I’ve been in a bad mood for the past few days, and, even though I wasn’t driving today, there are some idiots on the roads around here and I must vent.

We were going along earlier at about 60, and a car was waiting in a lay-by to pull out. There was a few cars in front of us, with about a 3 second gap between them and us. They went past the guy waiting, and then he decided that 3 seconds was enough time to pull out in front of us.

Well, it wasn’t.

Brakes on hard. Flashing of lights. Swears. My dad drives with his headlights on all the time to help people see him, didn’t seem to help this guy though. If he’d pulled out half a second later we would have gone right up the back of him.

Then, we were stuck behind some idiot in a massive SUV doing anything from 30-45 in a 60 for about 10 miles. Why?? God knows. It was a wide, straight road, perfect conditions, not wet, you could see for miles, but he decided to plod along, not really giving a shit that the people behind may actually need to get somewhere. We got past him eventually, overtaking the two cars in front of us who didn’t have the brains to overtake, and then the slow guy, all at once. Other people then suddenly woke up and overtook him too. That seems to happen a lot up here, nobody overtakes, they’re a bit like sheep, they just follow the person in front, but then when someone with a bit of common sense overtakes, they all do.

We also had to go to the horse place so my sister could have a lesson. The exit from this place into the main road is a nightmare, the junction is on a corner, whether you look left or right, it’s blind, you can’t see very far round it at all. There is a mirror on the other side of the road, but it’s completely pointless because you can’t see anything coming in it unless it’s in your line of sight coming round the corner anyway. We pulled out, and a car then came around the corner, which happens quite a lot. He then had to slow down, nothing we could do about it, every other time it happens people are fine with it, as they accept it’s a blind bend and it wasn’t intentional, but this guy honked us, got right up behind us, then overtook, giving us a lovely hand gesture. I’d like to see him get out of that corner every time without cutting someone up, I’ve not managed it yet.

If these sorts of people weren’t on the road, I swear we’d all get to our destinations in half the time and with a lot less hassle.

This morning, going about my usual business on the web, and my Internet was disconnecting more than usual. Finally got everything I needed to done, but not after I’d lost a lot of stuff I’d typed from submitting a form without realising I wasn’t connected to the Internet… anyway, I then had to go into town to get some lunch. As I was walking to the car to go, it was raining. Got in the car, and it stopped. Got into town, went to Sainsbury’s to get some food. Went to the sandwich section… nothing there. At lunch time. So, I went to the fresh bread section to get a baguette or something… nothing there. oh, yeah, nearly forgot, Sainsbury’s don’t seem to like stocking lunch time foods at lunch time. So, I decided to go to the take-away place to get some chicken. it was raining again, heavier than before, got quite wet. Ordered my food, and as I was waiting, the rain was getting even heavier, I knew it wouldn’t stop by the time I was going to leave, and sure enough, I had to walk back to the car in another storm. But, when I got to the car, got in, and started to get the food out, the rain stopped, and the sun came out. Not only that, I could feel the warmth coming through the glass; I’d just been walking through storms and now it’s all nice and sunny again. Joy. Came home and saw MyBB was down, which sucked. I then had to go and get my sister from the horse stables, and I got my usual mixture of people going slow for no reason whatsoever, people tailgating me, or tractors. Today I actually got a tractor pulling on of those massive portable homes too. 30 MPH in a 60. Hmm. It eventually turned off and I could carry on as normal. Coming back, had a transit van literally sitting on my rear bumper, and then I got stuck behind another tractor, going 30 again. I did manage to see the mileage on the car hit 86,000 though. Got home, MyBB was still down, and is currently showing an SQL error.

Let’s see how tomorrow goes.

OK, I’m sure this is something that has happened to us all. You put your iPod, or whatever you use, in your pocket, along with your earphones, and when you take them out, they’re so tangled up, it takes you 10 minutes to bloody well untie them.

This is what I’m talking about. Look at that mess.

How the hell does this happen?? I fold them up nicely, I don’t wrap them tightly round my iPod because that fucks up the wires, but they’re neatly compacted, and when I take them out, even after a couple of minutes, they’re just in one massive knot. Do they come alive or something?? How the hell can they move around so much?? Sometimes I’m not even moving, I’m sitting in the car or something, if I’m walking along I might be able to understand, but sitting still?? HOW??

Sometimes you get double or tripple knots, the wires seem to loop through eachother, and then loop through loops, and then loop through loops in loops… you can follow the wire and see how it weaves in and around the other wire. They often get tangled up a lot more than I can tangle them up myself; whenever I try and tangle them up I get a bit of a knot going but then seem to just undo it again… if only that would happen every other time it happens.

You can get ones that are tagged as being ‘anti-tangle’, which is bollocks, doesn’t describe them at all. They still get tangled, very tangled, what ‘anti-tangle’ means is that they don’t get in knots so tight you can never undo them… when they turn themselves into knots, however they manage to do it, usually they’re quite loose, some older ones I have have knots so tight I can’t even get a needle in there to make a gap to try and work it open.

I think there are now some that roll the wires up into a little plastic case and wrap them round the little wheel inside, and you just pull them out, which would probably stop them getting tangled, but then there’s that chunk of plastic knocking about in your pockets too.

The only way this will ever be solved is with wireless earphones. That’ll be the day.

There’s an ongoing debate about whether or not elderly drivers should be retested once they reach a certain age. I believe you need to get your licence renewed every 10 years or so and there is an eye test when you reach a certain age, but IMHO that isn’t enough. This is my take on the argument.

First off, a lot of them do drive so damn slow. I live in Norfolk, UK, and around here, there’s a lot of small villages and towns, separated by faster roads, national speed limit, 60 MPH. Now, usually the limit is 30 through the built up areas, 40 or 50 towards the edge, and then 60 along the main roads to the next village. Thing is, a lot of elderly drivers go at 20 in a 30, 30 or 40 in a 40 or 50 respectively, and then they usually stay at about 40 or 50 when they get to the national speed limit. Now, you could say that they’re just being cautious in the built up areas and staying well under the limit, and I have no real problem with that… what I have a problem with is when they go at 40 or 50 in a 60 when there is just no need. This might be because they don’t know what it means – for those of you not in the UK, here’s a picture. Basically, standard cars, cars with trailers/caravans, HGVs etc have a different limit on single carriageways/dual carriageways/motorways; this sign is just a catch-all, go as fast as you’re allowed for this road type, based on your vehicle. Anyway, as it’s just a line on a white circle, some drivers may not know what it means… but that in itself is cause for concern. If they don’t know what this means, do they know what all other signs mean?? Do they know what all the safety and warning signs mean?? Debatable. Or, they may know perfectly well what it means, but they’re just not confident to go at 60 MPH. That’s the main concern. 60 MPH isn’t really that fast, and if they’re not confident to do that, on a clear, open road, with no obstacles or traffic in front, should they really be on the roads?? What they do is cause problems. People go on saying that speed kills but people going too slowly is just as bad. People behind get impatient, having to go along at 40 in a 60 for no reason, and might try to overtake, dangerously… could cause an accident. I often see them weaving about as well, going right to the edges of the road… very unsafe. The other day, I saw a fully loaded HGV overtake an elderly driver… what does that say?? If they’re going slow enough for a HGV to easily overtake, something isn’t right.

Secondly, it’s very hard to argue that their reaction times are going to be as quick as younger drivers. If I’m going along at 60, and I see something in the road, I’m on the brakes in a split second, as is pretty much everybody else. However, from what I’ve seen, elderly drivers can take a second or two longer to react… a second or two may be a bit too long for a kid running out into the road to get their ball. Furthermore, it’s unlikely they’re going to be able to apply as much braking force as most other people. If I see a kid running out into the road, I’m not only on the brakes in a split second, I’m on them hard, foot to the floor. An elderly driver will be slower to apply the brakes, and they won’t be applied with as much force… even worse news for the kid running out in the road to get their ball.

Thirdly, their judgement seems to be seriously impaired. The other day I was approaching a crossroads, I was on the main road and there was a smaller road crossing it (various little filter lanes, quite a fiddly junction really) and an elderly woman pulled out in front of me, way too late. I had to break to avoid going into the back of her; there’s a general rule that if another road user has to brake due to you pulling out in front of them, don’t pull out. Not only did I have to slow down quite violently from 60, she then carried on going along the road at 40. Seriously?? You cut me up, make me brake, and then crawl along the road?? Why not just wait for me to go past and then pull out?? Soon after, I overtook her, as did a few people behind me, and I gave her a nice friendly stare as I went past. Then, today, I was coming around a corner, and saw an elderly chap pulling out to overtake a flatbed lorry. It was on a corner, not a blind corner, but a corner nonetheless, but the thing is, he was only just pulling out as I was coming around the corner, as we came into eachother’s sights, so there was no way in hell he had enough room to overtake safely, the corner wasn’t very far away at all, he shouldn’t have overtaken anything more than a cyclist there. I had to go over to the edge of the road to avoid hitting him, and I flashed my lights and gave him a blast of my horn. Two dangerous maneuvers, on the same stretch of road, in a matter of days. And I don’t even go out driving that often really.

All of the above not only endangers other road users, it also endangers the elderly drivers themselves. Now, I know people are going to say that they rely on their cars for going to the shops and things, and yeah, I understand that completely, but, if you remember, I’m not trying to completely ban them; a retest would make sure they’re still safe to be on the road. After all, is that not the point of the usual driver’s test, to make sure we’re suitable?? My Nan realised her driving was deteriorating and stopped. There’s alternatives to having to drive, things can get delivered straight to them, or there’s buses. And, before you think I’m labelling all elderly drivers as bad drivers, I’m not; I know some elderly people are fine drivers, and I also know that not everybody who is a bad driver is elderly, but it’s a majority – the majority of elderly people have some sort or deterioration in their driving, and the majority of bad drivers on the roads are elderly. My Grandad’s driving, is as good as most other people’s, he got caught speeding at Easter, bit I wouldn’t believe it if someone told me an elderly person got caught speeding around here.

So, that’s my opinion. I’m not saying to ban them, I’m not labelling them all as bad drivers, I’m saying we need to make sure they’re as competent as most other drivers, for their safety, and our own.

This is something that really annoys me and I need to vent.

This is what the setting looks like when you start with, when the board is open. It’s set to ‘no’.

MyBB Board Status 1

Then, when you close it, it looks like this. It’s set to ‘yes’.

MyBB Board Status 2

Simple, yes?? Just a yes/no setting?? Somehow, no.

A lot of people get confused by this setting.

“Where can I turn my board online again??”

Seriously??

When it’s open to begin with, it’s set to no. When you close it, you set it to yes. Is it not common sense that to open it, you set it to no again??

People seem to think that the actual yes/no setting is for the ‘Administratirs will still be able to view the forums’ message, but that makes no sense. It’s just extra information about turning the forums offline, admins will still be able to see it, and it always shows in the description of that setting. The name of the setting is at the top of the box, ‘Board Closed’, then it’s either yes/no. Yes is closed, no is open. Why would the setting name be half way down the box?? Not only that, why would there be a setting to say whether or not admins could see the board at all?? What could that possibly be used for?? “Oh yes, I know, I’m the admin but I’ll make it so I can’t see my own forum”. Ugh.

Please, people, try and think about what this setting does, use some common sense.

It’s about time I had a rant about Sainsbury’s. We have one in our town, it’s the only supermarket there is, and it is, by far, the worst run store I have ever had the misfortune of having to visit.

Quite often I feel like having a sandwich for lunch, perfectly normal thing to want to do. I really like Chicken and Bacon sandwiches, the Sainsbury’s ones are really nice. They do two types, one without salad, and one with, for a little bit more. I preferred the one without salad (not exactly a fan of lettuce…) but the garage was the only one to ever have those (at our Sainsbury’s, there’s the main store, and a garage, with all your essentials, bread, milk etc etc, to save you having to go to the main store for small things). But then, when they re-designed the packaging, they seemed to stop the plain ones. Fine, I wasn’t really very pleased with it but there was the alternative of the one with salad. That isn’t my biggest gripe. My biggest gripe is the fact that they hardly ever put sandwiches out in the main store when they’re actually wanted. Today, for example, at 12:30, and 14:00, the sandwich shelves were pretty much empty. A lot of the time they’re just putting them out at 14:00. How many people are going to want to have lunch at that time?? Most people’s lunches are between 12:00 and 14:00, I’m curious as to why they put out lunch time food when everyone has already gone elsewhere to get food. And they wonder why their sales are dropping?? Might help if the food is there when people are actually trying to buy it. But, I guess it’s up to them if they want to drive customers away.

OK, you may think that last comment was a bit OTT for not putting sandwiches out but it isn’t just that, they never have anything out. The fruit and veg section is always half empty. The fresh bread section is always pretty much empty. They seem to wait until a shelf is completely empty before restocking it, not making sure it’s always full, which is how it should be done. I worked in a supermarket for a short time and the shelves were pretty much always full, unless we were truly out of stock. At this store, sometimes the new stock is on a crate at the end of the isle but nobody has been bothered to put it on the shelves.

I also swear they purposely sell out of the things I want. If they actually have bothered to put out sandwiches, they have everything apart from the one I want. When I want to go and get a bag of cookies, they have every type apart from the one I want.

You may think this is petty, and you’re probably right, but if all you want to do is get something to eat and this is the sort of organisation they have, it begins to really piss you off. Having the odd day of bad organisation is fine, but only having the odd day of good organisation isn’t right.

They also can’t manage their tills for shit. They have a good 30 tills but the way they run them is appalling. Often, there’s about 7 tills open, and they all have about 3 people queuing at each. They have signs up saying that if they see this sort of thing happening, they’ll ‘happily open another till for you’. Bullshit. So often I’ve stood there are the ’till managers’ are just talking amongst themselves, or they see the queues, but just ignore them. They could quite easily call more people to the tills or, heaven forbid, man the till themselves, but they don’t, they just make people wait around. At the shop I worked in, if the tills were getting too busy, they’d open another one, simple as.

Back before I realised that the store was run my a monkey, and when I was looking for a job, I applied for vacancies there. The first time I applied, I got turned down because they said I had no work experience. I explained to them that this was because I changed schools when we moved, so I ended up missing the school arranged work experience at both, but they said they wouldn’t employ me because I lacked experience. Classic Catch-22; I needed experience to get a job, but I needed a job to get experience. So they were very helpful in getting me off the ground there. The next time I applied for a job there, they said that there wasn’t a vacancy for it. Thing is, I’d seen it advertised, and, even worse, shortly after I was told that the job vacancy didn’t exist, I heard that someone I knew had got an interview for the very job I’d applied for, which apparently didn’t exist. They then ended up getting the job. That confused me a bit. The next time I applied for a job, I never even got a response from them. After this I just thought fuck ‘em, so I applied to another supermarket, got an interview, and was hired there and then. It was only a temp job but still, I got this ‘experience’ that was expected of me. Plus, I got paid more per hour there, as a temp, than someone who had been working for over a year at Sainsbury’s, which I thought was quite funny. I’m glad I didn’t get a job though because it’s run by a bunch of morons.

I could complain to management about the shit organisation but I know fuck all would be done about it so there isn’t much point.

So, yeah, there concludes my moan about our local supermarket.

Don’t shop at Sainsbury’s.

You could call me a member of the Grammar Police. Although I hardly ever correct people’s grammar anymore I always want to and even though I make some errors sometimes I hate it and usually correct them quite quick. However some people need a starter lesson in grammar (you know who you are) so here you go.

To, too, and two

People seem to get this mixed up, mainly to and too.

To - ‘I am doing this because I want to.’ ‘I am going to have a drink…’

Too - ‘… and I am going to have a sandwich too.’ ‘I have too much to do today.’

Two - ‘Actually I am going to have two sandwiches.’

Too many times I see these three getting totally mixed up. Too can be used in the same as as also, as well, in addition etc, or to show an extreme. I see this sort of thing quite a lot… ‘I went too the shops to get to pints of milk’. Bah.

There, their, and they’re

This is a good one. These have very different meanings and I see them being used wrongly rather too often.

There – ‘I am going over there.’ ‘There is no money in my bank.’

Their – ‘I like their house.’ ‘It’s their problem, not mine.’

They’re – ‘They’re not going to like this.’ ‘They’re going to be here soon.’

They’re means they are, which is why there’s the apostrophe, and seems to be the one that causes most problem. Also there and their get mixed up quite often. Bah. Take this test and this test. If you get less than 17/20, double bah.

Your and you’re

Similar to above, very commonly used wrongly.

Your - ‘I like your car.’ ‘This is your fault.’

You’re – ‘You’re very annoying.’ ‘If you don’t look at the map, you’re going to get lost.’

You’re means you are, which is why there’s the apostrophe. Saying ‘your doing something wrong here’ is bad. Bah.

Its and it’s

This is an easy one to get wrong actually.

Its – ‘I got a new computer and broke its monitor.’ ‘The dog lost its ball.’

It’s - ‘It’s a great day today.’ ‘I don’t think it’s going to work.’

It’s means it is or it has, which is why there’s the apostrophe, and its is possessive. ‘Its good to be here’ and ‘the tyre lost it’s pressure’ are wrong. Bah.

I

I has always got to be a capital if it’s about you.

I hate this. I’ve forgotten something. I’m tired. I’ll do it later. I’d like to do this.

Not seeing I with a capital in these cases is unforgivable. Bah.

That’s about it for the common ones.

BAH.