Bash-tastic
I was chatting to a friend of mine tonight. One of her contacts had been rather pissing her off recently, so she decided to create a new nickname and try and avoid him for a bit. Unfortunately, he happened upon her account while I was chatting. At this stage, the bloke had sent a tentative "Hello", and I was explaining that this didn't mean that she had been 'found' and that he now knew it was her. There ARE alternatives:Brockles42: He only knows if you replied
Brockles42: Otherwise it could be anyone
Brockles42: Chances are not, but you could hide anyway
(Mystery IM person): I just said "Hello"
Brockles42: Der
Brockles42: Genius
* Brockles42 smacks his forehead
Brockles42: But ANYONE would say hello
Brockles42: Claim ignorance
Brockles42: Ask who he is?
Brockles42: go on.
Brockles42: Wind him up.
(Mystery IM person): I think I'll just block him
(Mystery IM person): I can't be arsed
Brockles42: Tell him you are a 55 year old scholteacher from Wisonsin
(Mystery IM person): off he goes
(Mystery IM person): hahahhaha
(Mystery IM person): *unblocks him*
Brockles42: Or somewhere easier to spell, maybe
Brockles42: LIke texas
Brockles42: Or even Texas
Brockles42: :)
Brockles42: Better still, tell him you are a HORNY 55 year old School teacher from Texas.
Brockles42: And you like younger men and would he like some photos
(Mystery IM person): I'll have to try it another time
(Mystery IM person): he's buggered of
(Mystery IM person): off
Brockles42: "Does Grey hair turn you on?"
(Mystery IM person): even.
(Mystery IM person): YOU ARE TWISTED
(Mystery IM person): TWISTED I TELL YOU
Sheesh. Why do people say that to me all the time?
Brilliant menu
Brilliant menu
Originally uploaded by Brock. We went to a cafe today to try and get rid of our hideous hangovers.
Then we ended up falling about all over the place at this menu.
This was actually taken at about twenty past three. And we were having breakfast, but in our defense, we didn't get to sleep until half five, as we were watching Ghostbusters into the small hours with some charming young ladies. I was trying to persuade one of them that she needed a small holiday from her boyfriend, on the grounds that she was particularly stunning.
She wasn't completely averse to the idea, but for some reason decided that I was only flirting with her because I was drunk. Not at all. But nothing came of it except some not entirely accidental contact and a few meaningful glances from her as she left.
Ah, we'll see.
Automatic flushing toilets
No, really. I found out that someone I know
has them at work. I posted a comment, but felt that I had to share it with the (probably smaller!) audience that frequents here.
Auto flushing toilets?
What?
I am astonished, saddened, filled with bile and disgust and all things bad. What sort of person
needs an automatic flushing toilet? How pathetic is that? Is this all because they think that people are too stupid or un-hygienic to flush the toilet themselves? Or that it is a good thing to do things like this for people because they are just too bloody lazy?
I am almost speechless that people spend time and money designing, perfecting, marketing and fitting something so ridiculous. Never mind the energy wasting resources of wiring entirely superfluous electrical control systems to something that is perfectly satisfactory being purely mechanical. What, also, does this say about the company?
"Our employees, that we spent thousands of pounds on locating, hiring and employing, are of such a high standard of human being that we can't even trust them to flush the toilet after them."My argument about natural selection stands tall once more: If people are too stupid or ignorant to use toilets properly, they deserve to catch some sort of illness and die a slow and painful death. To allow such people to propagate is effectively reducing the mean intellectual standard and level of social adeptness of our society. Let them die out, I say. I mean, what next? An automatically fitted suction cup straight to your bits and pieces so that you don't even have to expend effort evacuating?
Actually, that last bit might have some merit in a 'non-toiletry' environment, now that the wider implications occur to me...
Eye tests
I had my eyes tested today, and the whole 'contact lens health check' thing that I get free with the lenses that I have. There has always been something about the eye test that has made me like them a lot.
1: I have always had female optometrists.
2: about 75% of them have been attractive women.
Consequently, when we get to the bit where you have to sit there and stare at the back wall while they get the little torch thing with the lens in, stare right into your eye from a range of about an inch and say (really gently cos they are seriously up close) "Look up... now look straight ahead..... now look down..."
Know the bit?
Well, I have always found it
seriously erotic. Maybe it's because I am reminded that the only time an attractive woman is that close to my face (inches away at the most, for those that don't know about this) is when we are about to kiss. The temptation to go through with the urge is almost over whelming. Possibly just because it is a natural urge from that sort of proximity, possibly because of a hundred fantasies (some fulfilled...) about 'getting up to stuff' when you know you shouldn't, and about there being loads of people
just the other side of the door that are unaware of the fun you are having. But I find the closeness deeply sexy.
Maybe it
is
just because of the forbidden nature of the encounter, maybe also because it is so subtle as well. I mean, when I went to have my, erm, bits and pieces checked (I had a lump in a scary place some time ago) and it turned out to be an
extremely lovely doctor, it never even occurred to me. Although thoughts of Bollock Cancer (as I believe it is called) may have tempered that feeling, and the worry about breaking her wrist if I suddenly had a filthy flash of inspiration. And this was, let's destroy all subtlety here, a fit as fuck woman manipulating my nut sack. Yet no dirty thoughts at all.
But when the woman leant up against me today and put her face
so close to mine, I really had to struggle to concentrate. The subtlest of moments can be so much more powerful than the overt, can't they...?
Dancing
While posting on someone's picture on Flickr today, I had a flashback about the weekend the boys came down:
It was during the weekend that
The boys came down to visit. As predicted, it got rather messy. We went to the pub down the road that plays really good live music, and Keith (the bastard) was feeding me double vodka's and Red Bull from about half past 10. The pub, I should point out, doesn't shut until 2am. So by the time that the band (very good, they were too) had finished, I was several sheets to the wind, and a touch hyper-active. I took over the (empty) dance floor, on the basis that the songs were good (if superbly cheesy) and people should have been dancing.. To say that I was under the affluence of incohol would be an understatement... Apparently, the dancing was rather spectacular. I started off being really stupid and taking the piss - lots of Saturday Night Fever style 'shapes' and the like. I don't usually do serious (as in 'taking myself..ly') so just did very silly things and just sort of pissed about. That is about as much as I can remember, before the dull haze that was 'impending hangover' descended and still, to this day, denies me recall of any more.
Probably for the best.
But I was told the following day that, whilst my mates were laughing so much they went red and couldn't breathe, that my MC Hammer moves were so good that three girls took to the dance floor and tried to copy them as if it was a serious 'dance off'. Apparebtly I can actually dance when i am absolutely hammered. Julio even admitted to being 'quote impressed'. I cut a mean shape, when I have little knowledge of the ability to be self-aware, it appears.
I was completely oblivious, and only really remember thinking vaguely at some point:
"No-one is dancing".
That was as far as my memory went. I had a MAJOR hangover the following day...
Now there's a shocker, eh?
(I was having a bit of a row in a forum on flickr, about the fact that I had leapt on someone ( an idiot) and they were attempting to berate me for being off topic and rude. It descended into a barrage of stupidity that made me laugh..)
Is it me, or is there a chill in the air today?
That's off topic. Please remove your post, delete your account, format your hard drive and burn your house.
That is all.
I might have been using metaphor ;P
...unlikely though, I never was very good with those little flags.
That's odd. I type with my metacarpals, but you use little flags?
Weird.
Yup, little flags - it's like a primitive form of bluetooth. I wave them at my scanner and it converts them to the gibberish you see before you now.
whoops, I just formatted my house. Damn these multi-part instructions.
That'll learn ya for having all that modern technology.
Oh dear
That was, probably without question, the shittest meal I have cooked in memory.
Now I am no Jamie Oliver/Gordon Ramsey (although I have the language down pat), but I usually cut a reasonable swathe through the kitchen. When I cook for someone else, I generally get sincere compliments and not irregular expressions of pleasant surprise at the food I produce. I tend to, whatever I turn my hand to, try to do things properly. Even if I am going to be no genius at it (like relationships, for example...) I at least throw my all at it (so to speak, given the last example) and allow my perfectionist side to come through.
My Bolognese sauce is pretty damn good and probably my speciality in it's various guises. I cook, on a regular basis, from entirely fresh ingredients. Marinated Tuna, Carbonara sauces, Ratatouille and fresh vegetable stir fries, while probably simplified, are all fairly normal. But today I just decided to be lazy, cook a pork chop, heat up some sweetcorn and make some mashed potato to go with it.
How the
fuck do you screw up Mash anyway? I have no idea at all what I did wrong. I lost track of how long it boiled for - not exactly unusual, I rely on feel for a lot of things (*ahem*) - but even so the grey, slimy glutinous snot that I ended up with looked like some sort of industrial effluent.
Yuk.
If I hadn't been on my own, I'd have thrown it out. But I ate some of it because I couldn't be arsed to wait till I made more, and it was crap. And to top it all, the wine that was pretty poor yesterday had
really not improved from being open (albeit with a vacuum cork in it) since yesterday.
Yuck.
I am washing the whole lot down with a new bottle of red now. I shall drown it into submission, although I have taken most of the nasty taste away with chocolate biscuits, if I'm entirely honest...
More checkout genius
(when faced with the stupidest and slowest check out idiot today, that spent more time dicking with his fantastically Vidal Sassoon crap hair than scanning the stuff).
Checkout twat: "Do you want any help with the packing"
Me: "Hardly, but I might need some help staying awake if you take as bloody long scanning these as you did the last customer"
He tried to glower at me. Stupid boy.
Not prying
I had an interesting email today. It sparked my grey matter off a bit, and made me attempt to analyse myself a little. Not something I try and do more than I have to. It was mentioned by the individual in question that I had referred to something personal, and that I may want to talk about it. It was suggested (in the tentative offer of a friendly ear) that why would I blog about it if not? My reply interested me as I started to type it, so I decided to put it here in a sort of open letter:No-one ever said I was normal...
I don't blog for attention, and I don't particularly blog to convey information to be perfectly honest. In fact I'm not really sure why I
do blog. I have put fairly personal stuff on there before, and once VERY personal stuff, but it is not particularly to get any reaction. I'm happy if people want to come back and read regularly, but wouldn't want to try and pander to an audience to
make them come back. I'd only be interested/pleased if they wanted to of their own accord. Basically, while I appreciate the offer, I didn't write about it because I wanted to talk about it. Your comment "otherwise why blog about it" made me wonder why I do.
The only answer that I can come up with is that I don't know. I like to write well (in my opinion), and I would, if I'm brutally honest, like to think that people
think I write well. I also like to make people laugh.
But then, I also like to have mad, passionate sex with Scandinavian twins on a reindeer skin covered water bed in front of a log fire, but some things are harder to get regularly than others, I suppose. Ho hum.
I don't 'talk' about stuff. Pretty much any stuff, really. I've found that I can vent stuff through writing (to go all wanky for a minute), but I don't need to write about the stuff that caused the pressure to make a difference. Does that make any sense? I've put stuff into words and never done anything with them before, just deleted them. I've just never been the type to be all that expressive about stuff that is too close. More so than you'd think. I'm more inclined to say stuff when no-one
can reply or offer advice, frankly.
So in summary, if I didn't have the fairly reasonable level of obscurity that my web persona offers (except to those already close to me in RL that read this, and the chosen few on t'internet) I would say a lot less. Basically, I am a closed book most of the time. I only let things out when
I choose to, and no other time.
I hope that clarifies it all. Thanks and all that, but I shall retain my inner simmering pot of angst for the time being. It may mean that I blog better, you never know...
And now I am agonising about posting something that explains me. Weird, innit? I have no temper at the moment to wash over and engulf any reticence I have about being revealing.
Fuck it. I'll do it anyway.
We may have an issue
I have no idea if this is paranoia, or whether I have royally fucked up. I grabbed a handful of clothes and threw them into the washing machine about half an hour ago. Now it is doing it's final rinse.
*ka-klump*
*ka-klump*
*ka-klump*
Bugger. I have no idea what is in there to make that noise. I have looked for and found both my mobiles, and the spare battery for my camera, so that is the most important things found.
But I have a dreadful sense of foreboding...
[edit: In a burst of tedium and dullness, the clanking actually turned out to be an invisible weight of solid unobtanium. Or perhaps it was the button thing on my jeans smacking against the side. Either way, nothing expensive fell out the machine. Sorry about all the fuss... Heh]
Well, it made us laugh
Twats
Originally uploaded by Tin Corner. I went with the boys to Great Yarmouth on our annual pilgramage to one of our home towns to be stupid and have a laugh.
During our stay, we spotted this picture in the local McDonalds, recognised where it was taken and decided to recreate it. We do that sort of thing, it seems like a laugh at the time, and also a bit of a challenge. This is the result.
Not bad, eh?
We even tried to line up our respective heights to match the ones in the original. Engineers take stupid ideas to the extreme level of accuracy, you see.
We could probably have got it a bit better, but none of us were prepared to jump up in the air like tits on an empty beach more than once, so it was a unique opportunity. It came out pretty damn well.
The whole weekend (Thurs night to Sun evening) was a riot, and we had a fantastic time cruising about in Classic cars and speedboats, generally having a laugh and taking the piss out of each other.
Brilliant.
Stupid bloody woman
I am in a fucking bad mood tonight. I mean
really bad. Had some shit news today that means that I may be skint from now on (seriously skint) and may even have to give up my job. All fucked up and makes me really angry. So perhaps it wasn't the best time for a dithering bloody woman to be in front of me when I came out of the garage after getting petrol.
She had sat there while at least five opportunities to pull out and turn right had gone past her - decent sized ones, too. Two of them I reckon I could have gone as well without any trouble at all. I was a bit distracted and so sat there longer than I would normally, but on the sixth fucking great gap, I leant on the horn. She waved her arms frantically and kept violently pointing to the roundabout in front of her. Then the door opened and she came stomping up to my car:
Her: (stroppily) "There's a roundabout in front of me, you know!"Me: "Yes, I am aware of that, I have eyes. You could try driving across it".
Her: "Well, I have to give way to the traffic approaching from the right, don't I? It says that in the highway code, you know!"
Me: "No it doesn't. It says you should give way to the traffic on the roundabout approaching from the right. Not the cars approaching it from 40 yards up the road that can't even see the damn thing yet. If you are going to try and quote the highway code at me, at least get it right."
Her: (with wagging finger) "I know how to drive! I passed a police driving course!"
Me: "Well it clearly hasn't made you any better, has it?"
Her: (walking off after a brief, speechless, period)"Don't be such a wanker!"
Me: "Don't be so crap, then I wouldn't have to be."
She got back to her car, jumped back in, slammed the door and put her seat belt on in a huff and a flourish. Then, rather predictably...
...She stalled the car.
Me: (shouting out the window) "Well done, officer . Your instructor must be so proud".
In case you were all wondering
I have been increasingly suspicious of the lack of mail over the last few weeks. I have been getting feedback through other forms of communication (IM, text messages, work email and Gmail etc) that suggest I have a fair few of my friends blocked from my email filter.
I have finally lost my temper.
After about 5 or 6 shit-arse support mails that are clearly written for the monkeys to train from arriving for me, with no real information or response, I have filled in a complaint and a support email as follows. I will be re-posting and re-mailing it every day (at least) until I get a response:
I am sick to death of the email spam filter. I am losing, day by day, more and more of the emails I receive from friends and acquaintances alike. They, fortunately, have other ways to contact me. Otherwise I would be blissfully unaware that I am having emails lost and bounced from perfectly sensible and legitimate sources.
I have repeatedly asked (and been fobbed off with a standard answer) for the default filter to be turned off, or to allow me access to the settings/"un-block" log, but to no avail. I am perfectly capable of configuring a spam filter, far more than you are patently capable of, but I don't even get the choice.
LET ME RECEIVE MY EMAIL. ALL OF IT. I will even deal with all the crap that comes with it, just for the long forgotten luxury of actually having the messages that I WANT to have. Your spam filter is far too aggressive, and needs serious work. The volume of mail that I am being told I am missing is shocking.
I have a domain with you, which I pay for, and use your email system despite the web interfaces inability to cope with "reply all" - no answer to the numerous complaints on that issue either - but am getting heartily sick of your lack of personal response.
Your customer service is appalling. Standard answers, blatantly template based, do NOT help. They are merely insulting to all but the terminally stupid.
I still have not been told if the spam filter is working on my uk2.net mail address or on my domain mail diversion. This is unacceptable. I fully intend to tell you to stick the particular part of your service, that incorporates this filter, where the sun doesn't shine, but can't even get a response to establish which particular service to grab before I start my run up.
Pathetic.
And you were so good and reliable until this. Then you come up so woefully short that I find myself unable to express the disappointed and anger your complete apathy and lack of response has created in me.
ANSWER ME. FOR ONCE.
Just one relevant and informative answer would be like a warm candle in a cold, frozen waste."Feel free to e-mail me at Brockles (at) gmail.com if you have sent me an email in the last month that I haven't responded to. This may just give me more ammunition. I may even set fire to the relevant part of their service before cramming it up their arse if I found out more has gone missing...
[edit: And if you can copy all your mails to the gmail one, then I will know precisely how many mails I am not getting. If you know what I mean.
Carry on.
Ta.[edit]
Supermarket evilness
You go to the Supermarket, and buy your week(or so)'s shopping. They have taken to asking, over the last couple of years, if you are "ok with the packing". Presumably they ask everyone so as not to have any irate 60 year old kick up a stink because he was 'accused of being infirm' if they only say for the cashiers to ask old people.
It always amuses me when they ask me, so when they say
"Are you ok packing?"
I usually smile when I say
"Yes, thank you".
Is it my imagination, or do the fuckers fire the stuff down the ramp at you that
bit faster when you say 'yes'? You can almost hear them, through the saccharine grin, thinking
"Oh! Al
right with the packing are we, smug boy? Well, we'll fucking see about
that, won't we?"
They are clearly being immensely childish and trying to put you under extra pressure and catch you out. Pathetic really. It just shows how little there is in their day that trying to rush you like that brings them such pleasure, or is even important or warrants a reaction. I always end up knocking shit over or pinging something onto the floor in the rush to stay ahead of them.
'Cos, I mean, you can't let the fuckers
win, can you?
