Lyrical Devolution

Music Lyrics Then:

If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.
Kind woman, I give you my all, Kind woman, nothing more.

Little drops of rain whisper of the pain, tears of loves lost in the days gone by.
My love is strong, with you there is no wrong,
together we shall go until we die. My, my, my.
An inspiration is what you are to me, inspiration, look... see.

And so today, my world it smiles,
your hand in mine, we walk the miles,
Thanks to you it will be done,
for you to me are the only one.
Happiness, no more be sad, happiness....I'm glad.
If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.

   - Thankyou, Led Zeppelin, 1975.

Music Lyrics Now:

You a stupid hoe, (yeah) you a, you a stupid hoe
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (you stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, you a, you a stupid hoe (you stupid, stupid)
You a stupid hoe, (yeah) you a, you a stupid hoe (you stupid, stupid)

Look bubbles go back to your habitat
MJ gone and I ain't having that
How you gon' be the stunt double to the nigga monkey
Top of that I'm in the Phantom looking hella chonky

Ice my wrists and I piss on bitches
You can suck my diznik if you take this jizzes
You don't like them disses, give my ass some kisses
Yeah they know what this is, givin this the business

   - Stupid Hoe, Nicki Minaj, 2012.

What the hell is this?!

Bike Tricks

Fancy Cycling by Isabel Marks.

Isabel? Isabel on a bike?

No hands is kind of fancy, but for really really fancy it should be more like this.

Axl Mansons Spaghetti Incident

In the Guns N' Roses song Paradise City, Axle rose can be heard to sing:

"Take me down to a very nice city where your ass is green and the grills are pretty"

And in their song Sweet Child O' Mine you can hear the lines:

"She's got eyes of the bluest skies as if she were insane
I'd hate to look into those eyes and see a mountain range"

If you listen closely to the song Welcome to the Jungle, Axl may be making a plea of his idol Charles Manson, he sings:

"Be on my, my, my surfin' team"

In video for Estranged Axl can be seen wearing a black Manson shirt. He also can be seen wearing a red Manson shirt in footage from the performance in Milton Keynes, England (1993).  His red Manson shirt has "Charlie Don't Surf" printed on the back.

In November of 1993, Guns N' Roses released a collection of punk and glam rock covers entitled The Spaghetti Incident?.  An unadvertised cover of Charles Manson's song Look at Your Game, Girl was included on the album at Rose's request despite protests from Rose's band mates.  The CD release gave no track number to the song and could only be found by listening through the silence after the final documented track on the album.

Later, in early 2000, Axl said that he would remove Look at Your Game, Girl from re-issues of the album, citing that critics and popular media "misinterpreted his interest in Manson" and that "a misunderstanding public no longer deserved to hear it".  However, the song is still present on the album, and recent re-issues have the song as a separate 13th track.

Demonic Phone Exorcism

You may not realise this but mobile phones contain demons.  Makes sense when you stop and think about it.  I have to curse my phone to get the touch screen to recognise that I'm trying to press a button.   You can exorcise the demon from your phone by sticking it in a microwave on high.

Here's some footage:

Despite the dramatic results of microwaving the phone, the video is not enhanced with special effects at all.  From the video, we can see that the microwave heats the phone to the extent where the demon thinks it's back in the hell-dimension and comes out!  You can see it scream and get extra cranky when it realises it's been tricked.

Garter Oath

No one closes down the matadors favourite night spot and gets away with it.

Jane Austen Quote

In Jane Austen’s book Northanger Abbey this rather revealing sentence can be found:

"Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen appearances were mending; she began to curl her hair and long for balls."

Like a carnival clown?






No, not those sort of balls.

Not that sort either.

Platinum VIP Call Centre (India)

I recently had some trouble with my Platinum card which says it comes with a VIP help line.  The "VIP" is a lie.  But let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes...

When a company outsources it's help desk, it usually means that an Indian from thousands of miles away will be on the telephone if you have problems with your credit card or need tech support for your new software.  Unknown to the mass consumers is that India is known by the business globe as "the world's back office", employing around half a million people in the outsourcing industry.  The average Indian call centre houses around 1500 graduates technology courses.  All packed in there like refugees on a boat that never exits the country.  Most of them are in their early 20's ...and all trained further in the art of cultural subterfuge.

In hundreds of classrooms across India, instructors from Australia, England and the US have set up courses which serve to neutralise an Indian's accent when speaking on the phone. Weeks of accent-neutralisation classes incorporate a cornucopia of sneaky tools such as, regional dialects, country specific geography and local cultural activities. These trainers sometimes require their students to learn Shakespeare and examine popular caricatures of Indians like Apu from The Simpsons...  It's all part of the ruse to make the customer service rep seem less foreign.  But the deception doesn't stop there. Reps are given daily updates on local events to sneak into the conversation "Did you watch the game last night? I expect you're a maroon supporter, I'm from down South so I'm a blues fan."  See it's all sneaky smoke and mirrors to get you on side.

Because of the time difference between India and the customers they service, Indian employees frequently work graveyard shifts or split shifts.  Employees in these centres deal with an average of one hundred phone calls per shift and not all of them happy individuals. This kind of shift work brings with it a host of health problems: digestive disease, hair loss, back pain, menstrual problems and the list goes on and includes an entirely new condition.  An estimated 60,000 Indians have already started to show signs of a condition known as accent stress.  Everyone has faked an accent at some time or another, but imagine trying to fake an accent for eight to ten hours a day.  It's not just a mental drain, it wears out the throat muscles.

Not surprisingly, the burnout rate is high in Indian call centres, thirty to forty percent of most workers quit within the first year. They are, however, quickly replaced. English speaking young adults in India are clamouring for jobs which can pay over $200 Australian per month.  Imagine that spectacular $50 a week as your pay packet!  Now we can see why my bank thinks outsourcing there is so great.  As it turns out though, India’s call centre success is also becoming it's failing.  As outsourcing continues to grow, fewer and fewer acceptable employees are available. The majority of interviewees are unemployable in call centres due to their English language skills, and if a company is unable to recruit workers at reasonable wages, they lose orders to rival companies sometimes even to overseas in Thailand, China or the Philippines.

So much for VIP Platinum service.  Long story short I got fed up and walked into my local branch, they told me the information the call centre told me was incorrect. Why? Because they are in a completely different country.  VIP service my arse.

Shoddy the Clown

Carnival in Limburg.

After a lively street parade and street festival Shoddy the Clown has found a special young Belgium friend who is happy to accept his continuing offers of drinks.

Shoddy the Clowns leer betrays his intentions, however as planned, the beer and his experience playing on the excitement of the day keeps his naive friend oblivious. Soon will be the offer of winning a prize by dropping balls in his mouth.

Maria's Touch