Is anyone else having trouble keeping track of the neighbours they used to check out on Vox? For some reason it seems much harder to keep up with everyone now we’re all spread out and I can’t get the hang of google reader, which was spectacularly obvious from the way I failed to keep my password protected post secret on there. Bloody technology and bloody Vox.
In other news, the family, entirely seperately and without consulting each other, have decided to ignore my mad aunt’s email. She’s been bitching about most of us anyway so none of us are really up for playing her silly game and besides, if she thinks she’s going to get sympathy for blowing more money than I earn in 2 years then she’s clearly on glue. A habit that’s going to have to stop now, since she’s got chuff all income aside from the basic state pension, meaning she’s going to be utterly skint once the final dregs of cash trickle away. Looks like she’ll have to cut out the Waitrose shopping. And feeding the dog that bloody expensive stuff in pouches along with imported parma ham and finest hand churned butter. I shit ye not. No wonder it’s fat.
The new job is going nicely. Well apart from the fact that I don’t really know what I’m doing but you can’t have everything can you? And as long as I make enough noise and look busy I’m figuring no one will notice for a while.
I was talking before about adverts, more specifically, how they’re full of shit. Has anyone else noticed that? Sure, the anti-spot cream leaves the improbably attractive, spot-less, airbrushed teen in the advert with a radiant peachy complexion but I’d like to see how it fared with it’s ‘improves skin in 48 hours’ claim against some of the bad boys me and my brother sported in our teenage years. And the shampoo ads are as bad. I’m delighted to see that Cheryl Cole’s extensions have ‘got their mojo back’ thanks to Elvive but since my hair is attached to my actual head at the roots I’d be more encouraged by the results on the hair of someone who doesn’t get it glued in every fortnight. Then there’s hair dye ads. D’you know what, I’m not convinced that Davina McCall dyes her own hair with Garnier Nutrisse, which leaves it ‘SOOOOO Nourished’. Or mascara ads, that have the little sentence in, ‘styled using lash inserts, enhanced in post production’. Marvellous, so you want me to spend ten quid on a product that you daren’t even show on screen without artificial alteration? Do I look like I just fell out of a tree?
Worst of all have got to be the ones for bodily fuction products. Anyone in the UK will have seen the one for Dulcoease, where a woman with crap hair sits down and announces to her friends in a cafe that when she went to the bog, ‘Bowel stuff, it was hard and really uncomfortable’. Have you ever sat down at a caf with your friends and announced that you’ve just had a really painful shit? Me neither. Try it, see if like the girl on the telly they offer you helpful packets of shit-softener and funny little comments however don’t be surprised if all they give you is a funny look and an excuse about how they have to go home and iron their socks.
Worst of all however has got to be the one for sanitary towels that instructs you at the end to ‘have a happy period’. What the fuck are you talking about? Have a happy period? You spend two days crying if the traffic lights are against you or the paper falls off the desk. This is followed by a day of shouting at people for no discernable reason until they run when they see you coming, unless you are equipped with chocolate in which case they’ll keep their head down and sidle past you while flattened to the wall like a beaten dog, in case you let rip again. Then you get three days of cramps that feel like you got hit in the midriff by a Land Rover, all in the sure and certain knowledge that the same shitstorm will be heading your way same time next month. Have a happy period? Any idiot daring to mention this anywhere near me when I have my ‘time of the month’ had better be a bloody fast runner or very well insured.
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Vicola's Blog 
Adverts KILL me. Some of them are so lame. Cillit Bang used to be one of my pet hates, but now “I’ve got a really bad headache… Has anyone got any….” cue the entire female staff emptying their bags and handing over enough paracetamol to allow the buttmonkey boss (is he the boss or the tea boy, not worked it out) to leave this vile world. Women are better prepared. Yeah, we as blokes get that. We know you can organise pretty much anything at the drop of a hat, but for chrissakes, he might have been in need of some lucozade or something? Let the man speak!
Oh, and before I forget. “My dear old mum used to come round for a cup of tea. Now she comes round while I strap her up to some sort of electrified muscle stimulator which plays bloody murder with her pacemaker but gives me enough of a giggle to continue buying these shite products.”
GAAHH!! And not to forget the most obvious of knuckle-dragging mouth breathers “Doug” who was installing a fire alarm and was given the wrong type of ladder. Ok, point 1, what the hell was he expecting? A ladder that goes sideways? And point 2, it beggars belief as to why he climed the hellish thing in the first place. Frankly you deserve everything you got, except the damn insurance payout.
Annnnnd relax. Hey, I’ve got a headache, has anyone got any……ah forget it.
I hate the ‘circulation booster’ one as well. The two that are particularly grinding my gears this week are the ones on the BBC for the bloody Apprentice, which is on between virtually every program and the one where that skinny girl is modelling with some fit bloke and the old bat who is supposed to be ‘mother nature’ appears to tell her shouldn’t be doing that because it’s THAT week. But she can because she’s using a particular brand of tampons. Aye, right, because before they invented those we women were utterly incapable of functioning normally during a period and had to just stay in the house until it was all done dusted, reclining gently on a chaise longue like some sort of Victorian consumptive. Crap. Everyone knows that once you’ve passed the bit of the month where you want to kill everyone, you are perfectly fine to leave the house and carry on ordinary life.
Vikki – re: the Dulco whatever, you obviously undersetimate some blokes’ topics of conversation!
And Pete, I always wonder why that ladder bloke doesn’t get extra compen. for wear & tear on his nose (watch it again) as he slides down the wall 😉 Despite knowing he had “the wrong kind of ladder” he still tried to do the job.
It seems that “you can’t fix stupid” but it dues pay well!
@Allan, just seen him – that’s classic but one has to ask how on earth you noticed that! Excellent, and after a totally crap drive home its just what I needed. Cheers!
The wrong sort of ladder? He was only up a household wall, not scaling a crevasse on Everest. How can he have got the ‘wrong sort of ladder’? Fucking moron.
Living in a house full of women, I have secret stashes of chocolate lie a spy has caches of munitions. Ever wary…
Very very wise indeed. That chocolate has probably saved your life on more than one occasion.
LOL – that last paragraph is spot on!! And women in these ads always wear white…… what sane woman wears white during “that” week!
What sane woman wears white anyway? I can’t wear it for more than 40 seconds before there’s a spot of dirt down the front and it’s covered in dog hairs. And they’re always wearing skin tight at that time as well. If they were real humans, they would be like me and my friends who find that that is the fattest point of the month, and so skin tight is definately not an option. Mind you, most of the girls in the ads are so thin I’d be amazed if they menstruated at all. What they want to show is an angry, teary woman with water retention and a massive zit on her chin, clutching a bar of chocolate and a bottle of pinot grigio. That’s real life, right there.
I would buy whatever brand was advertised with that. Especially if she was, say, taking up and all the sofa and weeping over Don’t Tell The Bride. To pull an example ENTIRELY from the air.
Smirk…glad to know I’m not the only one who can occasionally behave a teeny weeny bit oddly when the hormones descend…
Lol! – I’m going to answer this in point form, if you don’t mind – if only to keep my own thoughts straight in commenting on yours:)
1. In order to keep up with everyone from VOX, wherever they might be, I have been using the My Subscriptions/Read my Subscriptions function – for the WordPress people. i like it because it separates the posts by day, and I can easily see which ones I’ve read. For my peeps NOT on WP, I have added the links to their blogs to my Blogroll, which shows on my profile page, and I make sure I click on their pages when I remember to. This way, I have them all in one place, on one page, all out where I can remember (mostly) and I don’t have to go to GoogleReader, or particularly subscribe to their blogs (and fill up my email) trying to catch up with all of them at once.
2. I can’t see your protected post – I’m assuming it’s about your aunt? Lol! – I think I might have asked for the password in the past, but I can’t remember. Maybe I didn’t? Could you email it to me or something? Or just use my Contact Me page on my blog (if that’s easier and contact me with it? Lol!
3. I am glad you are liking your new job and it is going well, even though you don’t know what you’re doing. In a month or so, you’ll have it all down so pat you’re not going to imagine not having known what you were doing. Lol! It sucks when people don’t like their jobs, which, I’m assuming, is the case with 98% of the world’s population.
4. Ads on tv. Ever since we got NZ’s version of Tivo, I do not watch them anymore. Also, since I lost 50% of my already fine (thin) hair in the past few months after going off my 15 years of birth control pills (no, we are NOT trying to get pregnant – ever – I just wanted off), I have studiously avoided any hair product ads. However, I did go to The Body Shop and got their lovely-smelling grapeseed oil shine serum. I love it, and it makes me feel slightly better about seeing more of my scalp. My hair had better grow back. I would not look good bald. Oh, btw, I did see Davina McCall’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? a while back. I can’t remember a thing about it, but we are addicted to that show. I’m waiting till they show Rupert Penry-Jones’ episode here. Talk about lovely.
4. As for having a “Happy Period”. You know those ads had to have been written by men. Without wives. Or girlfriends. Or sisters. Either that, or they have since been beaten up by one or all of the above for their dumb ass ads.
Rupert Penry-Jones is indeed a delight. Although I know a friend who works in theatre in London and she says he’s a pretentious twat. I found this very disappointing as I really do fancy him something rotten. Him being a twat is fact she really should have kept to herself. If you can get UK TV out there, he is in a programme called Whitechapel starting on ITV1 at 9pm on Monday.
ack – yeah – i’m going with the fantasy – hehehe – would that be the second season of Whitechapel? – because i did manage to watch the 1st season – if so, woo hoo! – it was super creepy and cool
It is the second series. I really liked the first one and Mr P-J in a suit is always a delight….
RPJ in a suit – yum – i just bought The 39 Steps just so i can drool over him (he spends practically the entire thing in a suit:)
p.s. except the part where he takes off his shirt – lol!
Sorry to jump in here Paikea and Vicola….but going off birth control pills makes your hair fall out?! Really?? Good lord.
It didn’t make my hair fall out but it did give me acne on my chin, something I didn’t even have as a teenager. 6 months later I’m now back on the pill and still applying antibiotic cream daily in a desperate attempt to restore my skin to anything like normality. Coming off the pill is not to be taken lightly, unless you don’t mind ending up bald, spotty and pissed off.
Oh and in case any of my friends are reading this, I came off it because I’d read that it isn’t good for you to be on it long term NOT because I wish to end up sprogged up. Other precautions were firmly in place.
lol! – hey Inga – yeah – your body acts just like after you have a baby (again, i haven’t ever done that! – and we don’t ever plan to – we prefer a childless existence – so, like Vicola – other precautions are taken very seriously) – your hormones are fucked up and have to reset themselves, and your body goes completely wacko – understandably – i’d been on the pill since 1995
my skin basically died for six months this year – literally every single pimple i got was an under-the-skin cystic pimple that horribly scarred – there wasn’t a harmless one in the bunch – at some point i had 9 giant ones all at once on my chin and a several on my forehead – i didn’t want to leave the house – that kind of acne is purely hormonal – and i never even touched them and kept my face super clean (i hadn’t gone on the pill for acne, it had just been a nice side-effect) – of course, i went crazy, switching cleansers and moisturizers just in case what i was already using was aggravating my skin – but, in the end, i decided to wait it out (give it a year), but thankfully, during the last month and a half, my skin has gone completely back to it’s normal happy self – which is good, because that totally sucked beyond sucky – i never had bad acne as a teen, and i certainly didn’t want it heading towards 40!
i’m still dealing with the scars, though – in clusters, on my chin and on my cheek – regular applications of 2% benzoyl peroxide cream and manuka honey cream (a friggin miracle – yay, NZ) are doing their job – but it’ll be several months more till my chin is completely clear of scars from this
i went off the pill because i just turned 37 and after 35, you can have a greater risk of DVT (deep vein thrombosis), which goes up exponentially every year after – i have no idea whether i have it in my genes, because i am adopted (with no chance of knowing who my birth parents are) – and i fly a lot – i decided i’m better off it now – i just didn’t need the extra worry
the hair stuff – is almost a complete disaster – you can lose up to 70% of your hair after something like this – i lost half – it came out in chunks – i cried a lot – i still cry sometimes – not good – my hair is super fine – i don’t need to lose any of it – and if you look closely (like my hairdresser does, you notice) – it’s has started growing back and now i have short tufts of hair all over the place, but i don’t know whether all of it will ever some back – i’m thinking it’ll be in the 70-80% range
what did make me feel better is one of the ladies at my pharmacy said that she lost practically her entire front scalp of hair after having her kids – and looking at her now, you’d never know it – she has this beautiful mane of thick hair – so, although i’m feeling balder, hopefully, in a year, i can stop worrying about that, even if i have less hair than i started with, hopefully, the bald patches will be less bald and i won’t feel like crying when i look at my head
🙂
Mine are also the hideous cystic ones that really hurt and scar. And although I’ve not got any active ones at the moment I have gone back on the pill and and using the same cream you’ve got to try and fix it. Mines has also been rumbling on for bloody months and it’s really driving me nuts. I’m going to and google manuka honey cream to see if you can get it here. I did the same thing as you, spent a bloody fortune changing cleansers and skin products to try and improve it but nothing worked. It’s so frustrating that all these things take an eternity to clear up, I want results NOW not in six months….
Vicola: i know exactly how you feel – i’d been at my wit’s end – let me know if you can’t find the manuka honey stuff there – seriously – i can always send you some – it’ll be cheaper for me to send it to you anyways, i’d wager, if you’re having to expend a little too much effort finding it and paying astronomical prices for shipping – we can figure out expenses somehow – i plan to use manuka honey skin care products i use (one brand of this one product) for years to come anyways – the combination of the 2% stuff and the MH seems to work really well for me now that the pills aren’t controlling my hormonal acne – everybody’s different – that the problem – and i wasn’t going back on the pill – so i’d been readying myself to live unhappily with chronic adult acne (due to my IBS, regular antibiotics wasn’t going to be an option, even the topical stuff) – lemme know:)
What brand do you use? There are loads of them on the internet so I don’t know what’s any good! If you’ve found one that works I’ll try and source that over here.
lol! – i had a little break to do my workout – i’m doing my kickboxing (with weighted gloves) at 1am in the hopes i might actually fall asleep sometime soon
i was thinking, while i was doing it that i should send you the link, and lo! – you already replied that i should do so:)
here it is:) – http://www.honeycollection.co.nz/shop/Remedial+Products/Active+Clear+50gm.html
it’s called Active Clear Natural Acne treatement – has 30% UMF 15+ Active Manuka Honey (the active and the 15+ is important) – i’ve been using it for the last six years we’ve been here, and i’m convinced it’s one of the few reasons i don’t have more scars on my face out of this whole recent ordeal – also, when we take the ferry to the South Island, on our way further south, i drive right by the place where they sell it in Blenheim – i like to see it:) – i usually order it online, but it is available in stores here, and likely available to ship overseas:)
Holy shit. I think I’m going to pretend I didn’t read any of that. Gah. *oblivious*
I haven’t even managed to set up a blogroll yet – just links under subscriptions. And, yes, it’s far more hassle than it was on vox – as is making individual posts password protected instead of just letting your neighbours read the blog. At least I’ve managed to keep the google-bots out though …
As for adverts, my current lunge for the channel changer one is that bio-oil one with the various ethnic-looking women with improbable Irish accents wanging on (coyly) about how it’s changed their lives. Ack. Well, that and your ‘Have a happy period’. Oh, and the panty liner one with the rubbish rodeo machine animation. And … well … there are just way to many.
Lord, I hate the bio oil one as well. And have you seen the price of the stuff? I’d live with the stretchmarks. The panty liner one with the rodeo machine is one of the ones that tells you to have a happy period. And I really loathe the Tena Lady ones. “They won’t notice my occasional bladder weakness’, well no, unless I happen to glance at your legs and see rivers of pee running down them I don’t suppose I will.
Your protected post didn’t show to me on Google Reader until I input the password. I suspect it’s just you because it’s your blog.
Your ranting is most appreciated. Keep it coming. x
Your last two paragraphs had me rolling! 🙂
New job? New role in same place or new all round? I must have missed that. Soz.
Have a happy period!
(pmsl)
New role, same place. I’m no longer ‘admin biff’ I’m now ‘drinker of brews in site cabins’. Which is a much better position although sadly until the salary review in December, not any better paid than admin biff. If this is not rectified in the salary review, I will go mental.
Ok…I got the message….no comment from me about the last paragraph. 🙂
Re Ads…..apparently only healthy hair floats on top of water and a brand new conditioner (which by coincidence contains OIL) is the only way to achieve this spectacular follicular perfection.
Fortunately most of my Vox neighbours are here on WP and I agree with paikea’s views on the most practical way to access their blogs.
WordPress confuses me very much. But I don’t think that helps.
My G-Doctor was STUNNED when I told him the regularity of my period – missing 1-2 months at a time, then suddenly starting up at a frightening regularity.
Don’t worry about injuring people during your period. I’ve killed before – you’ll get used to it.
There’ve been times when I’ve come close as well…
I don’t mean to be controversial – I honestly have never felt moody during/before/after or whatever it is in connection with my periods. Perhaps because I’m generally quite moody throughout the month… My question to you being: is it really real? I’ve always wondered if women might not just, you know, talk about it as if it’s real.
(I hope you’re not on your period as I write this)
Oh it’s definitely real, just ask Mr V, or anyone whose head I have bitten off for no discernable reason at that time of the month…
I love google reader ,but I HATE commercials. I don’t watch tv much anyway, but I might watch more if the advertisements weren’t so sucky. There is one here right now for some cell phone where the woman is giving birth and texting at the time. Jesus.
I agree, it is so hard to keep in contact with everyone. Sad face.
Hey Vicola – glad to find you on the Vox Diaspora – I agree with you about ads – I used to see Davina McCall’s hair and think ‘no way is that just due to the shampoo you use!’ The products I have located and use now are due to my own trial and error experiments -most of the stuff advertised on telly is crap