Monday, January 29, 2007

Dramatic Ice Rescue, for fuck sake.


Looked up just now to see a dramatic ice rescue taking place on TV. One of those rescue shows and tonight some poor Canadian girls have fallen into the not-quite-frozen-enough Saskatchewan River or, as the announcer called it, Sas-kah-chew-on river. We find one girl clinging to a branch, her legs and torso through the ice at the edge of a swift current, her strength draining and her cries growing more desperate as our hero Danny desperately tries to reach her. “Hang on, darlin’!” he yells as he works his way along the branch which is frozen into the ice on the shore, “Hold on!”

But as Danny inches nearer there is a mighty crack and our hero jumps back in time to prevent the ice breaking away all together and sweeping the frozen lass down to North Dakota or wherever the hell that river goes. Danny is not discouraged and lays flat on the ice and begins inching his way out again. His buddy grabs his feet and then a third joins in and the human chain works its way to the stricken girl.

Now Danny has her hand! But he can’t pull her over the sharp edge and calls for her to summon her strength and kick her leg up onto the ice. “Come on, you can do it!” he encourages her and she gets her foot up and Danny has that too – but no! the foot slips from his grasp and back into the black water. It looks like all is lost, “Come on!” Danny cries “just get your leg onto he ice!” But the poor girl is fading “I caaaaaan’t” she cries…

[Announcer: Danny knows time is short. He has to do what ever he can get her out now!]

“For FUCK SAKE, get your leg on the ice!”

And that did the trick. She shot right out, just about beat him back to shore.

A lot of people ask me if I’ll ever become an Australian citizen. Not if it meant I couldn’t still be Canadian - and it’s shit like that that reminds me why. Fucking classic. I also like how the announcer felt he needed to pre-apologise for the upcoming obscenity. That would be for the American audience who aren’t used to naughty words in the family hour.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

The Prophet P4

Future archaeologists upon digging up the internet will hose it off and transport it by helicopter to headquarters where it will be dissected with fine-tipped instruments. Photographs will be taken, index cards will be utilized and the Scientists will chortle to themselves over the vast wealth of ancient crap they have unearthed...

“The Ancients used the internet device to spread the teachings of their god Viagra”, cried one. “No the internet device was used by magicians to perfect the Attachment Curse which brought the teachings of Viagra as well as offers for time-share condos, insider stock tips and pleas from citizens of Nigeria to provide banking details…much as they do today.” The other Scientists nodded and pretended to smoke pipes for they liked to feel clever, except one who held up a chunk of internet and said “What’s this? Something called a Skookum P4”. The other Scientists eyed each other nervously and pretended to put out their pipes. Could the stories be true? The prophet known as the P4, described in the writings of the Skookum, and long thought to be the wild exaggerations of a twenty-first century man who also claimed to have a baboon army and two tame dogs!

The Prophet P4 on the origins of the cartoon:

In 1904 young Eddie Cartoon is sent to his room for annoying his mother, who had a headache. During his internment Eddie decides to draw the exact same stick-mouse 4015 times but unfortunately Eddie cannot reproduce the image exactly and gives up. Several years later Eddie’s father gets a job and they can afford a window for his room, the resulting breeze flutters the stack of slightly different stick-mouse drawings, amazingly still where he left them, and as Eddie watches the images flick by in quick succession he gets an idea. The rest is well known…Eddie of course takes out a patent on paper-weights, which nobody thought to do before, and makes a good living selling glass domes with little winter scenes. Orson Wells used one in his film Citizen Kane and Eddie made a fortune in royalties which he invested in rival studio Disney for the making of it’s epic Citizen Steamboat Willy, made entirely of slightly different stick-mouse drawings filmed under a fluttering breeze – a technique the grateful Disney named after Eddie. The film, although hailed by critics as revolutionary, was not a commercial success. But the name stuck and now all films, stick-mouse or not, which deal with the rise and fall of newspaper barons, are called cartoons.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Life of Squids

David Attenbourough tells us the male Australian Reef Squid "must at some point during the courtship flip on his back in order to deposit his packet of sperm on the female's head."

That's pretty good. I usually need to stand on a chair.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Oi, it's Australia Day


Happy Australia Day everybody. The one day a year when the world stops and says “funny I was just thinking about kangaroos, and Rupert Murdoch” and then goes on about its business. Unlike other countries’ National Days, not much goes on here. The Prime Minister probably made a speech and of course we all got the day off work except me because I’m Canadian and Mrs Joe because she’s a nurse and old people still shit themselves on Australia Day.

That’s right, I have spent the day working at home and I will work tomorrow and Sunday too, for there is lots to do with Grimey on his way out. Let’s also not forget that I’ll be negotiating my new salary in a few days.

But enough is enough for one day. Time to sit back, smoke much pot and watch the re-mastered version of Apocalypse Now wot I got for Christmas. I now have 12 speakers in 8.1 surround sound…..


Ahhh….the dark strains of The Doors…here we go….I love the smell of kangaroos in the morning.

Joe and the Beast

The most devious, insidious machine I ever came across was in the big veneer plant in Vancouver. It was called the Strander and it could break a man in no time.

Three dryers and the Strander. The Beast. Two hours at each dryer station where you were tied to a machine doing incredibly boring work and once per shift you did two hours on the strander and it was not at all boring, it was war.

The strander took the dried sheets of veneer and cut them into long strips (strands) and fed them into the press where the laminated beams we made were produced. The press required a constant feed during the process or the beam could be ruined. These are structural, engineered beams custom made to specifications, weighing several tons and worth tens of thousands of dollars each.

The infeed to the Strander consisted of two operators pulling sheets off a stack each – and when I say sheets they may be full size 4x8 sheets or any combination of narrower strips stacked in a 4x8x4 pile – and place them on conveyors going into the machine. When they are in random sizes you have to pull them off in the exact reverse order they were stacked or they get all tangled and ripped. It’s like a pile of thick damp paper.

But the strander is hungry and will not wait for you, silly mortal. It requires its constant feed and you must lay the sheets on one after another, slightly overlapping them – that is leaving no gaps. The strander senses gaps you see and the strander worries not enough food is coming in so the strander speeds up. And you have to feed faster and if they are narrow strips you have to go really fast or you leave gaps and the strander goes faster yet. And now you got one tangled and there’s another gap and holy shit you hear the motors wind up and the belts start to scream past and pretty soon the whole thing is going to crash to a stop and a siren will go off and the boys will have to shut down the press and remove the half-formed beam before it catches fire, the system will be down for hours and men with clipboards and ulcers will want to know why…it’s a bad scene.

Eventually I got moved to another job where I was free to roam the plant, but in return I had to relieve the operators during their three 25 minute breaks. One night somebody didn’t turn up and since I loathed the driers I volunteered to do a full 12 hour shift on the strander. It was an ordeal, a marathon with the dryer boys rotating through one strander spot and me working the other one by myself all night. About 3am the new guy, out from Nova Scotia and only three days on the job found himself in strander #2 across the deck from me in station 1. Nobody had told him what he was in for, and really he wasn’t ready to be up there with the big boys yet as became apparent when he was heard to scream out “For God’s sake what do they want from us, we’re only human!” at one point. After two hours he rotated back to a dryer, finished his shift and was never seen again. But I plugged away from 7pm to 7am that cold rainy Vancouver night, me and the beast battling it out and in the end I was master and the beast trembled under my skill. I also had a four inch long shard of timber up my wrist that had to be removed up at the hospital later, but I was a legend.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

My Bunny


I found me ‘is heeeere bunny rabbit. But he ain’t fer skinnin’, NO SIR. ‘is here bunny rabbit’s just fer lookin’ at and pettin’ and such. I likes to ‘magine he’s out doing adventures and seein’ stuff. I ‘magine him’s eatin’ grass and eatin’ clover and eatin’ grass and killin’ folk. Yessir I got me 'is heeeeer bunny rabbit. Ain't he nice? Me an' him's gonna do some things.

Let's form a militant blog cell that goes around making other blogs cry. wanna?

…and the film should be out next year Chuck. Now, about the blog. Almost a year ago my brother emailed me to check out his new ‘blog’ and said I should do one too. And I have to admit I kind of like doing it and my friends were probably sick of getting occasional long ranting, or just plain weird, emails from me. It’s a bit like my first radio gig where I had complete control over three hours of programming.

Often, instead of switching back over to the network at 10pm, I’d go until 2am (un-paid) just because I could. It was just a dinky little AM station, the only one in town, and nobody listened to my Friday Night Rock show except pre-teen girls who weren’t allowed out. Now and then someone would say “heard’ya on the radio last night…when I was switching tapes.” One night I stayed there until 2am, drinking beer and playing whole sides of LP’s, when I got a phone call from some guy on the road who said never in his life did he expect to hear both sides of Dark Side Of The Moon on some scratchy AM station out in the sticks. This was before cell phones, he would have had to stop and find a pay-phone. To me, that was just so cool.

The blog’s a bit like that. Now and again someone will dig it which is great. I did expect more controversy but except for the Indian person who accused me of racism, there really hasn’t been much. And if she had read more carefully she would have realized I was actually defending India in a back-handed way. But because it was written in a rough style it was superficially labelled as negative and therefore racist. I wrote it that way on purpose and I still do, but nobody else has bothered to call me on it. Of course there was the Frodo caper, which was great fun, but it turned out he was just a kid and I wouldn’t have felt right ripping him down. I wonder where he is, the little dickens.

But I can’t do anything just for it’s own sake, there has to be a purpose. I don’t go for walks unless I need to go somewhere, I don’t go to the store just to look around. So I have kept an eye on the numbers to see what works and what doesn’t and I have noticed since I switched to Beta I get no more, zero, hits from random blog searches. All my hits are either from the fine people you see listed on the right, or from Google searches that listed the blog in the results. I used to get 10-15 hits/day from the Next Blog button and now I get none.

I’m thinking of taking my free business elsewhere. I’m also trying to devise a way to send 1500 comments to one of those “will exercise for comments” blogs. Maybe I can kill someone. Any ideas on either topic?

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

More Vapidity

Got a column? Been to journalism school? Just write down whatever occurs to you, as long as it sounds good. Who cares if it makes sense. Lisa Pryor, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald print edition, compares domestic abuse to trench warfare and battered women to soldiers in said trenches. She then uses that argument to justify her views on why women stay in abusive relationships. Unfortunately her supporting argument sucks.


“Just as war can turn men into blubbering wrecks rather than dashing heroes, domestic violence can turn women into cowards with low self esteem, psychological problems and a lack of resolve.”


Staying in the metaphor, the argument is poorly planned, cannot advance and is about to come under hellish fire. The danger of this argument is that most of the premises sound right, sound good and you want to accept the conclusion (that war and domestic abuse are comparable) anyway - domestic abuse is horrible, war is horrible – sure, why not?. Unfortunately even if the premises were sound, they do not support the conclusion at all. Domestic abuse is nothing at all like battle and it’s silly to compare them. And the premises themselves are shaky to start with. Here is the first one:


“…war can turn men into blubbering wrecks rather than dashing heroes…”


The clear implication is that a soldier’s motivation in battle is to become a “dashing hero” and presupposes that becoming one is something all men aspire to. “It’s not fair, it’s my turn to take out the machine guns single-handedly and save everybody Eddie got to do it last time. Why do you hate me, Sarg?” The premise depends on stereotypical and simplistic ideas of what motivates men and women.


And as for the “blubbering wreck” part, I would venture this comes about from the fact the soldier wants very much to leave the situation and cannot. The army has this thing about shooting deserters. The soldier is highly motivated to either extricate himself or kill the fucker, whatever it takes to make it stop. Heroics and cowardice have nothing to do with it. Not many soldiers are heard saying “Oh sure the enemy lobs the occasional high explosive round at me, but that’s just his way. He promised he wouldn’t do it again. I probably deserved it.”


As for the second premise, “…domestic violence can turn women into cowards with low self esteem, psychological problems and a lack of resolve.” Ignoring the redundancy of the statement, isn’t a “coward” the opposite of a “hero”? Again the implication that everybody wants to be, or should want to be, heroic. A battered women who stays is no more a coward than one who leaves is a hero. It’s. not. that. simple.


Not only has Pryor told us nothing new (abuse victims suffer psychological effects which often prevent them leaving the situation), she hasn’t even managed to back it up coherently. Her argument is propped on stereotypes -men are brutes except when they’re heroes, and women are too meek/stupid/passive/cowardly to help themselves. Pretty bad when you can’t even defend a truism.


Pryor ends with a nice touch “Let’s not forget that there but for the grace of God we all go.” Does she mean we’d all be soldiers in a war if it weren’t for plain good luck? Or does she mean most men are only one step away from violence by nature and you can't tell when one will go off, like a bomber on a bus - and that it's all down to God/fate who you end up with? Or what? Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?


I think it’s all a bit of a mystery to Pryor too.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

exhume:
v : dig up for reburial or for medical investigation; of dead
bodies [syn:
disinter]

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Look Dad!

SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA

Old King Bush the First, son of Ronald, watched his son George II on the royal plasma screen, the lad’s sweaty little inflated face floating there in the ethereal semi-darkness of the ex-presidential palace and crawdad farm.

The boy was a disappointment to be sure and the old king had long ago resigned himself to the fact. He’d never learned to ride a bike, couldn’t get his little legs to cooperate, both pushing the pedals at once, and he’d sit there straining like mad but never going anywhere, until he fell over. The king would have to pick him up and dust him off, wiping the tears from his little red puffy face. “Hell, boy” he said, “I ejected from a burning fighter over hostile waters and made it home to fuck your mother again, and this is what I get for my trouble?” And he clipped the lad soundly on the ear.

But it did no good and the boy grew up sweaty and puffy and tempestuous, prone to stamping his feet and calling people ‘doody-heads’. Eventually it was time for young George to find a job and the king managed to get him a middle manager position in Texas where he didn’t stand out so bad and couldn’t do much damage. And the king thought finally his toil was done and he could forget about the boy and concentrate on writing that definitive book on corn he’d started back in college.

Life carried on until one day the Queen said “You know Big G, that Clinton fellow is finishing up soon, November I think, and I was just saying to Hilary the other day it’s a shame they have a girl, who can’t be president by law. And Hilary said our Georgie was too dumb to be president and he’d get us into another fine mess and that women could too be president, not like you said, and oh George what will we do?!”

He was right in the middle of his chapter on the origin of the word maize (Amaizing Maize) but he knew once she started there was little he could do but acquiesce and he made a few calls. It was arranged the boy could fight Gore who was equally puffy and may have once smoked pot, making him dull of mind. Even then he and the half-wit brother had to step in and help by rounding up all the Swamp People who hadn’t heard of voting to put their X next to Jr’s name until the numbers came out right.

And Christ on a pony, here he was now on the TV standing on a freaking aircraft carrier carping on about winning his godamn war on terror. “Sharp as a marble” the king grumbled and the Queen scolded him, saying “Oh stop it, at least he’s trying. Doesn’t he look smart in that hat?”

Just then the phone rang and it was young George. “Hey Dad did you see me? I got to fly in a jet and everybody came to see me land on the big boat! All the sailors are swell guys, they even gave me a hat! It’s from the Special Operations Branch – I’m an S.O.B dad!”

“That’s nice son”, said the king, “maybe you’d better come on home now, before you get push…fall off the boat.”

“No way, dad. This is too cool. I want to have lots of wars with all sorts of different people. You know some of them bastards don’t even speak American yet.”

The king sighed, he wanted to get back to the book, “alright son, but be home soon and for god’s sake don’t nuke anybody. And promise you won’t do anything stup…just don’t nuke anybody.”

Thursday, January 18, 2007

What's Old SJ Worth?

Well sports fans, I’m going to risk boring you further by posting a second work-related post. Regular (that is, stupid stuff) programming will resume soon. But I do have a contest and a contest-within-a-contest to offer you in recompense, which we will get to shortly.

I was hired as a Production Planner, as you know, which involves creating detailed architectural drawings based on the initial design. That is to say the Designer and Customer have an idea and it falls to me to figure out how it will be made and then make drawings and instructions for the factory so they can actually produce it. I also make sure the correct materials are ordered etc and try where possible to save the company money. Finally I have to check the actual production cost against what the Designer budgeted and hopefully not have to tell him his commission got eaten up by extra labour he hadn’t counted on etc, although that can be fun too.

Now that’s not the only reason I was hired. Somehow they got the idea that I’m some sort of fix-it guy. And I suppose I am in a way. I seem to be able to get people to cooperate better than some managers can. This I do by using the radical technique of letting the people do their fucking jobs as much as possible and pitching in where I can. Being somewhat mentally unstable I am also good at recognizing patterns, which helps a lot in planning. If you know when the horse is going to buck, you’re more likely to stay on. Don’t worry, we’re getting there…

Because of Grimey’s immense paranoia outweighed only by the chip on his arm-hanger, and the fact we were too busy before xmas to think about anything but getting the shit out the door, so far I have stayed pretty quiet and just tried to get a feel for the place. Grimey announced he was leaving on Tuesday, this is Thursday and I have already had 4 meetings. Now they want me to start doing all the other shit they hired me for. It’s almost as if I’m only just now starting my work there. Ok here we go…

In one of the meetings an Owner threw out a number which would become my new salary, and there was some talk of a bonus scheme. The owner does not seem to be aware of my current rate, since the number he threw out was about the same as what I get now. And if I switch from hourly to salary I lose all sorts of benefits like overtime pay and I’ll be expected to put in as many hours as it takes. And of course now if I make a mistake it’s not $200 but more like $20,000.

Today I met with my immediate boss to discuss my new role and a few production related things and I told him that number just wasn’t going to work. The amount I suggested works out to exactly 9% more than what I get now. He said he would take it to the owners. He also said if it was up to him I could have it, but I don’t necessarily believe that. That’s just what I would have said.

1st Contest: Assuming I get a raise, how much will it be? Base your answer on the 9% I’m shooting for. (eg 3%) Closest to the actual figure wins.

2nd Contest: What the hell could I possibly offer as a prize? Nominate your ideas.
Please don’t rush to enter, as you may break the internet.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Nap Time Is Over

That bastard Grimey has done it now. For months now I’ve put up with his unique mix of paranoia, bravado, arrogance and immaturity. I have heard from next door, in the space of ten minutes, singing, swearing, phone-slamming-downing, shouting, whistling and giggling. Every 48 minutes he utters his favourite movie line, exactly the same way each time, then laughs in delight at the sound of it.

He, who has used this software since its first version, who has worked for this company twice as long as the current owners, can manage to be condescending without actually imparting any information:

SJ: What size does X Brand laminate come in?

GR: Uh, I think you’ll find that in the 6th paragraph of the email I sent to X, Y and Z and CC’d to you and W so if you just look in your email files you should have it there.

Email files? Fuck that, I phone the laminate company and ask Nadine who I remember last time I called didn’t know because she just started there so I ask her how she’s liking it so far and she’s happy that I remember and I get my size as well as a code which will get me a 10% discount if I put it on the order and she’ll send me out a nice chart with all the product specs and a coffee mug and most importantly wishes me a nice day – common fucking courtesy - which is more than that bastard Grimey could do. And now he goes and pulls this!

He quit, the fucker.

Suddenly my responsibility level rises exponentially. My weekends have just disappeared. Sure there’s talk of more money, yet to be addressed, but really I was quite happy with the status quo. Suddenly I’m half a department, with goals and quotas and oh lordy save us, meetings. I’ll be expected to have ideas, opinions! Product development, database management, cost analysis, material schedules NOOOOOoooooo

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Raining Money In The Lucky Country


Australia is sometimes called the Lucky Country in reference to the fact that nobody should be able to prosper in this harsh environment. Another well-worn moniker is The Wide Brown Land, for Australia, at almost the size of the continental United States, is about 60% desert – a huge brown island with it’s small, 20-odd million, population clinging to the green fringes around the edge. It is the world’s lowest, flattest continent and the second driest, after Antarctica. There ain’t a lot of water lying around.

This harsh land has instilled in Australians a sense of comradeship, or mateship and a deep admiration for the underdog, the battler who struggles against the odds with dogged determination and a wry grin. Aussies pride themselves on helping each other and especially the hallowed institution of The Fair Go, the idea that everyone should get an equal opportunity. These are ideas as fundamental to the Australian identity as the concept of ‘liberty’ is to Americans, part of the mythology. I have noticed a distinct and alarming twisting of this ideal in the seven years I have had the good fortune of residing here, and it worries me enough to consider leaving.

The noble Fair Go is degrading into its uglier and more common cousin, the I Want What He Got, the fear of missing out. I know people who sold their house for about what they were asking then found their neighbour sold for more. Now they feel they have somehow been done out of $20,000 and brood and complain over it constantly. Not fair they say. People are no longer content with equal opportunity they expect equal results as a right, without effort on their own part. To me it’s lazy, complacent and shows an alarming lack of understanding of one basic truth. Life’s a bitch.

As I said it’s only recently this change has become apparent, roughly the length the current government has been in power – 12 years or so. That same government this very morning confirmed a proposal whereby it now wants to TAX RAIN. Yes, the water which occasionally falls from the sky is now a commodity - apparently owned by the government.

Because of tight water restrictions many city-dwellers own water tanks which collect rain water for use on their gardens, washing the car etc. And most rural properties collect rain water in tanks for domestic use as well as in damns or ponds for livestock and crops. Australia has a high salt table and most well water is not potable. Whether collected in home tanks or in reservoirs to supply the cities, rain is the source of water for Australia. The government already encourages neighbors to turn in neighbors who break water restrictions.

Apparently some bright spark pointed out that some quantity of rain water which would have found its way into reservoirs was being greedily snatched up and kept in tanks by free-loading farmers and assorted other riff-raff. Water that otherwise the government could have sold back to various town councils, who in turn sell it to home-owners in the form of property tax and water rates. Not fair, says the government, these people are effectively stealing water and need to be taxed for it.

I suppose next they’ll tax pedestrians, since by walking, they are doing the government out of potential fuel taxes. Yeah, that’d be fair.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Slander


click for bigness

Look they’re doing it again! Slander! Last time they claimed the Baboon Army Compound was nothing but a den of sin and vice. They forgot the debauchery. They always forget the debauchery

I’d sue but this magazine went out of business in 1954. It’s clear I’d have a case too. First off that’s no baboon, that there’s a lowland gorilla (no kilt), plain as day. Secondly, the Baboon Army is still metaphorical (except for X1 and X2) at this stage and when it does exist they won’t be slaves of course, but genetically modified cyborg mutant baboons with hearts of gold and the ability to chew out your throat and spit it in your face with the speed of a particularly speedy cobra NOT on speed, but rather mescalin. Also through a special arrangement with eighties super group Survivor, some selected baboons will receive the eye of the tiger, and iPods loaded with a specially formulated mix of death metal and bagpipe music.

Thirdly, check out that freaky lady in the picture! You don’t want to send a gorilla OR a genetically modified cyborg mutant baboon after one of those. What you want there is a whole flock of spider monkeys. Spider monkeys are great – keep them in total darkness for thirty days, give a whiff of ammonia, then throw them into the room and let them do their thing.

And finally I am not a doctor although we do have a combat doctor, technical dept., intelligence and tactics, and this guy on the payroll. Got a skill, not annoying? Ask for a button.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Solo

Mrs Joe, who has another two weeks off work, has taken P’s 3 and 4, who are on summer holidays, on a little girl’s-holiday-by-the-sea. It was supposed to be a girls-and-daddy-holiday-by-the-sea - although I didn’t see the point, since we live about 10 minutes from the coast and I cross over the fucking sea every day going to and from work – but I had to work anyway so it’s all academic now. I suppose for Mrs Joe it’s like camping, staying in some holiday rental house. For me it’s exactly like staying home except none of my stuff is there.

Now, I have successfully lived on my own for up to 5 years at a time and I was reasonably confident I could get along on my own for a week. I can cook and I know where we keep the extra toilet rolls. But you see I’ve lived with Mrs Joe for eight years or so and it seems I now have a three year dependency imbalance. Earlier this evening I took a shower and threw on some sweat pants as it’s been a cool summer so far. Later on, about 9pm I got up to fetch my gourmet meal of bacon, beans and chips, without the beans or bacon because we were out, from the oven when I noticed I had my pants on backwards. The little back pocket was at the front now and I looked like Timmy, the kid from my old neighbourhood who’s mom sewed a pocket on the front of his pants as a compromise against his penchant for shoving his hand down his pants to tootle his doodle. Mom said not to talk to Timmy.

Cripe sakes, what if I go to work with my shirt inside-out or something? There’s nobody to tell me. What if it gets worse and I need to have my clothes laid out, my shower run for me, all my meals…hey! There might be something to this after all. In the interest of a harmonious marriage I will encourage Mrs Skookum to vacation solo every three months until I need constant waiting upon. It’s the least I can do.

Unless of course she wants to hire a nurse to do it, say about 28 with some sort of accent “Oh Mr Joe you are so funny. Tee-hee. Now is time for sponge bath ok Joe?” I suppose I could go along with that if it made her happy.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Don't Be So Damn Frenchish

A lot of ancient civilizations have become bywords for Not Nice People. Goliath was a Philistine, a big mean one, and the term now refers to someone unrefined or boorish. Cretans are put in a bad light bible-wise too, I always wondered what the modern inhabitants of the island of Crete think of the bad rep they’ve had for thousands of years. And my anti-virus just told me I had a Trojan which it killed but advises I do a full scan (3 hours) just to make sure there aren’t any more of the sneaky bastards inside my walls looking to rescue Helen or wipe my hard drives or Bad Touch my dog.

So does this mean in the year 4007 the mutant-cyborgs that run this joint will refer to Not Nice Cyborgs as French or perhaps Frenchish. Does the fact I’m bagging the French again make me Frenchist? Maybe I’m Francophobic or Anti-Francophillic, although not quite Francocidal. A Mad Scientist once crossed a Philistine and a French person resulting in a monsterous Francostine which got into the good cheese had to be beaten to death with a hammer, twice. The Spanish dictator Franco was named after the French prostitute that fathered him (I don’t claim to know the mechanics of it) and a lot of people thought he was a right bastard, although they say he made a hell of a paella and was good at having people shot.

No need to wait 2000 years though is there? We could start now. Let’s all start describing Not Nice People as frenchish or stinky frenchish if you’re being emphatic, STKY FRG if you’re texting.

“I called the customer and he got all frenchish with me.”
“I know, he’s stinky too.”
“Stinky frenchish?”
“No just frenchish, and smelly.”

See? It’s easy. Now off you go…

Sunday, January 07, 2007

It's All Over


Well kids, Christmas is over, back to work tomorrow. P3 gave me a cool flip-up race car desk clock thing that I’ll be taking with me. It’s really heavy and fits the palm well for throwing. I suppose I have made a resolution for the year and that is the same as every year, ‘fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke’

I am watching a documentary on the building of the Great Eastern, the first all-iron ship and the first designed to carry enough coal to circle the globe non-stop. The engineer, Brunel, fought to use the new lateral launching technique, where the ship slides sideways into the water instead of pointy end first. On launch day they knocked out the brakes, a winch spun out of control injuring 5, the ship slid four feet and stuck firm. It took them 90 days to get it free. It is rumoured when they broke the ship up years later, they found the skeletons of two riveters, a man and a boy who had been sealed inside the double hull during construction. I know what it’s like to hit unexpected delays although I’m pretty sure nobody has ever been entombed in anything I designed.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Ritalin Not Included

P4 recieved this game for Christmas



Earlier at the product testing facility…

Supervisor: Did you test that new game yet, the rip-off of Trouble with the Pop-O-Matic Bubble™?

Tester: Uh yeah, we tested a dozen kids aged 2-5 yesterday afternoon. There were some, uh, problems.

Supervisor: Look, our game has only one dice in the bubble, the lawyers say we’ll get away with it.

Tester: It’s not that, Carl. On several occasions the children who lost felt so completely humiliated they flew into a rage and attacked the others. Good God man, three of them are dead!

Supervisor: That’s why they sign waivers. What are we calling it?

Tester: “Loser Is A Poopy Head”.

Supervisor: Right, change the name…something less aggressive, and ship it. I’ll call the authorities about those poor children and see if we can get some more sent over. Three was it?

Tester: Better make it six, we’re testing Ha Ha Nobody Loves You after lunch.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Put That Thing Away

News from the outside has reached me regarding a disturbing trend, that of the beaver-flash. The gyno-glimpse. Peek-a-poon. The vaginal vista. We are reverting, people. Well, you are, I’m not playing anymore. What’s the next step? Beaver blush and twat toner? Does this colour make my cunt look slutty? Not far removed from baboons really.

I suppose at one time baboons were more reserved, with the females growing fur right down to the ankles. There was a class of baboon, however, with no particular function who required constant attention in order to justify their existence. The males of this sub-species often took intoxicants and beat up hotel staff, or trashed re-hab centres in order to stay ‘current’, while the females took to shaving their asses and painting them purple. This was to signify they were tough and liberated individuals. All the young baboons wanted to be individuals too so the boys started getting drunk and beating up things and the girls got their bums waxed and coloured. This rampant self pre-occupation caused the stagnation you see in baboon society today – their economic model is outdated, unemployment is rampant and they bite each other a lot, much like in France.

Of course such a society makes things easier for me, so I’m not completely against it. While you lot are all checking out each other’s innards I’ll be down at the waterhole scarfing down the buffalo carcass.