind what you believe about the issue. if you’re an opinionated git, you can skip that step and just stumble blindly onwards, knowing that you are right, regardless of what other people think.
take your good old-fashioned racists. how simple life must be for them. black people are less than human and don’t count and should be gotten rid of. simple. they don’t even have to argue their case or listen to alternatives because their mind is made up and that’s that. same for creationists. flat earthers. alien conspiracy theorists and sarah palin. the bliss of ignorance.
if you are, and i’m sure you are because you are reading this, like me, undecided on some things, curious about other people, willing to change your mind, open to being proved wrong, you will have to suffer being inundated with off-the-wall, crazy, stupid, disgusting and sometimes, downright dangerous thoughts and ideas of others.
for example, i had to actually go (forced to you understand) and look into the flat earth society, to find out what they’re on about. This is from the Guardian interview with the president daniel shenton:
The Earth is flat, he argues, because it appears flat. The sun and moon are spherical, but much smaller than mainstream science says, and they rotate around a plane of the Earth, because they appear to do so.
Inevitably, Shenton’s argument forces him down all kinds of logical blind alleys – the non-existence of gravity, and his argument that most space exploration, and so the moon landings, are faked. But, while many flat Earthers have problems with the idea of orbiting satellites, Shenton navigates the London streets using GPS. He was also happy to fly from the US to Britain, but says an aircraft that flew over the Antarctic barrier would drop from the sky, and from the planet.
according to conspiracy theorists, man has not landed on the moon, aliens built the pyramids, paul mcartney died decades ago and was replaced by a look-alike, the jews/jesuits/(insert group of your choice) are planning to take over the world. and so on, ad infinitum.
advice for myself: stop surfing the internet looking at other opinions on issues (especially lunatic fringe and right-wing nutjob sites). they are bad for my health. start thinking nice thoughts about harmony and rainbows and everyone just getting along.
have a good weekend…
messing about so you don’t have to
i would like to set the record straight on one thing. i haven’t actually forgotten that this is a band blog. i am just choosing to ignore the fact and use this space for my own scribblings. because, let’s face it, most music blogs are boring and band blogs are positively coma-inducing. i am not personally interested in reading about the latest exploits of bon jovi or whether britney spears will ever tour again (i’ve really got the claws out for britney, don’t you think? check out psychoblues @7 minutes 30 seconds into the song on the bm player)
anyway, continuing my pointless nonsense here and also having nothing to do with music or the band, i was searching top ten lists of all sorts of odd things (like you do) and came across one called top 10 codes you aren’t meant to know. they are mostly things like police codes and hospital emergency stuff but one caught my eye and made me giggle.
In computer support, a variety of codes can be used when referring to a customer. One of these codes has become fairly well known on the internet: PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) but there are a variety of others that are lesser known. One of these is used when reporting a fault which has been fixed: “The fault was a PICNIC” (problem in chair – not in computer), or “ID 10 T Error” – ID 10 T is, of course, IDIOT. Let us hope that you never see this noted down on your file when a serviceman is fixing your computer.
and when your computer technician writes “my new bff” on your report, it does not mean you are going to be buddies for life. it stands for “big fat fail”.
you have been warned…
5 things you need to know about fame
as you know, i hang around with famous people all the time (being famous and all), so today i’d like to offer my 5 things you need to know about fame.
before i start the list, i would like to point out that there is an enormous difference between famous people and celebrities. celebrities are those obnoxious people who turn up everywhere and you have no idea what they actually do or how they became famous. these include everyone from big brother, kim kardashian, paris hilton, kevin federline and peaches geldof. it seems that these days it is enough to just to be a famous person’s daughter, boyfriend or drinking partner. just appear on as many red carpets as you can, party all night every night, take your top (or better still your knickers) off on every occasion, get done for drunk driving and go out with someone famous. or get adopted by someone famous. or pretend to be friends with someone famous. famous people do not necessary have talent or if they do, you might not like or appreciate it, but they are famous for actually having done something other than the things mentioned above.
- famous people like fame. you might be under the impression, if you read most tabloid/rag magazines, that people like princess diana and britney spears don’t really like the attention they get/got. this is total crap. do you think that any person in their right mind would pursue an entertainment career from the age of three if they didn’t want the spotlight? and if lady di didn’t want fame, what the hell was she thinking when she got married to the old plant whisperer back in 1981?
- famous people are like you, only richer, thinner and with better teeth. they still have to sleep, eat and go to the loo but they have an entourage to help them do it. they do not wake up in the morning looking like they do in the magazines. many have endured years of painful surgeries and treatments, daily workouts and starvation diets, armies of stylists and hairdressers to look like that. it’s enough to send mere mortals screaming back to bed. the difference is that when famous people scream and run back to bed, we call it rehab. when you lot do it, it’s called being bone-idle.
- famous people like awards. these days, it seems to be the protocol to be humble and self-deprecating at award ceremonies, thanking those that “made this possible”, saying “this award really belongs to so and so” or actually (god forbid) turning one down! no, no, no, no, no. the truth is, famous people really want to stand up there and give this speech: “i am very happy that you finally recognised my enormous talent and gave me the award i deserve. it is perfectly obvious that my performance in ____ was better than _____’s in _____ and thank goodness you weren’t too stupid to see it. i worked my sexy butt off with this award in mind, so well done to me. now that i know you love me more than anyone else, i will get off the stage and go and get drunk. see you next week/month/year when you reward me again for my outstanding gorgeousness and immeasurable talent.”
- famous people like to be asked for their autographs. why else would they be eating, drinking or sunbathing in the “it” places? if you didn’t want to be noticed by hordes of fans, why don’t you pop down to the local fish and chip shop with no make-up on to get your dinner. or call the local chinese take-away and enjoy a chicken chow mein in the comfort of your own private cinema?
would you honestly look twice if this girl stood next to you in tesco?
or if this girl was crossing the road in front of you?
no. but if you recognised them in their extraordinary ordinariness and asked them for a signature, they would be flattered don’t you think? i certainly would be.
- famous people do, in fact, die. yes, it may come as a complete shock to you but they do. michael jackson has indeed “ceased to be”, princess di has “kicked the bucket” and elvis presley (even the king himeself) has “shuffled off ‘is mortal coil”. what remains is hype, exaggeration, wishful thinking, disbelief maybe, fanaticism and magazine/newspaper/film/record and book sales. the truth is that famous people are flesh and blood. infinitely more special and deserving than everyone else but flesh and blood nonetheless. sorry about that!
divalicious
thank you, shooshoofication, for today’s word: divalicious
as anyone who is anyone knows, the word was actually invented to describe me. and i was pleasantly surprised and rather flattered to see that it has made an entrance into the urban dictionary. i was, however, somewhat dismayed at the references to beyonce in relation to being divalicious. i will be contacting my lawyers, if they ever recover from their seemingly endless hangovers, in the very near future.
being divalicious is not as easy as you might think. much thought and endless pampering goes into this state of being. one does not wake up in the morning looking as fabulous as a hot fudge sundae. no, dear four readers (my goodness, this blog is getting popular!), i am old mature enough to admit to having risen from my bed looking as if i’ve been dragged through several hedges. backwards and forwards. on more than one occasion. as you ab fab fans will know already, it’s not easy to maintain a divalicious life when you don’t actually do what the peasants call “an honest days work”. vodka and fags don’t come cheap.
celebrities are always whining about the paparazzi who follow them around wherever they go. they should be thanking their lucky, lucky stars. imagine being the original fabulous diva, spending hours getting ready for a trip to the supermarket, opening the front door and finding not a single photographer or screaming fan lying in wait. how far the mighty fall. i blame the publicity department for this obvious and devastating case of extreme laziness. you’d think that they could find one national newspaper, or even a local rag, who would be interested in my rubbish bin.
on the one hand, i can honestly say that i do enjoy the fact that i can now leave the house in plastic flip-flops and tracky bottoms that are a tad short but i would appreciate a little interest when i’ve spent 5 hours and several thousand pounds on myself. is that too much to ask? i think not.
i leave you with the words of patsy stone, who sums up the problems faced by us divalicious beings, who have been cast aside for the younger, talentless, gaudy versions of everything we hold dear:
she tried to crowd surf and the tide went out
perspicacious
thank you, ruby diamond for today’s word: perspicacious
i have heard it said, usually by the academically challenged, that it’s just as good to be “street smart” as it is to be “book smart”. what a load of twaddle. obviously, most people on the planet poccess brains the size of a small waterbiscuit (as in “your brain’s so minute, baldrick, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open, there wouldn’t be enough to cover a small water biscuit” for all you black adder fans out there) so the concept of having any kind of mental capacity is well beyond them.
we, on the other hand (i include you three who are reading at this very moment) fall into an entirely different category. we are able to engage our grey matter and use it to to enhance our lives. how dull life would be if we didn’t have the ability to sit about and wax lyrical about the shortcomings of others. how frustrating it must be to be unable to use big words to befuddle the peasants. how boring is must be to be incompetent at making elaborate excuses and reasonable arguments not to do any real work.
my understanding of the world goes far beyond the “get up, do an honest days work, put food on the table, go to bed” kind of attitude that pervades most people’s life. yes, it’s a little unfair that i have more resources at my disposal but i’ve worked very hard for them. at least an hour a week thinking about my next project. some might even say that we talented diva type people are a bit of a waste of space. i laugh in their general direction. my days are filled with thinking about the world and how to make it a better place. granted, i do not actually do anything to achieve world peace or end poverty, but it’s the thought that counts.
to prove that i am extremely perspicacious (and proud of it) here’s a very perceptive and highly amusing account of the world:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
DR. PHIL:
The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on ‘THIS’ side of the road before it goes after the problem on the ‘OTHER SIDE’ of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his ‘CURRENT’ problems before adding ‘NEW’ problems.OPRAH:
Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.GEORGE W. BUSH:
We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.COLIN POWELL:
Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road…ANDERSON COOPER :
We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.JOHN KERRY:
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.NANCY GRACE:
That chicken crossed the road because he’s GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.PAT BUCHANAN:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.MARTHA STEWART:
No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.DR SEUSS:
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I’ve not been told.ERNEST HEMINGWAY:
To die in the rain. Alone.JERRY FALWELL:
Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth?’ That’s why they call it the ‘other side.’ Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like ‘the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It’s as plain and as simple as that.GRANDPA:
In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.BARBARA WALTERS:
Isn’t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.JOHN LENNON:
Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.ARISTOTLE:
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.BILL GATES:
I have just released eChicken2007, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra…#@&&^(C% ……. reboot.ALBERT EINSTEIN:
Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?BILL CLINTON:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?AL GORE:
I invented the chicken!COLONEL SANDERS:
Did I miss one?DICK CHENEY :
Where’s my gun?AL SHARPTON:
Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickensRON PAUL:
Because the chicken is free to cross the road if he wishes. It is not up the federal government to tell the chicken where to go or make him show a National ID Card when he gets there.MIKE HUCKABEE:
I deny that my son hurt that chicken. The fact that he now has no head proves nothing. But then the chicken said that he wouldn’t vote for me so I shot him.KANYE WEST:
Because George Bush hates chickens!MICHAEL MOORE:
Over 40 billion chickens die in the United States every second. Their combined mass is slowly causing our planet to rotate closer to the Sun….and Republicanism. Occasionally, one of them crosses the road, escaping from the clear Fate of serving on a plate. A plate that scoops up the best of our young chickens, dropping them into a fiery cauldron of death. Everyone agrees that the only ones profiting from these deaths are large corporations, yet no one does anything about it. When your from the wrong side of the road, no one cares. I wanna deep fry Republicans.MOSES:
And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the Chicken, “Thou shalt cross the road!” And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.AGENT MULDER:
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?RICHARD M. NIXON:
The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.JERRY SEINFELD:
Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn’t anyone ever think to ask, “What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?”FREUD:
The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.OLIVER STONE:
The question is not, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Rather, it is, “Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?”DARWIN:
Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.LOUIS FARRAKHAN:
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken ‘crossed’ the black man in order to trample him and keep him down.MARTIN LUTHER KING,
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.MACHIAVELLI:
The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.EINSTEIN:
Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.
BUDDHA:
Asking this question denies your own chicken nature.RALPH WALDO EMERSON:
The chicken did not cross the road; it transcended it.HILLARY CLINTON
Because the Bush Administratin obviously left the gate wide open otherwise the chicken wouldn’t have been in the road in the first place. When I am president all chickens will be sure to get a proper education so that they’ll know better than to try to cross a busy road!ELVIS PRESLEY
The chicken crossed the road because he wanted to do it his way…thankyouverymuchNASA:
Lense FlareCLINT EASTWOOD
Go ahead make my day and cross that road!MICHAEL JACKSON
I swear when the chicken crossed the road to my fantasy Park for a sleep over in my bed that there was no fowl hanky panky play of any kind!NEIL ARMSTRONG
One small step for mankind… one giant leap for the chicken!JIM MORRISON
to break on through to the other side
break on through…to the ooootheeer siiide
the diva:
sod the chicken. where’s my coffee?
schadenfreude
so here’s the first word in the challenge the diva competition: schadenfreude.
the popularity of youtube videos showing people falling, smashing into things and generally being broken, indicates a steep rise in schadenfreude in the modern world of the internets. or perhaps we have always taken perverted pleasure in seeing people crash and burn but now we have access 24/7. some of these hideous clips are viewed millions of times. i was sent one once that i really do wish i hadn’t seen. i won’t divulge what it was because i would hate for you to have the image in your head too. i can think of nothing more sickening that seeing other human beings (or animals, my pet loving readers) actually being hurt.
having said that, i have been known to have a titter when celebrities have fallen flat on their faces. not literally you understand but when they have produced a particularly large brain fart and presented it as creative work. as in britney spears at the video music awards or amy winehouse’s sad drunken “performances”. but the rich and famous are fair game aren’t they? it’s the public that buy their bloody records and sit through their, sometimes, bloody awful films and made them famous. so i think we’ve earned the right to have a jolly good laugh when they fuck up.
i am sure there must be a fairly large contingent of people who have experienced large dollops of schadenfreude in my presence (or behind my back as the case may be). i distinctly heard my personal assistant cackle when she caught me in lidl a short while ago. i sacked her for being generally incompetent but she did know how to shop.
my ex-personal trainer must have split his sides at the last gig. well, it’s hard to get motivated when you don’t have a 7 foot totty yelling at you to do 50 more press-ups but i had to sack him for being cuter than me.
and my former maid is in a world of trouble for uploading pictures of me wearing rubber gloves and a pinny but that’s another story…
i find it particularly abhorrent and unacceptable that my current misfortune is the source of malicious enjoyment for some people. they should bear in mind that we, who are more worthy because of our unlimited talents, have resources at our fingertips to bite them back. and then it’ll be our turn for a bit of schadenfreude.