Anyway, went and checked it out on Amazon, cos, let’s face it, anything that makes life easier has got to be worth having right? Right.

Here’s what Karcher have to say about it. (BTW, Karcher make em, )

The Future of Window Cleaning is Crystal Clear

Achieve professional results in a fraction of the time with the innovative Window Vac from Kärcher

The first of its kind, this brand new product sucks surfaces completely dry, streak free and makes it easier than ever to achieve crystal clear windows in an instant. It’s also perfect for removing liquid from mirrors, shower screens, tiles, condensation from windows and even spills from floors and worktops.

Everyone has their tactics for achieving smear free, crystal clear windows. But the real secret is in the drying. The new Window Vac from Kärcher sucks surfaces completely dry removing all irritating streaks, without drips. For best results we recommend using the Kärcher window cleaning agent and applicator-bottle accessories.

This versatile product is handheld, easy to use and achieves an expert finish with one satisfying swipe. Weighing in at just 0.7KG there is little chance of fatigue – even if you were to clean up to 45 windows, which can be achieved in a single charge (Statistic based on an average UK window size of 1 x 1.5m and the device’s ability to clean up to 60m² per charge.). The Kärcher Window Vac is lithium-ion battery driven and cordless, meaning with this must-have gadget, window cleaning has never been so easy!

It can be hard to achieve an expert finish with standard cleaning products, which is why it is estimated that 75% of UK households outsource their window cleaning. The Kärcher Window Vac is incredibly simple to use and achieves professional results without the hard work, saving time and avoiding the constant need to pay for a window cleaning service!

So really, it’s not a vacuum cleaner for windows at all. It’s just a mini vac for cleaning up spills, but they’ve stuck a squeegee on it and rebranded it as a window cleaner. Clever. Very clever.

Not only that, but, according to the customer reviews, it’s actually canny good too. Ok, I’m sold. All I need is some kindhearted soul to buy it for me. Any offers?

But anyway, it does still happen occasionally.

I had a drink the other night, (actually, I had several ) and ended up having a very heated discussion with a friend of mine, (who had also had a drink surprisingly enough). Now the fact that I had a drink with a friend isn’t particularly amazing. I’ve done it before and will no doubt do it again.

No. What amazed me is that I still managed to retain some semblance of calm and rational thought while in a state of drunken stupor. I’m usually not that calm without a drink, let alone with several already down my neck.

Perhaps it’s time to give up drinking altogether. If I can be as calm and rational with a drink as I am without one then what the hell is the point of drinking? (Please, don’t bother trying to answer that. It’s a joke people, )

So who are they and what the hell do they have to do with onesies?

Well, apparently they’re a ‘leading marketer‘ of infant clothing. Not too sure how true the ‘leading marketer’ bit is. I’d never heard of them and I’ve had 3 kids and got 2 grandkids, none of whom have ever owned a piece of clothing from Gerber. Still, they’re not a UK company and I live in the UK so I guess that doesn’t count for much.

What does that have to do with onesies?

I’m glad you asked. Gerber Childrenswear own the trademark to the name ‘Onesies’ so God help anyone who wants to market their own version of one piece sleepsuits, pyjamas, jumpsuits, or whatever else and call it a onesie. Because if you do, the following is a snippet of what you can expect to recieve in your inbox.

Gerber Childrenswear LLC (‘Gerber’) is the owner of U.S. federal trademark registration numbers 1,292,981 and 2,549,557, respectively, for the ONESIES® mark and other trademark registrations pertaining to the mark, and Gerber’s exclusive rights in the ONESIES® mark are legally incontestable under §15 of the Lanham Act.  As a result of Gerber’s extensive use and substantial money and effort invested in developing and promoting its ONESIES® mark for over twenty-four years, the public has come to associate Gerber with the ONESIES® mark, as well as the underlying goodwill and exceptional quality associated with this mark established by Gerber.  Accordingly, Gerber takes any infringement of its ONESIES® mark seriously.

It has come to Gerber’s attention that you are utilizing the ONESIES® mark …without Gerber’s permission (‘Infringing Use’).  You are not an authorized licensee of Gerber and have no authorization to use the ONESIES® mark, or any other designation confusingly similar to Gerber’s ONESIES® mark, and, therefore, your use of ONESIES® is a serious infringement of Gerber’s valuable proprietary rights.  Furthermore, your use of the ONESIES® mark, or any other designation confusingly similar to Gerber’s ONESIES® mark, is misleading and confusing to the public as to the source, affiliation, and sponsorship of the Infringing Use, as the public is likely to assume there is an affiliation with the well-established ONESIES® mark.  Such confusion results in substantial damage to Gerber’s proprietary rights, including dilution of the ONESIES® mark and the goodwill associated therewith.

Accordingly, on behalf of Gerber, we demand that you immediately cease and desist from any further use, display, or publication of the ONESIES® mark in any form.  Gerber will allow you 7 days to disable the infringing domain.

In addition, you must cease and desist from any use of “onesie” or “onesies” in your meta tags.  Thus, a consumer entering the term “onesie” into a search field on your site should not return hits for non-Gerber bodysuits, one-pieces, or creepers.  Use of the ONESIES® trademark in meta tags or search terms will be considered trademark infringement.

Gerber expects that you will comply with the aforementioned demands within seven (7) days from the date of this notice, and provide Gerber with assurances of compliance on or before this date via email … Should you fail to comply with these demands, please be assured that Gerber will vigorously protect its proprietary rights by seeking legal enforcement of its trademark rights and pursuing any and all legal remedies for damages arising from trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition.

Regards,

Brand Enforcement

Phew! That’s a lot of twaddle to just say, ‘hey, quit using our brand name on your website’. But what really gets me is the bit that says:

As a result of Gerber’s extensive use and substantial money and effort invested in developing and promoting its ONESIES® mark for over twenty-four years, the public has come to associate Gerber with the ONESIES® mark, as well as the underlying goodwill and exceptional quality associated with this mark established by Gerber.

Newsflash Mr Gerber – no. They haven’t. If they had I’m pretty damn sure a search on Google for the term ‘onesies’ would at least show you somewhere on the first page of results when in fact, you don’t even appear on the first three. (for the record, I couldn’t be bothered to seach any further).

Now it seems to me if you’ve been investing that much money for that long you need to be asking some serious questions of your marketing people as to where they’ve been diverting those funds to for the last 24 years. Cos it sure as hell hasn’t gone on building up an association between Gerber and onesies!

For the record, I associate the term, ‘onesies’ with the latest craze in adult sleepwear. And yes I call it a craze folks. My son and his mates decided to go to the flicks wearing their onesies. If that’s not crazy I don’t know what is.

You can head over to Amazon and buy any number of onesies from there. None of which are childrenswear by Gerber. Check it out for yourself.

Onesies on Amazon

But I guess they’re not really onesies. Cos if they were, I’m sure Gerber would have ordered Amazon to remove them by now. Or at least to stop calling them onesies in case folks got confused and thought they were kiddies sleepsuits.

Following on from my burglary, things went from bad to worse. Three days later my washing machine packed in. Not good. Not good at all. If I had to choose one item I couldn’t live without, it would be my washing machine.

But I couldn’t just pop to the shops for a new one cos, of course, I was still waiting on my bank cards being replaced. (just as an aside, how the hell do people manage without a debit card?) Finally had to transfer money to son’s bank account, (thank god for Internet banking) and send him to the shops to pick up the new washer.

So far so good.

Till he disconnected the old washer and damaged the pipe causing a flood of biblical proportions. (Okay, so I’m exaggerating, but hell, this is the internet and you’re not meant to believe any of the stuff you read on here anyway). So then I set out to get a plumber to come fix the leaking pipe.

It would have been easier to fry an egg on an iceberg. Really, I kid you not.

Either they didn’t answer their phones, or they didn’t turn up when they said they would. And bear in mind, all this time my pile of dirty clothes is getting bigger. Lord knows what I’d have done if I’d ran out of clean knickers!

Thankfully Iley’s plumbing services in Shotton saved the day. Bless the guy, he’d just finished work when I rang but he still came straight round, sorted out the leak and plumbed in my washing machine while he was on. That’s what you call service.

And he didn’t charge as much as I’d been quoted by the idiots who didn’t even really want the job anyway. The rest of you no good plumbers should take notice of how to really run a business.

So I’d like to dedicate this post to him and hope everyone looking for a plumber in Durham gives this guy the job.

Unfortunately, I didn’t lock my door when I went to bed. My bad. Does that mean it’s my fault?

Like hell is it?

I may have made it easier for the thieving gits to get in, but nobody has the right to come into my home and take my property, regardless of whether the door is open, closed, locked or not.

Frankly, I’m more than a little pissed right now. Not just at the gits who broke into my home last night. But at the whole bloody world we seem to be living in. A world where folks have no respect for other folks. And where the bloody do-gooders are more worried about protecting the human rights of the criminals than they are with protecting the rights of the victims.

Props to the two lovely coppers who came out to see me after the event. And to the lovely lady from down the street who found my purse and promptly rang me to return it.

I would like to leave a message here to the morons who did it. But alas, they probably wouldn’t read it and I would hate for the rest of you to realise just how low down and dirty I can really get when the need arises. So I’ll content myself with passing the message on in person when I catch up with them.

But she did.

And it’s just not fair.

Sure there are other things in life that aren’t fair either. Just like there are some people that don’t matter.  But right now. Today. I don’t give a shit about any of them.

V, hun, take care up there. We’ll miss you down here.

X

I don’t know how come I’ve never made the push before to actually make my dreams come true. Maybe I didn’t think my dreams were as important as other people’s? Or maybe I didn’t really believe I deserved to have them come true. Or maybe I was just too damn lazy to do what needed doing!

Cos that’s the thing with dreams. They don’t come true all by themselves. You have to help them along a little. And not by chanting some nonsensical mantra for 15 minutes every day. If you think that’s going to help you then think again petal. It ain’t. But maybe you like dreaming your dreams more than living them. Who am I to argue?

I can’t remember the last time I was so looking forward to the year ahead. My life has been a bit of a mess (ok, who am I trying to kid? It’s been a helluva big mess) for years now. Even the people who’ve shared it with me can’t believe half the stuff that’s actually happened. But finally I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and I’m not convinced it’s just another train coming at me from the other direction.

And the moral of this little story?

Get off your arse and start making your own dreams come true. Make this the year you start living your dreams instead of just dreaming them. You don’t have to live them all at once. One at a time, slow and easy.

The only one standing in the way of making your dreams come true is you. So move.

Of course that was when Google was in fact a search engine. Now Google is nothing more than a  lazy fat ass bitch who thinks all I want to do is spy on my mates and see what they’re interested in. Get real Google!

If I want to know if my friends recommend a restaurant, or a holiday company, or a book, or any other damn thing, I will ask them. Not you.

You are not my mate. You are (or were) a search engine. You are supposed to show me completely original, unbiased results when I ask you something. Not just regurgitate what my mates are looking at.

Ok, I know it’s a hard job keeping up with everything that gets posted on the Internet every minute of every day. I know there’s a lot of crap out there and sifting through it just so you can show it to me might be a pain in the arse for you. (Do search engines have arses?) But that’s what you are paid to do.

And you are paid for it. Quite handsomely I might add. Those ‘sponsored links’ you throw in all over the place don’t come cheap. Are you going to remove them considering I’m (supposedly) only interested in seeing what my mates are interested in? Cos I can tell you right now, not a single one of my mates is interested in any of your sponsored listings!

Get off your lazy butt and get back to searching the Internet for what I want and quit relying on my mates to tell you!

So, on to 2012 and those pesky new year resolutions that we all make and then drop like hot bricks, usually before the first week is out. Ok, so maybe you don’t drop your resolutions that quickly. If you don’t, then you’re a smart arse and should be very proud of yourself. For the rest of us mere mortals, dropping them is almost as much of a tradition as making them in the first place.

This year, however, I figure I’d best stick to mine because it may well be the last chance I get. (Seeing as how the world is ending ya know ) And then I thought, if I stick them up here for the world to see, I’d have to stick to them or y’all would know what a loser I am and I can’t possibly let that happen! So here you go.

Releasing the Skinny Bitch

She’s in there somewhere. Hiding behind the layers of fat and the years of being Mrs Nicey Nicey. Stripping away the fat will no doubt be a lump easier than remembering to tell folks to get lost when they ask for stuff they have no right asking for.

For years, I’ve opted for the peaceful life and just let folks get on with doing whatever it is they’re doing. I used to put in my two-penneth but then realised it was a waste of time because they’ll do it anyway, regardless of whatever I say or think or feel. So I’ve tended to save my breath in the hope of saving my sanity.

That ain’t gonna happen anymore. It hasn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped. In fact, it hasn’t worked out at all. Opening my mouth or keeping it closed has no effect on what other people do. But it will at least give me the satisfaction of knowing Iam being a bitch.

Fulfilling My Dreams

This year sees me taking my girls to Florida. I’ve only been wanting to go for the last 20 years. Ever since my own kids were little. Never had the money to do it, and still don’t if I’m honest. But some things are more important than money. And dreams are one of those things.

I can live without Sky tv. I don’t need an expensive mobile contract. Going out partying isn’t really my scene. And seeing as how I won’t be eating any more takaways (see above about losing the fat) there’s even more money to be saved!

All of which is going to the Florida fund, or the, ‘fulfilling my dreams’ fund. Any shortfall will be made up by my credit card company. They’re nice like that. And if I’m really lucky, I won’t even have to pay it back because the world will end shortly after we return anyway.

World Peace in Shotton

That’s it. That’s all I want. I’m not asking for world peace for the whole of the world, though if you could swing it, that would be super awesome. For now though, I’ll settle for just having it in my own little corner of the globe. In fact, if I’m brutally honest, I’ll settle for world piece just here in my own home and the rest of Shotton can get on and deal with their own wars themselves.

You see, Christmas is supposed to be about giving and loving and goodwill to all men. All that stuff that makes you feel good inside. Instead, it seems to be about which latest (and most expensive) gadget you can persuade Santa to leave in your stocking. And of course, your gadget has to be better than your mates, and you have to get more of them than anyone else, or your life just won’t be worth living.

Check out the shops. They’re full of screaming kids, all dragging their parents round the gadget aisles, Kindles, ipods, smartphones,…. the list goes on and on and on and on…. Give me a break from it all. Please. Pretty please. Pretty pretty please.