Fuck CCTV

My car got stolen the other night.

Consequently, I got to ride shotgun in a cop cruiser as Officer ‘David’ drove me around the ‘hood checking out all the places where stolen vehicles are traditionally dumped. David seemed to know where to look, and we found it within a couple of hours. I couldn’t help noticing that there were fingerprints all over the driver-side door, plus a good DNA source on the passenger side — not as disgusting as you’re probably thinking: I just mean there was a half-finished bottle of mint tea jammed under the seat — but David wasn’t interested in any of that. Whatever.

Anyway, my transportation was duly restored to me, and except for a missing book of ‘freeway’ tickets ($12), a busted ignition switch ($150), and a crimp in my weekly schedule, the episode ended happily enough. I just hope it doesn’t become a habit.

(I cannot refrain from comparing this with my experiences back in London, where my minivan used to get stolen all the bleeding time. The UK cops were completely fucking useless; I always had to go out and find it myself, and sometimes it took days. )

‘But what does any of this have to do with grapefruit?’ I hear you ask. I’m getting to that. Here’s a reconstruction of where the perp[s] dumped my car –

Note the cleverly [re]positioned CCTV camera (circled in red), which can be seen more clearly below –

Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie -
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by. — Kipling

Seriously, the only thing these fucking cameras are good for is the occasional low-quality Youtube video — and do we really need more of those? (In case you’re struggling, the answer is: no, we don’t.)

Fuck CCTV.

Fuck Beetles

What can I say? I love beetles and I guess these guys, ahem, love each other too.

Look ma, no hands!

Meanwhile, a completely reliable friend of mine tells me that even before I posted this entry, Symantec had flagged this blog as ‘potentially fraudulent’. Well, I guess their predictive assessment was correct because I promised right here that this blog would only use ‘fuck’ metaphorically. Damn, those Symantec guys are good!

Spiders

A couple of spiders moved into the kitchen recently. They hang out together, and I suspect they may be romantically involved. Here’s a daytime pic of the smaller one –

And this is ‘Big Momma’ on night patrol –

To give you an idea of how big they are, you can actually hear them when they go scampering around the room. Also, while their smaller brethren and sistren are generally unable to climb out of the sink — it has vertical stainless steel sides — these puppies have sufficient size and mass and a sufficient grasp of physics to apply the ‘Wall of Death’ principle. That is, they run horizontally around the inside of the sink like some crazed eight-legged parkour maniac, and half a revolution later centrifugal force sends them flying out the top, home free.

Humans such as Samantha Morgan need a motorbike to make this work. (Pic lifted without permission from the NYTimes)

I can’t say I’m too crazy about sharing the house with them, but fair goes: they really are remarkable animals, and they probably help keep the mozzies down too. Now if only they ate fleas as well…

Best. Job. Evar.

So what happens is, they use a winch to haul these orange tubs up the hill…

…where the betelnut-fueled worker-dude at the top takes them, fills them with dirt excavated from a building site…

…and then, because winching them back down again would be far too sloooow and nowhere near as much fun, he simply sends them hurtling back down this purpose-built Cresta Run. People in the vicinity — if they’re paying sufficient attention — wisely stand off to one side.

Also, there’s absolutely no chance that this plummeting box of rocks will shoot out into the traffic because, as you can see, a strong piece of elastic has been nailed securely to a sturdy 1″x1″ frame to make sure that will never happen. ” 安全第一! ” as they say around here — ’safety first!’.

Really, the only thing that would make this super awesome job even more super awesome would be if they set fire to these hurtling tubs of mud before launching them down the hill.

Junk

I saw this junk from our bedroom window this morning, and being a good little blogger, I immediately rushed down the hill for a closer shot. A decent zoom lens would have been handy, but unfortunately I only had a low-end camera so this was the best I could do –

Fuck Scientology

Poor, deluded Tom Cruise would disagree, but the fact is, Scientologists are a creepy bunch of evil-doers. Mr Justice Latey had them pegged — in a 1984 high court ruling, he accurately described the so-called Church of Scientology as a ‘cult’ that was ‘corrupt, sinister and dangerous’.

However, in the UK it is no longer legal to publicly apply the ‘C’ word to these cunts, and the way now lies open for this corrupt, sinister, and dangerous cult to successfully reposition itself as a bona fide religion.

Actually, if they want to be a religion, that’s fine with me. Because as the sainted John Lennon probably meant to say: ‘And fuck religion too’.

(*) Except for Buddhists of course, most of whom are pretty laid back. And those Hare Krishna guys get a pass as well, with their nice song and their orange dresses. And the CofE is off the hook because it’s an embarrassment, not a religion. And I’ve always had a soft spot for Quakers and Shakers, who respectively invented oatmeal and furniture. Where would we be without them? (Answer: sitting on the floor eating cornflakes, ho ho. )

(**) Oh, and I wouldn’t even consider saying ‘fuck Islam’, because that would just be insanely imprudent. And also because Yusuf Islam is way cool.

Fuck exercise bikes

What are you, a freakin hamster?

Get a proper bike. Take it outside. Ride around.

True fact: Exercise bikes were invented by our reptilian overlords. You don’t fucking need one.

Fuck Christo

According to Wikipedia, so-called ‘[a]rt critic David Bourdon has described Christo’s wrappings as a “revelation through concealment.”‘

What a tosser. Personally, I’d call it malicious littering.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude vandalize a stretch of Australian coastline

Who needs this? No-one. Who’d be better off without it? Everyone. Case closed.

Fuck fleas

I Frontlined the animals a couple weeks ago, but I must have left it too late because right now we’re ankle-deep in fleas. They’re presumably cat fleas, but according to Wikipedia there are about 2000 species of Siphonaptera, and I’m not an expert, so who knows?

Cat flea (Ctenocephalides felis). Photo: University of Bristol.

Two small consolations: our fleas are not as big as the one shown in the picture, and they’re also slightly easier to squish than the hardier Northern-type fleas that I’ve had to deal with in the past. On the other hand, for all I know they may be Asian Rat Fleas, dread carriers of bubonic plague and murine typhus. If so, that would be a bummer and a cause for concern and speedy action. As it is, suitable chemicals will have to be found and deployed ASAP because I do not relish being dogpiled by the little fuckers every time I walk across the carpet.

‘Security’

Fuck people who want more ’security’.

In the awesome words of the awesome Gnarls Barkley ‘You really think you’re in control? Well, I think you’re crazy.’

(Obviously this fuckable only applies to the bourgeois populace of the developed world, not to some poor starving bastard in Mumbai or Darfur or Haiti or wherever, who could actually use a bit of security thank you very much.)