Entries in Category "WTF"

Crazy people update

Once again, I have become a magnet for the crazy.

On Tuesday, my friend Phil and I were trying to think of somewhere to grab food after swimming. While we were doing that, I remembered I didn't have any cash on me, so we headed to the Bank of Ireland ATMs on Westmoreland Street.

On the left ATM, I felt that there was something fishy about it. I could see some loose connectors behind one of the clear plastic panels, and the face-plate seemed a bit raised. We walked over to the ATM on the right, and I noticed that the face-plate there was a different colour and shape. We walked back to the first ATM, and I told the two girls who were just about to use it that I suspected it had been tampered with. I started to take down the number from the ATM on my phone.

Enter crazy person number one

A homeless man with a crutch walked up to us and got extremely close; he was about two feet from us. Because of how he was positioned, he had effectively trapped us between him and the wall. He leaned in and croaked: “D’ya have any change?”

I’m not a huge fan of people trying to intimidate me, so I told him “No, sorry” and tried to walk off. In disbelief, he shouted back: “D’ya not have any money for me leg?”

He pulled up his left trouser leg to reveal a perfectly rectangular open wound on his lower shin. It was clearly infected; yellow and so horrible to look at it even defeated my strong stomach. I felt like getting sick.

To those reading this who are from the States, I should point out that our health care system means he could just go to the hospital and have it treated, for free.

I’m a fan of neither physical intimidation or being shown open, infected wounds, so both Phil and I said sorry and tried to slip by him. He took offense at this and shouted in my ear: “Ah gerh away ourra dah! Go home an’ suck yer da’s cock!”

As we walked away, I dialed the number from the ATM to report its suspicious appearance. The crazy guy must have seen this as, while the phone dialed, he began shouting after me: “Gerh away ya bollox, ya fuckin’ rah!”

What a pleasant chap.

We went to Lemon Jelly (who were playing Cinematic Orchestra, legends) and had a crepe. After that, we started up the nearby alley to Dame Street, to head up to Starbucks for some coffee.

Enter crazy person number two

We saw a woman in here fifties or sixties coming towards us, shouting something I couldn’t quite make out. As we got closer, I realised what it was. Over and over, she was shouting “God wasn’t a bastard! People are bastards! God was never a bastard!”

We got closer and she looked at us, and changed her words to “God was born in a stable! With animals!”

I tell you, they are after me. Hey, at least the stable lady wasn’t trying to threatening me. That’s a fairly major improvement.

Cab driver

Cab driver:

My mate is mad so he is.

Me:

How is he mad?

Cab driver:

I used to work security down at a refugee hostel, and he would say to me ‘You're down there with all those black fellas, aren't you?’. And I'd say to him ‘Yeah, I'll get four black fellas, they'll come around, tie you down and have a party in your asshole’. And he says ‘Ah grand, just give me a few minutes to grease up with the vaseline’. He's mad so he is!

My brain:

Don't worry, if anything bad happens I'll just kick in with the hallucinations.

Respect women

I have a great respect for women. You've got to respect a gender that can fire a baby out their vagina at upwards of two hundred miles per hour.

According to my limited understanding of their reproductive organs, anyway.

UI9 RP-remote

This is so nerdy.

Windows, you spa

I was working from home today. At around three O'Clock, Photoshop decides the hard drive is too full for it to allow me to do anything. The scratch disk was full.

I bought two hard drives recently... a 300gig Maxtor drive and a 74gig Raptor. I decided to throw the Maxtor drive into my machine and use it as a scratch disk.

I put in the drive on the Intel SATA controller. I boot up the computer, and Windows refuses to boot. I mess around with Grub for a bit, but still nothing.

“Grand”, I thought; “I'll just plug out the drive and everything will be fine”. I turn on the computer. The exact same thing happens.

It turns out that as the SATA controller was now active, Windows reckoned the motherboard had changed. Removing the drive and switching off the controller again did nothing. Fuck.

So, I took the opportunity to make a fresh install of Windows on the new Raptor. The first time I tried, it crashed. It took two attempts to get Windows installed.

One less experienced might assume that all that's left to be done now is to reinstall my old applications and copy over my data from the old hard drive. O, to be so naive! Here's what I've encountered so far:

1. Random application crashes
2. When the system is under mild load, there is a good chance that the computer will reboot
3. Apps refuse to start, with no prompt to the user

All of this means I'll be up until the wee hours working on some stuff that would have been finished already. Nice.

My life is full of bizarre events, part one

Strange things happen to me at an alarming frequency. For part one of this series, I'll be focusing on bizarre attacks.

To the extent that I can understand random violence, I can understand violence with a point. If a person wanted to take my wallet or bag, and they attacked me to get it, I can understand. The violence is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.

I'm grateful that this has never happened to me, but what has happened is really quite odd. I seem to attract random, pointless agression.

I really am not looking for sympathy. To be perfectly honest, I'm far more puzzled than hurt. I'll recount some of the stranger ones:

1. In primary school, I was an odd child. I was really into dinosaurs, but this stopped at the age of eleven. What is really strange is that for the entirety of last year some nineteen year olds were shouting "I know more about dinosaurs than you do" at me as an insult. I'm 21. WTF?
2. While boarding a bus in Maynooth, I felt someone kick me in the ass. I turned round to see an angry guy yelling "Faggot!" at me. I'd never seen the guy in my life. We stared at each other for a couple of seconds, then he walked off. WTF?
3. While waiting for a bus in Maynooth a crowd of people show up. It later turned out they were keeping a female friend of theirs company as she waited for the bus. I didn't pay them much heed, but as they were talking pretty loudly I couldn't help overhearing them talk graphically about how I would rape her if they weren't there. WTF?
4. I've had eggs thrown at me from a speeding car ( I'm glad they had terrible aim ). WTF?
5. Tonight, from a speeding red van, a man shouted abuse at me as he turned a corner. He called me either a plank or a wanker. Never seen him before tonight. WTF?

Next in the series, the hilarious two reasons I've never had a girlfriend (and not for lack of trying).

It is like an itch that I cannot scratch

The biggest question I am facing in my life right now is driving itself into my conciousness again and again. No matter what I do, I don't seem to be able to surpress it. It attacks, is repelled, rallies and returns. It must be stopped. So here it is:

Is the correct pronunciation for Tuesday twosday or chooseday?

Headless fish

While waiting for a bus home from Dublin city last night, I came across a fish. This fish was over a foot long, and aside from one defect it was in perfect shape. That defect was a missing head.

I think it's pretty wierd to find a fish lying on the side of the street, particularly a long distance from any fish mongerers. What makes it stranger is that this fish is missing only its head. It has gone untouched by the rats.

I took this picture at the bus stop nearest the Clarence Hotel.

Baby in a tree

Leixlip is a strange place.

Ann Coulter action figure

You can now buy an Ann Coulter action figure. I thought this was a joke when I saw it, but it's being pushed big.

Just like Ann, if you press the right button it will tell you exactly what it thinks, and it has plenty to say. "What are you Liberals afraid of? Let me talk."

Definitely one for the WTF category.

• Has she no shame?
• When right-wing fembots attack