Stick it to me, baby.

Posted on Dec 5, 2018 by headinablender

I get stuck in traffic a lot, especially when commuting to and from work because, well, there are more idiots on the road at those times (myself included¹). As a result, I get the joyous and underwhelming opportunity to read the various stickers people adorn their cars with.

And they use them a lot in America!

From the Jesus fish…

Jesus, would you look at these!?

…and the ‘My offspring is serving in the Army/Navy/Air Force’…

Everyone gets a participation trophy

…to the various forms of ‘Coexist’ I’ve seen.

Holy Idealism, Batman!

But nothing sums up ignorance like the two stickers I have seen a lot of recently.

And no, it’s not a collection of pointlessly stupid stick figures of family members.

Get ’em Darth! GET ‘EM!

No, these stickers are as follows:

If you don’t have the same views as me, I will shoot you

And this one:

Be nice to each other, or so help me I will kill you.

I get the feeling these stickers are supposed to portray pride and like-minded thinking in this fine country, but they’re pretty aggressive if you ask me (and this is a statement from a thick skinned Brit living in the land of the thin skinned…so that’s saying something!)

For me, it boils down to this:

“If y’all ain’t gon’ be wit’ us, then we’s gon’ shoot y’all….so help me God”

(I’m sure he won’t).

These stickers aren’t a display of Patriotism; they’re Jingoism at it’s most prevalent.

Maybe this would be more appropriate?

Seems about right

So remember, if you won’t share this post with all your friends and family, then feel free to…erm….feel free to….er….not?

1 – Not true.

My parking is a cut above the rest

Posted on Jan 14, 2017 by headinablender

Last night I decided to get my hair cut because I was starting to look like 1973.

So I drove to the barber shop, spied a parking space and parked in it. The space was a bit tight (smirk), but I slipped in with ease (even smirkier)

Exciting story so far, right?

I got out of my car and started walking towards the barber shop when I heard a voice behind me.

I whirled around^[1] and saw a little old lady sat behind the wheel of one of the cars I just pulled up next to. She smiled at me and repeated whatever indecipherable thing she said.

“Pardon?” I said to her, very politely and Englishly.

She cleared her throat and tried again, “You a good driver! I seen 3 people try and park there and give up. You a good driver!”[sic].

“Thanks!” I replied smugly.

Little did she know I often fuck up parking my unnecessarily long American sedan like a cock. Yet I STILL do better than the local drivers here in Las Vegas.

As they say…in a land of twats, the dick is king^[2].

Llllllllike a glove!

[1] Who whirls? I just turned around normally.

[2] No-one says this.

2017 is already a crazy ride!

Posted on Jan 1, 2017 by headinablender

Before I start……Happy New Year!!!!!

It’s New Year’s day and I’m working.

My shift started at 4am, so I had to leave the house around 3am. This meant driving through post-New Year crowds and traffic….in Las Vegas.

This is what I encountered:

A mere 45 seconds into my drive an oncoming car veered into my lane for about 10 seconds before realising they were on the wrong side of the road. I had to stop the car otherwise I would have hit them!

A multitude of cars were drifting between lanes without any indicators [turn signals] or awareness of others around them.

A few cars straddling lanes for extended periods of time.

Lots and lots of red lights. Seriously, I was at a set of red lights for almost 5 minutes, with no other cars going through the green lights on the cross street!

A truck stopped in the middle of the road, blocking everyone. No reason that I could see. Also, no driver that I could see.

Lots and lots of cars cutting each other up/off. One driver was so impatient at a red light that he moved into the ‘Right Turn Only‘ lane and then when the lights went green he went straight, cutting up the driver to his left just to get in front. He pulled over and parked 100 yards later.

Lots of loud, drunk people teetering on the edge of the pavement [sidewalk] threatening to walk out in front of my car.

Now, this was the first time I had EVER had to drive to work on New Year’s day in Las Vegas. I couldn’t believe the experience compared to my normal commute…..

It was no different.

Here kiddy, kiddy, kiddy.

Posted on Dec 2, 2016 by headinablender

There is a little known fact that American children are made of glass.

It’s true; they’re such delicate little snowflakes that the mere thought of them near danger results in the country childproofing everything!

“Think of the children!”

I’d rather not; you can get arrested for that shit.

Nothing demonstrates this more than the roads outside schools. There are big signs indicating a ‘School Zone’ with yellow lights that, when flashing, indicate you must slow down to the speed limit shown on the sign.

The Police are VERY vigilant of this I’ve been told. After all, “Think of the children!”

These speed limits vary from 25 mph all the way down to ‘Get out of your car and push it‘, and start about 30 miles outside the ‘School Zone’. “Think of the children!”

At face value this is a great idea, but I have never EVER seen an unsupervised child cross the street outside a school. This isn’t The Goonies. In fact, I’ve never even SEEN a child outside a school when the lights are flashing.

Ever.

Oh, wait, that’s not true. I have seen kids outside when the school kicks out.

Hundreds of little miracles, hands firmly held by their parents or being loaded into cages. At these times there are Lollipop men/women (crossing guards) walking out into the street, slowing and stopping the traffic. These people make the flashing signs redundant.

Take a look at this..

This is a Google street view of the school I actually attended as a 7 year old boy in England, with a school I go past regularly here in Vegas (and the inspiration for this post).

Anyone for Frogger?

Back in my day (insert Yorkshire accent here) you left school and crossed the street between parked cars by looking both ways before doing so. It was called ‘common sense’, or ‘not wanting to be splattered by an oncoming car’. The speed limit was (and still is) 30 mph. It’s slow enough to stop if a child runs out, and fast enough to speed up if a child runs out. We like choices.

But in America we have to drive 15 mph in case, god forbid, an unattended child should run out of the school, across the vast car park (parking lot), past the planters and shrubs and onto the wide open road that has no parked cars obstructing them from view.

Seriously, I could be doing 70 mph and see these little angels coming.

I’d have to work really hard to actually hit one. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Those fuckers are fast.

In this mollycoddling nation of snowflakes and participation trophies, the little lambs are never let out of the sight of their parents who usher them from the school building to their oversized SUVs like a celebrity leaving a nightclub.

So why do we all have to slow down from a measly 35 mph to an awkward kiddy-fiddling kerb crawl? I get nervous when I have to drive by a school slowly, especially with only one hand on the wheel.

10 to 2.

Eyes straight.

But seriously, where is that healthy respect for traffic we all had growing up? What happened to looking both ways when crossing the road? Where is the Green Cross Code?

People need to ‘Stop‘, ‘Look‘ and ‘Listen‘.

Instead they ‘Don’t Stop‘, ‘Don’t Look‘ and ‘Sue‘.

In every country in the world, pedestrians need to watch out for oncoming traffic…but in America, traffic has to watch out for oncoming pedestrians. It’s ridiculous! I know I’ve touched on this before, but it baffles me how backward this is.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big advocate for road safety…..but not as much as I am for natural selection.

Here kiddy, kiddy, kiddy.

ShoSho-wing too much

Posted on Sep 27, 2016 by headinablender

This weekend my wife and I took a road trip to northern Nevada. It was awesome and NOT the basis of today’s blog…don’t worry. This isn’t a travel blog after all; I only write about shit that either A) happens to me, B) pisses me off, or C) has a combination of A and B.

There are a lot of C’s in this blog, I can tell you.

(insert smirky face here)

Anyway, back to my reason for today’s post. On the way back from the land of fucking nothing for miles and miles, we detoured to a natural warm spring in Duckwater.

This warm spring has been referred to as the largest in the United States and is located on land owned by the Shoshone Indian tribe.

In essence, this place is in the middle of fucking NOWHERE.

After turning off the main highway, it was another million miles along a road that I can only describe as the beginning of almost every horror movie ever. This was followed by a gravel ‘road’ that eventually led to the warm springs and the need for repair to the underside of your car.

We didn’t see another vehicle in either direction for almost an hour. Not one. I was genuinely fucking scared.

Here are the warm springs on Google maps.

Zoom out. Seriously, do it.

Do you see just how much ‘fuck all’ there is around?

I wasn’t joking when I say we saw NO-ONE!

As we parked up in the completely desolate parking lot (or ‘area of gravel’), another car suddenly pulled up next to us. Wait, what? Where did they come from?

Out of the car jumped two young ladies who, it soon became abundantly clear, were more than just friends. I was a little bit disappointed at their arrival because I was looking forward to romantically dipping in the warm spring with my wife. It wasn’t a huge ask, considering the fact it was in the middle of buttfuck nowhere and had taken us an hour and a half out of our way, but that’s fine. No, really, it’s FINE!

I shot my wife a look that said “For fuck’s sake!” while our new friends chattered to each other as they merrily collected their shit from their car and joyfully trotted to the water’s edge.

Oh well, it was what it was. To be honest, it was still lovely. My wife and I had a bit of a swim, joined by our friends (who aren’t just friends) and we even had a bit of a laugh and joke with them. I couldn’t really be a complete dick about them being there too because, after all, we were also interrupting their romantic warm spring dip.

After half an hour or so my wife and I decided to get out as we had a 4 hour drive back to Vegas. We picked up our stuff by the side of the springs and walked back to the car, dripping sacred Shoshone water all over sacred Shoshone land. When we got to the car I looked around and saw nothing was coming from miles around; no glint of vehicle metal on the horizon and no dust clouds in their wake. I glanced back at the springs and our new friends were still swimming and chatting in the water.

“I’m going to change back into my clothes here”, I said to my wife, as I couldn’t be arsed to traipse back to the restroom (wooden hut) to change out of my wet swim shorts.

My wife looked around and agreed it made sense. Besides, I could hide behind the car door, away from the prying eyes of two young women who really had no interest in my penis anyway.

Behind me was just desert as far as the eye could see. I was good to go.

So I gripped the elastic waistband and dropped my shorts to the ground in one rapid movement. This was no easy feat considering they were soaked through and sticking to me like a Jewish mother.

It was quite nice to feel the cool Nevadan breeze tickle my untickled areas.

As I stood up, miraculously one of the girls was out of the water rummaging through their belongings, 10 feet away from my manhood swinging¹ freely in the breeze! I dropped to a half squat position behind the car door quicker than if I’d been swiftly kicked in the nuts. I was almost uppercutted by the door.

Is uppercutted a word? Meh, it’ll do.

I couldn’t believe this girl had decided that NOW was the time she needed her phone, cigarettes, rubber fist or whatever.

My wife was in bits with laughter.

I decided to sit inside the car and remove the rest of my shorts and in no time I was completely naked, in the middle of sacred Shoshone Indian country.

At this point my wife said, though stifled laughter “Oh, I don’t believe it.”

“What?”, I barked?

She pointed behind me and attempted some words that failed her. I turned and looked through the car windows and, sure enough, there was another car trundling down the gravel road towards us.

They were greeted by me, sat there, door open, naked and wet.

Enjoy your swim.

¹ Who am I kidding?

Stop, America….just stop.

Posted on Dec 8, 2015 by headinablender

Last night I had an encounter with a driver that infuriated me. It’s something that happens a lot and pisses me off to a level that is unwise in a country where guns are so readily available.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a warning; today’s post is a rant.

Ok, so….this encounter last night involved a 4-way stop junction which, in my opinion, are as effective as chipotle flavoured hemorrhoid cream.

Why the fuck can’t Americans just use roundabouts (sorry ‘traffic circles’) to maintain the flow of traffic like sensible countries? Oh yes, that’s right, apparently they’re ‘confusing’ and Americans don’t know how to use them.

I suppose I can understand that. It’s a circle. Very confusing.

After all, they have to simultaneously use TWO pedals AND a steering wheel; how could we possibly expect them to navigate anything other than a huge, wide straight road?

What was I thinking?

Now, for those who don’t know, a 4-way stop has two simple rules; The Stupid Rule and The Vague Rule.

The Stupid Rule dictates that you MUST stop, even when you can see there are no cars coming for miles and miles and miles.

Add to this the fact that 4-way stops are at almost every intersection, it makes for a very jerky drive.

Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Stop. Ad nauseum

It takes forever to get anywhere. And don’t even get me started on the speed limits.

I use the word ‘speed’ liberally, of course.

Then there’s The Vague Rule; it dictates who gets to go first. You see, it all depends on who got to the intersection first. If you’re there first, you go first.

That makes sense, right?

This never results in bell-ends (no US translation for this one) speeding up to get there seconds before you do, just so they can go first.

Never.

Ever!

However, there is one distinct fault with this rule; one that was never taken into consideration when it was apparently concocted by chimps.

People.

It didn’t factor in the sheer stupidity that people bring to the mix.

Most of the time it’s pretty easy to see who gets to the junction before or after you. If they’re stationary when you arrive, they got there first. Otherwise it’s you.

And yet, despite being easy to establish the pecking order pretty sharpish (quickly), there are still those tentative, hesitant, dribbly twats who get there before you and then don’t move, resulting in me and all the other twitchy cars wondering what they’re doing and if we should just go.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only driver shouting words of encouragement like: “GO then, you fucking turd”

In those situations I just go.

Fuck ’em.

So, was it one of these idiots I encountered last night? Oh no dear sir, it most certainly was not.

No, last night was a whole new level of dumbfuckery.

Now, before I continue, I have a little quiz for you.

Ready?

Question 1: Which indicator (turn signal) do you use when turning left?

A – Left indicator

B – Right indicator

C – Both indicators

D – No indicators

Question 2: Which indicator (turn signal) do you use when turning right?

A – Left indicator

B – Right indicator

C – Both indicators

D – No indicators

Question 3: Which indicator (turn signal) do you use when going straight ahead?

A – Left indicator

B – Right indicator

C – Both indicators

D – No indicators

The answers are: 1-A, 2-B and 3-D.

If you scored less than 100%, please click here.

Otherwise, please continue reading.

So now’s the time for me to set the scene for last night.

I approached the 4-way stop, slowed down and stopped. The car coming in the opposite direction did exactly the same, a second before me. There were no cars coming from the left or right.

It was just the two of us.

According to The Vague Rule, he had the right to enter the intersection before me. He didn’t have any indicators flashing, so he was going straight ahead, just like me.

Naturally, I entered the intersection at the same time as him because, after all, we were simply going to pass each other. Right?

Wrong.

This cocksmoker was turning left.

This meant he had to stop IN the intersection and wait for me to pass, making sure I could see ‘the error of my ways’ by slamming on his brakes and giving me that look to say I was in the wrong.

At least, that’s what I think he was doing, it was difficult to see past the limbs of his kids splatted against the windscreen (windshield).

How the fuck was I supposed to know he was turning left?

I know why I got that look; it was that ingrained sense of entitlement. It was HIS turn to go.

Regardless of whether his maneuver interfered with mine or not, it was HIS turn.

I should sit there like a good little boy and wait.

Not this little boy.

This little boy wanted to get out of his little car and punch him in his little dick.

Why do people here have such an inability to signal which direction they’re turning?

My wife tells me that Las Vegas drivers are the worst, but some of the people I work with – who come from all over the US – say it’s a nationwide epidemic. I’m starting to believe them.

It’s not like they’re driving manual cars over here. They’re not having to negotiate the clutch, the gearstick, the biting point, etc… In fact, UK drivers have all that shit to deal with AND they still manage to use their indicators.

No, here it’s a different distraction. With their free hand they’re either texting, sipping coffee or masturbating.

Like me.

The DMV was everything I expected it to be….unfortunately.

Posted on Aug 29, 2015 by headinablender

Yesterday I needed to go to the DMV to begin the process of applying for a driving licence [license].

To all my fellow Brits across the pond, the DMV (Department Of Motor Vehicles) is the American equivalent of the DVLA (Driving and Vehicle Licencing Authority) but with more attitude, sneering and total disregard for anyone and everyone.

We had, in fact, been there the day before at 7:30am which was half an hour before they opened. However, the queue [line] was already about 80 people deep, so we said ‘fuck it’ and decided to go shopping for some delicious home comforts at the international market.

I’ll write about this another time no doubt.

So yesterday we arrived at the DMV at 7am; a full hour before they opened, We were still about 40th in the queue [line]. Luckily the sun wasn’t beating down on us making me sweat through my shirt, so that was nice.

It’s amazing watching Americans queue up. Us Brits are renowned for our amazing ability to queue. If it was an Olympic sport we’d win gold every time, next to moaning about the weather and apologising [apologizing].

The queue was snaking around (what the Americans call) the ‘planters’ and getting quite long.

This is a real satellite photo…honest.

Now, let me ask you a question; where would you join the queue? I mean, REALLY think about it…where would you stand if you turned up and saw all these pink dots, er, I mean people?

At the end of the queue maybe?

Well, some Americans decided to go down this route…

Dumbfuckery at its finest

I seriously couldn’t believe the nerve of these people. They were blatantly attempting to join the queue by giving the snake a second tail.

My wife and I were stood right on that corner, so she politely and with an air of “don’t you fucking dare” pointed out that the back of the line was behind all these increasingly angry faced people. She may have appeared like she was smiling, but I think a more accurate description would be ‘snarling’.

It amazed me that these twats looked genuinely surprised; like i’d kicked them in the balls without warning.

These people didn’t actually realise what they were doing, which isn’t reassuring when you consider they all have driving licences.

Anyway, once the offices opened we all shuffled in to….well, the same queue, but indoors. At least it was air conditioned, which was nice.

We got to the desk in no time and was greeted by the clerk who took our details including our phone number (the DMV staff all seem perplexed that we didn’t have a mobile [cell] number and had to take what’s called a ‘home number’). We were then given each a form to complete and told to take a seat in the waiting room until the last four digits of our phone number was called over the tannoy. The clerk said it wouldn’t take long as there were only 2 people in front of us.

Great.

So we sat down and completed our forms. And we sat.

And we sat.

We ignored the dickhead sat next to the ‘please wear headphones’ sign with his phone blaring out YouTube videos.

And we sat.

People came and people went, but we still sat there waiting for our number to be called.

After an hour my ‘smiling’ wife went and rejoined the bastard queue from hell and was told by another desk clerk that our number HAD been called and we missed it.

Er, no we fucking didn’t.

It seems that your number is only ever called out once. If you miss it you have to rejoin the queue and register it again.

Apparently they also text you to notify you that your number has been called.

No cell phone number, assholes…remember?

Our number must’ve been called in the 4.2 seconds it took to walk from the front desk to the waiting room.

There was no way we could’ve heard it because they don’t have the same tannoy speakers announcing the numbers anywhere else BUT the waiting room; not even in the toilets!

That makes for a nervously quick visit if you’re on your own.

Anyway, our number was FINALLY called half an hour later and we went over to desk 12 and took a seat.

The woman behind the desk – let’s call her Bitchelina – barely looked up at us and said “So what do you want?”

Not “How can I help?”, or “What can I do for you?”. No, she went with “So what do you want?”

My wife explained that she needed to renew her licence, change her surname [last name] to her married name and change her address. I got halfway through explaining that i needed to apply for a US licence when Bitchelina barked, “Why did they send you to ‘Admin’?”

“I don’t know, we were just told to….”

“You shouldn’t have been sent to ‘admin’. Why did they send you to me?!”

How the fuck should we know? Ask the person who sent us; don’t sit there and talk to us like we’d somehow decided it would be funny to come over to your desk and fuck up your day.

Anyway, Bitchelina huffed and puffed about it, moaned openly to her colleagues that we were in the wrong place, stopped processing us on several occasions to socialise with colleagues and generally made it blatantly clear that we were an inconvenience to her.

She was rude, abrupt and only seemed to ask questions that consisted of a maximum of two words.

I had two words for her, and one of them was ‘off’.

(The other was ‘fuck’…in case you were wondering).

Anyway, once I had proven I am a real human being by providing a passport, US visa, proof of address (which still had to be verified by my wife), bank details, birth certificate, blood and urine sample, a cheek swab, the big toe on my left foot and my unborn first child, she thrust the paperwork I needed and grunted in the direction of the testing office.

Before I left I asked her to clarify if the driving portion of the test accepted hand over hand steering, or if it had to be hand to hand (like in the UK).

She didn’t know.

Of course she didn’t.

And that was probably my fault, somehow.

At this point I realised just how true the portrayal of the DMV is in TV and films. The staff there are truly awful. It’s where personalities go to die.

Anyway, I went to the testing office, handed over my paperwork and was allocated a machine to sit at for the written part of the driving test. The machine resembled a cash machine [ATM] complete with touchscreen.

I sat down, pressed the ‘Start’ button and the screen advised there would be 50 questions, of which I had to answer 40 correctly.

No problem; I’d read the Nevada State driving manual and knew all there was about the rules of the road, what the road signs meant, how to navigate the road markings and how the traffic lights [traffic signals] work.

Question 1 – What is skidding?

Oh come on, this is going to be easy!

Question 2 – What do you do at a red light?

This is going to be a walk in the park!

Question 3 – How heavy should a baby be before they can sit facing forward?

Er, what? Ok, no problem…I can skip it and come back to it.

Question 4 – If you suspect a driver is drunk, what telephone number should you call?

How is that relevant to driving? I took a guess. A wrong guess.

Question 5 – If you have an accident, other than the driver, who else should fill out an accident report?

a) A passer by

b) Other passenger(s)

c) The registered owner

Well duh, it’s obviously the other passengers as they would’ve been there at the time of the accident. Nope, it’s the registered owner.

What??

Did you know that you can also lose your licence if you’re convicted for graffiti? Nothing to do with vehicles or driving, just the simple act of defacing property with paint.

I didn’t either.

Needless to say, I failed the test.

Bollocks [gosh darn it]

Not only did this mean I felt stupid – considering it had probably been passed by people with an inability to understand the simple act of queuing – but it also meant I had to resit the test. Imagine my joy when the ‘examiner’ (the woman sat behind the counter scratching her arse [ass] and probably scrolling through her Facebook news feed) told me that I can only do one resit a day.

You mean I have to come back again tomorrow?

Shit.

So that evening I read the booklet cover to cover – including the date it was published (July 2014) and the number of staples used (2) – because i’d realised that the written test wasn’t about learning the rules of the road, but testing if you’d actually read the booklet. If it’s in the booket, they’ll test you on it.

This morning my wife and I went back to the DMV at around 10am, queued up, got snarled at by the desk clerk, gave our telephone number, ran to a seat in case we missed our number being called out, paid the resit fee and went into the testing room to be sat in front of the ATM again.

This time it didn’t ask questions about babies and telephone numbers, naturally.

This time I passed.

Then I was directed to a desk where Bitchelina’s cousin was sat. She told me I had to wait until the 23rd of September for the driving portion of the test. That’s a month away!

Then she sternly said “You can come along any day and get yourself on the standby list, but there’s no guarantee you will get a test and you can be sat here all day”

I wanted to make sure this option was in ‘addition to‘ having a scheduled test, rather than ‘instead of‘, so I replied, “Oh, so I CAN have the test earlier than the 23rd September?”

She repeated, “You can come along any day and get yourself on the standby list, but there’s no guarantee you will get a test and you can be sat here all day”

That’s not really answering my question.

“So it IS possible to attempt a standby test even if I have a scheduled test in September?”

Without flinching she replied, “You can come along any day and get yourself on the standby list, but there’s no guarantee you will get a test and you can be sat here all day”

Hopefully you’ll get the movie reference, and not photo-sensitive epilepsy.

Each telling of this sentence became more and more insipid; like a piece of fruit gradually decomposing.

Although this particular piece of fruit was bitter to begin with…like a lemon! Yes, she resembled a rotting lemon.

Hmm, that’s not a sentence I was expecting to write when I began this post.

So that was my first (and technically second) experience of the DMV. It was a service so far removed from the expected level of customer service you get in the USA.

Maybe they should work on tips like they do in restaurants, then the DMV would be a delightful place to visit. But until then, they will remain to be a bunch of Demeaning, Monstrous Vaginas.

(See what I did there?)

I will no doubt write about the driving part of my test when it occurs. It may be on the 23rd of September, or any day when I can get myself on the standby list, but apparently there’s no guarantee I will get a test and I can be sat there all day.

The cinema ‘experience’ (Part 1)

Posted on Nov 6, 2014 by headinablender

It’s no secret that I love going to the cinema.

But, to be completely truthful, I don’t really.

I mean, I DO love going to the cinema to watch a new film, but I’m not a fan of the experience as a whole.

It all boils down to the fact that I’m not a massive fan of being around people, and going to the cinema means I have to share my movie experience with other people.

As I’ve become older I’ve discovered that my tolerance and patience for other people is smaller and more insipid than cinema nachos.

So here are some of the things I hate about going to the cinema, grouped into three categories: The place, the people and the performance.

1. The Place

Obviously if you want to see a new film you have to leave the comfort of your sofa, leave the house and drive all the way to cinema just for the privilege of watching it on a bigger screen. Once you’re out of the house it’s not so bad though.

That is until you get there.

Parking

There’s never a space in the car park anywhere near the cinema entrance.

If you do find a space you can be sure some other bastard will beat you to it by nanoseconds.

So you end up driving slowly around the car park like a prowling sex pest, cursing at the space that just opened up behind you which has now been taken by that person who arrived after you did.

Don’t get me started on the wanker who parks across two bays.

Note to self: come back and key that fucker’s car.

You can guarantee that the further away from the cinema entrance you are, the heavier it’s likely to be raining. I often have to park so far away that I need to catch a plane to the building.

Lobby

Once you’ve parked and walked the 20 miles to the lobby, you’re then faced with the massive queues of people waiting to buy tickets. These queues are usually full of people you hope aren’t seeing the same film as you.

They usually are.

Nowadays I buy my tickets online because I absolutely hate queuing. I just walk up to a machine and enter my booking reference. Having said that, there’s no guarantee I won’t get caught behind some dipshit trying to figure out how to use the touchscreen machine.

I admit that a big flashing button that says ‘Touch here to collect tickets’ can be a little vague.

Food and Drink

Once you’ve got your ticket(s) it’s time to buy your refreshments.

I’ve never understood the need to graze when you’re watching a film, but it’s the ‘done thing’. I once chose not to buy anything to eat or drink and was looked at with a combination of surprise, confusion, disgust and pity.

It felt like we were all stood in the lobby of a brothel and I’d declared I wasn’t going to use a condom, or that my penis had just fallen off.

It wasn’t because I couldn’t afford anything, nor was I planning to steal anyone else’s food; I just wasn’t hungry or thirsty. But peer pressure is a bitch and so I bought some popcorn and a drink. It cost more than the cinema ticket…for 5 people.

Why is cinema food and drink so ~~crap~~ expensive?

You can buy a 2 litre bottle of Coke for £2 in a supermarket, and yet my ‘medium’ Coke cost me over £4, 80% of which was ice. That’s frozen water, which is free.

At least the staff members who serve you are friendly. Oh wait, no they’re not.

Seating

These are mostly uncomfortable, stained and sometimes sticky.

More often than not the cup holders are broken.

What makes it worse are the fact that the seats are all bolted together along the row which means if seat 19A fidgets in their seat to scratch their arse, I feel it in seat 19M.

Very distracting. I often lose my erection.

To be continued….

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.

No parking!

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 by headinablender

This morning I was greeted by this…

Some inconsiderate prick thought it was a good idea to park their car right across my garage.

My first instinct was to get in my car and sound the horn until the fucker came out and then punch them in the face, but it was 7am and I didn’t really want to wake the whole neighbourhood. I was angry, but that didn’t excuse me being an annoying wanker about it.

My second instinct was to kick or scratch their car, but considering my vehicle is the only one blocked in, it would’ve pretty obvious who had done the damage and I didn’t want to risk them retaliating.

It’s not like I could move my car and hide it afterwards.

This is also the reason I resisted squatting on the bonnet and laying a hot fresh pie on their windscreen.

Shame, because the first one of the day is usually the meatiest.

And if they didn’t retaliate I could be slapped with a fine for criminal damage, which is always fun.

So instead I was terribly British and paced back and forth, muttering under my breath, and shaking my head in a misguided belief that it would somehow flush out the culprit…which it didn’t.

Instead I was left feeling more helpless and frustrated than a handcuffed pervert watching porn.

I was also angry that my four minute drive to the train station was going to result in a thirty minute uphill walk on a very, VERY cold October morning.

All I could do was take a photo (to send to my boss showing that my reason for being late is in fact genuine – not that I’m a cynic!), close my garage, lift their wiper blade up in defiance and begin my tedious walk to the station.

I would’ve left a note under their wiper blades but annoyingly I didn’t have time to go back in the house to write it. If I left immediately and walked at the blistering pace of an angry woman, I might just be able to make the later train.

I did, however, do the one thing that I thought might make me feel better; the one thing that may help ease my suffering and give me a sense of comfort. I posted it on Facebook.

Within seconds I got the affirmation and acknowledgement I was so clearly craving, with lots of advice on a variety of vindictive things I could’ve done to teach this parking penis a lesson. My favourite comment was this small poem…

Dear driver of the black car

Who do you think you are?

Don’t you find it bizarre…

You park but wander somewhere far?

Now my mate can’t access his car

Better this note, than my fucking crowbar!

Brilliant.

Mothertruckers

Posted on Feb 25, 2013 by headinablender

I’m not a particularly aggressive driver and I don’t really succumb to road rage, but there are some occasions when I’d love nothing more than to drag someone out of their vehicle and then run them over with it.

Yesterday I was driving from Kent back into West Sussex after a heavy night with some close friends. I was feeling a little delicate to say the least and I just wanted to get home and die.

Anyway, this drive home involved four motorways, one of which was the M26. I quite like the M26 because it has the feel of a dual carriageway and actually has views of the surrounding countryside, as opposed to the trench-like M20 which I’m convinced has a thermal exhaust port at the end of it, no wider than 2 metres.

I hear that’s not much bigger than a womp rat.

Another characteristic of the M26 is the fact that it has 2 lanes rather than the standard 3. This results in one of the most annoying of sins in the history of driving, and makes me wish I’d paid a little extra at the dealership for bonnet mounted machine guns.

Being a vital link between the death star trench of the M20 and the car park known as the M25, the M26 tends to have a lot of lorries on it. This is fine if they’re being driven by conscientious, considerate and intelligent drivers; however, yesterday it seemed these people were having a day of rest and had instead entrusted their multi-wheeled leviathans to complete cretins.

There was a three lorry convoy crawling along in the left lane at a mind-blowing 50 miles per hour, when suddenly the penis driving the lorry at the back decided to speed up to 50.1 miles per hour and overtake. . As a result, this oversized male reproductive organ in a hat had blocked the overtaking lane and a queue had started to form behind him.

During the next torturous 12 minutes it became clear that the other two lorries were also being driven by massive manhoods because neither of them slowed to allow him to pass or get back into the left lane. This meant that more and more cars were building up behind them, weaving left and right at a staggering 50.1mph to get a teasing view of the empty motorway sprawled out ahead.

Eventually the idiot pulled in front of the other two lorries and the traffic could finally pass by. What I found interesting was the fact that every car, without exception, slowed down as they approached the new convoy leader; presumably to congratulate him for a successful overtake by shouting praise out of the window.

The woman in the car in front of me appeared to wave at him quite furiously, so that was nice.