Jimmy Page’s Trousers

It seems that everybody on the net is writing about poor old, dead, Heath Ledger. I had no intentions of following suit (maverick, me) but when I found an article from the Westboro Baptist Church, stating that they would be picketing his funeral, my ire needed release. I’ve linked to a repost of the article as their site is incredibly slow. To be honest, it’s probably better that most right-thinking people steer clear of their site, tolerantly named godhatesfags.com, anyway.

The Westboro lot are that shower that are generally pissing off most people by doing things like protesting (for whatever moronic reason) at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. It seems that these fucksticks will also picket Ledgers’s funeral because he was once in a movie where he played a gay cowboy. Well, they’ve certainly thought that one through. Yep, flawless. Fucking morons.

Predictably, they have cited a verse from Leviticus in order to justify their tasteless, mindless, insanities. Leviticus 18:22, The sin of Heath: Thou shalt not act in a movie as one who would lie with mankind as with womankind ‘cos it’s an abomination, innit.

Leviticus is great if you’re a nutjob. Pretty much anything you want to feel religiously aggrieved about is in there. It’s one of the most intolerant books of the Old Testament (which is saying something). Deep within its overwritten verses we have all sorts of ridiculous shite. Today’s lesson then, A Look At Leviticus or Fuck, Some People Are Stupid.

Lets start out easy - what you can eat. Don’t leaven your buns. Don’t eat old meat (there’s lots of stuff about either eating or burning various foodstuffs and animals). However, whatever you do, don’t eat stuff like pigs or anything fishy that doesn’t have scales (and I really like prawns too). Also hares, vultures, owls, bats, dogs, weasels, mice, lizards, snails, blah, blah, blah. The list goes on and on. You can eat beetles though.

As you can imagine, it being concerned with religion, sex is well represented:

Don’t uncover the nakedness of your dad, sister, auntie, monkey, etc. Menstruating women are unclean and you shouldn’t uncover their nakedness, not that you would because you’d obviously have banished them for seven days. And if you did happen to uncover her nakedness during her ’sickness’, well you’d both just have to be turfed out of town, wouldn’t you. Could be worse though - it could have been death or the curse of dying childless.

Oh, women are also unclean for a week after having a baby boy or a fortnight if it’s a girl (’cos girls are dirtier than boys - everyone knows that). To be purified, they need to leave the blood and mess of childbirth on themselves for a week (or a month, I can’t remember). No showering now ladies.

Bestiality gets a look in: Neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion. Not in that film I saw. Everyone seemed pretty sure about what they were doing in that. Wanking: Don’t let your seed pass through the fire to Molech? Now that’s confusing.

Don’t eat fat or blood - incidentally one of the reasons that the nutty Jehova’s Witnesses refuse transfusions. It doesn’t say don’t get it intraveneously, twats. If you’re going to take this twaddle literally, don’t cherry-pick.

What else? Oh, yeah, thou shalt not put stuff in the way of blind people (really, it’s there). Just because it’s funny, doesn’t make it right. Don’t chop off the corners of your beards. Remember to burn prostitutes. Don’t let anybody with any physical deformity aproach the alter - anything from a dwarf to someone with a flat nose counts. And as for you, Potter, don’t be a wizard or it’s bleedin’ stoning for you, me lad. We also have God murdering children (Aaron’s kids) for gross misconduct and forbidding their father to grieve, various other sacrifices, stonings, and murders. Also pestilence, rape, slavery, and kidnapping get a look-in.

So, quite a mixed bag of sin, then. Hurrah for Leviticus and it’s very sane, reasonable and measured approach to religious law. Oh, how I hate the complete, fucking morons who quote the ramblings of dead, fucking morons to justify their fucking insane fucking beliefs. Fuck right off, Westboro Baptist Church. Fuck right off, anyone who reads shite like Leviticus and thinks, “Hmmmm, maybe these insane ramblings make good sense.” Fuck right off. Stupid bastards.

Lot of ‘fucks’ there, but I stand by it.

Yesterday, Baby Trousers took a cook book from the shelf in the kitchen and sat down in the sitting room to have a look. I went with her.

“What’s this?” she enquired.

“It’s a recipe book that tells you how to cook things,” I said.

“Why?” she asked. She’s still in the why-stage. Inquisitive little thing. Too damn inquisitive as I soon found out.

“Well, if you don’t know how to cook something, you can look in here.”

“Did you get it when I was a baby?”

“Before that, I think,” I said.

“Did you get it when I was in mammy’s belly?”

“Maybe even before that”

“Did you help put me in mammy’s belly?”

Oh shit. Where did that come from? “Errrrm. In a manner of speaking,” I told her.

“How did I get in mammy’s belly, dad?”

Arrrggghhh! Shit, shit, shit. Emergency, emergency. She’s three, for Christ’s sake. I thought I had another few years at least. What can you do?

“Let’s go get a chocolate biscuit,” I said. I’m not sure how much time I’ve bought.

Ray Mears could beat the shit out of Bear Grylls.

Grylls, though… Seriously, what a big, wet girl. I’m assuming that there must be someone that doesn’t think he’s a posturing, exaggerating twat, but I’ve never met them.

Git!

Despite what I said below, in a politician-like U-turn, Mrs. Jimmy Page’s Trousers now seems much less convinced about the plight of the chickens and the benefits of buying something that hasn’t lived in a vast warehouse, wobbling on its feeble little legs lest it plonk down and burn its arse on its own and its mates’ shit.

It seems she subscribes to the ‘if I can’t see it right now, it is obviously not happening’ school of… ermm… knowing things.

I’ll keep trying little, sad chickens.  I’ll keep trying Hugh.

Huge Firmly-Witterstein has been on the telly for the last two nights showing the masses the horrors of battery chickens and the nasty life they have before they end up in our pots and our poo. Many probably knew this already but fair play to him for trying his best to get people to take notice.

I’ve always liked Firmly-Witterstein. I’ve spent much time dreaming of heading off down the country to become self-sufficient, surviving on home-grown hooves and horns, and Jaffa Cakes fresh from the ground. It is a nice dream. Hugh, of course, now seems to run a multi-national empire of restaurants and shops and probably lives in a solid gold house where he has people in hover-packs to deliver MacGiblet burgers and free-range chicken nuggets. Still, River Cottage global domination and Hugh’s predilection for offal aside, I have a lot of time for him. I like his shows a lot and really hope that he manages to change something with his Chicken Run show.

On the chicken-front, personally, I’d be happy to pay the extra for the free-range fellows, but Mrs. Jimmy Page’s Trousers is a chicken-cynic (and more than a little tight) and has constantly poo-pooed the idea. As she tends to do most of the shopping (and I, the cleaning - I’m a twentieth century man), she usually ignores my pleas for happy chicken, preferring instead the cheap (resisted the ‘cheep’ pun, there), sad birds. She seems to be coming around somewhat after sitting through Hugh’s Chicken Run for the last few nights though. Good news, little chickens.

So then, the Save The Chicken bandwagon (or Chicken Out, as Hugh’s calling it) is one that I’m happy to jump on, and encourage all to do likewise. Off you pop to Hugh’s site and sign the petition thing. A small word of warning: Loud things happen on the site, so turn your speakers down first (especially if you’re in work).

The good thing about this Save The Chicken thing, is that, unlike the Save The Whale or the Save The Giant Squid campaigns, we can still get to eat the delicious little chickens. In fact, it means that they’ll be even more delicious - a happy chicken is a tasty chicken. Everyone’s a winner.

Regular readers may remember my mentioning that, for a period, a Google (Ireland) search for Mary Harney (Minister for Health) found my own humble site listed in the top ten hits. This was made especially heartening for me, as it was the post in which I awarded her my Awful Bastard Award for the sterling work she was doing in shirking all responsibility for the dismal mess for which she was appointed Minister Responsible.

Buoyed by such a showing, but in reality needing little encouragement, I went on to award the Awful Bastard to a number of others. Despite bragging of my political power and Google-prowess to Mrs. Jimmy Page’s Trousers, who barely humoured me, I thought little more of my Google-slap in Harney’s face.

Then I noticed that a few visitors were finding my site, and in particular the Awful Bastard Award given to B&Q, through a Google search for B&Q. I clicked the referring link and there I was, shining and resplendent at the top of the list. Numero uno of the B&Q search (pages from Ireland) was me. Or, more accurately, me calling B&Q Awful Bastards and telling of how shite they were. A week or so later, I had slipped from pole-position but, for a time, Irish people looking for B&Q found my whinge at the top of the list.

But there’s more. The awesome power of the Awful Bastard Award, the Oscar of complaining gits, has, once again, shown itself. Top of the heap for a Google of UPS Couriers is… Yep, it’s my tale of woe, misfortune and bad service at the hands of UPS.

“Hurrah for complainers,” I say. Beware all ye companies, politicians, and proles. Cross me not, lest ye feel the fearsome power of the Awful Bastard.

Sin City was on TV last night. Watched it and ended up having a long, restless night of Frank Miller-inspired dreams.

Tired now.

Isn’t it though? In all of it’s delicious and different guises. Yummy.

I’ve had some. Tasty, scrumptious nectar. Erdinger. Yummy, yummy Erdinger. If the Erdinger people are reading and want to present me with some sort of promotional package, they can reach me at trousers (at) jimmypagestrousers.com. If they’re not though, I and I realise that they have a lot of work to do in making various delicious beers, that’s ok too.

I have to upgrade my digital package, if only to get some decent music channels instead of “Shit Hits For Teenage Girls”.

Chicken liver paté (I know that there’s probably an accent circonflexe over the ‘a’ but I don’t know how to make it appear) is nice on toast.

The channel that is ‘Smash Hits’ isn’t good. It’s currently showing something called R’n'B Party. Not my cup of tea really.

Dido is on another channel though. She’s pretty, and not so pretty that I think I don’t have a chance; just pretty enough. I mean, obviously that David Boreanaz bloke is something of a threat but, realistically, is he really that good looking? And his career’s been pretty shite since Angel tanked so, I reckon I’m in with a good chance. Don’t like her music much though. Nobody’s perfect.

Another beer needed. I put it in the freezer half an hour ago. Nice.

Crap. Now it’s Robbie Williams. Women want him and men want to be him. Yeah, right. Not this man. “Ooooooh, pay attention to me, pay attention. I sometimes get a bit depressed.” Oh for fuck’s sake, Robbie. Welcome to the world you talentless cunt. If I were you, I’d send Guy Chambers a bunch of flowers or a six-pack or something ‘cos you need some help to write something that isn’t in rhyming couplets.

Now, it’s some girl doing a cover of Bryan Adams’ Heaven. I initially baulked at it until I remembered I don’t like the original and realised that this is actually much, much better. Bryan Adams sucks (except for Summer of ‘69 which I like to sing when I’m pissed - come to think of it, I’d like to hear it now). And he’s no sense of humour, although that may be Ryan Adams who’s his brother, or is him, or something.

Flicked over and that shower are doing Lady Marmalade. Aguillera is also pretty but I don’t think I’d have as much of a chance as with Dido (no offence Dido). L’il Kim is contibuting with ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” She’s very talented.

You know who I hate with all of the bile-producing glands in my body? Sean Kingston. What a pointless, useless, talentless, song-thieving, fat cunt. It’s one thing to sample a bit of someone else’s song (and I’m not that keen on that either) but to just sing some new, shit lyrics over someone else’s (someone with talent you will never have) song. That doesn’t make you musician, you hack, just a cunt. What a chubby-boned wanker.

And Fergie’s shit too. I know I’m not the first, but it does annoy me that she bleats on about London Bridge when she means Tower Bridge. And I’m Irish, for fuck’s sake.

I should probably go to bed. Sleepy now.

Ooooh. Ooooh, wait… Westlife.

A warning: This post contains geeky talk of wireless networks and such. If you’re the type of person that hates such geekery, you might want to skip it. Just scroll down where I slag something else off instead.

Netgear (or as they prefer to shout it, NETGEAR) are a company that makes, among other things, wireless network routers and adapters. These devices, in theory, allow one to connect, wirelessly, to one’s broadband service from around the house. Pretty much everybody knows that these days; it’s no longer arcane knowledge, known only to geeky types with thick glasses. Also, as the wireless home networking has become more popular, these devices have become more simple to allow non-geeky types the ability to install them in their homes. All good so far?

Now, I am a geeky type (sans thick glasses though). I have considerable experience in things IT. I have wrestled with many, seemingly inscrutable, technical problems over the years but none have made me as angry and caused me as much stress as setting up a Netgear router and USB wireless adapter did last week.

So convinced was I that it was going to be as easy as the many other home-networking routers I’ve installed for friends, family, and self, that I cockily decided to do it at 10PM one evening over the Christmas holidays. “It’ll be easy, plug and play,” I thought. Plug and play, my arse.

The Netgear router first. As it was replacing an existing router, I swapped them and then made my first mistake: I tried to follow the instructions and used Netgear’s auto-install CD thing. Shouldn’t have done that. Not only was it painfully slow to run, it bore only a slight resemblance to the printed instructions that Netgear wanted me to follow. Options stipulated by the printed instructions were not available, or were called something else on screen. Sometimes the required on-screen instructions were available but in completely different places to those the printed Netgear instructions suggested. After about three-quarters of an hour, I gave up on Netgear’s unhelpful ‘auto-install’ thing and went and did the thing manually. Right. That’s the router sorted. At least the network adapter should be easy.

Ha!

Once bitten, I decided to install the adapter manually and eschew Netgear’s auto-install. This proved impossible to do as the drivers for the adapter were, helpfully, not evident on the CD. Nope, they seemed to be buried somewhere within the bowels of the install program’s files and were impossible to install manually. The adapter install application had the same, annoyingly preventable, issues as the routers. I eventually struggled through only to have Windows baulk at the Netgear adapter and tell me that it didn’t like it. A number of other attempts gave the same result.

Off to a different computer (the Macbook, which connected perfectly as it is brilliant) to check out Netgear’s support online. Jesus, it’s shit. Netgear make some pretty big claims on their ‘Search Tips’ page, namely that it’s ‘better than Google’. It’s not. Netgear’s search page is shit. It tries to be clever but it fails miserably.

Anyway, long story already, but to cut it slightly shorter, I spent four hours arsing about with the Netgear wireless adapter before I managed to make it work. When I did, the reception with the super-duper ‘RangeMAX’ technology was worse than my old cheapie adapter. Also, every time the PC booted or woke up, NetGear’s oxymoronic ‘Smart Wizard’ pops up and won’t go away until you click to close it. What a pathetic piece of programming. Took another twenty minutes to get rid of that.

So then, with my apologies to non-geeky readers for the geeky post, I hereby name Netgear, Awful Bastards. Their software is shite and poorly thought out, their hardware seems only moderately better than cheap crap from three years ago and their support site is awful beyond words.

Netgear seem to have set out to do their best to make their products as unfriendly and useless as they can (and in this, at least, they have succeeded). If you’re looking to wireless up your home, my advice is to buy something other than Netgear kit.

Ok, my dreams are becoming a little worrying. Last night, I dreamed that some friends were having a bit of a party. It was a fine affair with booze aplenty and there seemed much merriment. There were a few famous musos there and I remember noting them, although I can’t remember who they were now.

One person that I do remember, however, was Paul McCartney. The reason I remember he was there is that, as the party progressed and as the booze continued to flow, he began to slow dance with me to Octopus’s Garden. Now, secure in my sexuality as I am, I didn’t protest at this and assumed it all to be a merry jape. I did protest however, when he started trying to French-kiss me a minute later. That was a little too much and I had to put a stop to things.

Paul McCartney. Trying to tongue me. To a Ringo song. It’s not right, is it?