Bloggus Caesari
(Filched from plasticbag.org.)
Friday, July 12, 2002
Gun.
So last Wednesday I was half-an-hour from going home, right? And one of the people from the Tenants' Association buttonholes me and points out that:
a) There's been a police helicopter circling overhead for the last few minutes and
b) There's a coat shoved under her mate's car which wasn't there ten minutes previously.
Apparently since I am the caretaker, this is my problem. Gingerly approach coat, clock the fact that there's a package wrapped in a black plastic bag underneath it, panic slightly. Ask if anyone knows the number of the local nick. Nobody does. Local kids now home from school and starting to take an unhealthy interest in Suspect Package. Panic goes up a notch. Dial 999, explain situation to Plod. Plod tells me it's probably just some stolen property and generally makes me feel about 2 inches tall & mad, but says he'll send someone round.
Panic panic panic. Police turn up, stroll over to car, poke jacket, pull jacket, find cigarettes in binbag, laugh. Unwrap binbag further to find 1 (one) black balaclava and 1 (one) shotgun barrel made of two bits of pipe taped together, robbers, for the use of.
Police stop laughing, cordon off area, start yelling at kids to get away from the car, etc etc. Apparently someone had knocked off the turf accountant round the corner, hence helicopters and bruhaha.
CID turn up. Divers alarums and excursions. Hang around nervously for a bit then go home, reassured by police assertions that the gun is a dummy.
Go into work on Thursday moring to be informed that alleged fake gun was actually a real gun. A real, homemade gun. A real, dangerous, unreliable, blow-your-face-off, explode-if-you-look-at-it-funny
bloody
GUN.
I was never in any danger. I think. But if I'd just phoned the local police station instead of 999 and then hung around and waited while they decided whether or not to bother turning up, what's the betting that one of the kids would have gone over and kicked said homemade gun, or pointed it at someone-- with hilarious consequences? Homemade guns are not noted for their stability.
The next time I see something like that under a car, I am going to dial 999, snidey plod or no snidey plod.
So last Wednesday I was half-an-hour from going home, right? And one of the people from the Tenants' Association buttonholes me and points out that:
a) There's been a police helicopter circling overhead for the last few minutes and
b) There's a coat shoved under her mate's car which wasn't there ten minutes previously.
Apparently since I am the caretaker, this is my problem. Gingerly approach coat, clock the fact that there's a package wrapped in a black plastic bag underneath it, panic slightly. Ask if anyone knows the number of the local nick. Nobody does. Local kids now home from school and starting to take an unhealthy interest in Suspect Package. Panic goes up a notch. Dial 999, explain situation to Plod. Plod tells me it's probably just some stolen property and generally makes me feel about 2 inches tall & mad, but says he'll send someone round.
Panic panic panic. Police turn up, stroll over to car, poke jacket, pull jacket, find cigarettes in binbag, laugh. Unwrap binbag further to find 1 (one) black balaclava and 1 (one) shotgun barrel made of two bits of pipe taped together, robbers, for the use of.
Police stop laughing, cordon off area, start yelling at kids to get away from the car, etc etc. Apparently someone had knocked off the turf accountant round the corner, hence helicopters and bruhaha.
CID turn up. Divers alarums and excursions. Hang around nervously for a bit then go home, reassured by police assertions that the gun is a dummy.
Go into work on Thursday moring to be informed that alleged fake gun was actually a real gun. A real, homemade gun. A real, dangerous, unreliable, blow-your-face-off, explode-if-you-look-at-it-funny
bloody
GUN.
I was never in any danger. I think. But if I'd just phoned the local police station instead of 999 and then hung around and waited while they decided whether or not to bother turning up, what's the betting that one of the kids would have gone over and kicked said homemade gun, or pointed it at someone-- with hilarious consequences? Homemade guns are not noted for their stability.
The next time I see something like that under a car, I am going to dial 999, snidey plod or no snidey plod.
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Whine II
Great. Another day of scraping chewing-gum, picking up rubbish, and humping buckets of dirty water up and down stairs. It's not so terrible, of course-- at least I've got a job-- but I find myself thinking, Is this it? Is this all there's ever going to be?
See, what my current situation brings to mind is this. As a kid I worked my backside off to get my BTec, and then I came out in the middle of a recession and found there was hardly any work for anyone, let alone a 17-year-old with a qualification that nobody's heard of. I spent about three and a half years on the dole, being turned down by fast-food joints. I wrote and wrote in those days, some of it better than others, and all I got was a pile of rejection letters.
And now here I am ten or eleven years on, in virtually the same position. Okay, I'm not on the jam roll anymore but Jesus, I've been at Uni for four years (what with doing a foundation course and all), I'm £20,000 in debt, I don't even have my degree yet, and it looks like I won't be signing up for that OU course anytime soon. And the punchline? The best job I've been able to find is caretaking on a housing estate, which leaves me aching all over by the end of the day and nearly too tired to think, let alone write. In another couple of weeks I won't even have that.
Is this it?
Great. Another day of scraping chewing-gum, picking up rubbish, and humping buckets of dirty water up and down stairs. It's not so terrible, of course-- at least I've got a job-- but I find myself thinking, Is this it? Is this all there's ever going to be?
See, what my current situation brings to mind is this. As a kid I worked my backside off to get my BTec, and then I came out in the middle of a recession and found there was hardly any work for anyone, let alone a 17-year-old with a qualification that nobody's heard of. I spent about three and a half years on the dole, being turned down by fast-food joints. I wrote and wrote in those days, some of it better than others, and all I got was a pile of rejection letters.
And now here I am ten or eleven years on, in virtually the same position. Okay, I'm not on the jam roll anymore but Jesus, I've been at Uni for four years (what with doing a foundation course and all), I'm £20,000 in debt, I don't even have my degree yet, and it looks like I won't be signing up for that OU course anytime soon. And the punchline? The best job I've been able to find is caretaking on a housing estate, which leaves me aching all over by the end of the day and nearly too tired to think, let alone write. In another couple of weeks I won't even have that.
Is this it?
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
New Scientist: Humanity's "massive overdraft" with Earth
Quote:
Quote:
"Humanity is currently overusing the Earth's resources by 20 per cent and, if current trends continue, then by 2050 we will need two planet Earths in order to live sustainably..."
A major five-year programme to develop the "holy grail" of HIV vaccine research has been launched... Biotech vapourware or new hope? Either way, I hope the nations where they really need this aren't holding their breath.
Monday, July 08, 2002
New Scientist: "Light can be turned into a glowing stream of liquid that splits into droplets and splatters off surfaces just like water...."
I love the New Scientist. It's better than drugs. And cheaper. And doesn't turn out to be chalk or shoe-polish or a bit of a fencepost.
(Torn from the numb, trembling fingers of Blogdex)
I love the New Scientist. It's better than drugs. And cheaper. And doesn't turn out to be chalk or shoe-polish or a bit of a fencepost.
(Torn from the numb, trembling fingers of Blogdex)
Whine.
It's 7:50, and I have to go to work in half an hour. I am dead. I was up half the night with asthma. Concentrating on anything is going to be interesting today, and I still have to finish that *$?! article. Goddammit.
I'm tired, I'm wheezing like a comics fan poring over a superheroine's clevage, I don't have any good drugs and I have to spend the next eight hours picking up litter for a bunch of rich people.
I hate you.
It's 7:50, and I have to go to work in half an hour. I am dead. I was up half the night with asthma. Concentrating on anything is going to be interesting today, and I still have to finish that *$?! article. Goddammit.
I'm tired, I'm wheezing like a comics fan poring over a superheroine's clevage, I don't have any good drugs and I have to spend the next eight hours picking up litter for a bunch of rich people.
I hate you.
Sunday, July 07, 2002
Mr Stabby - written by Joel Veitch, animation by Weebl
(Knicked shamelessly from theB3ta NEWSLETTER)
(Knicked shamelessly from theB3ta NEWSLETTER)
[Insert macho hangover description of choice here]
Wluuuurggggh. Luke's send-off last night. Tired and emotional.
It completely bites that London shall now be Lukeless. I hope nasty things happen to his erstwhile employers for they richly deserve it.
Wluuuurggggh. Luke's send-off last night. Tired and emotional.
It completely bites that London shall now be Lukeless. I hope nasty things happen to his erstwhile employers for they richly deserve it.
Saturday, July 06, 2002
"Just say no!"
Oh, for the love of Mike. Could this be any more insulting? Hello-oo! Slightly more intelligence than a cucumber over here!
(Via batman doesn't love me anymore)
Oh, for the love of Mike. Could this be any more insulting? Hello-oo! Slightly more intelligence than a cucumber over here!
(Via batman doesn't love me anymore)
Should a Christian Play Dungeons & Dragons?
More comedy fun from Chick Publications .
(Via Cruel Site of the Day)
More comedy fun from Chick Publications .
(Via Cruel Site of the Day)
Thursday, July 04, 2002
"What's that in the flowerbed, Mummy?"
Started my newest day-job today. I turned up to find the reception office empty and the guy who was supposed to be showing me the ropes incommunicado. I spent about half an hour running around and trying to find someone to tell me what the funge I was supposed to be doing before having to go home and ring my agency because nobody at the company who'd hired me knew anything about the booking. In all it took me two hours to sort out.
The job consists of litterpicking and general cleaning round a tiny and very very expensive housing estate. Apparently it used to be a really dodgy area till they bulldozed it and slung up a pile of yuppie-bait flats with turquiose uPVC window frames. Now it's a yuppie area fringed with a strange incongruous rim of dodgyness: huge shiny people-carriers with metallic paintwork parked yards away from burnt-out, boarded-up flats. My job is to prevent the intrusion of any dodgyness into their turquiose uPVC lives, by fishing Macdonald's wrapping and used prophylactics out of the begonias. Oh, and checking that the punters at a nearby dodgy pub haven't chucked used syringes into the kids' play area. Scumbunnies.
'Course, if I decide I don't like this job I can always get another, e.g.: You shall live in the evil toilet. Your job shall be to smack guilty clocks.
(Job generator from Lukelog)
Started my newest day-job today. I turned up to find the reception office empty and the guy who was supposed to be showing me the ropes incommunicado. I spent about half an hour running around and trying to find someone to tell me what the funge I was supposed to be doing before having to go home and ring my agency because nobody at the company who'd hired me knew anything about the booking. In all it took me two hours to sort out.
The job consists of litterpicking and general cleaning round a tiny and very very expensive housing estate. Apparently it used to be a really dodgy area till they bulldozed it and slung up a pile of yuppie-bait flats with turquiose uPVC window frames. Now it's a yuppie area fringed with a strange incongruous rim of dodgyness: huge shiny people-carriers with metallic paintwork parked yards away from burnt-out, boarded-up flats. My job is to prevent the intrusion of any dodgyness into their turquiose uPVC lives, by fishing Macdonald's wrapping and used prophylactics out of the begonias. Oh, and checking that the punters at a nearby dodgy pub haven't chucked used syringes into the kids' play area. Scumbunnies.
'Course, if I decide I don't like this job I can always get another, e.g.: You shall live in the evil toilet. Your job shall be to smack guilty clocks.
(Job generator from Lukelog)
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Ryan and Jacob are the intellect of tomorrow.
This one will run and run.
It started with a spam. The following began turning up in various people's inboxes:
Now, to save you the trouble, somebody actually took the time to track down these two geniuses, and roundly mock them in not one, but two articles.
The punchline? The Intellect of Tomorrow, who have so carefully covered their tracks and made it so very hard for any of us fakes to track them down, registered their domain under one of their real names.
Ladies, gentlemen and all those in between: I give you the future of humanity.
(Via the Barbelith Underground.)
This one will run and run.
It started with a spam. The following began turning up in various people's inboxes:
There is something extremely wrong with every single person in this world. They seem to be part of a pointless simulation. "The Matrix" has portrayed this idea somewhat, yet we watch it and go back to our daily lives. Yet in this very life, underneath the seeming diversity in people's opinions, values, talents, and interests, there is something that makes everyone the same. It is as though this planet is populated only by mindless fakes, objects that provide the appearance of intellect on the surface but are based on only mechanical reflexes and primitive thought patterns. I don't really care if anything I say has been said before, if it was portrayed in movies, in books, or in the lyrics of some useless song. With 6 billion people covering the globe at any given time, thousands and thousands of years of written literature, probability dictates almost any combination of words has occurred numerous times. Yet there is clear evidence there was no action, so those words, just like the people who spoke them, must have been just more fakes. I am forced to use this language (also created by the fakes) because there is no alternative, so everything I write here could be misunderstood to make me sound like one of them, but it will be the action that I take and the dedication that will separate me from them.
In my estimation the fakes that occupy this planet don't make up 99%, but more like 99.9999999% of the population. I know this because I've searched, and in my search have so far only found one true ally (I have found him via the internet as well). But even with those numbers we would not give up because there is no logic in giving up.
The people on this planet are all fakes because the societies have made them this way. Ideas that populate people's minds have no logic or purpose. Concepts such as religion, god, morality, individualism, freedom, identity, happiness, love and billions of others are all just memes. Like parasites they infect the minds and spread from one person to the next. They have no point or purpose; they exist without any logical basis or foundation. The fakes are completely controlled by them, and they will never see beyond them. To not be controlled by them one must do more then just realize that they exist. One must resist any ideas that have no point, endlessly question, and never accept imperfection or compromise in any answer. We (myself and my ally) are different though. While we have had the limitation of existing only in these societies, something has made it possible for us to resist being indoctrinated into becoming one of those fakes. We have no arbitrary wants, needs, desires, or preferences.
If this world continues to exist the way it is then nothing in it will ever have a point. It will always be just a product of random evolution, one with no importance or relevance. The only logical goal is to dedicate our lives to increasing our numbers, those that aren't fakes, so that in thousands of years our numbers may be such that the fakes would no longer be a threat to progress.
Those that join us must see every other person occupying this planet as the enemy, and us as their only allies. Like us they must have dedication only to taking the most logical action, and to nothing else.
To tell you more about us, we've posted some personal information about ourselves on a website. You'll also find past responses to us on that webpage. Obviously anyone reading this email is most likely just another fake. Do not simply reply to this email, if you do your message will almost certainly be ignored. If you do wish to communicate, first demonstrate your interest by taking the effort to find us online, one of the ways to do that is described below.
Use a major search engine to search for every combination of any two words from the list below. The order of the words shouldn't matter as long as you do not search for them in quotes. Also when you pick the right combination you shouldn't need to look at more then the first matches...
perfect
theory
endless
desire
eternal
logic
driving
perpetual
vision
logical
infinite
dream
final
best
escape
objective
thought
only
ambition
clue
perfection
If this can't be solved, or if you never reach us, there should be no reason for you to give up as we will never give up and thus there will always be some way to find us.
--------------
Ryan and Jacob
Now, to save you the trouble, somebody actually took the time to track down these two geniuses, and roundly mock them in not one, but two articles.
The punchline? The Intellect of Tomorrow, who have so carefully covered their tracks and made it so very hard for any of us fakes to track them down, registered their domain under one of their real names.
Ladies, gentlemen and all those in between: I give you the future of humanity.
(Via the Barbelith Underground.)
Yeesh.
Decided to bung a little tagboard in my sidebar yesterday. I wasn't really expecting anyone to use it but I never get tired of toys. About two minutes later I came back to find that somebody had left me death threats and a few choice obscenities, apparently motivated by the fact that I'm a HOMOSEXUAL (his caps, not mine). Which was news to me. However am I going to break it to my boyfriend?
Decided to bung a little tagboard in my sidebar yesterday. I wasn't really expecting anyone to use it but I never get tired of toys. About two minutes later I came back to find that somebody had left me death threats and a few choice obscenities, apparently motivated by the fact that I'm a HOMOSEXUAL (his caps, not mine). Which was news to me. However am I going to break it to my boyfriend?
Tuesday, July 02, 2002
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