K8 the GR8

I was just thinking the other day, so I was, about how quiet it all is on the meme front these days.  Then I regretted thinking it because that’s like saying… ‘at least it’s not raining!’, and sure enough, a nice big juicy meme arrived in my linkses.

It’s from my Daddyo who at least has the good taste to only forward the good ones.

It’s called the ‘Getting Your Goat’ meme.

The Rules

1. List two things that irritate you for a reason (and list the reason!), and two things that irritate you for no apparent reason whatsoever!!
2. Give credit to the person who tagged you.
3. Link your answers to the original blog.
4. Tag four new people to participate.

YAY!  Everyone appreciates a good opportunity to whinge, well, Irish people do, anyway.

1. Two things that annoy the hell out of me for good reason:

Toy/Miniature dogs: I’m so delighted that I share this one with English Mum.  A Bichon Frise is not a dog.  It is a tampon with teeth.  Maltezers, especially the ones with the ponytails, look stupid and love to Yap into the wee small hours.  I know this because my next-door neighbour has one.  When TAT asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I said ‘a BB gun’ and so he bought me one.  I’m nearly out of bullets but at least I’m getting a lot more sleep!  The Shih-Tzu’s only redeeming feature is that occasionally one will walk over an up-draught ventilator a la Marylin Monroe which is a very entertaining sight indeed.

Stranger than fiction

Packaging:  Foundations that claim to contain ‘nano light-reflecting diamond-chips’ and ‘Micro-Collagen-Spheres’.  Shampoos with extracts of things like fig-leaf and Gogi-berries.  It’s all just the same mix of Cetearyl Alcohol, Benzyl Salicylate and Methylchloroisothiazolinone but with a different smell.  I wish they’d just scrap the bullshit and sell us re-cyclable plain containers instead.  Buggered if I’m paying for your adverstising costs!

Two things that irritate me for no real reason:

Over-acted radio voices/personalities: Mainly two:  Harvey Norman (at least the owner of the advertising voice), or should I scream ‘HAAAAAAVVVIE NOOOOOWWMAN!!!’ should be sacked and given the job of a cricket commentator instead.  Michael McMullen is a sports commentator on Today FM and starts every single bulletin with… ‘Hoooy, Oi’m Moich’l Mok Mulllll’n.’  His accent is a cross between Lloyd Grossman and that of a Blackrock College student and it makes my face feel like it needs to turn inside-out.

Ugg Boots: These are okay on their own, they’re warm and cosy.  I just hate it when they come with grey-hound-skirt wearing slappers.  A girl cakes herself in sparkly makeup, inserts the hair-extensions and breaks out the tiny dress with optimum bling and suddenly realises she’s sending out the wrong impression.  What does she do?  She dons Ugg Boots.  Now she thinks her legs look amazing and men will just think she’s a quirky cutie, but in reality she looks totally fucking ridiculous.  I would love to just walk over to these girls and slap them, I have no idea why.  

2. Credit to Squidward for the meme.

3. Linky hand-shakes to the dude who invented this meme: www.skillet.com

4. Meme dutifully passed to: Warrior, Jefferson Davis, Sam Problemchildbride and Kirk M who also gets my Dog’s Bollocks of the month award for being so constantly inconsistently entertaining lately.

Raining cats and dogs as usual, business tends to be quiet on days like this. 

I pulled up at a taxi rank just after lunchtime and noticed that all the other cars were deserted, bar one - a people-carrier into which was crammed at least eight taxi drivers.  I knocked on the window and was let into the secret smoky underworld that is cabby conversation.  I sparked up a schmergel and listened.

They had the newspaper out and were reading about this rape incidence in Dublin, yet another excuse to be paranoid about foreigners.  I learned many interesting things (and heard much racial hatred which I won’t be repeating here) which blew my mind, to give examples…

Apparently forgeign nationals only need to get 30% of the Public Service Vehicle test correct, as opposed to the 70% us nationals need.  Also, foreign-nationals aren’t asked for a back-ground check before they enter the taxi-driving business, yet we Irish need full Gardee clearance.

They say that this is to give foreign nationals a hand-up, an easier way to score employment.  That’s all very nice and stuff, but these people aren’t thick… with a bit of practice and a year or two living in this country they’d have it down no problem.  It’s only the rules of the road and a rough knowledge of city layout… hardly astrophysics! 

Besides, isn’t this sort of stuff important?  I would have thought a knowledge of roadsigns would be rather helpful for driving?  And as for the back-ground check… are they kidding?  They’re asking the people of Ireland to just ‘trust’ their taxi driver?

Is it really true that complete foreigners can land in the country and just dive straight into the taxi-driving business, winging it the whole way?!?  I can’t imagine having the guts to go to say… Nigeria and start charging poor unsuspecting punters for trips to places I can’t even pronounce, let alone find.

Pure madness.

I feel so sorry for foreign national taxi drivers today.  Nobody’s going to want to use them now as they’ve all been tarred with the same pidgeon.  They’ve busted their chops trying to learn the ins and outs of the cabbying business so that they can feed their families in this God-forsaken economy of ours, and now they are to us what the Al Quaeda are to the Americans, just because of a stupid head-line and the usual short-comings of our Irish Big Brother.

I’m laughing though.  Who’d suspect an innocent looking female taxi driver of evil intent?  Nobody, that’s who. 

I could have fun with that…

Man, my PC’s messed up.

It took me four hours to log on to the internet today.  ‘This program is not responding - end program?’… am I going to wait around until you pull your finger out?  Hell no. 

They should have a popup box for when the PC’s all buffered out and needs some time to think.  Something like ‘Don’t end it!  Give me a chance, I can do it!!!’

I’ve pulled the plug so many times now my computer is just running on faith alone.

My ‘puter is now officially discombobulated me thinks.  Either that or I am.

I went shopping yesterday for Father’s day gifts (The Accidental Terrorist has been bugging me for Wiiks about his present, so I caved and he is now a happy Wii bunnii :), and found a copy of Twenty’s buke in Easons.

Delighted, I bought it and stashed it in the overhead compartment in my car, intending to use it as light entertainment for when I’m in between taxi-jobs.  Unfortunately it was so busy at work today that I didn’t even get a chance to read the blurb.

Then it hit me.

Overhead compartments really should only hold two books at a time, but mine holds 7 CDs, a newspaper, a coin-bag and two books so when I say it hit me… I don’t mean metaphoricalizzy.

The book slipped out of its cubby and jabbed me with its pointy corner on the crown of my head just as I was negotiating a narrow country road.  ‘GAH!’ I said, and ducked - I was appalled for a nano-second that my passenger had assaulted me, but then I spotted Twenty’s smug mug laughing at me from my lap, and I felt foolish. 

In the second it took for me to re-gain my composure, a pheasant had walked out in front of me and I hit it with a curdling thump that sounded louder than it should have.  ‘FUH!’ says I, as the bird struts back out onto the road.  Mrs. Passenger wasn’t too pleased when she saw that her eggs had broken and didn’t appreciate my sarcasm much as I pointed at the injured bird and suggested she take it home.  The bird himself mooned me, then fucked off back into the ditch presumably to a pub to tell his mates what’d happened. 

I had to take a half-hour break after Mrs. Passenger was ever-so safely disposed of to nurse me bumped noggin and recover from my poultry-abuse.

I reckon I should sue Twenty Major for loss of earnings, or at least get him to autograph it with his own blood.  His book has tested the limits of both my sanity and my overhead compartment and I’m not happy. 

This book better be damn good is all.

*Cheesy Link*

I picked up couple in the big shmoke today who wanted to return home after their pre-marriage course.

They had researched their options and had found the cheapest, shortest course there is.  They spent €150 on the course alone (plus additional donations to the Church), and they also had to spend €90 for the round-trip from Bray.  They spent six hours on a swealtering-hot Saturday listening to “pointless rubbish”, and ended up with a certificate so basic they could’ve printed it up themselves… at least they would have gotten their own names spelled right.

This couple were lovely - together for five years and at the stage where they could finish each other’s sentences, but ironically enough it was this course that set them at odds with each other from what I overheard.

The course is compulsory for all who wish to wed in a Catholic Irish church.  It basically warns a couple of the possible downfalls and short-comings a marriage can have… pretty much anything that can’t be taught, that must be learned by experience. 

*sigh*

And they wonder why I’d prefer a foreign wedding?!?

I lifted Mrs O’Leary’s swollen ankles into the passenger’s side of my car.  I could tell she was embarrassed and angry with life that she should be in the position to ask a perfect stranger to do so, so I made light small-talk as I sat back in the driver’s seat.  Mrs O’Leary was quiet, she seemed tired… her lump of groceries in the boot was a fair reason for this, so I turned on the air-flow and pumped up the radio volume…

-settling *groan* from O’Leary-

… and animated voices filled the car as I drove toward Soldier’s Row.  Matt Cooper was fiercely battling for the last word with several hot headed YESsers and NOers of this hilarious Lisbon Treaty, and  I confess to going ’round a rind-about maybe too many times just to hear what this one lady (Kathy Sinnot) had to say.  When she finished her point, she received a round of applause and my passenger collapsed beside me with laughter.  It was a most wonderful and welcome sound.

“Jaysus but that clinches it for me!  I’m gonna vote NO just to piss them off!”  she began to breathe quickly and excitedly and I knew a rant was on it’s way.  “It’s gas… nobody really knows what’s goin’ on!  I was watchin’ a chap get de twenty questions dere on d’telly last night - sure de more he said de more confused he go’ -  I’ve never heard anyone say so much withou’ sayin’ so little!!!  Now here’s yer one… she’s got them by the bollix and they haven’t a clue what to say ‘coz they haven’t read the feckin’ thing either!!!”  she collapses with laughter once more.

“Think abourd’i… “  she says, breathing her giggles out “…if we all vote NO at least they’ll org’nise it better the next time ’round!”

I had to admire her logic.  I’m not really comfortable either signing a contract that’s written in double-dutch.  And those posters?!?!  Please.  Those slogan’s aren’t even impressing the village idiot.

I’m proud to be European, I like this neck of the woods.  I’m not sure that I trust Ireland’s system fully, they seem to be making a lot of dodgy choices lately.

(I’m playing ‘Sim City’ on the Nintender DS in between fares in the taxi these days.  I tried raising taxes and decreasing funding on public health, transport and education to free up more funds and guess what?  The poplulation all fucked off to find better living elsewhere… haven’t we all dreamed about doing that?  Why are we still here?!!)

So I’m thinking… maybe it’s a double-bluff?  Maybe the NOers found the small print and are scrutinizing the things that probably won’t happen? It just seems like the original ink has had coffee spilled on it-  it’s just a blurred mess and now everybody’s trying to remember what it might have said.

I’m saying NO on this, the 5th of June with nine days to go.  The YES people had better all shut up, or make some factual sense in that time because otherwise you’re just pissing me off.

(Toxic Steve)

I love my Ireland - she’s beautiful but she’s run by muppets.  I like to think of her as independant, but that might just be my blood talking…

“We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies… The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people.”

Are these just pretty words?

Mrs O’Leary sure had a bounce in her step after she tipped me €5.  I think she saw the light.

(Don’t click this link by the way.)

Once again, K8’s faith in humanity is given a massive whack across the face with an iron crowbar. 

I have defended the travelling community before (being that I live amongst them and kind of feel I should give it a shot)… I think I said something about them deserving the right to fight for respect within an unforgiving settled community?

What complete bollocks this is.

Here’s the scene:

-0-

I’m parked up at a garage in Bray, looking for a lady who wants to go to Arklow as per instructions from the taxi base.  I’m scanning the area which is deserted apart from a young lad aged eleven or twelve who sits by himself on a window-sill with his head resting on his knees.  Being that I am a girl who tends to think outside her box, I approach the kid.

“Hey kid… you looking for a taxi?”

The kid looks up and seems somewhat relieved.  “Yeah, I want to go home to Arklow” he says.

I convey my successful pick up over the CB and am informed that the fare would be €65.  I turn around to the kid.  “Do you think you can handle €65?”

The kid looks panicky and says; “Oh no I have no money with me, my mammy said she’d pay for me when I get home.  She’ll give you the money then.”

Fishy, but still highly likely. 

“What’s the address?” I ask.

“I dunno” the kid says apologetically; “we only just moved in.  It’s near the main street”.

Something smelled funny, and I don’t mean metaphorically.  The child was scruffy, and smelled very faintly of urine (as many children do) but also had an unmistakeable accent.  He looked nervous, and was hugging a bottle of orange soda.  He had intelligent eyes, and looked me directly in the pupils when he spoke to me.

My instinct roared.  It warned me that I was about to be swindled, but I wondered if I had the right to refuse a child safe passage to his parent?  What if he was speaking the truth?  I’m a mother, I can’t do that to a kid!  Besides (more truthfully), €65 is a lot to turn down.

I take off.  The kid asks me how far it was to Arklow, but apart from that one question he is silent for the entire journey.  When we arrive at the town, he directs me into a small housing estate on the outskirts. 

“It’s that house on the corner, I’ll be back in a second”

I let him out, scolding my instinct for being such a cynical bitch.  Then I watch as the kid passes the house in question at high speed, and dissappears around the corner on to the main road.  I fire the ignition and fly after him in first gear.  The main road is deserted.  I crawl up and down for a few minutes knowing well that the little fucker is hiding somewhere.

I drive back to the housing estate and call the taxi base to see if there is any protocol for this type of thing.  Apparently the union doesn’t have an insurance policy against runners, because there is no union.  I ring the accidental terrorist who tells me to come home (seeing as I happily live near Arklow anyway) and informs me that he regrettably has no secret ninja techniques for dealing with this situation.  The Police are dreadfully under-funded and would probably appreciate my not informing them of this misdemeanour. 

I couldn’t go home.  I wanted to find him and run him over.

I drive very quietly until I get back to the road the kid would be walking.  I shift into neutral and slink along with my eyes peeled.

About 200m ahead of me, I spot an old man.  There’s someone else too, who briefly flashes a face, then hops over the 6ft wall beside him.  I toy with the idea of scaling the wall to chase the kid, but thought better being that my trousers cost a few bob.  Anyway, what use would there be in catching him?  Sure, I could beat him up a bit to calm the anger, but I’d still be broke.

I stop to speak to the old man who does indeed identify a young boy holding a bottle of orange soda.  He also tells me that the field over the wall beside us could be used as a shortcut to get to the traveller’s quarters ‘over the way’ as he puts it.

End of pathetic sodding scene.

-0-

I knew that kid was a knacker.  I still drove him ‘home’ because it was the end of my shift and I was heading that way anyway.  I was aware of the kid’s movements the whole time, but he gave me no cause for concern whatsoever.  He just sat back with his arms crossed and gazed out the window silently which is refreshing for someone with my job. 

I’m not angry about the money, I’m angry that I was so fucking naive to think that it’s possible that there is such a thing as an honest traveller. 

They are a crafty race who have plenty of scruples and plenty of cash, so do not take your eyes off a traveller for one fucking second if you find yourself near one, for they would have the eyes sold out of your head soon as look at you, no matter what age they are.  Kudos to them, they had me fooled… but not anymore. 

They’re in a great position… they don’t pay taxes, and it’s well known that they enjoy the fruits of ill-gotten gains, yet the gardaí won’t go anywhere near them.  They demand respect from the community and free land from the council, then fleece them as soon as their backs are turned!

Where’s the honour in that, though?!  Why is it that the only events warranting shop and pub shut-down around here are Christmas day, and a knacker’s funeral?  They live by skimming money off tax paying citizens… so why are we respecting that again?

If they’re so great, then why aren’t we all travellers?  I’m already halfway there, sure.  We’re scrounging a house off the council, but at least we’re trying to get back on this bastard of a housing ladder… we were almost on it too, once, but slipped off again when Laughingboy was born.  Circumstance kicked us in the nuts and now here we are, still trying to crawl out of the dependancy pit seven years later.  It sucks!  Yet, there the knackers smugly sit in their dingy halting sites, knowing that their head-men and women of the family are worth literally millions of euros.

Here’s an insane question: If you had millions of euros would you squat in a dingy piss-stinking commune in the clogged pores of the Irish countryside, or would you bugger off to Thailand? 

Answers on a postcard to:

One pissed off taxi driver
28 Shithole View
Dunfoundusaplacetohousethescumbags
Co. Wicklow
Ireland

(What?!  What do you mean this post is too long?  It’s not!  My blog is too narrow!)

Our house wasn’t broken into last night thank Jehovah, but instead I was robbed today in broad daylight  at work.

You might be imagining poor K8 the Gr8 wrestling for dear life with a scumbag and a handbag full of takings, but no, I’m learning a more sinister truth lately… it’s the Toffs in the hills surrounding Bray that are the real scoundrels.

I was sent to a large modern house on Nouveau Riche Avenue in the suburbs of Bray to pick up Mr and Mrs Toff.  I was supposed to be bringing them to Blacklyon (in Bray or Greystones or wherever the hell it is), but soon found out that they wanted to go to Knocklyon, which is near Firhouse on the M50.  CHA-CHING!- thinks me, as I radio the correction in.

-o-

Base: Ok, go ahead K8, That’ll be €48.

Mr Toff: (who is sitting beside me) No.  No no no no no.  That’s too much.  That would bring me to the airport! No no no, €30.

I am stuck in a really nasty spot.  I now have to radio in the complaint to see if Base will drop the price, when I know they won’t.  I dither on the CB for a few seconds, then Mr Toff decides to ring the base himself.

He argues loudly and gives Headquarters hell, screaming about rates and distance and time and reports to management, then he orders me to bring him back home.  His wife supports her husband by repeating the last word of each sentence back to him, which bugged the shit out of me.

Mr. Toff: This is absolutely ridiculous (now off the phone) behaviour from a reputable company.  We shall never call this company again besides the call they’ll get from me tomorrow morning with proof that their rates are extortionate.  Blah blah blah blah rant rant rant, all the way home.  In my face, too, which was really bloody distracting.

-o-

When I dropped Mr and Mrs Toff back to their house (may it burn to the ground), they gave me absolutely no money for my time at all, even though I was polite throughout the whole ordeal.  I had just wasted 40 minutes of my workday on two wankers just for the sake of being nice.  I should have kicked them out of the car the second I realised they weren’t going to pay!!! 

Curse this fucking need to please!!!!

I’m absolutely fucking raging that I didn’t kick them out right there on the N11 and get to bask in the image of their angry lost faces getting smaller and smaller in my rear-view mirror as I drove away for a proper fare.

I have most definately learned my lesson for the next time this happens.

“Sorry mate, pay up or stay here.  It’s not personal, it’s business!”

(MOSTLY FOUND AT WARNING LABEL GENERATOR.COM)

My, but aren’t Irish men horny on Sundays?!  I made €32 on tips alone, just by flirting behind the wheel today, as opposed to €8 yesterday and €12 on Thursday.  What’s so special about Sundays?

KA-CHINGGG!!!

I heard a snippet of news on the radio that made me giggle:  Apparently when Bertie told his co-workers he was going to throw in the towel, they “wept openly”.  Grown men?  Politicians?  I don’t think so.  I think Bertie pre-empted it.  I think he ate an extra-hot vindaloo and washed it down with five pints of Guinness the night before, then stuffed his pockets with onions the next morning before work.  It was the gas that made them cry… the gas.  Either that, or politicians are damn good actors!  Oh wait… right, never mind.

I heard a most excellent song on the radio today… several times, in fact.  It’s a version of House of Pain’s ‘Jump!’, which is a song that sparks the dancing flames into almost everybody when they hear it.  It is possibly the no.1 best song that one could hear in a nightclub and I love it.  This version is in flagrante as Gaeilge.

You Oirish readers out there know exactly what I’m talking about.  It’s Des Bishop, fair play to him… he’s learned the language in 4.2 minutes and has now taken on the coolest song known to mankind.  Here’s a link to the song on Donncha O’Caoimh’s site, Holy Shmoly.  (Don’t listen to this video if you are over the age of 50.  You will hate it.  Especially you.)  I can’t find the radio version, but I’ll buy the single if it’s released because it’s a pretty darn excellent version.

Thing is though, everything the Irish try to coolify ends up being naff in some way.  I’m eternally proud of their efforts and of the language itself, but somehow there is nothing that will entice us to relinquish that final little bit of British rule… the English language.  This song might just be enough to entice our schoolkids into pricking up their ears regarding the old Gaeilge, but that’s because they’re Irish.

As for the rest of the world… they don’t know that ‘Léim’ means ‘jump’!  All they hear is: ‘LAME, LAME, LAME, LAME, LAME!’  *sigh*  Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the definition of irony.

On a different note, a good blogger buddy of mine has been censored.  Yes!  Censored!  Read all about it here: Brianf; the hate monger blog  (Oh my lord!  Somebody else is on to us!  Kill it!  Kill it!)  Seems as though Bush -the big bad rookie himself- has found some more bitches.

Propaghandi?

On another different but equally irking note,  I read this on Going Like Sixty’s site: Bloggers are being sued out there… read all about it!  I’m pretty sure that this sueing pillock is only after a domain name, but like I say… I’m naive.  The offending site is at Neurodiversity.  It makes for interesting reading.

Bloody hell… I only came on here to write about my extra tips!  Wine is excellent blog lubrication I find.

To finish up, I would like to quote a rather insightful spam I received today;

Humph. Someone has to force me to read this post. It’s too big and boring. Brevity is the sister of talent, remember that.

Thank you, Adriana Naked Lombard xxx, I shall remember this to the end of my…

 post.

I’m officially a big fat hypocrite.  I used to love whingeing about taxi drivers, saying what wankers they were to push me out of a lane or cut me off.  I joked when people told me I’d be the same… I swore I’d remain considerate, but no, today I fell over the edge. 

Drivers dithering at the lip of a slip lane are asking for me to overtake them.  People sitting at filter arrows across from me seem to want me to cut them off, it’s not my fault.  Taxi drivers are just on auto-pilot most of the time… I am, even after only three days.  I’m too busy concentrating on the radio, my destination and other car’s bumpers for me to remember to be nice. 

So on behalf of all the taxi drivers in Ireland, we’re sorry, but if you’re dozy, we’ll just keep right on trucking.  We have to.  Feel free to bully back, it makes a nice break from the routine!

I found a video for you.  I hope it works.  It’s a rather inspiring story about an adopted African boy:

Thanks Kelly