Another Swing and a miss.

Posted on Dec 8, 2016 by headinablender

I saw an advert on TV that was promoting Michael Buble’s new album.

Fair enough.

Christmas is coming and the housewives are getting restless; it makes sense.

At the end it said “Available wherever music is sold”

Well, obviously.

Where else are they going to sell it?

“Er yeah, hi, I’ll have a Big Mac meal with a large milkshake please….oh, and the new Michael Buble album”

How fucking retarded do they think we are? What happened to ‘Out Now’ or ‘Available in Stores’?

Nope, apparently we need to be told it’s available wherever music is sold.

After years of asking, Mr B….I’ve decided I WILL cry you that river.

Coming live from Las Vegas!

Posted on Aug 21, 2015 by headinablender

I’ve made it! I’m here!

I now live in Las frickin’ Vegas!

What a massive cow shit of a difference from Crawley in England.

We arrived on Tuesday and it’s now Thursday, so I’ve had a little time to get my bearings. I know I have a lot left to experience, but even in this short time I have some early observations that I want to share.These observations will be separated into three headings; Driving, Shopping and “Oh, you’re From England?”

The first of these is:

Driving

It all looks so easy. The roads are about three times as wide as those in England, most of the cars are automatic and the speed limits are lower…so by rights it should all be smooth and easy.

Not so.

There are no road markings! Ok, I exaggerate, there are a FEW road markings, but only a fraction of what I’m used to in England. This makes junctions mildly terrifying.

Also, they don’t really make it clear that a lane is ending on the three lane road you’re on, despite the fact that the road doesn’t actually narrow in width. For a guy like me who is used to specific lanes (WITH road markings), it gets a little unnerving that you’re now effectively driving on a lane and a half.

Then, out of nowhere, the lane you’re in suddenly becomes a mandatory left or right turn with minimal warning and you’re somehow expected to deal with it without impaling yourself on the massive 18 wheeler in the correct lane!

Over here it’s all about signage. Small postage stamp sized signs with full sentences to read, positioned in obscure places tucked away out of your field of vision. Well, except for ‘STOP’ signs; they’re EVERYWHERE! In addition, they require a mandatory stop, even if you can see that there aren’t any cars coming for miles around.

These octagonal bastards are used a lot at four-way junctions (or ‘intersections’) where the rule is: ‘The first person who gets to the junction and stops is the first person who gets to go’. I suppose it makes some kind of vague sense until you arrive at an intersection the exact same time as someone else; then it becomes some kind of weird Mexican stand off.

I miss simple ‘Give Way’ road markings.

Then there are the traffic lights. Where do I start?

In the UK they play a simple role; red for ‘Stop’ and green for ‘Go’ (with amber as the transition between them). In Las Vegas they seem to have different rules depending on which junction you’re at, whether it’s a Thursday or if your star sign has the moon rising in Aquarius.

For example, you should stop at a red light if you’re turning right, right? Nope, you CAN turn right at a red light, that is UNLESS the microscopic sign fifteen feet above you tells you ‘No turn on red’; that’s nearly caught me a few times.

Then if you’re turning left, you can obviously do so if the left arrow is green, and you can’t if it’s red….but if it’s flashing amber you can turn left providing the lofty sign says ‘Yield to Traffic’. Surely that means you have to stay still and let traffic pass? Nope, it means you can turn left providing it’s safe to do so.

Then there are flashing red lights that sometimes mean stop and sometimes mean there are lights ahead….or is that flashing amber?

Did I mention that if you’re in a lane designated for turning left or right, you STILL have to ensure your indicators are on.

Plus, the speed limits are laughable. Near our house it’s a 35mph limit on a road the size of a UK dual carriageway, which is 60mph. These are long, wide roads with plenty of room, so why so slow?

With the speed limits, Stop signs, unmarked roads and traffic lights from hell….it takes forever to get anywhere.

All this in a country where 32% of citizens own guns.

Still, one thing that the USA does do right with regards to motoring is the price of fuel and the fuel pumps that lock into place.

Although, if I hear Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s “When I See You Again” on the radio one more time, I’m going to make it 33%.

Shopping

One of the things I wasn’t looking forward to in the USA was the sheer magnitude of adverts (or ‘commercials’) on the TV. Every 10 minutes, for 10 minutes.

I have to say the frequency of these interruptions is a bit annoying, but at least the adverts are better than those in the UK. American commercials tend to be funnier and more upbeat. Plus, hearing all the side effects of some miracle drug or another is just laughable.

‘Want to reduce your blood sugar? Ask your doctor about Fuckitol. Side effects may include dizziness, high blood pressure, impaired vision, rectal bleeding, the loss of one or more limbs, nasal collapse and excess navel hair. So ask your doctor about Fuckitol today”

Now, I know this next thing has been covered a million times on a million blogs, but adding tax to your purchase at the cash register sucks!

This is mildly annoying when buying clothes and stuff, but we bought a laptop at Best Buy and I got stung for $26 extra when I came to pay for it. At least in the UK you paid what it said on the label. I miss that already!

Today we went to Barnes and Noble, which is America’s answer to Waterstones. But that’s where the similarity ends. This ‘bookshop’ had (in addition to books) Movies, toys, movie merchandise, a café and restrooms. Yes, this bookshop had toilets! It seems that almost every shop (or ‘store’) in Las Vegas has toilets. This is where England gets it wrong.

No-one likes to shop on a full bladder (or bowel). Well done America, you win with regards to retail.

“Oh, you’re From England?”

No matter where we’ve gone over the last 3 days, as soon as someone hears my accent I get asked where I’m from.

Most correctly guess England; some still think it’s Australia.

As soon as they learn that I’m from England, they tell me they have a cousin/uncle/sister in law that either lives in England/Wales/Ireland (pick one), or originally comes from there.

I don’t care. Just give me my laptop.

My favourite (I can’t bring myself to use ‘favorite’ yet) encounter, however, was in Trader Joe’s; an organic and vastly overpriced supermarket. The cashier was loving my “British accent” and asked me “Is it always foggy in England?”

Yes, and Jack The Ripper still roams the streets of London.

Now, this is only after three days of being here. God only knows what experiences I’ll have going forward.

I can’t wait to find out.

Thoughts from a non GQ reader

Posted on Oct 20, 2014 by headinablender

I once flicked through an abandoned copy of GQ magazine in an airport lounge. Have you ever seen one of these behemoths?

I was bored and it was just there on the table I was sitting at, so obviously I was going to leaf through its pages.

At first I wondered why anyone would buy a brand new magazine and then leave it in the departure lounge.

Then I picked it up. This was a heavy magazine! Maybe the owner was worried it might prevent their flight from leaving the ground and left it behind.

I turned over the cover and was greeted with an advert. Fair enough, plenty of magazines start with an advert. This was followed by an advert, then another advert before moving on to numerous pages of adverts and adverts. By ‘numerous’ I mean 22.

That’s right; the ‘Contents’ page was on page 23.

By this time I had this overwhelming urge to grow back some stubble, head back to duty free and buy a suit/watch/aftershave whilst pouting and looking intensely into the distance. Maybe THAT’S where the owner of the magazine went?

I kept turning pages and eventually I found an article, on page 37.

This was ridiculous. I was being bombarded with more images of men in various states of undress than I’d like. I have a limit. That limit is roughly 0.

I decided to test a theory. I closed the magazine and then let it open at any random page.

Advert.

I tried again.

Another advert.

I flicked the magazine like a flipbook and stopped it randomly.

It was an article about a man who, whilst walking through the autumn leaves in his coat had decided to….oh no, wait, it was another advert.

What a infuriating, pointless and really, really, ridiculously good looking waste of my time.

When intelligence goes backward

Posted on Sep 17, 2014 by headinablender

As we all know, doctors and ambulances tend to have ‘Doctor’ or ‘Ambulance’ written on the bonnet (hood) of their vehicles in reverse. This is for 2 reasons.

So some people can make complete twats of themselves by mistakenly mocking the vehicles for putting the stickers on backwards.
So the car in front can read it in their rear view mirror and get the fuck out of the way (in case the siren and flashing lights weren’t enough).

Well, this morning whilst walking to work through central London, I saw a small van attempting to adopt the same principle whilst advertising its plumbing and cleaning services.

I say ‘attempting’; it looked a little something like this:

How was that supposed to be effective?

For starters, the van looked like this:

It wasn’t tall enough to be read through the rear window in stationary traffic anyway. Plus, the text was so small it was virtually impossible to read unless your rear window was a huge magnifying glass.

Now THAT would scare the shit out of anyone driving behind you.

“Honey, the children in that car in front are huge!”

This got me thinking.

Assuming you COULD read the writing on the van behind you, and assuming you DID need a plumber AND a cleaner simultaneously, who the fuck has a pen and paper at the ready to take down all those details whilst driving?

Gnitsuahxe si elpoep emos fo ytidiputs eht.