I have realised I don't seem to rant about anything on my bloggy, ever. That is a bit strange. I have a feeling I might have unwittingly cultivated a (very false) impression of myself as someone very placid, sedate, calm, non-ranty. It's all wrong and false. People must have thought I am a right royal pain in the arse with my never-rantingness (I am, though, they're right - but for entirely different reasons - at least in the world of "real time", "outside-bloggy", whatever you wish to call it).
Ok. I am now going to rant and I am going to make it quick. In less than ten minutes, I will have posted a fine rant and gone for a cigarette on the balcony, just you wait and see.
I read about these a while back, I can't remember where, but I failed to be all that angered by them when I met them in writing. But lo - last weekend, I was out of town for midsummer, a big date on the Finnish calendar (very nice it was too, in many ways, and I have some nice photies which I cannot get round to posting anywhere), and went to a huge supermarket to shop for food for the long weekend, and these - items - hit my eye from their shelf.
They are stupid. I cannot bear stupidity.
They are unnecessary. I only bear unnecessity if it is clever, funny, intelligent, amusing, something. Not if it is stupid and unnecessary.
They are horrible and symptomatic and symbolic of a stupid era and stupid people and a stupid culture of stupid nouveaux-helplessness that just really, really piss me off.
They are - straws you dunk in milk, to get flavoured milk, when the milk is sucked into the lazy gob through them.
I fucking ask you. Chocolate flavour was the one that wanked me in the eye, but I believe banana and strawberry are also in existence, and surely this is only the horrendous beginning. Oh, so help me someone. I mean, it isn't enough we have ready-grated cheese, for those who are so-incredibly-busy with "juggling their lives" (aaaaaaaargh) or being shit and useless or too bone-idle or what-the-fucking-ever to actually use a cheese grater (you may note this has been a pet peeve for a while). No. We have to do away with spoons as well - it is, after all, way too time and personal lazy-arse energy consuming to actually pour a glass of milk and stir in a spoonful of cocoa powder from a box.
I am NOT very old. I turn 40 this September. But even I am so old I think a real cup of cocoa is a cup of Van Houten, mixed into a drop of hot water (with ample sugar) before the hot (or cold, as the mood grabs you) milk is poured on top. In a few years, this incredible skill - "cocoa-making of yesteryear" - will no doubt have vanished into the doctoral theses of social anthropologists.
Please, the god of all cranky ranty wankers such as myself, let the underprivileged underclasses from all over rise and come raping and pillaging and fucking eating us alive with our chocolate-flavoured fucking straws. We don't deserve to be in the driving seat anymore.
THAT, Dear Reader, is how those straws make me feel. And now I'm off for my fag.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
A Rant. Possibly, my first around here.
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36 comments:
I think I'd quite like a chocolate flavoured straw.......I like cheese straws..........
Lavender, girl, you are quick.
I have started to rather like you for other reasons, also - you seem like a laugh, which is a very good thing indeed.
However. If you confess to drinking milk through these said mothers of all unspeakabilities, I don't know whether this beautifully-begun friendship can ever reach blossoming stage without me having to ram one of these said straws right where the sun...
(But nice to see you in the meantime. Is it your first visit? Surely not? Hello all the same. And keep your mitts off the fucking straws, k?
x
No, not my first visit, enjoy your site very much!
Have you ordered your Merkin yet ?
To be quite honest with you, dear heart - no, not yet. I am debating between the rainbow - my first choice - and the target - a bit racier. You?
I rather thought Dreadlocks would be quite cool...I could swish them when I get too hot............
It'll keep the flies away too.xx
'It'll keep the flies away too'
.
You better believe her, too.
I salute the bold individuality of your choice, Lavender. I will allow you to go the dredd-head - um - nevermind, the dredd way on your own, though. I had dreadlocks (on my HEAD, I hasten to add) for seven years or so, and although it is well over a decade I cut them right off, I still have no hankering for them anywhere else on my body either.
I have just been told by a certain Mr McSporran that his choice for me would be pink (had to go and peek what the hell was going on there). I shall keep that in mind...
PINK ?
Oh.no...............nowhere near stylish enough for you.
I wonder if they do musical ones..........
Had to see a client about work........large elegant boardroom table.
Client sold sex toys and ahem lingerie.
In the middle of this vast,gleaming table was the latest product.
A false vagina.
Which, at the click of a button, throbbed majestically over the surface, intoning seductively the while 'tell me that you love me.....tell me that you love me....'
I didn't get the job.
Musical ones?
That is good. They could play things like, I don't know. "The Ride of the Valkyries" springs to mind unbidden, for instance. "Like A Virgin" for those who prefer 80s pop.
So, miss...do you do requests?
(Hello Merkin, the namesake of the fashion item of the day. Which one's your favourite design?)
The theme tune to 'Match of the Day' would be appealing to most of the wankers.
Well,Anna...
I do hope this hasn't offended the lovely people who normally visit you
.....it's ok - I've got my coat xx
Ok, talk amongst yourselves, folks, I may be some time...
Firstly, the name MerkinOnParis came from my thoughts about the vacuity of ParisHilton. Ok?.
Secondly, what ones do I like?.
Doesn't matter what colour. Heh heh.
I do adore the ones with the built in tongue-rest, though.
Satisfied with that?
Now, most stupid consumer product.
Has to be Lion branded 'salt and vinegar' flavoured salt - for your chips.
Dunno if they still sell it.
Amen.
In a way, I'm glad that being over-run with unnecessary stuff for the terminally lazy is not an exclusively Yank/Brit preserve. Or perhaps it was, before America famously sneezed...? Either way it makes me think that perhaps the country I inhabit isn't so pooey after all.
Good rant... do you feel better now?
But x
Do they make a water-into-wine straw? That'd be pretty cool.
I'm not sure I find the idea as repellant as you obviously do, but I will say that I disapprove of any straw that could only be used in certain liquids. I like choice, you know, and I'd hate to think of drinking a virtually anything through a banana-flavored straw.
hey anna mr, you are right to be enraged by these f***ing straws, no justification whatsoever for them, i hate milk myself, never drink it, but even if I did, and energy-challenged as i am, i would NEVER use such a straw, & am dismayed that a country like finland has such wankery on its shelves, but i am sure they were invented here & someone somewhere thought: let's market this tat in finland, we need to lower the tone, finland is too fine ...
x
word verif: 'kzftat'
Hello me dears:
LavenderBlue, girl, keep your coat firmly on the hook. No need, no need at all to worry. I find your banter amusing in the highest order. Sorry I bailed out on you at such a crucial moment last night - I had pressing business to attend to, which couldn't wait.
Merkin - how could I not be satisfied with that? There'd have to be something seriously wrong with me, and believe me, there isn't. (Shut up, everyone who knows me.) I like your suggestion for the stupidest consumer product. More applicants for the award gratefully accepted in this box.
But, welcome girl, I'm glad you found my spoken word forum as well as my photie bloggy. Yes, I am feeling marginally better about those effing things (trying to tidy my language now, for some reason unknown to me), but would argue it is a clear-cut case of the poo spreading everywhere. Everywhere. Before you know it, they'll be selling them in the third world, alongside Nestle milk formula (now DON'T get me started on that matter).
Mr Moon, Mahti my friend, how nice to see you, I thought you had forsaken me altogether. But what is this shite I hear - you aren't offended by these unmentionable pieces of utter bollocks? Really, Maht. Really. I will choose to overlook this erroneous opinion of yours, though, because you come bearing an intriguing development to the otherwise completely pooey piece of Western consumerist nonsense - a water-to-wine straw. Now this, my friend, would come in handy in all sorts of situations. I have friends in high places (fact). I think I shall take your suggestion up with them. Watch this space. We may credit you with partial copyright, my friend Baby J and I.
(I like bananas, but banana essence makes me cough allergically - this is your Anna MR trivia of the month.)
NMJ, honeykins, isn't it just too much? I want out of the EU, out of Europe, out of mankind altogether. I want to milk my own cows and grow my own cocoa beans. (I love your word ver. There is clearly a VERY rude swearing attached to the word tat there. Oh, I like it a vitun lot. Utter aptness.
xxxxx one each, kiddies
Partial copyright?!?
Partial copyright, yes, Mr Moon. Well done. Your reading skills are just as smooth as I have expected them to be, all along.
Joking aside - come ON, Maht. If my man Baby J cooks up this said straw, and I have been the one to bring him this idea - his ideas woman, if you like - then surely you should be pleased that you get something out of this - as you must have thought, confess - throwaway joke you thought to amuse me with, here in my comments box.
Don't be bitter. We can maybe call it the Mighty Straw, in honour of you, or something similar. Maybe that is actually a better idea than the partial coyright you so sniffily sniffed at. Maybe, in fact, it was what you were hinting at. Yes, the more I think about this, Mahti the Mighty, the more certain I become of having hit the nail on the head and that this - having the wine-to-water straw named - through a convoluted and not particularly funny play on words, the understanding of which requires at least a little understanding of Finnish, one of the obscurest languages in the world, unrelated to almost any other (well, to ANY other of any consequence) - having the wine-to-water straw named sort of after yourself.
It is GOOD to achieve one's life's ambitions, isn't it? Not that I'd know, of course. Maybe you can tell us.
(Maht - I hope you're fine, incidentally. I seem to have keyboard diaorrhea. Hope it isn't of the contagious variety.)
x
Right with you on the milk-straw rant, anna mr (except for the hot milk in cocoa, which makes my stomach ache). But I sense a market here for would-be-sophisticate boozers of a type that I've heard about somewhere.
After all, why mess up a perfectly good dose of something strong with a mixer you're not sure about if you can test potential flavours first with a variety of straws? Don't like your gin through the tonic-flavoured straw? Well, try it through the lime-cordial-flavoured straw instead.
After this, of course, you have to get the real thing as a proper drink. But as a tester, this may just work.
Now I'll run for cover to flee the rant of wrath that may ensue now that such pub laziness has even been considered ;o)
Kanikoski, dear friend, my beloved Pupupuro - hello. How good to see you - and no, you needn't worry. Any and all applications of these hateful straw things involving the imbibing of alcoholic drinks will be considered exempt of the wrath of the writer of this ditty, being right outside her jurisdiction. People will booze anyway, flavoured straw or no. For thus it always was, and thus shall it always be.
x
A monopoly on obscurity?
Whatever next?
Ah!
Esteemed Cunning Budapest Linguist, török. How extraordinarily pleasing to find you here - and let this be noted by all who read this: linguists are always welcome on this site, cunning linguists doubly so, and cunning Budapest linguists, well! - it is not all that often that I get a visit from a fellow Fenno-Ugrian. I do hope I haven't unwittingly offended you with my lazy banter a couple of comments up. May I draw your kind attention to the exact wording of my nonsense:
...Finnish, one of the obscurest languages in the world, unrelated to almost any other (well, to ANY other of any consequence)...
So you see (by my bold type), my (albeit distant, but regardless) family member from beyond the Ural Mountains, I never did lay a claim on a monopoly on obscurity. It would certainly be a tempting thing to do, but woefully dishonest, and my genetical hardwiring, as is the case with all Fenno-Ugrians (including, doubtless, your good self), produces only beautiful, intelligent, hard-working, multi-talented, and, most importantly for this conversation, scrupulously honest members of the human species. It is not only inconceivable for us to lie - it's actually a physiological impossibility, not unlike the intolerance to intoxicating drinks experienced by some unlucky groups of people. So I will happily admit to the utter incomprehensibility and obscurity of your native tongue as well. In fact, I will even go as far as to awarding your tongue the proud title of the most obscure tongue spoken by any tongue of man, supported by the unbeatable argument that not even I can understand any of it.
As to the inconsequentiality of both our languages - come on. You know I'm right.
Viszontlátásra, my new and highly appreciated distant cousin. Or do you mind if I get a bit more familiar and just settle for Viszlát?
x
'one of the..'
'well, to ANY other of any consequence)...'
Sob, Sob no consequence?.
The Devil is in the detail.
Careful, SloppyOne.
Not only a clever obscure linguist. She claims to have genital hardwiring too.
That one'll blow the sporrans off a Highland Regiment.
Hello and good evening/morning/day, worthy Sloppy Seconds (I was going to address you as SS but then realised this could be perceived as a touch sinister). I must commend you on your keen eye and sharp vigilance against The Great Deceiver: "The Devil is in the detail." He is that indeed, Slopkins my friend, and this site - having details aplenty, and most of them utterly inconsequential, incidentally - has plenty of nooks and crannies for him to hide in. I will appreciate your efforts at driving him out, forcefully.
Just in case your sobbing was based on bad feeling derived from my calling Hungarian an inconsequential language, let me (once again) quote a snippet of my earlier bollocks:
...As to the inconsequentiality of both our languages - come on. You know I'm right...
The carefully-place bold type will enable you to spot the fact I am indeed counting ALSO my own native tongue in the vast army of inconsequential things (not just languages) found on this planet. This should console all your woes. Dry your sobbing eyes, my vigilant fellow fighter against the Devil (or Perkele, as he gets called around these parts). We have work to do.
Pretty in Mink, good whichever-time-of-day-this-reaches-you to you too. May I say what a charming name for a commenter to have? And thank you for bringing in the worthy topic of (my) genital hardwiring into the realms of this blog (keep your eyes peeled, Slopdop, my watchdog against the Devil). I have no idea what it'll do to my reader numbers - most of my regulars will die puking, of course, but the weirdoes and perverts that populate the darker reaches of googlesearch (ditto, Slopkins) will most likely hasten here, squealing and squirming with a barely-controllable expectation of dark perversions. It remains to be seen whether they will be pleased or displeased with what they shall find.
Thank you also for the "sporrans off a Highland Regiment" one-liner. I take a keen interest in matters Scottish, and would gladly desporran regiments of handsome Celtic Warriors with one blow of my hardwiring.
Xena Warrior Princess, I have nothing but respect for your mention of Merkele as being one to watch - so no need to be coy about SS as a moniker.
As to your regulars.......dear me?.
'most of my regulars will die puking, of course, but the weirdoes and perverts that populate the darker reaches of googlesearch (ditto, Slopkins) will most likely hasten here, squealing and squirming with a barely-controllable expectation of dark perversions.'
I am in danger of running out of batteries for my pacemaker...ooops sorry, my special 'peacemaker'.
Nonetheless, my Skean Dubh awaits.
Are you offering blow-jobs to that bunch with their dirty jock-straps ?
You speaking to me ?
Skean Dubh?
Ale fajna, po Polsku.
Zaja-fucking-bisty, po Szkotsku
Oh, Merkin, you are too cunning a linguist for me. I can gather the latter halves of your sentences say "...in Polish", "...in Scottish" (and the middle bit of the Scottish sentence looks somehow oddly familiar, too). But for the rest, I humbly request translatory help. My Slavic languages are limited to a smattering of dreadful Russian, although I can do stunningly good Russian-accented English...
Just as a way of clarifying the content of some of the more obscure comments here to innocent bystanders: they are to do with the merkin, a garment of yesteryear which someone seems to be attempting to bring back into fashion. Read all about it on
http://bloggersontherun.blogspot.com/2007/06/drunk-in-charge-of-unlicensed-merkin.html
Thank you for that.
Hi Anna
I'm older than you and we had these in Australia when I was a child. They were a godsend for me because in those days we were forced to drink milk during break time and I didn't like the taste of it so I took a chocolate flavoured straw to school. They probably saved me from permanent psychological damage so I for one would dispute their uselessness.
xxx
Pants
Ms Pants! How utterly charming and delightful to see you here. Indeed, so charmed am I that I am - rather disappointingly - folding like a deck chair in the face of your counter-argument to the uselessness of the said straws.
Damn. I wish I could wittily put you in your place, but you just are right. If they saved/still save poor upside-down Antipodean school children from the horrors of drinking unflavoured milk - then what can I say. Except that I dig the idea of you equipping yourself with a straw before going to school. Did your mum know?
As I say, I am happy as a sandboy to see you here. Do come again, even if you crush my biggest (and indeed, first and only) rant like an insect.
Best,
A xx
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