Tag: shrill

My eyes can’t take much more of this

Posted on By admin

As part of a work project, I’ve had to comb through a couple of thousand of food pictures associated with user-generated recipes. Dear food bloggers, could you do me a big favour? Yuge favour?

LEARN TO FUCKING TAKE A PICTURE THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOUR FOOD LOOK LIKE 70’S ERA DOG SHIT!

Seriously! I’ve seen medical textbook pictures that look more appealing! The most obvious crimes I’ve seen are:

– Bad lighting. Really, really, really bad lighting.
– Blurry, out of focus pictures. In this day and age?
– Automated date/timestamp overlaid on the pictures. That might be useful for your family holiday pictures, not not for your food blog.
– Content completely unrelated to context. See above picture.
– Ugly plates. Unless the picture was indeed taken in the 70s, nobody should have orange, brown and yellow plates.
– Trying to go completely artsy-fartsy. Just… stop.
– Pictures of brown sludge. Or white sludge. Or beige sludge.

Some – many! – of the pictures I’ve seen make the google image search of “bad food pictures” look like they were taken by professional photographers.

Please. You’ve probably spent a fair amount of time cooking that food. You seem to have a certain amount of pride in it, otherwise you wouldn’t be blogging about it. Why are you shooting yourself in the foot and making it look as unappetizing as humanly possible?

uncategorized

So mad it’s making me cynical 

Posted on By admin

Another bunch of fucktards decided to follow an ideology of hatred and kill a bunch of people out for a walk or a drink. This will do nothing for their goals, except playing into the hands of equally small minded, angry people on the other side. 

It’s tragic in its futility. It’s infuriating that people are using this senseless act to try and push their own agenda. You have this coming from the Muppet-in-Chief of the US:

And then you have the PM trying to say, See? See? I told you so! Except her party and government have been in charge and stirring the pot for the last few years. Shit, she has me agreeing with Nigel! FUCKING NIGEL!!! 

A very cynical part of me is wondering if the back channels might have pushed the crazies into acting, so that Boris could flail around and say “Durr! Corbyn won’t protect you against the bad people” and Theresa could act all strong and stable. 

The only thing preventing me from going down that road is that the current government is full of muppets who don’t have two neurons to connect together across the whole lot of them.

uncategorized

That’s just… obscene

Posted on By admin

inequality

62 Richest people in the world according to Oxfam (2014)
1. Bill Gates ($76bn)
2. Carlos Slim Helu & family ($72bn)
3. Amancio Ortega ($64bn)
4. Warren Buffett ($58.2bn)
5. Larry Ellison ($48bn)
6. Charles Koch ($40bn)
7. David Koch ($40bn)
8. Sheldon Adelson ($38bn)
9. Christy Walton & family ($36.7bn)
10. Jim Walton ($34.7bn)
11. Liliane Bettencourt & family ($34.5bn)
12. Stefan Persson ($34.4bn)
13. Alice Walton ($34.3bn)
14. S. Robson Walton ($34.2bn)
15. Bernard Arnault & family ($33.5bn)
16. Michael Bloomberg ($33bn)
17. Larry Page ($32.3bn)
18. Jeff Bezos ($32bn)
19. Sergey Brin ($31.8bn)
20. Li Ka-shing ($31bn)
21. Mark Zuckerberg ($28.5bn)
22. Michele Ferrero & family ($26.5bn)
23. Karl Albrecht ($25bn)
24. Aliko Dangote ($25bn)
25. Carl Icahn ($24.5bn)
26. George Soros ($23bn)
27. David Thomson & family ($22.6bn)
28. Lui Che Woo ($22bn)
29. Dieter Schwarz ($21.1bn)
30. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud ($20.4bn)
31. Forrest Mars Jr ($20bn)
32. Jacqueline Mars ($20bn)
33. John Mars ($20bn)
34. Jorge Paulo Lemann ($19.7bn)
35. Lee Shau Kee ($19.6bn)
36. Theo Albrecht Jr & family ($19.3bn)
37. Steve Ballmer ($19.3bn)
38. Leonardo Del Vecchio ($19.2bn)
39. Len Blavatnik ($18.7bn)
40. Mukesh Ambani ($18.6bn)
41. Alisher Usmanov ($18.6bn)
42. Michael Otto & family ($18.4bn)
43. Phil Knight ($18.4bn)
44. Masayoshi Son ($18.4bn)
45. Tadashi Yanai & family ($17.9bn)
46. Gina Rinehart ($17.7bn)
47. Mikhail Fridman ($17.6bn)
48. Michael Dell ($17.5bn)
49. Susanne Klatten ($17.4bn)
50. Abigail Johnson ($17.3bn)
51. Viktor Vekselberg ($17.2bn)
52. Lakshmi Mittal ($16.7bn)
53. Vladimir Lisin ($16.6bn)
54. Cheng Yu-tung ($16.2bn)
55. Joseph Safra ($16bn)
56. Paul Allen ($15.9bn)
57. Leonid Mikhelson ($15.6bn)
58. Anne Cox Chambers ($15.5bn)
59. Iris Fontbona & family ($15.5bn)
60. Francois Pinault & family ($15.5bn)
61. Azim Premji ($15.3bn)
62. Mohammed Al Amoudi ($15.3bn)

uncategorized

It’s not the waiting, it’s the uncertainty

Posted on By admin

wpid-img_134776532063258.jpeg

Katy has been in the hospital for close to 3 weeks now, and we’re still not sure when she’s coming home. Every time she talks with a doctor or nurse,  she gets a different, partially overlapping bit of information. The left graft completely failed. You’ll need to have another operation. We’re not sure when. It’s infected. No, it’s not infected. Oh, it’s partially taken so we’ll keep you in to try and save it. You might not need to have another operation. But you probably will need one. We’ll reassess on Monday. Or maybe Friday.

God damn it, try and give a consistent message. I get that it’s an inexact process, and you do need to wait and see, but don’t jerk us around like this. We need to try and make plans around all of this.

uncategorized

Going mad and hearing things

Posted on By admin

I’ve been hearing a high-pitched whine for the last couple of hours. It’s been getting louder and louder. It’s been driving me completely batshit. Katy, who will undoubtedly read this, will shake her head and groan because I’m prone to hearing things like this. Even though I’m completely deaf at some frequencies – generally when she’s talking to me – I can zero in to some noises and begin to obsess about them. Which is what has been happening. I know that some of our power adapters have an electric hum to them. That’s not it. Sometimes the cat water pump has air in it. That’s not it. It is a very directional noise, coming from the kitchen area. I’ve ruled out that it’s not electric or coming from an appliance by turning off the breakers to most of the front part of the apartment. It could be the building ventilation, but I can’t think where it’s coming from. It’s not coming from Bean’s cartoons. It’s not coming from the fish tanks, laptop adapters, phone and tablet chargers, lights, fluorescents, taps…..

I JUST KNOW IT’S DRIVING ME MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!

Update: Well, shiiiiiit. Fucking facepalm.

05_pack_shot_coke_zero_460_230

That whistle that’s been driving me up the walls for the last 2 hours? It was coming from a bottle of coke zero left on the counter with the lid not properly screwed on.

uncategorized

Keeping the sheeple dumb and under the thumb is a global control strategy

Posted on By admin

A Grand Ayatollah in Iran has determined that access to high-speed and 3G Internet is “against Sharia” and “against moral standards.” In answer to a question published on his website, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, one of the country’s highest clerical authorities, issued a fatwa, stating “All third generation [3G] and high-speed internet services, prior to realization of the required conditions for the National Information Network [Iran’s government-controlled and censored Internet which is under development], is against Sharia and against moral and human standards.”

Internet access has been an ongoing struggle between Iran’s hardliners, who retain key bases of power in the judicial, intelligence and security branches of government and wish to maintain strict censorship and control over all information, and the 42 million Iranians—some 55% of the population—who use the Internet. Internet speed is a critical weapon in this battle, as the authorities frequently slow the speed of the Internet as a means to render it effectively useless, thereby depriving the citizenry of the online access it needs for professional, educational, and commercial use.

uncategorized

Money and the ethnic vote strike again (maybe)

Posted on By admin

pauline

The elections office in Quebec is throwing cold water on a theory put forward by the Parti Quebecois on Sunday that students from elsewhere in Canada could be trying to steal the provincial election. The PQ expressed concern about media reports that an influx of English-speakers and other non-francophones from outside the province were trying to vote in the April 7 election. By late afternoon, however, the province’s chief electoral officer brought forward numbers showing there were no signs of an irregular increase in voter registration. “The abnormally high number of requests doesn’t exist,” said spokesman Denis Dion.

Still, the PQ’s strong language meant the controversy dominated Day 19 of the campaign. One PQ candidate at the news conference, justice minister Bertrand St-Arnaud, called on the province’s chief electoral officer to closely examine new attempts to register to vote. “We don’t want this election stolen by people from Ontario and the rest of Canada,” St-Arnaud said in Montreal. Another party candidate, former student leader Leo Bureau-Blouin, added he wants to make sure the election is decided by Quebecers. “We are concerned by the fact that many, many people who are not registered on the list want to be registered,” said Bureau-Blouin, who in the past has made increasing voter participation among youth a priority. PQ Leader Pauline Marois raised her own concerns later in the day.

There have been numerous media reports lately of English-speaking university students trying to register to vote. Some students complained they were turned away even though they believed they had the necessary documentation.
While Quebec’s English-language media has generally focused on those cases, French-language counterparts have sometimes presented the issue differently — as an effort by students from outside Quebec to influence the outcome of the election.

The PQ’s St-Arnaud said he found a report in Sunday’s Le Journal de Montreal particularly troubling. It described an attempt by “hundreds of Ontario students” to vote against PQ leader Pauline Marois. The parent company of Le Journal de Montreal, Quebecor, was founded by the family of Pierre Karl Peladeau, a star candidate who is running for the PQ in the election. Peladeau stepped aside as Quebecor’s CEO last year and when he announced his candidacy this month he said he would place his ownership stake in the company in a blind trust and insisted his media outlets would maintain independent coverage.

The story from Le Journal de Montreal story came after Mathieu Vandal, the head of the election revision board for a downtown Montreal riding, resigned on Friday and went public with concerns that an increased number of non-francophones were attempting to register and weren’t being adequately screened.

Dion said there had been an increase in attempts by out-of-province students to register in some ridings, but that Vandal’s comments were “alarmist” and had “exaggerated” the situation. He said the issue was further complicated because some officials didn’t understand the registration rules. That may be why a number of English-speaking students have come forward to complain they were unfairly denied the right to vote. In one case, a McGill PhD student said he was turned away even though he has lived here since 2008 and only takes three weeks vacation a year from his lab work.

Sean Beatty, a 31-year-old from British Columbia, was so frustrated he secretly recorded an exchange with elections officials and post it online, where it quickly made the rounds on social media. Beatty said he has voted previously in a federal election in Quebec, and was compelled to register in the provincial election this time because he disagrees with the PQ’s proposed charter of values. “I’m really disturbed by the way the process is set up, the idea that someone can deny you the right to vote without requesting any additional documentation or having an appeal process,” Beatty said in an interview. Beatty said he presented his passport and utility bills and that he has previously filed taxes in Quebec, though he has still has a British Columbia health card.

To register in Quebec, Dion said a voter must be a Canadian citizen and have lived in Quebec for six months. They must also have the intention of making Quebec their home, a term that’s open to interpretation.

Dion said officials also take into account other evidence, such as proof of a bank account in a Quebec institution, a Quebec health insurance card or driver’s licence, or a Quebec income tax return. The PQ’s strong stance on the voting controversy recalled complaints in the aftermath of the failed 1995 referendum, when federalists were accused of taking unfair measures to boost the Yes vote. Rival parties have so far avoided talking up the controversy. Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard and Francois Legault, head of the Coalition party, both said they would leave the issue up to the chief electoral officer.

uncategorized