Wednesday 22 September 2010

Post # 6: Pre-Leaving Post/Walrus Out of Water

Yeah... more than a week. That's just offensive. What on earth is this guy doing with his time rather than writing a blog for us? Hmm? Well, I didn't have access to the wonderful world of the internet for nigh on two weeks, so any blogging was impossible. Also, I've finished packing and turned to spending my days having coffee with people I might not see for quite a long time. You can't dismiss that! Surely! (he's standing up to his inner critical voice! What's wrong with him? Is he ill?)

HAHA! Got you there! I did write one blog, the day after the last one. I was doing a temping job, for a day. For that, I waited in a hotel lobby (don't worry, it wasn't prostitution-related. That's not for temping. That's a day job), and got slightly nervous at the prospect. Here's what goes on in my head when that happens.

POST #6: Walrus out of Water

So here I am, doing another temping job. 3 hrs of taking notes at a large hotel in the centre of town. I'm absolutely terrified. No idea how it'll go. I'm currently typing this, at 12, less than an hour until I'll get called in. I feel like I might get dissected for their pleasure in a weird 15th-century anatomy lesson, with people dressed like annoyed chess-pieces with bubble-wrap for scarves. Terrified. I'm wearing my waistcoat (don't fit in it, it's more like a corset when I'm sitting down. Limiting my basic breathing apparatus, like having a very mild asthma-attack. I just checked, the wifi here costs € 5,95 an hour (!). But there's hotels for you.

I feel like a walrus out of water. This is worse than a fish out of water for several reasons. 1. The walrus is equally unfit for land-living. 2. The walrus has big unwieldy tusks which limit its movement capabilities even further but really don't do anyone any harm. 3. The walrus is a mammal, so the other creatures of the coast expect it to function full well in a land-environment. Which it doesn't. The walrus shouldn't have evolved. If it were a seal, it would fulfil a remit (hoop-jumping, trumpet-playing and applauding; critical), if it were an otter it would have an identity (v cute + inventor of take-away meals; vital) but it it's not, is it? It can emit noises and smells and wobble. Yes, I'm disrespecting the walrus. Whatchagonnado, punks? Run after me? Whaha! Run for the hills lads; they're coming! Even better: get on the bus! Yes, the main success in human evolution is: BUS! (I like buses. Perfect for being among people, while not having to engage with them with more than nod-based interchanges).

This blog is scaring me right now. What would people think of me? Mental adjective-use and the bitching of entire phyla of animals? The killing of them as well? Get the white-coated men! It would be just my luck that the meeting today would be an international psychiatrists convention about giving the word -oddball- official medical status. This would mean putting an electric fence around the Edinburgh Festival every august and the four big venues would advertise themselves as a modern Victorian freak show. Look At The Weirdos! Laugh Disparagingly At These Mentals Who Try To Write Jokes, And Tell Them To A Paying Crowd! The Bastards! It would be very much like the Dutch comedy scene (zing!).

More people coming into the hotel. I'm seated next to a nice potted tree-fern. Is it real? Feels real enough. For some reason, this kind of plant is best served to a life in a pot, filled up with stones. Yeah, stones. That gives off some pretty good nutrients, doesn't it? (am I satirising the world's garden centres now? God, I make so many enemies in 30 minutes. For a similar example, we do need to go back 2.000 years, where only Julius Caesar was superior to me in making enemies quickly. And he ended up looking like a thimble, made of flesh (what, too soon?)).

...

There my slightly amusing mania stops; the temping would start 5 minutes later.

It was all right.

Nothing much amusing from that, really.

Until next time! Bye!

Friday 10 September 2010

Post # 5: Bits in Between + (Losing My Bracketing-Nerve)

Hello four people eagerly waiting for more brain-chaff on this interweb page. Why haven't I added more blog-entries since last friday? Several reasons. 1. Some days I didn't really get up to enough to merit actual blogging. Other days were insanely busy. I've started packing for instance. Doing final admin in order to actually leave in two and a half weeks.

I did have some ideas tho and will try to find the time to inplement these in following blogs.

Today I spent dismantling a settee. Which was fun. It took me almost 3 hrs. Most of that time was spent balancing the biggest bit inbetween the kitchen door, the actual door and the toes of my left foot. Trying to get the _*&@!$+ thing out (he
is a man of letters, isn't he? Yah...) of the house. Mostly, I tried to push and pull it slowly towards the outside, like people trying desperately to free a killer whale (NOT as in the famous film). Not by having it jump over an island + small boy to the ocean but through a plughole towards a lawn. (That's a nice image, isn't it? Just let it sink in..) Eventually, I had to run 29 times from and back to the tool shed cos Yes, this was very much The one that would get those blasted screws to finally give way. Yes. I'm still tired.

The settee was in my room (great segway. Yeah, I know. I'm king of the linky-bits); which has decided to get me to leave as quickly as I can. In the last week, 3 lights in the main bit of where I live have one by one given up on me. Now, if I were in any way superstituous (which I'm not), I'd might be moved to say that the house is really trying to get me out, so it can get up to some mischief all of its own. Now, it's turning its evil quite deliberately in my direction. There's probably more than a couple of ghosts living in the beams of the bedroom ceiling. The boiler has been steadily growing an IQ to match mine (considerable, I grant you. (CUT TO: me, laughing maniacally behind a huge desk and in front of roaring fire, fueled with paper cut-outs of my enemies and relatives. Nurse, champagne! (right...))). And, during certain days of the summer, slugs would find their way into my kitchen and under my (socked or un-socked) feet (my mum would have a heart attack finding out I don't do slippers when I'm on my own. Oh, this is a public forum, isn't it? Yeah. Sort of). (I should really ease up on the brackety-bits. But that's how my mind works. Deal with it. (...) (sorry if that last bit offended anyone (I'm such a coward))) (I'm such a neurotic with the actual number of brackets at the end bit. I promise I'll stop. AAGH! Ahum.). The slug, spreading itself under my toes, would make me do something nor it, nor any of its phylum, will ever be able to do, unless evolution goes very much awry in the next billion years. I'd jump like a four year old girl. Quickly taking the muck off my feet and what was left of the slug (literally: the bottom half of a slug) with a bit of toilet roll, I'd usually open the door, and leave the mucky bit of paper in a potted plant next to my front door. This is in itself quite awkward. Especially if you're in your pants.

Thank God I live in the middle of nowhere.

I was once lambasted for living in an insanely far-off place. This was in 2007, when there was a bus-stop 50m away. Still, she insisted in her claim that no humans should live in a place like this. I only started to get irony at 21, but then I thought she was dissing my crib. So I slapped her in the head with a living cow.

Hence the haunted loft.

I'm just joking, she's still alive. I mean the cow. No. The girl. Yes. No. (Lessons in digging your own holes, there.).

Like my friend to whom I apologised for not engaging in a facebook chat with the other day. I really worked on the apology, making it as awkward as I possibly could (and this can get pretty awkward. I know my way around an inappropriate adjective (Ooh!)). After a while, he came back with an: I'd like to thank you for that. I've got a date tonight and you've just provided me with the best ever-keep cool-mechanism for really nailing a date.
ME: Oh; what is it?
HIM: Don't be you.
I laughed. Loudly. On my own.

More self-indulging crap tomorrow, possibly.

Or it might just be another week. You never know.

Bye!

Saturday 4 September 2010

Post # 4: The Dog-Days Are Over (No Copyright Infringement Intended) WARNING: SCENES OF VIOLENCE

Right, I'm going to regret this. As I said in Post # 1 (why can't you just look it up, it's on the bottom of the page anyway, it's not in Narnia) I might blog when I'm either overtired or drunk. Well, tonight I'm both (though haven't even left the continent. What's going on?) and I'll try to amuse you in this manner, in this way, with both arms and legs (metaphorically) tied against my ribcage (I know, difficult, but it can be done) with you expecting (rightly) gallons of mirth (I'm having second thoughts on actually doing this blog now. I mean, even Houdini died on the job. And I've never heard of any (wannabe) comedian dying on the job (with the exception of Michael Palin's war-winning joke-writing causing imminent death by comedy in a very early Monty Python episode) in a very much non-metaphorical fashion. Oh yeah, Tommy Cooper. But that didn't have any connection to the job on hand, did it? (we can't know, according to wikipedia, who (wisely) have concealed the hows and whys of Cooper's death). Let's leave this paragraph until I get into even further trouble.))) Yeah...

So, yeah. That's how we roll. The reactions I got from this blog have thus far ranged from compliments and exaltated joy to outright contempt (from some who hadn't even read it but were just ridiculously amused by me doing this thing on the internet), so far no modest words of support (which confirms that what you're doing in inexorably shit and you and every word you ever spoke will burn in hellfire for allway (plagiarism there; Lee & Herring, somewhere in the nineties. What was there thing with fire and brimstone preaching? Did they live in 1371? Or did they get stuck during the same bit of 'Portrait of the Artist..." as I did (note utter smugness there. Reading a book. Lah-di-dah.))) which must mean it´s both a very stupid idea as something that may one day be of value to someone.

So what I'm trying to say is: I´ve been thinking of the concept of guilt by association.

Yeah, comedy time, bitchaz... (insert fashionable hand-gesture of the day)

What does it mean? I mean, we use it on an averagely bi-daily basis. If you're near something, you must be the cause of it. Or on the same continent. Or alive at nearly the same time as the thing you've supposed to have cause. Even though you were basically opposed of everything it entailed. Basically, I'm saying that Anne Frank is to blame for World War Two. Yes. Cos she was a human; and WW2 was a total war? And a total war is Humans fighting?

I told you I was going to regret this.

No, indeed. It doesn't make sense, but it has survived through time, so in Darwinist terms it has succeeded and is therefore relevant. So why would people blame stuff on others? In basic biological terms: if a group of wolves is annoyed with one of its pack (the aptly titled underdog, usually. The weakest one) and have another failed hunting session; they might choose to take out their anger on the weak one, so they chase him away (at best) to die of hunger somewhere while the pack moves on towards somewhere with better chances for survival of their now reduced numbers. If not, they'll eat the puppies.

And that's basically how human nature works too.

Killing puppies.

No one ever said life was fair.

Certainly not puppies.

Look at them, they're cute, aren't they?

But would you eat them? Only if you could get them well done.

It's great fun to speak to dogs. Especially, as you're rubbing them behind the ears, recommending them a good Korean restaurant.

...

Today I saw a dog kill a rat.
(we might get to some comedy soon, hopefully. It depends on how funny you find rodents being killed. If so, take a comfy chair, and get ready to get your funny bones rumbled, you sick bastards).

My gran lives on a farm. Her dog had seen a rat in one of the sheds some 6 weeks ago. Since then the small fox terrier had been obsessed with the hunt. Every day, at the opening of the door, it would jog towards the shed, waiting for the moment it would open. It would then stare for several hours to the corner of the shed where it had seen the rat. It would only give up its post for meals and nights -but today was different.

Today, my uncle was working on the ceilings of the shed; then down fell a big furry thing with tail. The small dog ran up to it, chased it outside and (with lightning speed) bit it behind the head, shook it and walked indoors, to my gran, to show her the booty of the hunt.

I wasn't there at the time. I was picking apples then (yeah. Imagine it. Me picking apples. You like that rustic stuff, doncha? Hrrr, etc). I saw a dog behind a fence, looking forlorn. I freed it, not knowing what she (it's a girl) had done to the rat just moments ago. She did look dirty, tough.

20 minutes later I was in the shed too, as my uncle was clearing out the rotten polystyrene foam plates that he had placed on the beams and proper ceiling 25 to 30 years ago. As was the small dog. Out fell baby rats, onto the floor, one by one. My uncle tried to coax the dog to kill the squeaking, running baby rats. The dog lacked the zeal she displayed earlier that day in killing the mother. She merely picked up the two small grey-pinks squeaky things and lay them on their backs, apparently helpless. As they lay there flailing, squeaking at their mother (who at the time was quite busy disintegrating in a bin), I thought of London. How there's supposed to be a rat within six feet of you, where-ever you are (though we can discount the bits of sky, since rats have still not developed flying skills. Lazy rodents) and how much better a chance they would have than they have now, as the hard bit of a shovel was quickly approaching their skulls.

My uncle said the big rat looked really fat and was possibly pregnant when killed. I said this might mean extra points bonus points for the dog. Who is now sleeping in a basket, utterly satisfied.

Sorry for the deathy bits in this one. But hey, David Attenborough (and if anyone's ever going to make an overblown comparison, let it be me, making this one, now) is known to have said: Nature is Wise.

He is wrong, but alas...

+ I didn't actually see a dog kill a rat today. My uncle is a person. And the shovel is not even animate. You're an idiot.

Until next time! Bye!

Thursday 2 September 2010

Post # 3: Avoiding Self-Made Bear Traps in Self-Darkened Woods


Day three. Or probably day four if this one gets uploaded at exactly 00:00 again. I looked at it with a profound sense of surprise. Those two pairs of zeroes, and the date September 1st. But I was most pleased with me not actually having broken the information superhighway. That sort of thing tends to complicate the day, doesn't it? I would be waiting for the bus, people would look at me in a funny way (more funny than they usually do, anyway). The busdriver would look over his glasses, look me in the eye and reluctantly admit me entrance. I walk to the back of the bus, everyone staring at me. I sit down, starting to feel even more awkward in that bus than I usually would. People actually looking back. At me! Are they? Yes! I touch my upper lip if I might not actually be bleeding profusely out of my head without noticing.

The bus stumbling on, to the next stop, where people, looking impatient to get to work, enter the bus, cast a look into the bus, catch me there, turn around and run off. The busdriver unbelievably shrugs and drives on! I take out my phone to look at my face. Nothing really wrong with it, is there? Nothing changed overnight. It can't be that. Though it should be said that my face has been independently described by 28 women friends as -interesting-. And they usually left it there. And they were my friends! Or at least they used to be.
We now get to the bridge into town, and several motorways converge on the 2 lane passageway. That's what they would do, at least. Now, we appear to have full access to the bus lane; cars willingly giving way and actually turning back to where they came from, all boats, after seeing the bus crossing the bridge, stop, honk loudly and turn back full steam in all directions away from the bridge. At the traffic lights, people jump out of their cars and mess around with the wiring in the lights, so the bus drives on, wary-eyed people watching the bus make its way into the city. As we arrive at the station, I get out, leaving my bag on the bus, realising this, turning around, but then seeing the bus quickly driving away from me and the station. The bus turned and passes me one more time. All I can hear is the doppler-effect noise of 36 people inside the bus cheering, singing and burning my bag.

Not knowing where to look, I just take in my surroundings. A usually busy station, in the middle of the country; everyone gone. I take a few steps and feel some paper underfoot. I look at the headline. It says: Internet Broken! By Fat Bloke. And then there'd be a picture of my smiling face. I look up to the big poster sign over the station main entrance. The same headline, the same smiling face. So I had destroyed the internet? Apparently I had. So I would be executed by a horde of wild pigeons.

But then I, ever the pedant, would shout: HOW DID YOU KNOW? WHO TOLD YOU THAT I DESTROYED THE INTERNET? WHERE DID YOU LOOK IT UP? DID YOU READ IT IN THE PAPER? DID YOU SEE IT ON TELLY OR HEAR IT ON THE RADIO? OR WAS IT ON YOUR IDIOTIC iPHONE? NO, YOU COULDN'T KNOW, COULD YOU? EVERYTHING'S RUN VIA THE INTERNET NOW! IF I HAD BROKEN IT, YOU'D NEVER BE ABLE TO FIND OUT, WOULD YOU? ONLY AFTER MAYBE SEVERAL WEEKS, AFTER TELEGRAPHY WAS REINSTALLED! OR AFTER AN EXPEDITION HAD BEEN MADE INTO SILICON VALLEY, WHERE THE MICROCHIPMEN LIVE. YOU COULD ASK THEM! THIS DOESN'T WORK! THIS IS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED!

Then I would see all the people of the city crawling out into the streets, heads hanging. They crowd around me and I would say: 'Well?'

- Hmmgrmble,
- What's that? I didn't hear you?
- We're sorry.
- Sorry for what?
- Sorry that we believed in an essentially flawed narrative.
- It's allright. I forgive you

And then they would raise me in the air and worship me as their God.


I am not weird.

So, there. I defeated myself in that short story there. Everything not to answer to yesterday's weird maxim. Thanks for reading. Bye!

Wednesday 1 September 2010

Post # 2: Aphorisms and Buckaroos (encircle correct answer)

So... erm... yeah. Here I am, crawling back again. After only a day. A day! Just couldn't let it lie, could I? No. Weakness. That's what that is.

Today, I actually spent some time with other people.

Why are you looking so surprised?

It wasn't weird or anything.

No, it honestly wasn't! You freak! What are you thinking?

Today, I spent some futile hours of my already spent life in a business park. Temping. Now, I'm not a newcomer to temping (and there might be some good nightmare temping stories still to come (really? good? Shut up!)) and some of the jobs I had over the last 4 years were actually quite nice. They were! But I'd grown a bit tired of another summer temping (and Edinburgh) and felt like I just needed late September to arrive quicker. But alas, we haven't got the what? The what? The wh-wh-wh-whaat? (whicky, whicky) Hmm? Pecunia? De l'argent? Cash? Money? Other equally unimpressive and embarrassing synonyms? Yes. The need for some money to buy a plane ticket to the UK has caused me to spend several hours in the company of some other people. In a business park. Temping. Again.


As usual in these situations, I knew none of the people there. Which is a nice way of feeling like you've connected with the world rather than selfishly grazing off the capitalist meadow of plenty and disappointment. Which of course I was.

There also seems to be an unwritten rule that people would gladly share their most personal secrets with a stranger rather than to themselves in a mirror. At some point, people started (in the nicest possible way) to pontificate (not a nice verb, but it was all very friendly/agreeable and, like I said, nice. Why won't you people believe me?) their motto (better: credo) on their life (even better: aphorism, or maxim. The last one was actually a bit worse). This has happened to me a couple of times before (all, ironically, while temping), that people have in some way, managed to fit their life into a pithy statement, which automatically tells everything one wants to know about that person. It's genius. It reminds me of some of the best I've heard from those people in temping positions (FX: list-show type music on crappy early nineties radio program. Possibly something with bludgeons. Yes, that would work).

At number 3: I Like Tits.

Coming in at number 2: I Like To Think Of Myself As A Thinker. Oh! Have You Heard Tiesto's New Record?


And the killer: The Meaning Of Life Is For Me To Enjoy It.

I know. Stupid. But understandably stupid. Temping is nothing if not demeaning slave-labour set out by lovely agencies with only the most sincere intentions, enthusiasm and the standard minimum wage.

This was nice, as I today thought of one of these stupid maxim's of my own. I'm a firm believer in the maxim:

You Can Never Be Right. But You CAN Be Wrong.

...

Yes, he's gone bonkers. And it's only post two! What can we do now? Should we save him? This is ridiculous! What a ludicrous concept! How could someone in their right mind come up with this crap? AAH!!! 

I understand you, dear readers. It sounds shit. I know. But let me explain.

Tomorrow.

P.S. Thank you for reading! I hope this'll still count as the August 31st blog. Though it might not. Ah well (there we are). Who-hoo!