Winter break....

So, Christmas is indeed upon us. To an extent I still wish I'd have the enthusiasm depicted below. Now, it's all gone to gluttony's way and getting intoxicated on alcohol more expensive than necessary... I'll keep this simple and just post a couple of strips from my all time favorite comic. As usual, all the required disclaimers and cliches about merry christmas etc should be added here but I'll save you from the trouble of reading them. Don't eat and drink too much.

Jesus is coming!

I have seen the light! To be fair, it was a neon light in a shop window, in the shape of a duck, but nevertheless I took it as a profound and deeply spiritual experience. That to me was a sign that we have finally not only crossed the line but advanced so far that we no longer remember which way the line is.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I have found the church or even faith (although I do enjoy a healthy bit of fundamentalism, where ever I encounter some). To me Christmas is just like the other holidays, another way for supermarkets to sell people all kinds of junk they don’t need (I mean, honestly, who really needs a popcorn machine? How hard is it to put oil and popcorn kernels in a pan!?!).

What I’m getting at is how far from the original concept of Christmas we have allowed ourselves to be taken. If a visitor from outer space landed on Oxford Street in central London a few days before Christmas, it might be a pretty damn hard job for him (him, because aliens coming to our planet are always portrayed as male on tv, sorry, that’s just how it is) to figure out what was going on. If I was a betting man I would put good money on him NOT guessing that people are preparing to celebrate the birth of a man who talked about being nice to others and not to worry about one’s earthly possession too much because it would all be sorted after this life ended (and no, this is not a time for Lennon joke!).

I predict that our friend from outer space would think that we are preparing for a draught, famine, or a proper orgy, by stocking up on food, drink, and questionable underwear. If he, however, decided to gain a better understanding of the situation (in the true spirit of inter-galactic investigative journalism), he might sneak into a home of a local family and witness the human practise of Christmas. There he would encounter Christmas pudding, oven baked, winged life-form served with stuffing, and finally conclude that the whole point of the ritual was to poison your nearest and dearest.

Depressed after uncovering the dark secret of human Christmas, he would find the nearest pub, drink himself into a stupor, and in the end be beaten up by a gang of thugs who had noticed his strange accent. On the way back to his home galaxy he would walk around his flying saucer and curse the mankind (except that Branson fella, who is nice enough to help people escape the planet, even if it’s just for a while).

Summa summarum: if I was Jesus, I would be pretty pissed off. I mean, imagine having a cracking birthday for a couple of millennia, and then in the matter of a few years people start to identify Christmas with neon ducks and Ann Summers sales.

I’m telling you, we have one angry birthday boy in our hands here. Someone find him a party hat, quick!

Friendship

Recently I made a little trip to Finland of which I mentioned about here as well. One of the things that was brought up was the ability to feel 'comfortable' and 'free of car key comparisons'. Well, I've been meaning to write about this for a while as all the things I said earlier turned out to be as I thought they would. So, this kinda made me wonder about friendship in general.

It was really good to see the old bunch after a long while. Of course, there are always some who can't make it due to family stuff or other carefully laid out excuses. Nevertheless, all the people who showed up for the party enjoyed themselves immensely. A brilliant night with sauna, swimming pool, food and ludicrous amounts of ethylic substances in liquid consistency - not forgetting the best part - the friends.

Sharing a small town background and football as a serious hobby for over a decade, we have all wondered off to various ways. Some are engineers, some bankers, some electricians and ther's even a bloody officer (I dare not say a gentleman...) in the crowd. Some have kids, some dont, and those who have them it seems that even their kids get along just fine when they meet, just like their parents do. So, friendship, how do you get to know that you share that with someone?

First, you need to have something in common that you all believe in. This is the single most important tenet of friendship. You must all believe that by sharing your time and thoughts with certain person/people, you will find a level of fulfilment out of it. So, it is a selfish thing then? Not exactly, but close. Of course we want to be with 'good' people, rather than 'bad' people but even most of the good people don't make the cut to become real friends. And this is the important part - how does one find 'real' friends to amend the gap left there once the brother/sisterhoodhood of the youth has gone their own way and you're left on your own in a new place?

I'm finding it difficult and this is not only because of living in a different country. People are just as 'good' and 'bad' here as they are elsewhere and even the cultural differences are not as massive as one might think. One of the things must be that I've failed to meet people that truly share my beliefs, be them about the society or the latest alcopop in the market. I guess my point is that when you meet a person you might become friends with, you will know that instinctively by the things that you share an understanding about. Maybe it is then, that here in UK where people are more prone to small talk and chatter than in Finland, it is more difficult for me to find my way through that initial barrier. Don't take me wrong, I'm becoming rather competent in this weather-talk (to a frightening extent!) but maybe the next thing to learn would be finding a way through. Maybe that'll take another seven years...

Right. Just a few thoughts this time. The good people writing to this blog all share something with me and that makes me feel good. Thanks for your friendship!

And then what?

Ok, yes, it's nice to go to the office pre-Xmas celebrations, I guess the reason for that is unknown, but almost everybody does so in the Western world. I live somewhere in the West, therefore I have gone to a boring pre-Xmas dinner.

This week is also full of other stuff to do. Tomorrow I will more or less try to teach something about feminism in a bar at 10am. Besides of that I will have to hand back essays to my students (including their marks of course). I was tempted to go to the supermarket and get some chocolates and/cakes for my students, but I have decided not to. Could that be my only display of appreciation for their hard work during the term? Or should I be honest and tell them that they have been so bloody lazy that sometimes I've felt like leaving the classroom? Should I tell them that they did so bad in their essays that I was appalled? Should I confess to them that the marks I am giving them are actually false and that I was asked to increase them?

What else? Oh yes, nice minced meat pies and mulled wine this week too. I don't even remember when was the last time I had that stuff, but I guess I will indulge myself into them because there might not be anything else to do at that time of the day. That could be solved of course if I go to the library or to a computer lab, but then again, I will be able to do that during all the holidays if I please to do so.

That last part leads me to my whole point of this blog. What happens after all this meeting and 'partying'? Meeting friends and others, for days and days...for most of them to go away in the Xmas holidays. For a month there won't be anyone that can help to kill the time over a beer or two. There will not be any excuse not to work. There will be no excuse whatsoever to justify watching a really bad movie in the cinema. It will be just me for days and days of not talking to someone, not even having that sort of email conversations. Nothing, zero, nada, rien.

And yet, yet...there is that light in between the long tunnel. My family in law are coming over for Xmas, and I guess I should see that as a nice thing to wait for. Yes, I do like to wait for nicer things to come and I shall enjoy the days of silence...but I am not always so balanced neither positive. Coping sounds more like it.

Three down, two to go...

Christmas parties that is. It seems that everyone is having them. Companies, clubs, and even the gym I go to has one for it's customers (that's definately one to miss, though. Self-obsessed, pumped up idiots getting drunk together, no thanks).

In general, I'm all for parties, and these pre-Christmas things are mostly quite ok. But when you have at least one event every week it starts to get a bit dull. Of course, these things are much more bearable when they are organised by people who are together from their own free will, like clubs and gatherings of friends. But when it's these corporate Christmas parties, that Nygard already mentioned in his last post, that's when you can kiss the fun goodbye.

It's not an awful lot of fun to try to smile to your superiors and their stories of golfing in this or that exotic country. Nor is it a great delight to have a conversation with the office drunk, who can't quite decide whether he loves or hates you, and instead just shouts incoherently in your ear. To top it all up you have to try to stay relatively sober and normal or you know there will be no end of the gossip in the office the next week. So, I think it's quite enough to have Christmas once a year.

Looking at the bright side, though, once these compulsory celebrations are over, it's only a little while until Chistmas holidays and the much needed freedon from work and everything that comes with it.

Hang in there, it won't be long!

Christmas time, corporate hospitality, can't go wrong with this... or can you?

Finally, something to actually post about! Well, don't get too excited just yet, it's only a small novelty toy after all... This (via Engadget) is a must get for all office dictators out there. I've seen it in action and man, can this boy cause some bemused looks on people's faces. I still don't have one myself but it's only a matter of time this will become an irreplaceable asset in my armoury. Beware, all of you!

On the more down to earth kinda way, it's been hectic in the office. I've been tasked with more things than ever before which has made me wonder if somebody from the office is actually reading this blog (hope not...). Somehow it's all been ok, as I do prefer to do something instead trying to kill time.

My new bosses (a large mobile phone operator) took us to an 'evening of recognition and rewards' a couple of weeks ago. It was your typical day: early start, business breakfast mingling with all the people you've never met before, then moving on to the infamous ice-breaker (luckily, they did not use any fat penguins) and yet another business lunch. All good so far but hey, where's the catch? I'd call it a mild case of brainwashing, to be careful. Everything and everyone was so bloody happy working for this multinational that it made me feel sick and no, it was not the free food and alcohol on offer, but the entire 'one happy family' thing. To conclude, a good day out of the office with all expenses paid with a nice overt agenda of turning us all into well-oiled machine making gazillions of cash.

So, there is all I have to say for today. I hope to be back shortly and all the other useal disclaimers and cliches. Enjoy your Christmas parties for you know that it's going to be the only 'free' thing you'll be getting from your employer.

So long

Don't try this at home

It's been three days and a couple of hours since I stopped smoking. And I'm hating it!

It's not the first time either. I've been on and off cigarettes for the past 15 years. The longest break I had was a couple of years. but somehow I always get back into the old habit. You know how it is: you're in a pub, everyone else is smoking so it doesn't really make a difference if you have one, and so it goes. The next day you just finish the ones left in the packet. Then you just get a packet of ten, just for special occasions. And after a couple of days every coffee break is a special, bloody occasion.

So I'm a veteran of failed attempts to quit smoking. And now I'm trying again. The difference is that this time my reasons are quite different from before. There are, naturally, some of the same factors that you encounter in a country like Finland every winter: at some point you just start feeling like a mug standing outside in the rain or snow, freezing your ass off, and sucking on fag, while other are enjoying healthy life indoors.

But this time there is another reason. More pressing than the usual ones. Now I'm simply fed up of going for a cigarette at work, not because of the facilities (which are crap by the way, but as a smoker you learn to live with that) but because of the endless whining and whinging that goes on there. I mean, half the fun of having a fag at work is that you can have a break from your work. But when you go out and all that people are talking about is how horrible their jobs are, it's just too much for me. I'm not kidding, it's like the old Monty Python sketch about the moaning yorkshiremen: "Oh, my job is so shite, I have to work 20 hours a day for 10 cents per hour". "You have it so good. I have to work round the clock, and they don't even pay me". "But that's nothing, I have to work 30 hours a day, 8 days a week, and pay to even get into the building!" It's fun for the first couple of days but then it starts to get to you.

So, it's no more cigarettes for moi. I will start a new, healthy life, free from all the moaning and whinging. Maybe as an added bonus my blood circulation will return to normal and my hands and feet will stop feeling so bloody cold all the time.

That's the plan, anyway. I'll let you know if I fall off the wagon.

Just in case...

..you are as bored as I have been lately:

Click here only if you are ready to switch your brain off for a good while and stare at your screen.

If that doesn't do it for you try this

Go nuts!

Feared 'Chaveller'

The next are quotes from The Independent

http://travel.independent.co.uk/news_and_advice/article327167.ece

"When chavs first burst on to the scene in their tacky tracksuits, designer baseball caps and oversized jewellery, Middle England shuddered.

"A few years later, those concerns have been justified. Chavs have indeed taken over their world.

"Taking upward mobility to new heights, the "chaveller" has become such a common figure abroad that the middle classes are opting for some of the most far-flung locations in the world to avoid them. According to the UK and European Travel Report, instead of heading for the beaches of Spain or Portugal, the chav-allergic tourist is more likely to explore countries such as Mozambique or Libya.

"According to the report, the rise of cheap air fares has propelled the "chav" around the world. The trend has gathered pace because "chavellers" feel more able to quit their well-paid jobs or trades, knowing they can pick them up again when they return home."

Oh dear, I have sometimes dreamed about doing something like working for a while, saving money, leaving my job and then go for a nice treat somewhere to then come back to look for another job and so on and so forth. I actually did not have a clue that such category was assigned to the chavs...At least they are enjoying some of that sort of freedom that many of us can only dream about.

Well done for the chavs! (Be aware that this comment is limited to the content of this article and not to the rest of the chavs' activities/attitudes)

No more comments.

Useless...

That's me. Haven't been able to write again for good two weeks. This time it truly feels like I have nothing to say. Been busy at work, tired at home and generally wondering what the hell do I want to do with my life.

It all goes back to work, as always. As I'm currently in a situation that I have no job description (but a mountain of work on my desk) I'm supposed to figure out how to place my position in frames and perhaps, even give it a name. Now, it's not that I'm incapable of inventing fancy titles and all that bull, it's rather that I currently run three different projects, out of which none have a thing in common with one another, and that makes the framework question a bit less feasible than it already is.

To be honest, I shouldn't be writing about this stuff as I know that it's utterly boring and useless information for anyone possibly reading but it's how I feel, honestly.

I'm going to visit my homeland this weekend as Ryanair was kind enough to sell me a ticket for £26 return. It should be fun as it's one of my best friend's birthday party as well. Nice too see the 'old faces' after a while. In fact, this is what I am really looking forward to - seeing all the guys (and now their better halves as well) from the past and realizing that we are still all the same. No uncomfortable feelings and superficially polite comments about each other's jobs, no comparison of the 'keys for the cadillacs' and most importantly - no necessity to appreciate how great it was that England beat Argentina on Saturday. I'll report on this occasion later, with a huge likelyhood proving myself entirely wrong on how the 'old faces' were...

This is turning out to be a much longer post than I anticipated and therefore I might as well mention a few words about our recent trip to Champagne. This was a very nice trip made with a couple of friends from the university years. None of us had been really keen champagne drinkers but as we were about to spend three days in the heart of the region, it would have been a waste not to sample some of the local product. Scenery was truly nice and specifically Epernay and the Marne valley were really nice. And just how lucky were we - it was above 2o degrees all the time as well!

Well, even if I'm not sure yet what is so great about champagne, at least I can now tell how it's been made and what are the different varieties etc. Actually, I have to admit that some of the vintage stuff was quite nice, if a bit dry to my liking. After all, a really nice break with nice company - that's enough for me.

Next time, I'll be sure to get some interesting stuff here and maybe whine a little bit less about the job. Well, just maybe...

For men only

I had my birthday recently. One of the presents I got was a set of face scrub and moisturiser for men. Oh, good, I thought. Just the sort of thing that a modern man needs. But something about the concept of "products for men" was bothering me. Maybe it was some primal resistance reflex to cleanliness, or maybe it was common sense. Anyway, I did what I suspecteed a modern man would do and did a search on the Internet. The quote below I found on www.expresschemist.co.uk:

"Modern, 21st Century Man is more interested in appearance and health than he's ever been, and so he should be. With all the great products on the market now there's no reason why Men shouldn't be as clean and healthy as possible."

Ah, there we have it! Step aside filthy Neanderthals, the modern man is here and he's armed to teeth with all kinds of manly health products. Technology has finally come up with weapons to fight man's natural smells and looks.

But hold on. There's something wrong with the picture. After the modern man has finally cracked under the pressure and bought himself every possible lotion and potion for men it should be time to sit back and wait for them to start working their magic. But instead a sneaky feeling of suspicion starts to bother the modern man. Suddenly the bathroom is full of boxes, jars, tubes and cans: there's a girly moisturiser for her, and a butch one for him; there's anti-wrinkle cream for her, and a more manly looking one for him. The list goes on and on.

So, what exactly is the difference between a moisturiser for women and the one for men? Do they put a drop of testosterone in the cream for men? Does it make you less of a man if you share a skin product with your wife? Or could it be possible that we are being taken for fools?

It must have been a great moment in the marketing department of the Great Soap and Cream Corporation when (undoubtedly after a long pub lunch) someone came up with it. It was so simple that it was scary: "let's convince men that they need a separate face cream from the one that women use". There it was. All it took was some masculine, blue and chrome packaging and a rumour that using your wife's soap will make you gay. After that they could light their cigars, pour themselves stiff drinks and watch the sales figures double.

And it didn't stop there. Once they had got started the ideas came almost effortlessly: Creams for morning, day, and evening followed. A soap for mondays, hair gel for cloudy weather, and a foot soak for hermaphrodites are expected to be in shops any day now.

I'm telling you, our children will go to museums to see displays of life in the last days of 20th century, and they will cry in front of the authentic bathroom: "how horrid it must have been for poor old mum and dad, sharing a bar of soap, and what's that, oh God NO, unisex body lotion!"

Working class hero

I went to a friend’s party recently. Most of the people there I already knew from before: work mates, friends, and so on. It was a pretty normal party, some people talking about the latest office gossip, others complaining how they still hadn’t manage to finish their theses, and the rest just getting happily intoxicated.

"As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be"

At some point in the course of the evening I bumped into a girl I hadn’t met before and we got talking. She had quite recently moved into town. Ah, so another student I figured. But no, she had come here for a job. Ok. So, what field is she in then? Cleaning. Cleaning? Yes, cleaning. To fund her studies, right? No, that’s just what she does. Yes, quite, well, another drink then?

"They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be"

I haven’t felt that stupid in a good while (and this is coming from someone who feels more or less stupid most of the time). I had completely frozen. I just did not know what to say to a cleaner at party. But why? I couldn’t pass for a snob if I tried, it’s not about an attitude. And also, I meet cleaners every day at work, this is not supposed to be a big thing.

"When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be"

It may seem like I’m the smallest person on the planet here for having a problem like this. But what I figured afterwards (yes I actually had to think this through) was that what had failed me was the context. I can have a perfectly nice conversation with our office cleaner when she comes round to our end of the office. The thing is just that I have never met a cleaner in a party before.

"Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be"

Now, before you go and think that I’m some posh twit who only goes to champagne parties and caviar restaurants, I’ll set the record straight: that’s not it! I go to normal parties at normal peoples houses. The thing is just that the way the society works also pretty much determines who we meet and socialise with. After you finish compulsory education comes the first divide: some go to study more and make new friends, others go to work and also make new friends. These groups don’t necessarily mix as much as might think. Then later on at work, you are much more likely to go out for a drink with your colleague than anyone else.

"There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be"

That’s just how it goes. During the years of this division, you somehow forget that the division is there at all. That’s until the perfect image falls apart and you have to face the fact that you are in fact very much the product of what your work, colour of skin, education, religion, and society has turned you into. So much for being so bloody classless and free and all that jazz.

(Quotes from Working class hero by John Lennon)

The Americas

Nice pictures awaiting for Bush's presence in South America.

How to survive a social inept when you...

share office with one?
share friends with one?

Normally, you and some of your friends would befriend this person, who will always try to talk her/his own interests and very rarely would let you talk the normal nonsense. But, well, somehow, this person is in most of the social events that you and/or your friends attend. And you begin to think that maybe this person is actually more normal than you think. Maybe you are the weird one.

But then,
this social inept appears to go to every single party, barbacue, and events taking place. Even to those that you are not invited or wouldn't be carelss about. That should have been a sympton of socil ineptness, but you do not care anymore. Then this goes out of control.

One of your friends decides to let a room, in a desperate act, in her house to this social inept. And things begin to go wrong between them and the others living in that house. One by one, all begin to fall....and I am not taking here about birds affected by any avian virus. Just human social ineptness in its best.

Inevitably,
your friends and the social inept have a quarrel. The events taking place at the moment between my friends and the other person should be part of a 'psycho' story for which this is not proper space.

And what matters to me is that,
the social inept is defensive of any 'normal' comment I make in the office.

Obvious solution should be to change office. But, with the fact that this is not am available option, what is one to do?

Yes, there is me in this tiny office, with cramped desks and stuff. And this social inept. Great.

I know that eventually, even if i try my best to avoid meeting with this person, we will be alone in the office. The awkwardness of the idea is quite ugly to me. In this case, the best imagined scenario would be that we ignore each other and live happily ever after. However, when I think that this person is capable of being so emotionally and socially incapable, I truly don't know how this will work out. Because as a normal human being, I am so sure that I will begin to speak, even about the traditional weather, and what if I say something that can be interpreted as 'mean'? I cannot beleive how this has been bothering me, and this is my main point.

In a world where you are expected to become part of the machinery which mostlikely will be exploited for the benefit of a white fat capitalist, the least I expected was to have some kind of basic enjoyment. You know, even pavlovian dogs must have had some. I was hoping to like my working environment, and to meet nice people, who may like to spend time together with and without compromises. Now, I wonder if these social inepts are mass produced by the white fat capitalist just to annoy us and remind us that he has control even over our enjoyments....

Finally, I tried to look for some sort of proper image to attach here, but i truly couldn't think of anything that could even resemble this person and the situation.

Ashamed for being utterly lazy again. One of my excuses could be that I've been ridiculously busy at work (not common, I know) and that once I've made my way back home, been too tired to write anything.

Work has once again, unfortunately, been the dominant activity lately. We've managed to see the latest Wallace and Gromit film, which was hilarious, but that's about it. This weekend I'm planning to do much of the same that has been done over the previous weekends - pretty much nothing.



Some kind of an autumn depression seems to be predominant these days. The days are getting shorter and hence much darker in the afternoons. I should be used to this as I spent most of my life in Finland where the change is even more radical than here but as it appears, it just still seems to have a little effect on me.

We'll be making a quick visit to France and the region of Champagne the following weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. At least something to wait for...

Ok. I'll try to make the next post slightly more interesting and maybe even get some gadgets involved but until then, it's so long....

Re: Andrex

I've just received a response to my query from Andrex marketing department... I'm so glad people still have a sense of self-irony. Well, I still did not get my question answered but this does, definitely, suggest that some people are willing to go to great lenghts to satisfy a consumer in need...

Improbable Research

Last week's Nobel prizes timed with the Ig Nobel prizes for Improbable Research which has been long standing for those scientists who do not follow the trends, the normal and do not let themselves be taken over by what is the traditional. Last week's prizes ranged from, for example, the Artificial replacement testicles for dogs (Medicine prize); and my favorite, of a man Photographing and retrospectively analizing his food intake for the last 34 years (Nutrition).

Yet, I mention this for two reasons. One to congratulate the University of Oulu for supporting one of the winners for the Fluid Dynamics prize in their research of 'Pressures produced when penguins pooh -calculations on avian defaecation'. You can see the list of all winners (and past winners, along with all the information you need about the Ig Nobel: http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-top.html

The other reason is just to inform you that I will send my application form to the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientist (LFHCfS), and for that I need the help of my bald husband because in most of the photos he takes of me in the presence of my fluffy hair, he either delete the photo or dissappears it; therefore I have no evidence to send to the club. I don't like to speculate about his reasons to eliminate those images of me and my hair (which he explicitly conclude as 'too big'). That is why, now, that I have been able to know about this club, that I expect to have a place of free expression and support where my hairless husband cannot interfere with, and hopefully gain his understanding with the time. So please please, I need your moral support to motivate him take a photo of me with my opened hair which can get me into the LFHCfS.

I will keep you informed about the progress of the application and of its acceptance or, in the worse case scenario, of its rejection.

All quiet on the workfront

It's been a while again. Seems that even if I'm not that busy or pissed off I just cant get myself to put down some thoughts on a daily basis. Nor does anyone else here I see ;)

Work, the main pain, is still unclear to me of its future. There are no definite answers to almost infinite questions we've been trying to ask our superiors. It does appear, however, that my concern of being put back under my former boss was premature. This, hopefully means that I can enjoy some relative liberties at work again, which suits me just fine. I did go to recruitment offices just to find out that I still dont have a clue what I want to do with my life workwise. The day that becomes clear, I'll have a massive party and probably will end up getting fired for not showing up to my newly acquired dreamjob because of my formidable hangover. Worth a shot still, I'd say.

I wasn't able to find any cool photos or new gadgets this time. Only one thing came even close to approval but as it's just a concept, I keep my mouth shut at this point.

At least now I have time again to write something. Today I could recommend two things:

1. Pasta bake with Penne, Salsa Pasilla and minced beef.
2. Having freedom at work.

later...

Finally an invention that makes sense!

I recently called for technological innovations that could help us all achieve a better and easier lives. I believe that I've finally found one. You'll be the judge but this truly gives a new meaning for the term 'legless', if you know what I mean...

Hmm, just makes me wonder how to utilise this ingenious invention at home.....

[via Engadget]

Hostile Takeover? Freedom's gone...

This week has been pivotal for my future in at least one very significant matter. Work. The company I've worked for a couple of years was taken over by one of the major international players in the field and we have all gone through a lot of uncertainty and general feelbad. Today, it was announced that four of our employees are to be made redundant and the new organisation structure was also shown in public for the first time.

It appears that my position (in which I enjoyed some relative freedom) is now gone. I feel funny as my name was now under my former boss again. Great. I think that it all has a meaning and now the meaning is becoming clearer. I need to move on somewhere new and hopefully fast. By now, I'm sure that all my bitterness has become clear to everybody and I'm sure some might ask why so? Well yes, I still at least have a job but a job that I really do not want to do. Their way of telling me that it's time to go I guess. Who knows, only time will tell what will actually happen here...

Feel empty and somewhat reluctant to even try to work. If I'd know how, I'd write a blues about this and play it to myself. I'll just go home I think.... shit, that's still two and half very long hours ahead.

Boy, are you in trouble now!

If you are reading this from your work computer you should be very worried indeed. More importantly you should know if your employer has decided to screen your email and internet activity in order to find out your personal productivity level. If they have, well, I guess you can start collecting the photos and paper clips from your desk and make your own way out. Otherwise there might be someone at your office door, suggesting that you leave the company asap.

If you are still reading this from your work computer, stop it now! Go to google and type in anything related to your work and cross your fingers in the hope that somewhere in the netherworld of human resources the shady figure who has been looking at the log of internet pages you've been to recently will think: 'Ok, you got away this time. I can wait a bit longer'.

This is no joke, my friend. I was just reading an article 'Crisis of faith' in the Guardian online (from my home computer, I hasten to add!) about the trust - or the lack of it - between workers and employers and the elegant ways in which your employer can keep an eye on you.

Here's a quote that should make even the most reckless of you soil yourselves: 'Three-quarters of large companies monitor employees' email, reckons the American Management Association. More than a third track keystrokes and time spent at the keyboard. Half store and review employees' computer files, while 55% retain and review their employee's emails.'

Not impressed yet? How about this: 'There is no point asking if your employer is watching you. Take that as a given. Anyone in your IT department will tell you that sending an email is no different to sending a postcard. The real issue is trust. Can I trust my employer to watch me for my benefit?'

Ok, if you are still reading this from your work computer I suppose all hope is lost and you might as well start browsing some job sites and pray that your employer will not share the compromising data they have on you with your future employer. Either that, or you could just smash up your computer in the hope that the data has not been retreived for analysis yet.

I wonder if my key card will work on Monday?

Lazy, yet alive and kicking

This week has brought along.. what? Not a single post! We've been lazy, oh so lazy. Not to worry, I just might have a few words to spare.

Let's talk about weather. Isn't it the topic we all here in UK choose when there is shit-all else to chatter about? Well, today has been nice, really nice in fact. So nice that I'd much rather be outside trying to enjoy the last bits of the good old ray-ball before it gets off for its looong winter break. Just imagine, lying there on the grass (which is still green and nice btw) listening to some nice music perhaps, having a beer... Mmmm... beeerrr......

I gave in for the little technophiliac consumist inside me and ordered the new iPod nano (black 4gb). Ludicrous but ah, so beautiful! Can't wait to get my hands on it. Looking at the downsides, our desktop PC is soooo old (3 years) that it's lacking USB 2.0 ports for fast data transfer. I need to think about buying a PCI USB 2.0 card I guess. Luckily they're only about 15-20 of the local currency. Can't wait! The nano was dispatched yesterday and within 4 to 5 working days I should have my new toy.

Gadgets and new technology sometimes truly amaze me, and that's exactly what they're supposed to do - make people's lives easier and better. If only we could find a way of gaining the most out of new technologies for all of us on this planet....

Back to work. I'm on my lunch break so not much liberties this week unfortunately. By the way, meatballs with chipotles (smoked red jalapenos in rich tomato sauce) are absolutely gorgeous!

'til next time (hopefully sooner than later...)

Looking for Love?

Nygard's last post seems to have provoked someone to comment it. Now, we like this. Except when the comment suggest that we turn to the services of an online dating agency.

You never quite know what to think when someone offers dating service to you. Is he (A) just trying to be helpful and nice since we sound so bloody miserable, or (B) simply trying to take the piss? Personally, I reckon it's the secret option (C), i.e. that we are dealing with a money-grabbing low-life trying to make a living by advertising on our blog.

I also find it quite woryring that by default the joining form on the website expects you to be a 4' 0" (1.21m) tall, 80lbs. (36kg) heavy, 18-year-old kid from the States who would prefer any kind of relationship with a woman from 18 to 99 years of age.

Good luck with that guys!

Bitter words

I almost wrote a very angry and some might say grumpy post yesterday. Then I thought that if I'm going to be that angry why not try to make some sense out of it at the same time. Therefore, please take this as a warning if you are not willing to read my rant about life's lost meaning in the contemporary world.

Most of us living in the western societies are to some extent forced to follow the basic cycle of life. Get education, get a job, buy a car and a flat, get a dog and have some kids too. Do we really need to wonder what the meaning of life is anymore? Not really. In most cases our well-being and accumulation of capital for ourselves and our possible offspring seem to be the only driving forces of our lives.

This makes a helluva evolutionary theory. Just imagine, only those capable of taking part in the cycle will survive and prosper. This makes me wonder whether there is a genetic trait or some specific human characteristic that is the evolutionary trigger and thus the deciding characteristic for our survival? There must be a limit when this accumulation of capital will come to such state that there is none, or very little left to us commoners to share. Will we then see this as a triumph of evolution or as a disaster? Survival of the fittest, or the survival of those with the fattest stock investment portfolios.

It is frigging difficult to let all things just be as they are but what is there to do? The banality of the world has already reached formidable measures so how can I just keep on living without getting frustrated with other people not seeing or not being wanting to see how things really are. If more people would actually realise how this world fucntions, what are the underlying politics and why it is important to vote (I hear you asking: for who? Only thing I can tell you is ofr sure, not for GWB at least!!!) maybe the future could be slightly different.

However, the interface between the western people and the reality has become so blurry that many fail to see beyond the surface levels. Maybe the knowledge that the payday will be there at the end of each month keeps most of us ignorant and blissed...

Ok, enough of this rant. I still have two weeks until my payday. Until then, I keep thinking about how to survive in this world withouth getting too involved with politics.

Next time: less ranting, I promise.

Horrible, horrible, horrible!

It’s not easy, I tell you! You have no idea how hard I have to concentrate to write these words. The waves of sickness keep rolling over me like an army on a parade and the banging in my head just doesn’t seem to quiet down. To make things worse, I’m at work and supposed to be productive for the next few hours. Somehow I can’t see that happening.

Well, I guess I’m not entirely blameless for my sorry state. Yesterday when I was about to leave work an old friend called me and we decided to go for a coffee. Needless to say there was no coffee, but surprisingly lots of alcohol (although I did get a cup of coffee at his brothers house where we somehow ended up at 4am).

These get-togethers with old friends are great because already when you agree to go out you know it’s going to be a big night out. I mean, you just can’t go out for just one drink with a person you haven’t seen in a while, that would be outright rude. So you allow yourself a few drinks because it’s so-and-so, and you haven’t seen him in a good while, and it might be a while before you see him again. So, in the end you have successfully justified yourself a heavy night out.

Drinking with these old friends is always good. You know who you are dealing with, and if there is nothing new to talk about then you can always give into reminiscence. The problem is that you are no longer carefree students who can afford to go out on Tuesday nights without having to worry about getting up before noon the next day. For some perverted reason your employer has no understanding if you wish to take a day off because of your colossal hangover.

So here I am, in the office, with a pounding headache and a productivity level below zero. There must be some way out of this. Maybe I should set the fire alarm off. The noise would be quite difficult to deal with, though. Oh well, maybe I will just suffer in silence, but if there is a false fire alarm in your office building today, just remember: It wasn’t me!

Dude, that’s my youth

I’m not entirely sure when it happened. Not so long ago, I think. I can certainly still remember it being here. But then again, it does seem pretty far away now. Damn I miss being young. Or at least feeling young.

Youth is like a beautiful flower that should be cherished and allowed to blossom until the inevitable first frost comes and takes it away. Ok, that’s bollocks, but still, it was good to be young. The trouble is, you never realise how good you have it until it’s gone.

I suppose it comes with the age, but suddenly I find myself feeling very old when people I used to sit next to in school are buying cars and apartments all around me. It feels as if I’m the only fool not moving on with my life. But the fact is that I don’t particularly need a car or an apartment of my own. So why can’t I spend my money in the pub instead.

The sad thing is that more and more often I find that I’m in that pub alone, while my friends are enjoying their new cars and apartments. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just wish people realised that if you buy a house it doesn’t mean you are never allowed to leave it. It’s not like entering the Big Brother house.

Ok, I’m starting to sound like an old git again. Time to go to the pub, and find someone drunk enough to listen to my whining. Cheers!

Let Me Consult You

Apparently the company I work for is going to hire a consultant to find out why we are underperforming so spectacularly. Something tells me this will not result in everyone getting a nice payrise and a tap on the head. But fingers crossed, eh!

I guess this sums it up pretty nicely:



It all makes sense now...

and then some...

Sometimes I just feel like this....

This week's been a real drag. Time simply seems to have stopped going forward on its linear, never-ending path. Everyday I find myself staring at the tiny numbers in the bottom right hand corner of my screen only to find out that it is still 10.21 for the tenth time. I did promise earlier that I would not complain about my boredom at work. I might have to reconsider that bold, and perhaps a premature statement now, as I feel my time-space being thoroughly dictated by this ever-so-boring job.

Right. To fight my boredom and to make the most of the before-mentioned freedom, I have tried to engage myself with some humorous imagery found from the infinite source that is the world wide web. So, here goes... Exhibit A:

In this image, we can see a puppy used for marketing bumpsywipe or, as some of us may know it, toilet roll. Pay attention especially in the way that the uber-clever marketing department has
placed the tail of the puppy pointing upwards, portraying a symbol of male power often linked with toilet roll (?!). This leads us to the slogans they have chosen to use in this particular ad. Let us first engage with the top half of the text. Here, we can also see a reference to male-domination. Pay attention specifically to the words 'her' and 'tits'. Then combine these with 'spunk' and you're close to the solution. However, nothing would be cool should it be this simple, would it? Therefore, the all-seeing and -knowing omnipotent marketing people have added the second part of the punchline underneath the image hence demanding further attention from the viewer *cough* consumer. This inevitably draws the potential victim *cough* consumer into a conclusion that this male-oriented product also works on scheisse, aka shit. What does puzzle me a bit though, is that whereas I do understand the idea of 'spunk' and 'tits', it is less clear why anyone would associate 'shit' with 'tits'? Well, I'll be contacting their marketing to find out. Watch this space.

Let us move on to exhibit B.

Now, (har har) this is totally honest. Today, when all mothers' little chavs/ettes have little money that they nicked from their beloved single mothers' purses, they end up spending it all in a crap like this, and in McDonald's (even bigger no-no). Nevertheless, in exhibit B, we see a healthy form of marketing emerging and I dare to hope this would take wind in the future in abundance. Who, apart from the chavs, would in real life want to spend their hard earned money on poo like Now Music? I'll rest my case for the moment but all the marketing types out there, please take in from this lesson. There's a lot to learn about honesty in this world.

I feel considerably better now. It's always good to do some marketing-bashing... and the photos weren't too bad either!

I'll go and figure.

MIT Rules!

Behold! 'Tis the famous Catsup Crapper!!!


This blew me away this morning. Looks like the hard-working academics at the Massachusets Institute of Technology have a few moments in hand to solve the most intriguing mysteries of the human kind. You'll be the judge... More info available on request but menawhile, feast yourselves with this

Enjoy

This is the modern way?

We recently acquired the Kaiser Chiefs album 'Employment' and I'm learning to like it very much. There's one tune in particular "I Predict A Riot" that I feel provides a quite precise viewpoint into a small town life in the UK. I'm about to engage in a minor analysis of how I feel about the things referred to in the song so please do not lynch me for becoming (once again) a grumpy old man.

Chavs - or as the song portraits: 'the man in the tracksuit attacks me'. This is a phenomenon that really seems to have lifted off in many towns in the UK during the past two or three years. Teenagers in sports clothes, caps, trainers and pierced with enough stainless steel to build an automobile. Cheapo jewellery, lager and cigarettes are also integral parts of a self-respecting chav and the real hardcore ones are decorated with an 'ASBO' - an Anti-Social Behavior Order.

As I recall, youth subcultures are often counterreactions to dominant society's changes but also ways of identifying oneself in relation to the others. The question burning in my mind is really all that simple: why? Why would you want to identify yourself with one of these thugs whose highest achievement ever was to scare their grannies' poodles. Beats me...

Another rather poignant line of the tune refers to girls wearing next to nothing on the streets and that 'without chip fat they'd be freezing'. Hear hear! I have nothing against nice looking young girls dressed up for the occasion but when the chip fat is, indeed, revealed to such extents that is impossible to see the belt-sized miniskirt under their out-hanging lard, it is not a sight that I wish to see, less pay any attention to at all. That must be the ultimate reason for such sense of dress as well - attention seeking as we all know...

Phew. This was much harder than I figured. Maybe deep inside I'm scared of the chavs and hence meet their expectations of people like me. Maybe I also secretly take a peek at the fat ladies showing their flesh and meet their expectations of me as well. Really, if that's what they want they can have it. I will not, let me repeat just to make sure, will not understand that these things need to be done for such purposes and I can assure you, I can not be so badly scared by the chav population and even less intrigued by the fat ladies' lard that it would give anyone any sense of achievement whatsoever. Period.

"This is the modern way, faking it everyday..."

Man, I really am turning into a grumpy old man and actually feel rather proud of it!

Breaking News!

The latest evidence reveals that there was, in fact, a fifth suicide bomber involved in the 07/07 attacks on London...

Here, there, everywhere: to state or not to state

The next is a quote I copied from the Guardian's article: "Evangelist tells 7m TV viewers: US should kill Venezuela's president ":

"I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings." by Pat Robertson, 75, founder of the Christian Coalition and a former Republican in his Christian Broadcasting Network in the blessed land of USA.

This, along with other of the many comments this mad man has made are appalling, yet he is lucky for living in the USA and not in the UK. If he would have said so here and if he would have been muslim, etc. he would have been kicked out and labeled under certain terminology that the discipline of terrorism highly developed by the Bush and some EU's administrations after the events from the last four years, offers to us. But no, oh lord no, this man is lucky enough to be (as i imagine) so white and filthy rich that he is one of those untouchable religious extremists who do and say as they please and who also do not take responsibility of their acts. He might not be better or worse than those few bearded terrorists flying into buildings. He might be of the sort of fearless creatures who hold either the flag of christianity or of islam, to harm others because of their own view of the world.

Yes, I am upset at this moment, yet this post is not impulsive. It only mirrors a tiny bit of the ideas and emotions that experiencing and witnessing some of the many terrible statements, as well as actions, by christian leaders, in specific, Mexicans, Spaniards and Americans (that i can remembered at this point). Although those people and their statements might be alien, harmless, and meaningless, to you; we should bear in mind that those are people with enough power (of different sorts) to harm others and/or to make others simply hurt others. It is a pretty scary shit because we live in times when it has become dangerous to make statements that represent our minds, but still is unfair because some are threatened more than others, For example, there will be this new law here in the UK that will banned religious intolerance and, if I understood well, even the tell of religious jokes. They must be kidding if they think that will stop radicalism, which is much more complex. I think that this 'anti-religious-extremist's laws' are not fair for all because one does not necessarily need to make a religious joke or make a religious comment to hurt others, one only needs the power the entitlement that religion provides.

The words made by a man like Robertson may be taken as words only, but not everybody has the capability to take them as such. Words of hatred can turn into seeds for ideologies of hatred. I will try not to be to serious in forthcoming posts.

Office gossip

Shit truly happens especially at work. But this time I'm sure that it has also required a considerable amount of good effort and hard work to put together...

I've never been too keen to spend time with my colleagues outside of the office. Don't really know why as they all seem to be quite ok and relatively normal at work. So, this gone Saturday I gathered up my courage and accepted an invitation to attend one of these boys nights with beer and playstation.

As a result, I think my perception of the people I work with needs some rethinking, as it appears that all this bunch was thinking about was whom they would if they could and whom they either had or were about to. To my knowledge, there's nothing inherently wrong about this either but considering that most of the people in the office are either married or at least cohabiting (as the term goes) with their partners, it was somewhat revealing to me. Too revealing.

I'm not exactly a stranger to good old in-out-in-out myself (hell, I'm a married man!) but somehow I found this evenings conversations to be either total bull or just some macho-male-chauvinism. Whether or not any of these alleged sexual encounters have taken place that I can not say, but I've certainly received a proper dosis of office gossip for a good while now. Looks like I won't be going out with this bunch in a while, hopefully...

In sum, a boring, testosterone-stenched evening with crap company. Come to think of it, I did not even manage to meet any Swedish-speaking dinosaurs during my evening out with the colleagues as Mick did. Makes me kinda wish that I had. At least there would have been something more interesting to write about.

It all makesch perfect shensche! Dammit!

It’s not everyday you meet a dinosaur, certainly not one that lives on a printer and is called Björn. The experience may well leave both parties of the encounter somewhat baffled. In a situation like this the proper etiquette requires that man and dinosaur go to the nearest bar together and try to contemplate the encounter over a glass of the strongest stuff that the barman can find. The process of finding the true significance and meaning of what happened may well take some time, and thus lead to another drink, and so on.

Before long the bar will be closing, just as the profound insight into human-dinosaur relations is about to take shape in man’s head (dinosaurs, of course, have this all worked out. For them these encounters are just an excuse for a piss up. And, man, they can drink, I tell you!).

After a hard night of trying to understand the ramblings of a drunken dinosaur (“Do you understand what it’s like… You know… You can’t understand, you’re just a human…” [Glug, glug, glug]) man finally makes it home without being too late for the last bus. His mind elevated by the stimulating conversation with a dinosaur - who stayed in the bar when man went home, so who’s the bad guy really, huh? – man tries to share this once-in-a-lifetime-experience with his partner, but only meets ignorant disbelief and rejection.

Now that’s enough for anybody, so man decides to counter attack with a brilliant scheme of talking rubbish about alcohol-induced things in things, or whatever. After a bit of incoherent ranting he finally falls into a drunken stupor, and before he knows, he’s in a place where things in things make perfect sense, his views are appreciated and held in high value, maybe even debated in academic circles as examples of the Ultimate Truth…

It’s just a bloody shame about the next morning, isn’t it!

Bjorn the Dinosaur - The Official Mascot of Electric Vihta

First I need to welcome our new contributors. More the merrier, welcome and let's hope that we would all find time to post something quite regularly.

Today, I've been mostly writing and enjoying probably the last summery day. jULES' post, however, brings back some memories from what some people would refer to as the 'good old days'. These things happen to all of us every now and then and should be treated as minor misconducts for otherwise perfectly behaving men. Well, mostly anyway.

Now then, I hear you mention Bjorn the dinosaur and think to myself that we don't have a blog mascot. Problem solved, thank you Rex Ethyl and Mick.

We should make some things clear about Bjorn the dinosaur (and now the official blog mascot). Firstly, if he (or she? Bjorn refers to a Swedish-speaking male, yuck!) lives on top of the printer I would like to know if this is in Mick's office or in his flat? Second, if Bjorn is a full grown dinosaur, we might have a slight problem in our hands (or in its very existence at least). We also need to establish if he's carnivorous or a peaceful vegetarian and in particular, what kind of fodder does he consume. I'm not much of a paleontologist myself but I've seen enough episodes of Friends and read my share of Calvin and Hobbes to know that these things can be dangerous, especially the carnivorous ones. Well, at least we can all hold the image of drunken Mick explicating the existence of Bjorn to jULES and build our own images of Bjorn...

I'd also like to ask Mick how much alcohol did he manage to consume that evening. It is obvious that a vivid imagination and formidable amounts of liquid ethyl can, indeed, be an entertainingly creative combination. We salute you Mick for bringing us Bjorn, the blog dinosaur!

Also, what comes to the perfectly draughty housing on this oh-not-so-breezy-and-rainy-island, it is a disgrace. according to the UK energy commission or something like that, 50% of household energy consumption goes to heating living spaces. Surely it has come time to do something about it and I am not talking only about double-glazed windows nor will I start selling them myself, but there must be a way of doing something about it. Not only because we are running out of energy resources but mostly because all this waste contributes to the much-ranted about global warming. No, I haven't turned into a treehugger but it is certainly time to start thinking about this too if we want to live on this oh-so-beautiful-but-equipped-with-not-so-well-insulated-houses-island. Cometh the ice age and exodus, I'll be the first one to flee to the Caribbean with Xinola and our hammock.

Hot water bottles? I'd like to swear and laugh here very loudly but this sentence must suffice.

Oijoijoi!

Men and alcohol

I was meaning to write something here for some time and was sort of inspired by a previous post in this blog. My topic: Drunken men from the sober persons perspective. (Don’t get me wrong, im not a crazy feminist type who’s about to start ranting on about how useless men are, how they drink too much, how they don’t do anything around the house… no, really I’m not!) Seriously, I thought I’d share this because it’s too funny to let the opportunity pass by.
To set the scene, I was having a quiet Friday evening in by myself, watching a fairly decent film, while my other half (on this occasion I am somewhat reluctant to call him my ‘better’ half) was out galavanting with his colleagues.
Ten minutes before the end of the film I hear the door open, followed by the clatter of keys being dropped on the floor, an incomprehensible but angry-sounding exchange of words between boyfriend and keys, a burp, a fart, and ten seconds later he appears before me, grinning like a Cheshire cat and stinking like a brewery. It is apparent that he is very, very drunk. He tells me a story about a dinosaur he met during the day. “Uh-uh?” I say. He accuses me of not listening to anything he says, and that I am being disrespectful. I realise my attempts to understand anything more of the film are futile so I switch off the TV and try to appear interested. If anyone was watching this spectacle they would see that in the space of five minutes a drunken boyfriend has the ability to reduce me from sophisticaticated, wine-drinking, arty-film-watching intellectual to complete raving lunatic in less than five minutes. I’m asking ridiculous questions so that he won’t get upset with me. ME: “What’s the dinosaur’s name?” HIM: “Bjorn!” ME: “Where does he live?” HIM: “On top of the printer!.”

“Do we have food?” he asks, after a while.
“No”, I reply. “We are going shopping tomorrow, remember?”
He disappears into the kitchen and I hear the fridge door squeak open.
“We don’t have any food!”
“No”, I repeat. “We are going shopping tomorrow”
He staggers to the bathroom, shedding his clothes in various locations en route, then proceeds to stare at himself for a long time in the mirror, and asks “Am I more yellow than usual?”
I tell him he is not, he seems reassured by this, and then makes a naked trip into the kitchen to check that the fridge hasn’t replenished itself during his momentary absence. Surprisingly it has not. “We should do some shopping sometime” he says. “Maybe tomorrow, darling?” I reply. But sarcasm is wasted at this point.

He finally comes to bed, and talks more utter nonsense for a while. Bjorn the dinosaur, it seems, is more than just a ‘regular’ dinosaur; he is also a symbol of power and a lesson to people to stand up. I never found out why, because my dear boyfriend finally dropped into a state of unconsciousness. But not before he delivered this final speech which will leave me pondering for the rest of my life.

HIM: So… there’s no… alcohol-induced… acceptance of responsibility here, is there?

ME: Where?
HIM: Oh, come on… EVERYWHERE!

ME: Responsibility for what?
HIM: The fake stuff. And… the things that people put in the things… but they actually don’t.


Go figure
Until the next time!

There is a hell of a lot of tradition behind this!

I just want to add something to the previous story because there was something missing in it. I recall that in my Xmas in Geordiesland I went through a traditional experience of sleeping with a soft and hot water bottle on my feet. With that classic stuff I would not feel that cold in the night.

Hum, when I saw that bottle I remembered that when I was a very young child and sometimes had high body temperature or fever (many years ago the medicine options for babies and toddlers were not so safe as now), my mom used one of those bottles full of icy water for the opposite effect (in the tropics the water from the shower does not get too cold in the hottest months of the year). Yet, as in third world countries, we did not enjoy the sophistication of those bottles, since we only have them in the most rustic of its presentations: rubber.

Yet, here, oh lord, there are all sorts of choices for all tastes! The sophitication ranges from, for example, the monkey or the fish tank option for the little girls or teenagers.

But wait, there is more. For the bold there are options such as the leopard...

Yet, for the simple minded there are the classic designs,



For more information see http://www.fashionhot.com/

If anyone knows more about how to cope with the cold, the draught, and humidity, please do not hesitate in offering help. Any suggestion is welcome. Autumn and winter are approaching us.

Once upon a time, not so far away…

It was a dark and stormy night. All decent people had long since rushed into their cold, draughty homes, and did their best to keep warm around electric fires. Not that they really minded, though. They had accepted that in a country that is situated in the windy shores of civilisation, most nights were dark and stormy (although not often indoors). In fact, they were quite pleased that this provided them with a chance of putting on their new Burberry caps and Adidas tops in their own homes, without having to go out to show off their new clothes.

People also felt happy that they lived in a country where the flow of conversation never run dry, there was always the Weather to talk about. The weather also provided the most industrious segments of the nation with blinding possibilities in gaining social status: Those lucky enough to have accumulated funds, would pay good money for a double glazed conservatories, where they could admire the Elements without the inconvenience of walls, naked if you will, as God had intended to.

A happy nation they were, shivering in their beds, even in the middle of summer. They knew that no matter how much the draught made their curtains fly around, there would always be a thicker duvet in the store waiting for them. Sometimes rumours from overseas had told that in countries far away people insulate their houses to stop the draught and keep the warmth inside. These rumours were met with careful suspicion and humour. To have a properly insulated house was not only considered cheating, but it was also a sign of bad taste to ruin a perfectly decent draught.

To show their respect to the Weather the good people abandoned most of their clothes when they left their houses. Wearing as little as possible without being arrested for soliciting, they proudly stood in neat lines outside the public houses, waiting to be let in by less respectful characters in bomber jackets and varying states of brain damage.

Sometimes the weather turned nice and the people panicked a little, but soon enough everything returned to normal, and they lived draughtily ever after.

the summer is back...just came to say goodbye

The last week was miserable here in England, nothing better than this...yet warm. How is one suppose to enjoy a summer when is warmer outside than inside one's home? Sometimes i wear more clothes indoors than outdoors. Of course is nice to have a fresh flat, but it is not nice to have a cold, humid and draughty dwelling. The worst part of this protest is its inadequacy for the English who enjoy without complaints the buildings of their homes. This is so strange to me, even in winter they expect you to have some flow of air in the house for freshness' sake!

Now, today and as it is expected for the rest of the week, the weather would be nice and summery, and I hope with all my heart that my house feels warm too. I rather enjoy turning on the fan in the evening than wearing a bloody sweater in a summer night when i am indoors!

Random Tasks and Odd Jobs

Today, I've been mostly feeling busy with a series of random tasks. Don't really want to get too deep into that but it suffices to say that the day's gone past rather quickly in stark contrast to most of my time here (which is obviously a great thing).

That's probably why I really haven't got anything interesting to report today. In fact, this link is pretty much the only even slightly amusing thing found today and even this is not really that funny, unless you're about 20 years old, live on university campus and consider the smell of human excrement amusing. Those were the days.... why didn't we have this kinda stuff availble then?

I think I'll keep it short today as I really have nothing to say. Back to my odd jobs it is then.

Where’s My Sausage?

There’s nothing like a nice cup of coffee in the morning before work. Unfortunately I never have time for it. I wake up, rush around aimlessly in an attempt to wash and feed self, and before I have achieved either properly I’m out of the door already. That’s just how it goes.

Luckily my co-blogger Nygard has the answer in the shape of a caffeinated soap (see the entry below). You can have your coffee and wash in one go. But why stop there? If you are having your coffee in the shower then surely you need a bit grub as well? I reckon a full English breakfast with tea flavoured soap could be a hit. Nothing like rubbing beans to your face first thing in the morning, is there? And you have a diet version for the sporty ones. And one for vegetarians, and, and… the possibilities are mind-boggling.

If you want to move on from food, you could also have your Prozac, Viagra or what ever it is you are on, while you are washing yourself. I think this potential has been missed by pharmaceutical industry.

I think there are some serious research and development possibilities here. If you are a major player in the soap-enriching game, give me ring and we’ll have chat about it…

Espresso

Today, I've been mostly feeling sleepy. It's amazing how three cups of rather potent Italian espresso in the morning can't keep me awake all day in the office. Previously, I have mentioned drinking coffee here in the office with weekly changing temps who talk crap. Now, I've got a confession to make. I don't actually drink coffee with them. I don't even drink tea here, but I do suffer from the f-list syndrome and I really don't care what Posh and Becks are up to.

The reason why I dont drink coffee here is quite simple. I hate the reciprocal system that these people have implemented. "Anyone for hot drinks?" "Sure", I say, only to find that I'm then actually expected to make coffee/tea to EVERYBODY as I go to the staff room next time to satisfy my cravings. Man, this really bugs me. It bugs me to such extent that I have stopped drinking coffee in the office full stop. Not that I greatly miss the bloody instant crap anyway but I still seem to be irreversibly hooked on that substance found in abundance from the black liquid in question.

So, what do I do. Try to drown myself in caffeine in the mornings? Exactly, but it doesn't seem to work on me. This is what I need. Could I wait until xmas or should I buy it now? Unless they come up with caffeinated chewing gum, I'm bound to waste some good money on this excellent product and even bring it with me to the office. I don't see any problem with washing my hands and face ten times a day, providing there's enough moisturizer available (don't start, I know...).

To finish up for today - this is quite funny! Poor bloke's about to get caught

Boredom's gone - long live freedom!

Today, I've been mostly feeling bored. Bet that did not suprise anyone. Definitely it seems that this is a recurrent theme in our writings. To make my first point of exit from the realm of boredom, I thought that I'd just simply post quickly a summary of the last days events and... hell, now I've got it!

So, since my last post, Mick has been busy getting wasted with his colleagues, my wife's been busy writing and me, well I've been less than busy at work. For Mick's realization that we all handle the rex ethyl with variable success, there's not much to be said about that. It just is so. Some people have no frigging idea how to enjoy (yes, ENJOY) the drink. Sad, but true.

Nevertheless, I actually started to enjoy this newly found freedom at the office for a change. There's nobody to hover over me to check what I'm doing and there's definitely no one telling me what to do. Hey, I've even managed to actually do some things that nobody would never expect me to do here! So, and as promised, boredom shall give way to this beautiful and productive freedom and I will not return to complaining in the instant future (hopefully).

Freedom. That's it. We bought a car some time ago (my first ever and I'm almost 30!) and the feeling of freedom has ever since grown to new extents. I can now tell you that sitting in a traffic coming home from work, paying £0.90/litre for gas, is wayyy better than standing on the bus stop in the rain waiting for a bus that infamously is always late. It even gives me time to listen to all those CDs that I never listen to at home. Even better, I've started to listen to BBC Radio 4. Good stuff, believe me. This makes me look like I'm becoming worryingly middle-class(ized). Must be the age I guess. Damn it! You shall never take this freedom away from me bu I promise to fight against being middle-class. It's like being mediocre and I can't handle that!

Personal freedom actually feels nice every now and then. Last week, I had three days to myself in the flat and to some perverse extent, I really enjoyed it. It's not that we are having marital problems or anything like that but sometimes it's just so nice to do things exactly the way I want them to be done. You know, leave the toilet seat up (not really), not doing the dishes and the laundry when there are still plenty of clean plates and clothes left.... Makes it helluva lot easier to adjust to all the little things required living in a relationship.

Strikes me also, that maybe I shouldn't abuse my freedom too much. Maybe I'll start finding it boring too eventually. Hell no! For freedom I shall fight for until the sweet and sour end! Shit, today's 1 hour of freedom to indulge into my supper's almost gone. Back to daydreaming.

Thou Shalt Not Drink With Your Colleagues!

Horrible, horrible, horrible. There are few things worse than dragging yourself to work on Monday. And it doesn't help if you have spent most of the weekend drunk and miserable.

I suppose it all started to go wrong on Friday when I went out with some colleagues. That was the first mistake, right there. A powerful argument for the non-existence of God is that there was no mention of not drinking with people you work with in the Ten Commandments.

Anyway, there I was, drinking with people I have worked with for a year, but so far not spent any amount of time with outside work. After a couple of drinks it still seemed like it could all be relatively painless, but that's always the case isn't it, that's why you stay longer. Before you know it you are talking rubbish that you would never think of saying if you were sober. To make things worse you will probably not remember what it was. This is the sort of stuff that paranoia is made of.

When you finally realise that it’s time to go home, you are already late. You have been talking to people about what at the time seemed like intelligent and serious issues (and getting very drunk in the process) so it is very difficult to see that instead of humorous and opinionated, you are actually a complete twat. This is almost guaranteed to cause an argument when you return home. The only hope is that your better half is already asleep and you pass out in the hall.

The next day is no better. When the headache starts to calm down and you start to remember what took place last night the moral hangover is ready to set in. This will take all Saturday, if you are even a half decent human being. It can be a painful experience to listen to people telling you what you have been doing and saying the night before (this doesn’t get easier with practise), so unplugging your phone may be wise.

On Sunday it is possible to have some short periods when you are feeling normal but pretty soon you realise that tomorrow you have to see the people you work with again. How can you act normal after last Friday? And it's not just the next day, if you’re really unlucky you will spend the next 30 years or more working with the same people. Realising this will bring you very near to a mental break down.

But the true climax is always Monday morning when you return to work. Horrible enough after a nice relaxing weekend but even more agonizing after you have spent the whole weekend hating yourself.

So, enjoy the beginning of the week, and don’t forget to get drunk again on Friday! Get your boss to come out too, that’s even more fun!

Alone, ill and bored - again

Yesterday evening and today I've felt like my head's filled with play-doh. It appears to be be greenish/yellowish in colour and rather flexible in consistency. I've read from somewhere that this 'thing' coming out of my sinuses is just dead white blood cells. Hopefully I won't run out too soon because the same publication claimed that they are supposed to be quite essential for my well-being.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've also been particularly bored at work recently. This made me wonder if this play-doh like goo could be used for boredom relief. Obviously that's not very practical, unless you want to smear your keyboard/rat/screen combo in snot and I guess that I should think of my colleagues health as well. I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate having this very same feeling tomorrow morning. Not that I care too much really, it's the cleaning operation of the means of production that I'm worried about...

To make things even worse when I'll reach home after work, I've been left on my own. My better half jetted to Oxbridge world to deliver a speech about 'quadripartite nature of strong structuration' and 'Mexican indigeneous people', or something like that. Sounds so fancy, doesn't it? What it is really about and how those two very remotely sounding entities come together, I shall leave to those who hold the knowledge to decide.

Anyway, it's quite nasty to be home alone and semi-ill. I'm also expecting this feeling to develop into full-grown flue shortly. My head is already showing signs of that. Few days on the sofa watching sports? Nah, I guess I'd rather go to work...

I better stop whining before I get told to shut up. Maybe the play-doh will change colour later so that I could try to create more varied things from it.

Return to Routines

Now that I'm actually in the office and bored as hell, this post serves the purpose of keeping me looking busy. Don't expect any clever comments or ingenius use of the beautiful language, I'll just say what I have to say and I'm off for the seventh coffee of the day with another temp that will be in the office for a week or so and whom I'll never see again but am still forced to smile at and even exchange comments about some f-list celebrities that she adores...

This is the second day at work after my week's break. I can't describe vividly enough the feeling of waking up on Monday morning waiting to switch the bloody kettle on to have my daily dosis of cheap English tea (aka 'monkey' to some) and to get to work. Words such as frustration, boredom, laziness etc all sprang to mind at once, albeit my mind was working on idle and probably was too numb to even put as many letters together to form such words...

Even worse, however, was the day and the afternoon before returning to my way-too-deeply-embedded routines of the working life. Some people call it the 'Sunday Syndrome' and I've also heard it being referred to as the 'fuck work, let's get drunk' day. However, it's not only when returning from holidays that I feel totally unmotivated, lazy and bored whilst expecting to thrust my head through that office door and putting my fake smile on before greeting everybody doing the exact same. I guess though, that returning from holiday must make this feeling grow exponentially.

Well, is there anything that could remove this somewhat sour feeling? So far, I've noticed that it just remains there, regardless of my ludicrous efforts to dispell it by doing something 'creative'. There is no cure, let me repeat, no cure for the Sunday Syndrome. It will prevail as long as I keep working for the 'man'.

Ok, maybe I'm bitter that I have a shitty job that keeps me unentertained most of my time and should be grateful that I even have one. Herein lies, actually, the second dilemma of the working life; not only hating to return to work but of being bored at work. As Mick mentioned below, this is the fundamental problem that many of us face. One week you work like a slave feeling the whip of the bossman on your sweaty back, the next you're playing the part of a "busy-looking-fella-who-actually-has-shit-all-to-do" in an everyday play of "make-your-living-with-a-job-that-you-hate".

I hate my job. Period. Hopefully this week's temp has better topics to talk about than just who went out from Big Brother last week...

Anyway, if anyone out there has a cure for feeling like a piece of excrement on Sundays, please let me know. Hell, I'd even pay for that.
N

Trains – Going Downhill

I used to like traveling by train. When I was little a train ride was a special treat, enjoyed only rarely when my mum took us to see some relatives far away. Those days trains were big, dirty, and terribly noisy monsters that you could hear and see miles away. Just the sort of things that kids like.

Even in my teens when I was ready to denounce most things (regardless of whether I understood them or not) I still liked trains. Not in that geeky way, though. I never owned a miniature railway or bed sheets with pictures of trains on them - I had brown bunnies on my sheets, thank you very much. But I liked to travel by train. I am a veteran of two InterRail trips around Europe, and I enjoyed every minute of them. There’s nothing quite like getting out of the train at six in the morning in Bucharest with a killer hangover. You just know that those days will be interesting. And so was the drunken conversation with a couple Romanian guys I met in the train the night before. We had no common language so we just drank their home made booze, named footballers and gave them thumbs up or down. More elaborate signs were needed when we tried to agree that certain English midfielder was indeed greatly overrated, although he did have a decent right foot and a pretty face.

These days, however, I find myself enjoying travel by train less and less. And it’s not just because they are always late. In fact, that hardly bothers me at all. I certainly don’t care about a few minutes here and there. The people that have nothing else to talk about than trains being late, they bother me. Give me a couple of drunken Romanians and a football magazine, and I will have much better time. Ok, I might need the booze as well.

What bothers me is that trains are becoming more and more boring all the time. It used to be great to go to the restaurant car and have a drink and a chat with a complete stranger. You could find yourself in the most bizarre conversations – and company. Restaurant cars used to be naturally sociable places, where you could escape the smelly man in the seat next to yours.

But that’s history now. In some trains they don’t have restaurant cars at all, only those little trolleys that are always squeaking next to you if you try to sleep but are never there when you want a drink. Where they still have restaurant cars they have made sure that the visitors want to leave as soon as they have scoffed their over-priced sandwiches: the seats make stone slabs feel soft and comfortable, everything costs more than it does in the trolley, and the queues are ridiculously long.

Taking a train these days is like flying (another form of transport I’m not so keen on). You sit in your seat throughout the trip, you don’t talk to anyone, and you sure as hell don’t feel like this is a place where you are expected to enjoy yourself. I realize that this is the way that most things work these days: restaurant cars are more expensive to build and maintain than the bloody trolleys, hard seats last longer than the nice old soft ones, and as always, profits are determining what we get for our money.

But after all the rationalisation, cost effectiveness, and service improvements, what do we really get – dull train rides, that’s what!

Holidays, vol. 3

Today I spent the entire afternoon deciding whether a brochure should have a green or orange background.

The reason for the amount of time that I took making my decision was not my sudden lapse of sanity or chronic indecision, but simply the fact that there was absolutely nothing else to do. So, I gave it some serious thought, or at least stared at the options in front of me and wondered how many people would even notice if I didn’t come to work for a week or two.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that my colleagues would probably notice my absence unless there were the odd rants and curses coming from my office (maybe if I recorded my own warbling and left a tape recorder in my office…). But the amount of work I have certainly wouldn’t have been a problem. The work I have managed to do in the last fortnight could easily have been done in a day or two, max.

I suppose in a way this is like being on a holiday. You just have to show up for breakfast, play nicely in your room until lunch, and then have coffee breaks with as many people as possible until it’s time to go home. When I was little I went to summer camps that had more structure than my average day at work this July.

It’s not that I miss the winter when everyone is stressed out because they have too much work, but there’s just no point showing up at work when half the office – and the nation, it seems – are on holidays. It is simply impossible to get anything done. Try spending an entire afternoon in January deciding on a background colour of a brochure and you get sacked before you can say red.

Since it’s unlikely that this problem will disappear in the near future, here are three useful tips for those bored at work:

1. Escape the office. Gather up your mates and tell your boss you have to go out and take their pictures for the company newsletter. Then head for the nearest pub and use the photos in the archive. If that doesn’t work just kick the coffee machine in the office until it stops working, so you have to go out for a coffee.

2. Take up gambling. You can make a deal with your colleagues that the first one to receive a work-related call or e-mail will buy everyone lunch (then get your friend to make a fake inquiry to someone. They’ll never know).

3. Suggest a company sports day. If you manage to get the company directors to do any kind of physical exercise I guarantee that most of the fat bastards will hurt themselves badly enough to take a few days off. Life is just more pleasant when they are not there to keep an eye on you all the time.

If all else fails you just have to try to imagine all the ways how Hell will be more unpleasant than an average day at work in July. I haven’t come up with so many myself.

-------------
P.S. The brochure background will be green - unless I change my mind tomorrow afternoon.

No Sir, I can’t Boogie!

What a horrible feeling - realizing you are getting old. It is Tuesday as I’m writing this and I still haven’t quite recovered from the weekend.

I suppose I only have myself to blame. I had an old friend visiting me, which is always a pretty good guarantee that the weekend will be spent very, very drunk. And this weekend was no exception. I suppose it’s always like that when old friends meet after not being in touch for a long time. You need a few drinks to break the ice and remind yourself why you were friends in the first place. And before long you’re all relaxed and chatting just like old times – the only difference being that now you are actually talking about the old times.

Now, there is nothing wrong with talking about your past with old friends. But this time we decided to take it a step further: We made a conscious decision to visit our past, and to relive the joys of being young and wild. To achieve this we abandoned the nice, quiet pub where we normally stay all night and headed to the disco (are they still called that?) where we used to spend most of our weekends ten years ago. This, of course, was a mistake of colossal proportions.

There is always something strange about walking into a room when you can tell that most people there had not yet been conceived by the time you passed your driving test. I wonder if teachers ever get used to that? Maybe that’s why you could sometimes see a brief look of horror on their faces when they entered the class room? Or was that just common sense? But then again, how much common sense can you have if you choose a career that keeps you in confined spaces with juveniles for the best part of any given day?

Anyway, there we were in the disco, instantly feeling like relics among the young and beautiful. H&M catalogues on legs was what my friend called them (I’m too intimidated by them to shop in H&M so I had to take his word for it). More troubling than feeling like an outsider was realizing that these kids were exactly like we used to be: young, happy, and in various states of intoxication. In fact, they were so like us that we were able to spot old friends we used to come here with: the drunk, the womanizer, the couple kissing in front of the toilets and blocking the way for the people in need, they were all there, only younger.

In our drunken state we agreed all this to be an existential problem too far from our reach, so we headed for the dance floor instead. That’s where another painful memory hit me: the feeling when you are drunk enough to want to dance but not drunk enough to ignore your inability to move your body to the music or look like you’re relaxed and having a good time. And now there’s the added misery of feeling old. Meanwhile everyone around you seems to know exactly what to do, and you just can’t help wondering how stupid you must look like to all those people standing there watching.

After enough humiliation – and far too much alcohol – we finally decided to call it a day. And what did we learn from all this? Well, we will be doing everything in our power to stop time travel ever becoming reality. But since there’s very little we can do about it, and the chances of it actually working are pretty slim, I guess we can just sit back and moan in peace.

Holidays, vol. 2

EDIT: posted by N on behalf of Mick

Holiday season is upon us - be warned!

It's the time of the year when normal, sensible, people turn into "holiday makers". The process is very similar to that, which turns some folks into werevolves during full moon. But instead of wanting our blood (unless maybe if it's properly packaged and marketed as a gift item for that special someone, and comes with a miniature shamppoo) they put on their most psychedelic Hawaii shirts, designer sunglasses and shorts that leave far too little to imagination, and head out in the relentless hunt for fun.

Now, there's nothing wrong with enjoying yourself and making the most of the little time that most of us are allowed outside our workplaces (this, of course, does not apply to post graduate students, who only go on holidays to have some structure and predictability in their lives). What is worrying though, is the intensity with which the average holiday maker sets upon the task of filling every minute of the holiday with action. People actually go on holidays with itinerarys that list everything that is a "must". God help you if you try to stop someone rushing from the over priced "Virtual Tour of a Traditional Village Experience" (most likely right next to the real thing, which you could see for free) to "A Traditional Feast", desperately trying to keep their tight schedule. How could they stop? That would mean abandoning the PLAN! And we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?

Another interesting quality that holiday makers seem to develop the moment their plane lands on foreign soil is the fascination with almost everything "traditional". Now, most of the places where we live today have ancient ruins or at least museums that tell us what may have been there. But you don't see people rushing to a nearby "site of cultural importance" after work. No, it takes a holiday, hours in steaming hot busses, and a whole bunch of people trying to sell you sarongs to make people interested in some piles of stones. Or do you think that most foreign visitors to traditional music sessions in Irish pubs could name a single folk music artist in their own countries?

After following a strict schedule for a fortnight the tired but happy holiday maker can finally return to work and relax. Now you only have to show all your holiday photos to everyone you know, make them drink some local wines (that cost next to nothing for a reason) you picked up, and tell them all about some wonderful people you met on holiday, but your guests never will.

All in all, it seems that people return from holidays more exhausted than they were before, and still manage to piss everyone else off with their stories. It's a small wonder that Holiday brochures don't have to carry health warnings like the ones taking most of the space on cigarette packets: "Holidays will exhaust you and those around you!" "Holidays cause stress!"

Well, mustn't linger... I'm almost late for my holiday already!


Mick Blogger