Things I learnt on hitting 30

NOTHING starts a conversation more than about ageing.

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(via lmaobruh)

No, not me. I’m considerably and irretrievably more than 30 down the road to hell and high water with piranhas and electric jellyfish swimming up my pantaloons.

Here’s what a friend of mine says through my social feed:—

Some things I’ve learnt since being 30…

(via inaquarius.ro)

1. Breakfast doesn’t make you fat, DINNER does.

2. Family does come first.

3. The weekend are made for rest … and series.

4. Going out late means you’ll be home by 12am (ok … latest 1am).

5. Phones are for apps and games, but rarely used for actual calling.

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(via c4c)

6. The weather is NEVER nice to you … (too hot, too cold, too humid, too dry…)

7. You used to think when you wake up, that belly would disappear… but now it doesn’t.

8. Metabolism is no longer an internal function, you have to work for it.

9. My FB friends are all either, married, getting married, pregnant, had babies
or the ones that are “forever single.”

10. You can live without a phone, but you can’t live without WhatsApp.

(via Zazzle)

11. A good night out is when you go home by 11pm, shower and in your bed by 12am.

12. Flats are your new best friends.

13. Makeup is not compulsory, skin care is.

14. Massages are a necessary part of a weekly routine.

15. PMS stands for pre- and post-menstrual … which means the entire month…

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Compatriots speaketh

“Welcome to this age tickbox, though I already forgot
what I observed when I was 30 because it’s bloody long time ago!”

“… I totally relate to this list…”

“LOL. And … life starts at 30.”

“Makes perfect sense at 30. Like #11.”

“At least 7–8 items describe me!!!”

“But didn’t you turn 30 like a few years ago?”

“Oh … and should add two more things…

16. Lazy to walk and prefer to take transport instead, even if a short distance.

17. Less eager (or dare not go on rides)…

“Been there, done that…”

“What about ‘Yeah, I am going to a party this weekend!’
actually means a baby’s 100th-day or birthday party
rather than an all-you-can-drink/dance/club party!”

“Forever single indeed!!!!!”

Stark naked reality checklist there. (Yours truly)

(hat tip to Clara for the feed)

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The Naked Listener’s Corollary

Your ability to pull chicks or studs (or both!) is now superseded by
your ability to pull the nearest waiter to get your food ordered.

*Groan*

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Could suck more, given half the chance

TO anyone out there who’s just turned 30 or in imminent danger of it, the ‘Dirty Thirties’ aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Then again, things could suck big time, thanks but no thanks to your forebears…

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This is Zara Hartshorn of the UK in 2010

She’s not a middle-aged woman.

(via Jalwah)

Zara with her mum in 2010

She was just 13 years old then, looking like this.

She has lipodystrophy, a genetic disease that makes her look far older.

She’s got good-looking arms though. Look!

(via Jalwah)

Zara’s sweet sixteen now.

Imagine no more about her possible cleavage.

I COULD just picture the horrific excitement of you lot of perverts out there about
MILFs and grannies with teen staying power.

Tsk, tsk, you dirty sods…

(via the Mirror of the UK)

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Draw your own fountain of youth, sooth or vermouth

Just so you newly reached (or even born-again) “Dirty Hairy” folks understand:–

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(via keepcalm-o-matic)

Or it could mean this—

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(via quickmeme)

Your mileage may vary, and account for variable change.

Draw your own conclusions — or from your own fountain of youth, whichever is easier.

Or just settle on the vermouth and the thirtysometing teen porn, I guess.

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2013. (B13246)

‘We are Wall Street’: No, you’re a walnut

Click image for larger picture

Wall Street’s rejoinder to Occupy Wall Street protestors

This image of a Wall Street guy’s retort has become a famous Internet meme. We wouldn’t expect anything less from a Wall Street guy, no less.

Now that Quantitative Easing 3 (‘QE3’) is in the offing and our world looks set to completely implode on itself, we need to answer back to this.

(For those who didn’t get the memo, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank announced QE3 a few days ago. QE3 will involve the Fed in open-ended purchase of long-term, mortgage-backed securities at the rate of US$40 billion a month (that’s 40,000 million dollars to you Brits) of mortgage debt. The rationale behind QE3 is to boost economic growth and reduce unemployment.)

What a sharply retarded pile of wrong this is.

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Let’s really spell it out for those who still think QE3/4/5/6/etc is a dynamite idea:

• People aren’t angry that investors are investing and bankers banking.
• People are angry that the powers-that-be gave away their tax dollars to the rich.
• And they’re angry at the rich whose wilful incompetence and outright thievery caused the latest financial diabetes.
• The Occupy protestors should demo in Washington DC instead because it was DC that gave the money way.

More: click on the page 2 now:—

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Paternity leave will leave you clutching at straws later

MY EYEBALLS just rolled in their sockets when I heard it.

The late news on telly last night had an item about paternity leave — and whether Hong Kong should have paternity leave since (and I quote the anchor) “the government has been considering it for some years.”

Oh, give me break, Mr [W]Anchorman. The government has NEVER considered it until very, very recently. Paternity leave is The New Black — oh-so-terribly sociologically and fashionably in line with a more caring, equal, sustainable community.

Where have we heard those words before? I asked myself, eyeballs still rolling in their sockets.

We’ve got statutory maternity leave for at least a quarter-century. Notwithstanding the law, lots of bosses (male and female in equal numbers) just charge right ahead and give the luckless, pregnant employee the sack for being in that male-induced condition. And if she’s got off lucky, then it’s more usually pay docked for the whole 40 weeks of pregnancy. Or try permanent salary reduction, whichever works best for The Boss.

Bosses like that clearly don’t have parents or are not parents themselves, which are the only two possible reasons to account for their behaviour that I could think of right now without air conditioning.

(Srsly, I don’t know why they do those highly antisocial things of theirs. I’m not a bowl of jelly or come from a family of psychopaths. So I just don’t know how abnormal people think.)

Bosses (male and female) sack preggers all the time here, mainly because it’s in our nature as a ‘laissez-faire’ (lazy fairy?) capitalistic culture. But, actually, it is more because bosses often can get off scott-free because our wonderfully obsequious, servile Labour Tribunal:

1. is sodding useless at its job, and
2. has a highly noticeable tendency to side with the employer class.

More often than not, employers are the chaps and chappesses with hard cash, so who’s to say solidarity with the winning side isn’t a winning strategy?

JUST A PLOY, MA’AM

You idiots, the paternity leave is just a ploy. It’s oneupmanship and/or gamesmanship worthy of Stephen Potter.

Maternity leave in Hong Kong is 10 weeks — four before delivery date, six after. It’s measly, it’s mean-spirited, but it’ll do for bearing your next misbegotten generation.

Srsly, it’s serious business. The mum-to-be (and her supine ‘partner’) knows a couple of things that have headed (and still heading) her way:

• She’s already run the gauntlet of being threatened with dismissal.
• Pay docked ever since she started looking a bit deformed.
• Daily expenses will skyrocket the hell out of solar orbit at Warp Speed 3 at the moment of hospital admission.
• Warp Speed 5 to 9 expenses when the baby comes out.
• Permanently reduced wages when she gets back to work.
• Be sacked for being in breach of company confidentiality clause for telling the hospital she’s on maternity leave.

Srsly, it’s serious business. Wikicyclopediatrica says:

“Hong Kong has one of the world’s lowest birth rates—0.9 per woman of child-bearing age, far below the replacement rate of 2.1. With just 1,032 babies born in 2009 to every 1,000 fertile women, it is estimated that 26.8% of the population will be aged 65 or more in 2033, up from 12.1% in 2005.” (Wikipedia)

You and I could gem up umpteen reasons and causalities (and maybe ‘casualties’ too, no?) for our failing/falling birthrate. The real damper is with this maternity leave thingy. You get pregnant, you get fired. In an expensive town. Would you dare get pregnant?

NEWS FOR YOU, BRO

Here’s the reality check about paternity leave currently “under sincere and resolute consideration by the government”:

Once the menfolk get paternity leave, the maternity leave
will most likely be shaved down.

If in doubt, WOK it out! Eventually, the wok will cook you through and through if you don’t watch yourself.

This is a town still living in Britannic Victorian Mock Gothic Edwardian Muncipal Disneyesque Industrial Revolution Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics. Give on the left hand, take back with the right.

WHAT HAVE I DONE THIS TIME

Paternity leave is the latest cardtrick in the game of workersploitation and benefitsploitation in this cardsharp town.

I tell people, but they don’t seem to take it too well that our 10-week maternity leave doesn’t stack up in muscle power against statutory time off in other, primitive countries.

I say it makes more sense to crank up the maternity-leave days instead of giving it to the bastard father. The mother really need the extra days off. They think I’m mad. So, clearly, these people don’t have mothers, otherwise why else would they think I’m round the bend?

But, nooo, the father wants time off too, which he’ll spend on swilling cat’s-piss beer and soggy crisps in the company of over-imaginative but under-promiscuous chicks who are not actually chicks.

Yeah, I like talking to walls, because walls are so responsive and understanding. Derp.

So I spent the whole of last night designing and typesetting this humongous chart (below). It’s about maternity leave quotas of all the countries in the world. And Hong Kong is way way down at the bottom (but not quite down to the pits, as the USA is — sorry).

And you’d better appreciate this infographic — because I’m THAT easily irked nowadays and can easily tip over into a livid rage, mainly because I’m in the middle of no air conditioning and my body is coming out with strange, exotic rashes because of the heat — but that’s another story.

(Click image for massively massive hi-res massif of an infographic)

In case you wonder, I’ve been giving paternity leave to employees for years at 50% pay rate, law or no law. I do it because it’s The Right Thing To Do. The government probably has a different agenda.

Text and image © The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2011.