Archaeological dig

Head Rambles Posted on 22nd March 2019 by  

The clean out of the Back Room continues.

It’s now officially called the Back Room as it no longer contains much junk and it certainly isn’t an office any more. One of the desks has been dismantled and all its various parts are piled in the Front Room. The other desk just has to be smashed up and skipped. I’m looking forward to that.

I am discovering all sorts of interesting junk in the process. For some reason I have a massive collection of Flight Simulator software. If I remember correctly, an old colleague was dumping it and it landed on me. I never used the vast majority. It’s all going in the skip anyway as its all on floppy disks which I can’t use any more. Anyway I haven’t played with a simulator in donkey’s years.

I also found my first calculator.

Not only did I find it but I found all its packaging in various places, so now I have the complete article as it first arrived.

The Sinclair Cambridge was a wonder of its age. I don’t know why I bought it but it was a miracle of technology with the amazing capability of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Wow! It used to attract quite a crowd of I played with it in the pub, as no one had seen anything like it. But then it was back in 1972 in the Dark Ages.

I’m not sure if it’s still working as I haven’t bothered putting back the batteries, but I see no reason why it shouldn’t work. All it needs is 4 AAA batteries [which used to last only a few days].

How things have changed!

Sinclair Cambridge Calculator
Cutting edge technology

Lost and found

Head Rambles Posted on 20th March 2019 by 12

I am forever losing things these days.

It’s usually the ordinary everyday things such as car keys, my lighter or my pipe.

One of my problems is that I like to keep things in particular places so I can find them when I need them. But when the time comes to need them I can’t find them.

This is as a result of my second problem: I have become very absent minded.

A typical example is when I get an urgent call from Herself to say she has lost her cigarette lighter [which she loses on a frighteningly regular basis] so I hop out of my chair and head for the attic. Somewhere along the way I will put down my pipe but it will be on a subconscious level. So an hour later I reach for the pipe and it isn’t there. So I have to traipse back to the attic searching the kitchen table, the book cases, the mantelpiece and any other spot where I might have left it.

Yesterday afternoon it was a remote control.

I went down to the village earlier to buy some batteries [and a few other things]. Now I remember putting the batteries into the remote so that at least meant I didn’t have to search the car [or the village].

I searched everywhere. Upstairs and downstairs. I moved my chair [fucking heavy] and Herself’s chair [even fucking heavier]. No sign. I ripped the place asunder but there wasn’t a trace. I searched through the recycle bin and having failed there I went through the contents of the kitchen bin [a foul fucking job]. I searched the fridge and the freezer and then all the drawers [full of junk of course] and even checked the bread bin. The Junk Back Room that I am in the process of clearing had several piles of stuff and I searched each pile thoroughly [several times].

Now when I lose something I get twitchy. I can’t relax until I find it. So the searching went on after dark which only highlighted the number of dark places in the house even with all the lights on.

At midnight I decided to call it quits. I wasn’t going to find the fucking yoke and I was exhausted.

I had just one final look around.

I found it.

It was in the Junk Back Room under a box that I had searched under several times. I have no idea how it got there, but there it was. I swear someone [or something] moved it around the place when I wasn’t looking. But there was no one [or nothing] that could have moved it.

I swear this house is haunted.

Where are the heroes of yesteryear?

Head Rambles Posted on 18th March 2019 by 6

I went to a pub last night.

A friend [yes- I do have a few friends] suggested going for a pint, which is of course an Irish euphemism for a bellyful.

Now due to domestic circumstances I have been somewhat remiss in the pint drinking area, having taken to whiskey as my tipple of choice, as I couldn’t be bothered with setting up a cellar full of Guinness kegs and all that goes with it. Whiskey is easier.

Now I was somewhat trepidatious about pubbing on Paddy’s Day night as well I remember the days of old where it was one of those nights where you have to fight your way through the hoard of Great Unwashed just to get to the counter to place an order. It was a night where you went early just in the hopes of getting somewhere to sit before the throng arrived.

So we arrived the Friend’s hostelry of choice, I gritted my teeth and opened the door. I was of course greeted with a wave of noise as I expected. However the noise was just piped music blaring away, several wide screen televisions with about half a dozen punters yelling to make themselves heard over the racket. Where were the crowds? This was Paddy’s Day for fucks sake!

Naturally is was a Smoker Hater pub so we headed out back where they has a little seating area. It was cold but at least the noise from inside was somewhat muffled.

When it came to my round I went back in and realised the noise level had increased considerably, which is more than can be said about the number of patrons. There were now about eight or ten people looking somewhat bemused and staring at the flashing television screens that adorned every spot in the lounge. The increase in noise level was apparently the night’s entertainment.

There was a bloke in the corner playing a guitar. That would have been fine but he had a bass drum which he thumped in time to his singing, and to make matters worse he had an amplification system which was apparently turned up to peak volume. His repertoire was somewhat eclectic, ranging from Irish patriot ballads to Monkee’s songs and everything in between.

The patronage at this stage had retreated to the furthest corner from the noise but they still had that glazed expression of one who is not enjoying one’s self.

We left at around midnight. The entertainment had fucked off, probably to somewhere quiet, and there were now about three punters at the counter who were at least pissed enough to ignore their surroundings.

Where the fuck have people gone? Where are the heaving throngs? What the fuck happened to the age old tradition of getting hammered out of your skull on the National Day?

Naturally I blame the smoking ban. There was only one other smoker in the entire place who nipped out back for a couple of frantic drags. Smokers just aren’t welcome any more.

There is also the small matter of price. For the price of a litre of good whiskey I would get a mere seven pints.

You get a lot more bang for your buck with whiskey.

Strike my arse

Head Rambles Posted on 15th March 2019 by 6

If it isn’t Brexit, it’s that Greta Thunberg one and her little “strikes”.

Ask any kid if they would fancy a day bunking off school and making a Bank Holiday weekend even longer. Yeah. Right!

So thousands of kids head off into their nearest city for a bit of craic. I wonder how many of ’em have done any study on the subject of climate change, apart from the indoctrination imposed by the System? I would hazard a guess at none.

I read an interesting piece yesterday – “The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg” over on “Life on an Alien Planet”. It’s interesting stuff, though it comes as no surprise. Do read.

When I was in school I was brainwashed on the subject of religion. Nowadays they are brainwashed on a clatter of subjects – climate, “healthy eating”, and of course smoking. Seven and eight year olds are having sleepless nights worrying that they are all going to drown or starve in a few years time, or in my case, that their grandparents will die a horrible death at some point because of a bit of tobacco.

It’s one good thing about this “strike” today: it’s one less day of indoctrination.

Old Folks Day

Head Rambles Posted on 14th March 2019 by 16

I had a little excursion today.

I had been [deliberately] putting it off for some weeks but yesterday it became more important.

Yesterday I was testing a plug-in hard drive which had been behaving somewhat oddly [it kept disconnecting itself and reconnecting again which was really fucking irritating. I had to replace it.

Now the bulk of the stuff I had to get [and had been putting off] was stuff for the Hell Hole Back Room. There was paint, a reel of satellite cable plus connectors, a bedside lamp and a can of anti-mould stuff. I knew that lot would be expensive but today is Old Folks day when they knock 10% off everything.

Now I obviously had to go to two separate shops so rather than having to drive all over the county and hassle with parking and the like, I picked a centre where there is a computer shop and a hardware side by side. The trouble is that that meant a trip to the suburbs of Dublin.

The drive wasn’t too bad and I only had one near miss [a fucker behind me didn’t realise the lights had changed. Luckily his breaks were good and he stopped a hair’s breadth from my rear end].

So I’m back now laden with stuff which is counteracted by a lighter bank balance. I’m knackered but that is explained by the hardware crowd who never keep anything in a logical place. Satellite cable? No sweat – I found it amongst the reels of cable. Plugs for the satellite cable? Half a fucking mile away in a different section. It may have been less than that but it felt like it especially after my attempts to find anti-mould paint

Now I have to find out how to remove a satellite remote control from a heavy duty plastic bubble that defies even a carpet knife.