Practically dead

Hey vast empty internet.

This blog has kind of died in the ass. Maybe it'll be revived, maybe not. At the moment, the prognosis is grim.

Eventually, I may set up a new blog, but in the meantime, i'm on twitter here. Come follow me like I'm the Pied Piper of Hamelin and you're all a bunch of entranced German children.

Time flies

Especially when you're busy travelling all around Europe and shit.

That's why I haven't written lately. We've been travelling our asses off and I haven't had time, nor have I wanted to take time out to write a post. Although now we have a lazy week in San Sebastian, Spain so I'm writing this so you know this isn't completely dead. It's close, but not completely.

Maybe when we get back hoem in November, I'll write about things more often on here.

In the meantime, just be thankful your keyboard isn't covered in weird-ass symbols and you have the @ symbol in a location that doesn't require you to have twelve fingers to get all the pertinent keys pressed. Also, who in the hell has a keyboard with a 'q' where the 'a' should be?
What are these? Foreign languages?
Ridiculous. I bet they don't even have normal food in these places.

Music and Geekery

This is brilliant.

Radiohead + Old computing artifacts = Awesome

It all kicks off just after the one minute mark.

Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.
Way better than anything that anyone did for the Nude remix project

Sometimes it's all a bit surreal.

Especially when you're sitting at the bar of your local historic pub (which has a vending machine in the bathroom that sells blow-up sheep sex dolls, vibrators and viagra) drinking a pint of cider, watching one of the pub cats sleep on a bar stool, whilst Mean Girls plays on a plasma screen, its sound drowned out by a string of Garth Brooks songs. Meanwhile, a burly Welsh man and a small Indian guy stand at the jukebox arguing over whether to play more Garth Brooks or some Ice Cube.

Sometimes it's all a bit surreal.

Dear dude that used the toilet at work before me,

Hi.
It's super awesome that you enjoy corn. I like corn too. The good thing about corn is it's in so many foods. Like popcorn. And creamed corn. But you have my respect for sticking with good old fashioned corn kernels. You're a straight shooter. I like that.
If I might just make a little suggestion though; One of the benefits of corn is that it's pretty handy when it comes to the whole nutrient provision stakes. If you want to harness the awesome power that is Corn Energy™, maybe you should try chewing your corn. Not only will it help you digest all that corn, it also means you'll probably choke a bunch less than you currently do whilst trying to woof down those little-kernels-of-joy whole.
The other good thing about chewing your corn is that when I use the toilet after you, I'm not greeted by a tiny armada of yellow buoys, bobbing away in the bowl, marking the area in which you recently shat. As nice as it is to be greeted by your little golden battleships, I do prefer my toilets to be corn-free zones.
If you could look into the whole mastication process, it would be greatly appreciated.
Best of luck with all your future endeavours, corn related and otherwise.

Sincerely,

Jiminy

Hair things and blocks that stick together to make other things.

I saw a guy on the bus just now who had the craziest beard ever. Crazy as in, if the members of self-titled-album-era Whitesnake joined into some hair metal Voltron and attached to this guys, chin, it would look exactly like this beard. He may have been a wizard for all I know.
Dude had serious beard.

There were at least three distinct beards within the greater beard. Clearly the point of his chin was the no-nonsense, straight-up long greyish beard producing zone. To either side of this existed a small area which would be described as 'deep rough', were his mandible a golf course.
Needless to say, his mandible was not a golf course and he just had a shitload of long unkempt hair hanging off his face.
Moving away from the chin up towards the cheeks, there was the crazy zone. The area just behind his cheekbones was clearly receiving a rich supply of insane hormones. Or maybe it's where he shot up his crack, cos the facial hair here was the most abundant and ridiculous I've ever encountered.
Think perma-perm. Tight, bouncy perma-perm. It was like a hundred thousand tiny slinkys attempting to cascade down his face. I wondered how he ate, how many biscuits were hidden within, how many orangutans had given birth betwixt his dense growth. I wondered if there was a Predator lurking within, hunting down a team of commandos...
Whilst I was busy wondering this, the owner of the beard glared at me. It would seem I had been staring. Considering I'd run off on such a tangent, I probably was staring at him with a bit of a crazy face too.
What does he expect though, his face is basically a portable zoo.

I'm probably just jealous though, because I have the facial hair growing ability of an 8 year old girl. With alopecia. Facial alopecia.
I think if I collected all the hair I've ever shaved off my face, I could probably weave it into a piece of string that would be long enough to maybe tie around your thumb. Although I don't think you could weave my facial hair. The limited facial hair i do grow is hardcore, like tiny bits of fishing line. But not that weak-ass fly-fishing line, more like off-shore blue marlin style fishing line.
In years gone by, aboriginal tribes used to gather around my bathroom window and I'd throw them my facial hair trimmings and they'd hollow them out and turn them into didgeridoos. In return they'd make me beaded necklaces.
For reals.

The flipside to this is that I have totally kick ass head-hair growing abilities. The rate at which hair grows from my head is off the chain. (I'm sorry, but there was no other way to convey that)
I try to keep it on the down-low these days, but I used to have big hair. Like, afro big. When my hair grows long, it doesn't fall around my ears. It's not endearing. It's not even foppish. It could only be described as 'Furry Deathstar'.
Imagine if Macy Gray and a thousand blaxploitation actors from the 70's had a massive orgy in a big round topiary bush. My hair would be the love child borne of this tryst.*

A mate and I had a competition in our last year of high school to see who could grown the biggest afro.
I think I cut mine first, but mainly because 40 degree heat and 4 kilos of hair on your head don't mix. Also it smelt weird. Also, because I went in for a trim one day and the hairdresser said to me "Oh, there's a stick in here."
So i guess I lost.
The other reason I lost is that we were hanging out watching a movie one day and my mate was scratching his head, then pulled out a lego block.
He's not even a magician, so this was totally awesome. The only way i could trump that would be to discover a Duplo block in my hair and no one has Duplo except for 3 year olds and special needs people. The blocks are so fucking big that unless you had a designated Duplo storage room in your house, the maximum number of Duplo blocks you could have in one place at any given time was about 7. 7 rectangles that stick together. What a bunch of fun that is.
Even young Stumpy McNo-Arms from next door could play with Duplo.
What an unfortunate coincidence that his parent's surnames were McNo and Arms. And they called him Stumpy! And he had no forearms/hands. Terrible really. Such inconsiderate parents.

Stumpy did good? You did real good Stumpy. Real Good.

So I lost. My mate won. We both cut our hair and regained our standing as decent humans.
If I could have found some Duplo though, I would have been king. King of Hair. I could of had my own Hair-em. I would have been a modern day Robin of Locks-ley. I would have... err.. I'm out of hair puns.

Anyways, hair has been a prevailing them of late. The Girl just got her hair done and it looks pretty ace, I need a haircut because the afro is respawning and I need to destroy it before it envelops me and a guy at work was involved in a hair related incident the other night. One of the guys, Chris, was telling me he couldn't help overhearing the dude behind him speaking to someone on the phone.
Apparently they were calling people on behalf of a cancer charity and the dude was getting way too into it and asking some pretty inconsiderate questions. Chris thought nothing of it, but then he heard this little slice of fried gold:

"Oh so do you know anyone that's been through chemotherapy?"
"Oh you have been?"
"Wow. Did you lose all your hair?"
"Fantastic!!"
"So anyway, we're calling to ask for donations for...."

Wow. Nice work pilot-knob!
I'm sure everyone that's been through chemo thinks it's 'Fantastic'.
"Oh you're sterile too? FANTASTIC!"
I'm pretty sure when people are diagnosed with leukaemia they get a flyer that says "Need Chemo? FANTASTIC! Scared about losing your hair? FANTASTIC! You've got leukaemia? That's right- FANTASTIC!"

What a douche. I bet he had a beard. Or at least a bucket of Duplo.



*Ok, the use of borne/born is hells confusing in this instance. I'm going with borne, as nouns aside, I think it is the most grammatically correct form to use in this phrase.
Correct me if I'm wrong though. I think I'm a bit paranoid after the whole canape ordeal.

Also, include Art Garfunkel in the orgy scene.

Putting the 'Hi' into Hiatus

Wow.
It's been aaaaages.
Turns out this whole 'real life' business can be a time consuming pain in the ass.

So yeah, I've been busy sorting out travel plans, working fuckloads and doing assorted other junk.

Still, not much to write at the moment as I'm kinda overloaded in the head.

Here's a tip for y'all though:
If you're emailing a relatively large number of highly ranked, government communications staff, don't get distracted and try to work out the correct spelling of hors d'oeuvres using only the powers of your mind.
Mainly because it will be discovered that the powers of your mind are in fact categiorized as 'Feeble' after you realise you've just sent out a batch email with the text "hors ordeavues" sitting just below the "Dear [important government person]" part.

Yeah, my bad.
I think the government have now tagged me as a "Special-Needs Child" in their database.
Next time I'll just write canapes instead.

One of these days, everything will chill the fuck out for a bit and I'll get back to posting with more regularity. Bring on the literary Metamucil!

Back to the grindstone...

Oh, how sweet.

Upon my entering the unisex toilets at work:

"I'd use the other loo if I was you."

See, the ladies I work with are actually really, really considerate.

Like all decent humans, I hate Crocs.

I just found out that I am the only person in my office that is vehemently opposed to the wearing of Crocs. If you don't know what crocs are, you must live in one of the few remaining pristine, Croc free zones. Consider yourself lucky.
It pains me to even capitalise the word Crocs as it feels like I'm validating their existence.
Apparently, my colleagues think Crocs all sorts of things, like 'nifty' and 'lightweight' and worst of all, 'funky'.
This differs from my description of Crocs which often includes words such as 'fucked', 'shithouse' and 'slap-in-the-face-to-all-thinking-humans.'

Goddammit people, what the fuck?

Although I may have overstepped the mark in expressing my dislike for them whilst conversing with the banshee manager (The BM).

The BM: Oh yeah, my family all have crocs, even my little boy has a pair and he loves them! In fact, we all went to go out the other day and I said to my husband, "We can't all go out wearing crocs! Hahaha!"

Me: Ha, yeah because I know if I saw a whole family wearing crocs, I'd drive up over the kerb and run them over! Bam! Natural Selection! Hahaha!

The BM: [Shocked look accompanied by awkward silence.]

Me: [As my maniacal laughter fades] Err... Yeah, I'm gonna make lunch now.

Does anyone know if there's an animal that's higher up the food chain than the crocodile? I can't think of one. If I could I would make a pair of shoes and call them "[Abbreviated term for an animal higher up the food chain than the crocodile]" and their soles would be made from melted down Crocs and the upper would be made from the skin of the people I caught wearing Crocs in public.

Good or bad?

You're a pigeon trapped inside a cafeteria/concourse/common area in a university.
There's no other pigeon folk in the building, which makes you sad as you get lonely and have no one to coo at.
You do however have unimpeded access to ALL THE CRUMBS and all; the shelter.

Although, you don't have any sticks to make a nest out of and the floor is made of shiny marble, so you slip over a lot.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Pigeons of the world, I want to know your opinions.

What has our protagonist gotten himself into now?

Hands up if you spent 16 hours over the weekend locked in a room with thirty people learning the 'science' of making a phone call?

No? Anyone? Just me then.
Damn.

Boy was it tough. Painful. Demoralising. Patronising. Conceited.
Imagine being spoken to like a 3 year old for 16 hours.
Then add in a fuck-wad who insists on relating everything the trainer says to his past job where he was some salesperson extraordinaire. A past job where he... wait for it....

... sold double glazing. Could you be a more stereotypical shit salesman type asshole?

I got into an argument with this guy over lunch as he wanted to tell everyone how he went on a twelve day sales course and is now some psychological superpower. Dude thought he was Professor Charles Xavier. He insisted that he could manipulate anyone into doing anything he wants by getting them to answer questions that form a response pattern. Then, (wait for it) HE CHANGES THE PATTERN SO YOU SAY YES TO HIS REQUEST!

Pfft. Fuck off Uri Geller.
I told him he sounded stupid and I'd never buy anything from him ever.
He told me I'm the sort of person he loves to sell to, because he loves it when they eventually fall for his ploys and buy whatever it is he's selling.
I told him he couldn't sell to someone, if they weren't buying anything, hated him and thought that what he was selling was shit.
A girl in the group asked him when he'd been brainwashed.
He mumbled some pseudo-psych bullshit and went out for a cigarette.
I finished my mashed potato and imagined fun ways I could severely injure him.
I also postulated that guys with long vulture necks and giant adam's apples are always fuckwits. I base this on knowing three people that support my hypothesis. Shush. My sample size is valid.

The only positive thing came in the 'icebreaker' exercise. The exercise required you to find a partner, learn about them and tell everyone else who they were, where they came from and one weird fact about them.

We struck gold on the first pair.

Trainer: Ok, you guys, you go first.

Tate: Uh, this is Greg. Greg's from London and the weird thing about Greg is that he has OCD.

[Awkward silence as Greg glares at Tate, and then glances around awkwardly whilst unbuttoning and re-buttoning the top button on his shirt. Five times.]

I almost explode holding back my laughter. No one else sees the humour in this.

Social awkwardness is my favourite spectator sport.

The only other good thing was hearing the trainer tell a fully grown man to go out into the corridor and wait for her as she would not stand for people having private conversations in the classroom.

So umm. Yeah. This job is probably going to suck. At least i got to watch a video about an Orangutan for my training this afternoon.

Hmmm..... (A story in three parts)

Part One

After reading people's comments on various blogs today I've decided I'm sick of fuckwits on the internet that make retarded, inflammatory, pointless comments and think that grammar is the lady their grampa married.
Yes my grammar's not perfect, but I don't paint it orange, tie it to a balloon and tape that balloon to a seagull bound for some place where the WHOLE WORLD CAN SEE IT. Like the internet.
You will never see my bad grammar, painted orange, tied to a balloon and taped to a seagull bound for the internet.

What we need is semi-sentient keyboards that can tell when someone is being a tool and simply melt their fingers.

*Meanwhile back in less-angry land*

Part Two

I got the call centre job. It's for a charity, it's on evenings and Saturdays and I call old people, convince them to give me money, then get their bank details. This is how I spend my spare time anyways, so no big changes there.
I also get to wear one of those cyborg headset things, which basically makes this like the best job ever. I wonder how long it takes before people get sick of me yelling "HEY GUYS, GUYS! LOOK! I'M A ROBOT" whilst dancing in a way which resembles the fashion in which a robot would dance. Probably not long.
I think I may try to take the job to the next level and turn into my alter ego which is '80's Sales Guy'.
80's Sales Guy is just like me, except he has super gelled down hair, wears one of those blue shirts with white cuffs and collar and has suspenders. He shouts things like "You got it!" and does 'gun fingers' heaps.
That's how I'll be rollin'.

* Fast Forward to a small town called Banality*

Part Three

I caught the bus home from the interview last night. I sat at the front, on the top level of the double-decker.
Somewhere near Liverpool Street station, the bus turned a corner and in front of the bus, four dudes on rollerblades came skating down the road.
At the time, I was listening to some Alexisonfire, which was lucky. I mean if I'd had Ace of Base playing through my iPod, then I would have totally thought it was 1993.
Mainly because 1993 was rollerblading's equivalent to punk's 1977.
And 1993 was Ace of Base's equivalent to rollerblading's 1993.

It could be said that 1993 was a good year for both Ace of Base and rollerblading.
Conversely, not one single year has been a good year for this guy:

"What the hell are you meant to be? Surprise Roller Elf? There's no Surprise Roller Elf in the fucking nativity scene. Once again you've ruined Christmas, Dad."

Blegh... It's time I went to bed. The Stupid is stirring inside me.

A snapshot...

Non Blondie: You bought more bread! We've got so much bread in the freezer now.

Me: Yeah we have heaps of bread and bread related products.

NB: We almost have as much stuff in there as the others.*

Me: Yeah, but at least our bread is whole, edible bread, not just random gross bits that no one else wants, like a bag full of umm... bread rind or something.

[Long pause]

Me: Uh, when I said bread rind, I meant crust.

NB: Do you always have to do things the hard way?


This conversation exists because our flatmates have filled the freezer with the offal and other junk that they eat which includes, but is not limited to chicken feet, chicken heads, chicken liver and some unidentifiable part of a pig which may or may not be genital in nature.
That's right- Imagine coming home from work to a bowlful of fried chicken's heads peering up at you, their beaks suspended mid-squawk and their beady little eyes all shriveled and raisin-like in appearance. Then imagine thinking "What smells like a homeless man's warm, urine-soaked pants?", then you spy a pot on the stove and realise it's the source of the smell and then you think "OH MY GOD THEY ARE BOILING A POT OF URINE!", but then you open the pot and realise that instead it contains some weird things and some more chicken parts, then you throw up in your mouth a little before running up the stairs into your room and spraying so much Febreeze into their air that it coats the inside of your lungs and every time you sneeze, crisp, freshly laundered linen flies out your nose.
IMAGINE THIS. THIS IS HOW I LIVE.

Don't push me, cos i'm close to the edge.

Just when you thought I couldn't put myself through any more occupation-related pain...

I'm going over to the dark side
I have organised an job interview for Monday afternoon at a call centre. It's an evening and weekend job that pays decent money and it's not commission based and there's no cold calling.
How bad could it be?


Don't look at me like that.
At least it'll make for good stories.

This travel business makes you do crazy things.

A recap and some other junk...

Well, needless to say, my secret meeting with the CEO went well today. Whilst two of my colleagues don't have jobs as of next week, I used my charm and boyish wiles to convince her that I was awesome and that I could single-handedly turn things around.
Or something like that. Actually nothing like that. I had to be very honest and admit fault but it seemed to work out alright. There was an unnecessarily large amount of talk of office culture though. I found this funny because this is a workplace overrun with middle-aged women with nothing better to do than talk about when they had a cup of tea once that was so hot that the cup melted a mark into the top of their desk and they had to hide it with paper for a week because they'd only been working there for a little while and were afraid they'd lose their job.
Imagine banal conversation like that. All. The. Fucking. Day.
Although I lie. These conversations are punctuated with me being told what smart-casual means.
"So we all have to come along to this event tomorrow night. Dress code is smart-casual. Jiminy that means you should probably wear a collared shirt or something. Maybe jeans, I think that would be ok."
Ahh...yes. Thank you for clarifying smart casual for me. Unfortunately this means I ironed my string vest and camouflage three quarter cargo pants for nothing. Damn.

In an effort to boost the morale in the place, they've opted to install umbrellas in the middle of the groups of desks. Like, big fuck off novelty beach umbrellas. No shit. It's ridiculous.
These are the kind of people that make every second Friday "Dress As Your Favourite Pet Cat Day" because they think it will be so good for morale, not to mention FUCKING HILARIOUS to see Laneesha from accounts dressed up as little Mr Tinkles. They forget however, that no one else in the office owns a cat, let alone multiple felines from which to pick a favourite. Everyone also knows that you let your cats sleep in your bed and that your just-used vibrator has picked up so much cat-hair from your sheets that it looks like an Alsatian's disembodied tail. Fools.

So at the moment, there's a big taffeta umbrella perched gaudily over a desk. A green one, with a parrot on it and fairy lights.
The other one is pink with flowers embroidered on it. And tassels.
I work near colourful umbrellas and tassels, however I'm not a cocktail waiter at a burlesque club. What has my life come to?

Why don't you just shape some shit into a ball, roll it around in your cat-hair sheets and call it a fucking coconut. Because that's closer to paradise than these stupid umbrellas you're surrounding me with.

So being the singular synthesiser of testosterone in a thick swamp of estrogen producing manatees I mockingly declared that I felt left out of the festivities as i didn't have an umbrella above my desk.
Bad move Jiminy. Manatees cannot detect sarcasm.
Yesterday a package arrived in the post for me.
"Open it." My boss says, grinning daftly with her fish-mouth.
I sigh and pull away the packaging.
It's a wide-brimmed hat with corks dangling off it. It even had a kangaroo printed on the front of it. Because that's what we all do in Australia these days. Seriously, live in the now. Why didn't you just get me a brochure for EXPO 88 or a block of cheese signed by Peter Russell Clarke. Why stop there though? Buy me the box set of Crocodile Dundee videos wrapped in prawns and soaked in Eucalyptus oil. Or save yourself the trouble and just write me a card that says HEY YOU'RE AUSTRALIAN. Cos that's about as funny as your fucking hat.

It's like me buying her some severed heads, cos isn't that what the English were into at some stage? Cutting off heads and sticking them to things to ward off their enemies? Or was it burning people? Maybe I could bring her some matches and a some sticks to make a pyre.
They wonder why there's such a high staff turn-over? Geez... I dunno guys, it wouldn't have anything to do with the incompetent managers. Maybe it's because there's NOT ENOUGH UMBRELLAS.

Anyways, I'm getting all worked up. The point of this was to paint a picture of the 'culture' in my office. It may seem to you that it paints a more accurate picture of my current absence of sanity but frankly, I care not. Me and Other Me are very happy with ourselves.

Anyways, my office sucks and I'm powerless to change it, unless I magically develop ever-shrinking ovaries overnight and miraculously turn into a bitter, thick-skulled ass hat.
Quit, you say? I'd like to but I need the cash as The Girl and I are saving furiously (which I imagine would look like a tiny kid frantically jamming handfuls of bank notes into a piggy bank) for our big Europe/India/South East Asia/Back to Australia trip at the end of June.

Looks like I'm in Grit-Your-Teeth-And-Deal-With-It City for three more months. Hooray.
Oh well, I hear it's full of umbrellas culture at least.

Holy shitballs!

It's been a damn long while, homies.

This is mainly due to the Draconian measures that have been introduced to my workplace.
My boss sits beside me and frequently leans over and asks what I'm doing. If, god forbid, I'm taking two minutes out to check my email I get asked why I'm wasting time and not doing ALL THE WORK YOU HAVE, WHY IS THIS?

To which i shrug and scream at her in my head....

Despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage.

Anyways, my place of work is about to implode in a maelstrom of menopausal wrath. It's all cloak and dagger, with whispers in the corridor secret meetings and all kinds of junk.

I have to leave in five minutes for a secret meeting in a nearby coffee shop. I would not be surprised if there are Gregorian chants involved.

I think the meeting could be because the banshee manager overheard a few of us going to town (in the insulting sense, not the sexual one, you bunch of degenerates) on them the other day. And by overheard, I mean sneaked into the hallway and listened. Which is retarded behaviour from people who claim to be more professional than a hat full of doctors.

The problems may be that they heard the following terms being bandied about;

- Fish mouthed wench
- Fish wife
- 88 (Referring to the two fat ladies that are our managers.)
- Captain Aubergine and the Egg-Shaped Crusader (again, a nasty personal attack which i really should refrain from if I ever intend to kick it with Jeebus)
- Incompetent, irritating, thick-skulled, daft, retards.
- Cockwits.

Apparently this could be classed as subordination or some bullshit.

I don't see how.

Meeting begins in a couple of mins. I gotta get going.

Will give you the details upon return. And i'll post more, k?
Is anyone even left around here? Or did you get bored like, three months ago and give up and go to find your gutter humour froma more reputable and intelligent source, like say from a 10 year old?

It's ok. I understand.

Make me laugh. Now.

I'm so in love with this photo that I've decided to make it into a competition.
Leave a caption for it in the comments and after a period of time which is deemed reasonable by the Grand Chancellor (me), a winner shall be selected to have their caption put under the photo and placed in the sidebar here for a period of time which is deemed reasonable by the Grand Chancellor (again, me).
Also, if you're a lurker, now's a good time to say hi, because instead of having to write about the rubbish I've written, you just get to write something funny. How easy is that?

The prize is that you get to be recognised by your peers as having a superior sense of humour. You also get to be on my blog.
What's that you say? Lame prize?
I know but this is a tiny baby blog, not the national fucking lottery. What do you want? An iPod or something? Go click some pop-up ads then, ass hat.
Fine. If you win, I'll print the captioned picture out, POST IT TO YOU IN THE MAIL and you can stick it on your wall. Happy now? You better be.

Quick then, go make with the funnies.

Speaking of the future...

My last post got me thinking about the future and how disappointed people must be with the present. Which coincidentally was the future back then.
You see, everyone's lives were built on the hope that one day, they'd be zipping to the space-port diner a la The Jetsons. Granted, there is similarities- Lots of dads these days work part time in factories, but the difference is that their kids don't get looked after by Ruby Robot; they get left in the car with the windows up and occasionally fed by Rosa, the Hispanic alien from next door.

End digression...

Now here's some edu-ma-cation for all you non-Australians.
Back when I was a wee little tacker, there used to be this awesome show on TV called 'Beyond 2000'.
To an eight year old boy, the name alone was the most exciting thing ever since that time dad left his special cup too close to the high-chair.
The show provided an insight into current developments in science and technology and how they would make the lives of those living in the year 2000 so much more luxurious/simpler/exciting/less baby-vomit-green ridden.
So there was concept cars which had magical future things like electric windows, robot co-drivers and digital speedometers.
There was calculators that FIT INTO THE PALM OF YOUR HAND and could do all kinds of crazy things like addition.
There was laser guided kitchen utensils, jet powered steam irons, anaerobic dust projectors, gaseous plasma heaters and televisions that you didn't have to get up off your orange and green couch to change the channels on.
Fucking sweet.
To me, a dumb eight year old that once got so excited by a tv show about crocodiles that he jumped on the couch and fell onto the coffee table splitting his head open thusly getting himself rushed to hospital and receiving a fuck-tonne of stitches down his forehead, this show was like grown-ups had stolen all my Lego ideas and turned them into awesome, actual, radical things.
If I could have had a wet dream, I would have had one, probably. Instead I think I just wet the bed a few times.
Anyways, my head was filled with these wondrous devices and I longed for the years to pass so one day, in the years after the year 2000, I could fly to school with a jet pack and do my homework on this magical computing device which only needed TWO WHOLE ROOMS to operate and maybe even use electrical wiring to talk to people that also had dedicated computing device rooms in their homes.
I thought the future held alot.

Here I am, almost ten years 'beyond 2000' and I can't even get bullet-points to work properly in Word, I still have to tie my own shoelaces, I can't fucking hover/jet/teleport anywhere and to top it all off, the false prophets that came up with this programme of lies and fraudulent dreams have gone and re-made the TV programme under a new heading.

Now fair play, back in '81 they probably thought they were pretty safe with going with the 'Beyond 2000' name. I mean, 20 years or so is a long time in science. Unless your talking about evolutionary biology, in which case 20 years is fuck all. But in the 'science' that this show referred to 20 years was a long time and I can't fault them for expecting some of the things they showcased to have developed into usable technologies come the big 2-0 (0-0).

My problem's not with 'Beyond 2000', it is with the producers who decided that rather than risk the embarrassment of hazarding a guess and going with 'Beyond 2020', they decided to go with the title 'Beyond Tomorrow' for the new show.

Piss-weak.

Beyond 2000 was about things that may come to fruition in the (kind of but not really) distant future. Sure they made some calls that look stupid now, but dammit, in the 80's they put their spandex-clad asses on the line and I respect that.

Beyond Tomorrow is a cop out. Going from the title, Beyond Tomorrow could be a show about Thursday. And anyone can guess which technologies will exist on Thursday.
"Oh look honey, they're doing a special on electric kettles."
Lame.

The least they could have done is gone for 'Beyond 3000', at least then we wouldn't be alive to ridicule them when their isotopic fusion hats never come to be mass-produced or when the anti-gravity super car fails to be developed or when they fail to stop global warming using a series of mirrors, some gaffa tape and a bucket of liquid nitrogen.

But no, we get Beyond Tomorrow.
I predict that beyond tomorrow, I'll be a disillusioned 23 year old who wastes all his time working, complaining about working, writing drivel on a blog and hating on meaningless tv shows.

You can call me Nostradamus.

We're living in the future people!

I found this at work in some marketing material from years ago.
This guy was a tutor...
Nothing says "I'm a man of the future' like a 6 kilogram mobile cellular telephony device.
What a cool cat. So cool in fact, that when asked for a promotional photo, he avoids the standards profile shot and opts for this gem.


Awesome.

Stay tuned for more exciting stuff. I know I've been neglecting this and hopefully soon I'll have the time to give it some more attention.

Until then, imagine what a camera phone would have looked like back then.

Reasons I love Edinburgh

This morning I decided to not sit in on the things I had organised for work. Instead I decided to do the tourist thing and go for a stroll around Edinburgh. Being daft I decided to do this in t-shirt and thin jumper.
Hello, dumb-ass. You're in Edinburgh. Put some fucking clothes on.
Needless to say i got cold pretty quickly.
I ventured back and got my jacket, laptop and my hat. (Yes, the one the homeless guy was into)
All packed up and looking like such a tourist that even some Japanese ladies with visors, big fuck-off cameras and pants-suits pointed at me and yelled 'Stupid tourist!", I set off. Within 15 minutes I had decided that Edinburgh is the awesome.

These are the reasons why:

- I climbed the Scott Monument. Awesome panoramic views over the harbour, old town, mountains and castle. On my way back down I noticed the best graffiti ever.
"Peanut woz ere. 15-7-79"
This on the world's largest ever monument created in honour of a writer.
Fucking poetic. Nice one Pea.

- I swear I've seen Christopher Lambert waiting for a bus at least 5 times. It's disconcerting to say the least. One guy even grabbed me and said "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!... more minute until this bus arrives, I've been waiting for ages."
I'm lying again. But seriously, there's heaps of dudes that look like they're an Immortal from Highlander.

- Through a completely random series of occurrences, I just snapped myself a photo of the First Minister of Scotland (Which is their version of a Prime Minister) arm in arm with two guys who were protesting against the proposed changes to Scottish immigration law which will mean no more Curry chefs will be allowed to migrate from India. Or something to that effect. Anyways, I somehow found myself out the front of the Scottish Parliament, then I saw these guys with funny hats holding boards with all kinds of wicked slogans like "Save Curry!" The next thing I know I see them all huddled around someone and I think "CAPTAIN CURRY HAS COME TO SAVE THEM"
But no, it's the prime minister of fucking Scotland, wearing a little white curry chef's hat hugging all these Indian dudes. I took a photo because it's not every day you see the leader of a nation hugging a guy who's occupation involves giving people diarrhoea.

- I found a shop that sells Scottish souvenirs called 'Thistle do nicely'. Best regional-based store-name pun so far.

- I saw two dudes walking around in V for Vendetta masks. Which I thought was totally lame and if I had my way, I'd tie them to a stake and put fireworks in their eyes. But, Jeebus had taken care of things for me. So rather than forcing me to you know, commit murder or something, he just made these dudes such massive nerds that they still had to wear their massive coke-bottle glasses on the outside of the masks!
Ha! Way to be a revolutionary, Captain Degenerative Ocular Faculties. I decided his sidekick was called Myopia Man.

- I saw the Edinburgh School of English. Which sounds funny and weird to me. Probably sounds weirder to someone who doesn't speak English.

- I threw a pebble at a pigeon and hit it.

- I saw a tiny orange tractor driving up the steepest hill ever. Seriously, it was the size of a small ride-on lawnmower, but with a fully enclosed cabin and stuff.
What, no one else finds this funny? Fuck you. Go see television and tell it you want your imagination back. Also get it to eviscerate Ray Romano or whatever the fuck his name is. God I despise that guy. Also tell it to go drop off a map and a helicopter to the poor bastards on Lost. For fucks sake. Someone sort their shit out for them. How long can you not know where you are for? Tards.

Did I just lose COMPLETE TRACK of what I was talking about? The Scottish drunkard reading over my shoulder said "Aye, yer doom foch." Shut up, Christopher Lambert.

- There's a massive number of gingers over here. They have hair that's like, blazing red. Which makes me look like a brunette. (I have somewhat auburn hair. Shutup.) Finally I feel like I fit in. It's like I'm a monkey that was separated from my monkey crew when I was a monkey baby and made to walk around crashing cymbals together and wearing a fez and now I've finally been reunited with my kin. Although now I don't smell like my monkey brethren, so they all claw and bite my face and throw their stinky monkey shit at me.
Umm.. yeah.

I'm going to make a proposal for the Scottish tourist board. My slogan is going to be:

"Come to Scotland and be reunited with you monkey homies whilst the eyes of a thousand Christopher Lamberts and gingers burn into the back of your skull. Also you can throw things at pigeons and you'll actually hit them."

So yeah, that's why I love Edinburgh.

Photo evidence to come soon.

Don't worry, be happy

Sometimes all it takes to make your day is to have a completely insane, muttering Scotsman walk past you, turn around and shout "YOUR HAT! I LIKE YOUR HAT! NICE HAT!!!"

Thanks McDude!
I'd high-five you but I think you have a needle stuck in your fingerless gloves.

Weather Update: Still windy. Still raining. Still cold.


Now I think of it- The whole hat compliment doesn't really make my day. It upsets me. Receiving compliments about your fashion sense from a crazy homeless guy is like having Heath Ledger compliment you on your medication management.

Too soon?

Aye

Still slacking on the blog front.
I'M IN SCOTLAND ALL THIS WEEK DOING SOME WORK THINGS. SCOTLAND IS WET AND COLD. FANCY THAT...

Whoa, holy mother of god I'm shouting.
I hate when I have a Capsident™. I couldn't be bothered going back and deleting all of that.

Anyways, I haven't had a chance to do the rounds and check out everyone elses issues/hilarity/stories about how their cat once did a poo that smelt like fried sultanas.

So once again, I leave you with no stories and a promise of improvement. Think of me of your amnesic, apologetic veteran uncle. But without the bad touch.

And just like the prodigal son I've returned...

Ya huh bitches.
That's a lyric from House of Pain's 1992 hit single 'Jump Around'.
"Tryin to play me out like as if my name was Sega" is another lyric from the same song.
Halcyon days of rap they were. I mean "...like as if my name was Sega". That's a damn compound similie or something referencing a gaming console!
Shit is tight, motherfuckers.
Word.

Anyways, I'm getting off topic.

I've brought the blog back up. (Or if House of Pain were phrasing this, it would go "And just like a motherly bird, I've regurged.")
Apologies for any confusion caused by the sudden disappearance. I don't think there's going to be any dramas, so am fairly confident I'm not gonna be fired anytime soon. Hooray.
Still though, not a great deal of internet connected free time at the moment, so posts will be kinda sporadic for a little longer.

In the meantime, here's an issue I have.
I have stupid sausage fingers that don't always press the keys my stupid sausage brain tells them to.
As such I'm frequently mistyping things, often with interesting results.
For example, the 'c' key is close to the 'v' key, and with me not being particularly well versed in the art of touch typing, 'v' often boldly presents itself where it's not wanted. Kinda like when I put on a beard and a trenchcoat and turn up at the kindergarten, but way less creepy. Or vreepy as it would be.
Also, my fingers get ahead of themselves and i end up putting words in the wrong order. For example, 'odrer'. Nice one Cabtaim Dyslexia.... (See what i did there! Wow.)
Anyways, this is usually not so much of an issue, but my work dictates that I use the words "Culture and The Arts" quite frequently in my day to day typings.
Whilst checking some copy, I found some glaring errors. Here they are demonstrating how a few small typos can make all the difference.

"...the course recently took place at the Centre for Vulture and The Arts."

"... possibilty of increased funding for businesses in creative sectors, including Vulture and The RAts."

I suspect the Vulture and The Rats sector wouldn't be particularly profitable, what with them feeding off rubbish and carcasses. Although that seems to work quite well for the legal sector.
Z!ng. See, I do scathing too...

Here's a student at the Centure for Vulture and The Arts*

I call zeez one, "Carrion"

On that lame-ass note, I leave you for now.
"Word to your moms I came to drop bombs"
Thanks, House of Pain.


* With my mad paint skillz, I would totally get a Scholarship at the Centre for Vulture and The Arts, if I was a vulture.

Holy shit you guys!

Hey you guys...
SHIT!

I may have been caught out with this at work by the banshee manager herself... (I was on an intense phone call and didn't realise I'd absent mindedly apple-tabbed to my posting page where i'd half written a scathing assault on her mental faculties)

So I'm going to make everything disappear for a couple of days, maybe a week in total... Don't think I've gone for good it's just a safe-measure and if it all pans out ok, I'll bring everything back up in about a week or so, maybe less- If she's onto me, I'm sure I'll find a search for Rage and Biscuits in my stats... Don't search for that just to freak me out, assholes.

Cross your fingers for me. Also tell everyone who matters if they ask where I've gone. not that they will, they'll probably be all like "Ha! Dickhead!" Which is fair enough.

PS: Handy Tip- If this ever happens to anyone else, set your blog to show zero posts on the home page and then remove your archives page element. Unfindable pages! w00t! Meawhile, everything is safe behind the blank home page. Huzzah for panicked problem solving!!

I'm gonna post this and then hide it all, so everyone gets it in their reader and then after that there will be radio silence for about a week.
Peace out hombres.

Hopefully see you soon.

Email me if you have any comments/suggestions/exclamations.

Futile

She sits beside me now.
She's close. Close enough I can hear her laboured breathing. Close enough I can hear her typing with her index fingers at a rate somewhere around five words per minute. Close enough I can hear her make little perplexed noises when she can't work out how to use a spreadsheet.
"It's all so confusing innit!?" she laughs.
"Hmm" I agree through a clenched jaw.
She rustles through the stack of emails that lie on her desk, printed out for 'ease of finding'. Alot of things will be easier to find once they cut down all the trees needed to support her unnecessary printing habit. I alt-tab as she tries to look at my screen. Again.
She's close enough I can smell her breath.
It's a damp combination of burnt cheese and coffee. It would seem she's not a fan of oral hygiene. Or perhaps her mouth is open so often, spewing forth words whose sole function is to mask her ineptness and lack of knowledge, that a horde of bacterium have colonised the white, scum-rich valley in her tongue and her yellow teeth, where they're binary fission-ing themselves an army of stench.
She closes her mouth and I nod in feigned agreement of whatever it was she'd been talking about.
I resume my work and listen as she bellows across the office organising catch-ups, run-throughs, sort-outs and a horde of other time wasting activities disguised with hyphens.
She's mid-sentence confirming a progress-check when she tangentially begins telling someone how she 'found a piece of paper in her backyard on the weekend that was addressed to a place down the street and it was a bill from like, three years ago so she was wondering if she should take it back to the address or whether it would be even worth it because she doubts that the same people even live there any more because her friend next door told her they used to hear them having fights late at night and they even thought that the wife may have been cheating because sometimes there'd be a car that wasn't theirs parked out the front during the day while the husband was at work and then they just packed up and moved one day.'
Somewhere inside of me, a chunk of my soul bursts into flames, fanned by the knowledge she earns twice the amount I do. The smoke rises up and catches in the back of my throat.
"Crazy, innit!?" She asks
The smoke passes over my lips and presents itself as a disinterested response.
"Yeah, sure."

She continues blabbering and the sound fades out as I look to her coffee. She's left it sit while she tells someone about how she thinks she's getting the flu because her joints are swelling, which reminds her of this guy she used to know that wore a kilt and had funny looking knees.
I stare at her coffee and the gears in my head begin to click. Slowly at first, then rapidly as an idea begins to formulate.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

She sits beside me now.
She's close. Close enough I can put drops of correction fluid into her coffee when she's not paying attention.
The label says Tipp-Ex. Poisonous. Should not be consumed.
I figure five drops a day should eventually make her ill enough to need time off work.
A stir of her coffee and a genuine smile before she sits back down beside me and sips her latte.

I repeat this every day.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

A few days in I think she looks paler. She'll be ill soon. I rejoice as I imagine days without her. The freedom to do what I want at my desk without her gazing across and asking why I'm smiling at my computer screen. Days without her telling stories about how she once had a feather stuck in her cardigan but she had no idea how it had got there because she didn't know of any birds with feathers that colour.
Days without her. I smile.

Weeks pass, maybe even months. The empty bottles of Tipp-ex fill a small box in my drawer.
I can't put up with her much longer. The nonsensical stories. The constant catch-ups. The unending incompetence. The barrage of stupidity. Every. Fucking. Day.
She's unwittingly drank seven and a bit bottles now, surely she'll be ill soon.

I'm at breaking point. The rage wells up inside me and I'm starting to think I'm going insane.
I glance at her with crazed eyes as she finishes telling someone a story.
"... I mean, I wasn't even sure if they owned cats, but apparently it doesn't matter because they eventually got arthritis and we couldn't take them on holidays to Spain anymore."

My teeth crack and my hands are balled into tight fists.

"Crazy innit!?" She asks me, her teeth now smiling a brilliant white under the office's fluorescent lights.

No internets...

New house currently has no internet and my banshee manager has decided to come and sit right beside me at work, thus reducing my ability to write horrible things about her.

So won't have a chance to read your blogs/write posts/comment/reply to junk for a little while...

Enjoy the break from the stupidity.

Back soon, bitches.

Douche alarm! DOUCHE ALARM!!!

If anyone is feeling a bit down and out or is questioning their validity as a human or thinks they are the scummiest piece of worthless crap on the planet may I offer you some kind words?

K, thanks, here's they are.

-At least you're not this guy.-

Wow.
Choas, I bow before your illiterate, bigoted, numb-skulled, assholish douche-a-rama.

Seriously. Choas? Did a butterfly flap its wings somewhere and the resulting winds rearraged the letters in your name?

For those of you who are too lazy/retarded/weak to click the link, here's a small slice of the fried gold that is Choas' ripping entry on his CRAZY, but totally SMOOTH pick-up efforts.

" I was dancing with a girl from my work that were just friends and I would just go up and start like grinding on other chicks from behind my friend in front and be like sry and stuff.."

Wow... And I thought I knew some assholes.
In their heads, the above movement is called a Sex Sandwich of Hot Lust and Sexy Sexness.
To the poor, poor girl trapped between Choas and his friend, who I'm going to call Disordre, it's a Vomit Inducing Asshole Sandwich With A Side Of Sweaty Palms And Tiny Pokey Boners.

And before you say anything, I am very happy with my girlfriend and I came across this through a google search gone awry. I would never ever want to associate with any of this 'Pickup Artist' nonsense. Subway Sandwich Artists are more artist than you are, Choas. Plus, the sandwiches at Subway never involve two sleazebags and unsolicited grinding.

Unless you opt for the Skeezy Mystery Footlong. Which I'd recommend you don't.


Choas, you are douche of the week. Congrats.

Stop calling me, fools.

I just had a phone call at work that went like this:

Me: Hello, Jiminy speaking.

Guy: I want a Stella McCartney Adidas tersports hat.

(Long Silence)

Me: Sorry, I didn't quite catch that, what was it you were...

Guy: (interrupting) Stella McCartney Adidas tersports hat.

(At this stage I started getting self conscious that my voice was monotonous and he'd mistaken me for one of those automated voice recognition bots. Luckily there wasn't the sound of him mashing buttons to try and get back to the main menu. Also I couldn't think of any system that would have a question where one of the spoken response options would be 'Stella McCartney Adidas tersports hat'*)

Me: I'm not sure what you're talking about, we're actually an organisation that does 'x' (where x is completely unrelated to Stella McCartney Adidas tersports hats)

Guy: Oh, so you don't know about Stella McCartney Adidas tersports hats?

Me: (Tersely) No.

(Long silence)

Guy: Ok.

(Hangs up)
-----

What the fuck? What is wrong with you man? And how many times do you have to say Stella McCartney tersports hat?
I did some research and it turns out that a Stella McCartney tersports hat looks like this:

What a shit beanie.

Who wants a hat like that one bad enough to call someone about it anyways? You could get one like that out of a bin. Or an even better one off a guy who lived in a bin. Also What makes a plain blue beanie 'designer'? It's not pleated in some crazy way. There's no asymmetrical lapels. It's wool, spun into string which is then knotted together in a head shape. You're a sham Stella McCartney.

It did remind me of the Bai Long Tong phone call I had a while back...

Phones are crazy.

Fridays are awesome.

Tell me your crazy phone stories. TELL ME THEM!



* Unless the question was "What is the shittest hat ever?"

Another example of my maturity.

Today on my way home from our new house I drew a dick in the little box in the London Paper that says 'Doodle Here'

Who am I to defy such clear instructions?.

Slacking...

Yes, I'll be updating properly again soon... Non Blondie and I are just in the middle of moving house, celebrating birthdays, working etc etc etc so am a bit caught up in all that shit to get a chance to post.

I'd do it from work, but the mad vomit fish/lever arch woman has recently finished an advanced course in 'Pathetic Management- Guidelines For Fat No Hopers With Inferiority Complexes' and is doing her best to look busy in order to cover her stupidity, uselessness and complete incompetence.
God, I hate her and her brainless ass.

So yes, more stories and whatnot to come shortly.

In the meantime, go embrace the real world. Or if you're currently in the north of England repair your shattered home after this morning's horrific earthquake disaster. This will probably require you to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING considering the earthquake was about as violent and dangerous as a stoned ladybug in a cotton wool jumpsuit.

If the media says one more thing about this 'horrible earthquake' the ghosts of 110,000 Japanese that have died in actual earthquakes are going to come and rape everyone in England with slabs of broken concrete and be all like "You want to feel real earthquake, bitches?"
So stop talking about it.
I don't want concrete in my ass.
Thank you.

It's not evil it's funny.

I was thinking I should go edit the Wikipedia page on Coulrophobia (A phobia of clowns) and upload this:



Imagine poor clown-fearing people searching for help on the interwebs, only to encounter a big picture of the thing they fear the most.

Alternatively you could put a link up there with the text "Help resources for sufferers" and link that to the picture.

Hehe...
People would be losing their shit.

Seven immutable rules...

... for the toilet.

It's alright though, I'm not going to give you a run through (pardon the pun) of some nasty poo rules. Today I'll be giving you the rules of peeing.

Now ladies, you're probably aware that us guys have the benefit of not sitting down to pee. We get the shiny urinal to piss into, which would appear to be convenient, hygienic and doesn't require us to put our ass on something that is still warm from another person's ass. This sounds like a completely good thing with no downsides. And it would be if people were able to follow the Seven Rules of Peeing, which I have developed just now.

1) Always leave a one-person-space buffer where possible.
Do not come and stand beside me and make downs with your zip. Go stand over there where there is heaps of space and absolutely no chance of us crossing the streams and causing a "total protonic reversal".

2) Do not engage in conversation whilst engaged in urination.
Piss talks are not cool. They're possibly the most awkward social situation ever. I don't want to hear how totally wasted you are/upset you are that your girlfriend hates you/your opinions on the inferior quality of the cocktails/reasons why the chick that just knocked you back is a lesbian.
We're two men holding our penises in a tiny room. It's weird already. Stop making it weirder.

3) Don't address another man's wang. Ever.
I don't care if it's big, small, diamond encrusted, semi-automatic or French. You should never in any way address another urinators (I'm just gonna run with that, even though it's not a word) member. Not even in passing or indirectly. Feel free to breach this rule if you are in the market for black eyes and/or broken noses.

4) Learn and implement some physics theories. Or at least some basic principles of fluid dynamics.
Your piss hitting the urinal at 90 degrees results in splatter. Splatter is the ultimate no-no.
There's a thousand angles you can opt for, depending on the shape of the urinal which will avoid you splattering everyone within a 6 foot radius.
There's nothing worse than when you suddenly realise tiny droplets of some fuckwad's piss are glistening in the hair on your arm or leaving little dots on the leg of your jeans. The worst thing is you can't address this in any way without breaching rule number 3. Your only option is to shuffle away from the splatter and hope that they don't have crazy asparagus acid-piss that's going to leave burns.

5) Wash your fucking hands, you filthy sloth.
It's called water and you wash your hands with it. You can even use soap and if you're feeling like it, dry your hands too! This is so that you're not putting your piss on anyone else. You already pissed on the guy beside you Captain Splatters, the least you can do is not touch everyone else with your Super Manky Genito-Hands. Plus your urine soaked hands smell like homeless. Chicks are not into homeless.
If not for hygiene, do it for the ladies. If you've had to read this far to go, "Ok, i'll do it, but only for the ladies" then you sir, are an asshole. An unwashed filthy asshole.

6) Don't make noises.
Seriously. Urinating involves relaxing certain muscles. Relaxing implies there is no requirement for physical exertion. Why are you groaning?
Also, deeply exhaling whilst you're urinating makes it sound like you're masturbating. Stop it. It's nasty and you're creeping me out. If pissing in a room full of men is the closest you come to sexual satisfaction you should seriously look into seppuku. (Not to be confused with bukkake, which coincidentally also requires a room full of men. Eww. Sorry)

7) Pants stay up.
You don't need to pull your pants down to pee, you degenerate. (I've seriously seen a guy do this. It made my brain vomit.)


Now go forth, print these out and put them up in your local pub/bar/school/place where people urinate. If need be, add your own tag and perhaps a poorly spelled comment about someone sucking balls. This should add 'cred' to the rules and increase compliance.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Well?

Since when is calling someone you've just got off the phone to 'Cockface' deemed to be inappropriate for work?

Prudes.

Some Pictures

As I'm lacking in words/brainpower at the moment, I'm posting some pictures instead. Words/brainpower expected to come back some time this afternoon hopefully.

In the meantime, here's some photos from my travels thus far.

Sunny days in Czech Republic. And some guy with a cross. Religion is a popular pastime for everyone there. Except statues, they don't do a whole lot. Posers.

The Girl partially obscuring a sunset. The alternative title for this was 'Sun? In England! Quick, grab the camera and take a fucking photo!' Or it could be called 'The Water's Blue, You're Just Colourblind, You Dumbshit.'

The trumpeteer. He also plays saxaphone.

Remnants of ads in the underground. One bit looks like it's part of an old ad for Giant Strangle Hands™

Waterfall. Splash. Or a humourous cut scene to represent a moneyshot in an old movie which would have been preceded by a train going into a tunnel, a rocket taking off and possibly a bottle of champagne being opened.

The excitement of Liverpool St station. It's usually busier than this. Maybe everyone ran away because the building appears to be being held up by pick-up-sticks.

More statues in Czech Republic. Statues are like Jesus to them. Wait, the statues are Jesus? Oh, it's all starting to make sense now.

London. From Southbank at night. Through a foggy lens. Crap.

Everyone's favourite holiday: Sit On An Orange Bench With A Stranger Near A Fuck-Off Spiky Green Bush Day

More with the silhouettes and the contrails. At least there's no statues though. Bet you're relieved.

The whimsical land of The Carnies. PS: It's not Frankston. It's a fair. I even got through this night without being pickpocketed, acquiring a giant panda or winning a shitty prize. What is it with Carnie prizes though? Yes, I got some balls to go in some hoop or something, it was damn hard and all you're giving me is a shitty lunch box from some cartoon that hasn't been on tv since 1995? Fuck you and your Captain Planet lunch box.

A study in cement. LAX is a boring, boring place. Especially when all you want is a fucking sandwich and no one sells food unless you count the beggar who'll give you some gum for a tenner. Which i don't.

Hoisin, bitches!

Most. Boring. Job. Ever. Since when do straps go above your chin? Is that even practical? I say no. I didn't tell him this though as he had a knife on a gun. That's the weapon combination I always choose to not fuck with.

Because everyone associates lions with water. Tie your boat up to a lion holding a ring in its mouth! Poor lion, all green and trapped in a giant brick with nothing to eat except a big circle.

Canary Wharf. On weekdays, home to a specific group of wankers called 'analysts' or 'brokers'. On weekends, home to sweet fuck all, apart from this here bridge and some seagulls. And maybe even some pigeons with arms

Fireworks. Or another cut scene representing some kind of sexual occurrence.

In London this is called an 'adequate measure' when combating a boring street-scape. Blue chairs. Wow. Inspiring. "Hey what you wanna do today? We should totally go down by the river and sit on a blue chair! How awesome would that be?... What do you mean 'no, you're a loser'? "

Don't be alarmed. It's just an installation I saw once. How alarming... No? Umm.. ... Err... They weren't real alarms- it was a collage, so i guess you could call them false alarms?
I don't know any more alarm puns. Ooh, wait: The gallery was such a rip off, we had to pay alarm and a leg to get in.
That is all.

An abandoned mill in a place I used to live. It's pretty abandoned. Is abandoning an antonym of bandoning? For example, 'you can tell it's empty by the lack of people bandoning the area'.

That's it. I have nothing else at the moment.

Slugs - An update

There's news on the slug front.

Last night The Girl found a dead slug in the kitchen. It was dried up. It almost looked as if it had been embalmed.
Further research tells me that slug's slime is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts water molecules. This leads me to believe that this dried out little slug had been bled dry of his slime, possibly in some kind of ritual.

And then it clicked.

The Predator Slugs had somehow found out that I had discovered their evil plot and in an effort to appease me, they had gathered under a rock and held a ceremony where they sacrificed one of their own in order to avoid the Little Green Pellets Of The Apocalypse.

Predator Slugs, your offering sates me. Keep out of the forbidden sector (the lounge room) and ye shall be spared.

The one where I am rudely disturbed

Travel documents.
They're important, people!
You should take very good care of your passport and always remember to take it with you if you're travelling abroad.

It's also very handy to have it nearby in day to day situations.

I have an awesome story for you all that I was withholding for a time like now. And by 'a time like now' I mean now that I remembered it.

So let's go back to May 2007.

The Girl and I had just moved into our shitty tiny tiny shoebox fantastic new room in a share house in Hammersmith. The house was made up of about 9 bedrooms over 3 levels. There were no dining/loungerooms and as such no one really knew anyone else in the house. But it was cheaper than living in hostels, so we were happy enough.

It was a Friday morning.

I awoke on this fateful day at the usual time, around 6.30am. Begrudgingly, I slid out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom.
I was enjoying the invigorating properties of hot running water when there was a knock on the bathroom door. I'd been in the shower for 5 mins at the most.
I yelled out with the old 'Yeaap?'
No answer. I shrugged and thought one of my flatmates was being a bit rude, but it didn't bother me.
*Knock knock.*
'Yes, what??' Slightly more aggravated this time.
Still nothing. I was annoyed by the lack of consideration displayed by my flatmates. Whilst pondering the possible need for immediate access to the bathroom ('upset stomach', plaque eradication, morning number ones, follow-through, feminine dramas) there was another knock.
That was the final straw. I jumped out, threw my towel around me and grabbed the door handle.
Boy, was I going to give some shit-words and death-eyes to the impatient person on the other side.
I swung open the door.
Instead of an impatient flatmate, I was greeted by 10 people clad in police uniform, bulletproof vests, walkie talkies and utility belts.
Umm...
Hello.

Oh Hi. We thought we'd drop around and make sure you weren't having long showers.

One guy even had a bandana on. I guessed he probably had a nickname like 'Maverick' or 'Ace' or 'Shooter'.
I thought of all the reasons that my house could be suddenly filled by such people.
Was I living in a crack den? No.
Had I been storing weapons grade plutonium? Don't think so.
Was I an extra in a new Police Academy movie? Nuh.
Was I Jason Bourne? Not that I recall.
Had I punched any old ladies recently? Nuh-uh.
Maybe it was because we'd been neglecting our basil plant and they'd come to take it into foster care? Possibly.

A man whose badge identified him as belonging to UK Immigration very sternly and quickly shouted at me: 'What room are you in? What's your name? Where are you from?
Meanwhile, I'm dripping wet looking around at the SWAT team that has suddenly materialised in our hallway. I try my hardest not to laugh.
'I'm in the front room. My name's Jiminy. I'm from Australia.'
One guy then peered into the bathroom, presumably to see if I was harbouring any illegal immigrants. Once he realised our bathroom was essentially a shoebox filled with porcelain and tiles and that I wasn't trying to help Pablo out a window, he relaxed a bit.
In a perfect twist of fate, to back up my story I was wearing my Australian flag beach towel. (A little too convenient, I bet they thought.) Luckily I'd decided not to wear my 'Unauthorised Border Crossing Convention 07' commemorative bath robe .
Anyways, I got hustled into our room by two of the armed guys. Whilst Maverick and one of his colleagues ran around our house for a while and knocked on doors, some others checked the Girl's and my passport and best of all I thought, jovially stated 'Well you check out, we'll have to arrest someone else!'
Good jokes from the guy with the gun.
They then left as quick as they came, leaving us a receipt of their search warrant and an overwhelming feeling of complete bewilderment. And possibly some hidden surveillance devices.
They piled into two unmarked black vans and took off down the road.
It wasn't until after around ten minutes of The Girl and I staring at each other in silent confusion that we gathered our senses enough to think to look at the warrant receipt. It was a carbon copy that was completely illegible. Oh well.

I laughed for about another half an hour at the sheer absurdity of what had just happened, then went back and finished my shower.

Dawn raids are an awesome way to start a Friday.

So the moral of the story is:

Keep your passport handy at all times because you never know when some gung-ho enforcement agency is going to do a dawn raid on your house, beat on the door, drag you out of your shower, ask you to prove you're not an illegal alien and then disappear into thin air.

I'm full of wisdom.
You people could learn alot.

The SAS, well kind of...

No, I'm not talking bout the Special Air Service. This is something more stealthy and possibly more deadly.
Slimy Ass Slugs.

We have slugs in our house.
Not like pets in a terrarium, but rogue night-slugs that sneak in under the cover of darkness, leave trails on the carpet and then exit before anyone awakes.
There are some reasons this scares me.

1) They 'Know'
In the same way that Scientologists 'Know'. But somehow it's worse than listening to/watching Tom Cruise. The slugs know what time we go to bed and what time we wake. They coordinate their slimy reconnaissance missions whilst we sleep.
That's the bit that chills me. Whilst we sleep...

2) I don't know
I know we have a slugs, but I don't know what they want. Or where they come from or whether their intentions are noble or something altogether more insidious.
There are trails which slide around from behind the stove, into the lounge room, then from there it's hard to tell what their objectives are. There's at least two, maybe three slimy little trails on the carpet. The trails usually come out of the kitchen, go under the dining table and loop around the legs of the chairs maybe two or three times and then arch back around and out behind the stove again. What do they want with our chairs? Do they want to sit down? Can slugs even sit?

3) They eat penis
Yes, that's right. Being hermaphrodites all slugs have both male and female organs. The slugs mating ritual consists of two slugs encircling each other and sperm is 'exchanged through the protruding genitalia'. I imagine this to be kind of like a wet high five. Unfortunately for the slugs, sometimes, the corkscrew-shaped protruding genitalia, which is science-talk for 'wangs' get entangled and the slugs have no other choice but to practice apophallation, which is where one slug chews off the other's penis. How's that for sexy time? Wet high five, followed by having your wang chewed off. Eww and oww.
Not to worry though, because once the penis has been chewed off, the slugs can reproduce using their female genitalia. Hooray! Lady-man-slugs!

4) This:
Oh great. that's just what I need. Hermaphrodite gastropod molluscs with infra-red, motion sensing vision hunting me for sport whilst I sleep. Fuck.
Predator creeped me out when I was a kid. And now I have to relive the horror, albeit in slimy slow motion.

If the slime trails start appearing closer to my room, I'm gonna freak out.

Slimy, stealthy, murderous little bastards.