das Yummy

How Frequently Are You Ill? or, What The Fuck Is Wrong With People?

2008-08-13T11:22:53Z

This is really starting to fucking piss me off. There are certain members of my group of female friends who are always getting ill. I mean a minimum - a minimum - of 8 times a year. WTF is up with that? Who has immune systems so weak that they succumb to some infection or another that frequently? Granted, they all smoke (cigarettes) a lot, but it's not like any of them drinks too much, or has a demanding job. Hell, I punish my body much harder than they do, and I do it relentlessly, and I honestly cannot remember the last time I suffered from any kind of illness, even a cold. And I'm not one of those people who gets ill and just carries on: if I get ill, I really make a meal of it.

If I was taking to my bed as frequently as they do, I'm pretty sure I'd be freaking out about it and consulting a doctor about my frighteningly poor health. Is there something I'm missing here? It's not like they're claiming to be ill in order to get out of seeing me: they regularly miss days of work (one of them was temping for about 3 or 4 months last year, and when she left the job she told me that she had not worked a single five-day week: she'd called in sick at least once a week) and I frequently hear reports from one or other of them about another having cancelled a coffee date.

I think they need to start taking some vitamins or something.

Oh my God, so much pain

2008-07-07T13:21:22Z

I never get period pains - the last time I can remember having them was about 8 years ago; and although I can remember that I had them, I couldn't actually remember what it was like to have them, until today.
So much fucking pain, just horrible, horrible. I had to wait for it to subside before I could stand up long enough to walk to the shop on the corner to get some painkillers.
I feel so bad for women who go through this every month, I really do.

Irritated

2008-07-04T23:27:59Z

I was at the pub this afternoon with a couple of friends of mine, both of whom are married: Michelle is married to an unemployed alcoholic, and Emma is married to a guy with borderline personality disorder. Emma is separated from her husband, because he was beating the shit out of her.

So we were sitting there, talking about relationships, and Michelle got onto this riff that she periodically revisits, where she talks about how she doesn't take any shit from her husband, Steve, and if he ever lifted a hand to her she would dump him, blah blah blah. How "there's a line" and how she "just knows" that Steve would never hit her, etc etc. Steve has been up on assault charges twice in the past 3 years; the first time he got off, the second time he got sent down. There was a third incident, but the person he attacked didn't press charges. Steve thinks that violence is the answer to most things - and, what's more, Michelle agrees with him. They both think that if someone says something "insulting" or "disrespectful," it's okay for Steve to hit that person. And yet she claims that he's "not a violent person," and that's how she knows there'll never be any violence in their relationship.
So she carries on in that vein for a while - how honourable he is because he'd never hit a woman - and then she gets all candid and confesses that he is verbally abusive to her, but that "that's different;" she acknowledges the time that he pushed her over and she ended up with massive bruises all over her legs, but argues that it was "a one-off."

The thing that really fucking riles me is that she was sitting there, all smug and patronising, telling Emma that she'd never stick around if Steve hit her, that she'd leave him immediately, because she doesn't take any shit, etc etc. This is complete bollocks, for a number of reasons. He has used physical violence against her, and she justified it and explained it away, as do millions and millions of women, every day: she is no different from anyone else. Furthermore, she takes a LOT of shit from him, constantly - as far as I'm concerned, their entire relationship basically consists of her taking shit from him. She brags about how she's "not a doormat" (because, of course, if your partner hits you and you don't walk out immediately and never look back, it's because you're a doormat) but in fact, there is nothing that Steve could do that would make her leave him. He has never worked, in all the time they've been together - she supports him financially. He also does nothing around the house - she cooks, cleans, does the laundry and the DIY, and takes care of the bills. He has cheated on her; he has slagged her off, viciously, and very publically; he has got involved in hard drugs; he has dumped her; he spends most of his time looking at hard porn online. So, really, for her to say she's not a doormat - the implication being that Emma, because she did stay with her husband for a while after he started hitting her, is a doormat - is a bit fucking rich.

It also really, really fucking annoys me that she thinks you can draw a line between verbal abuse and physical abuse - that they're unrelated. I realise that it's probably very important for her to believe that they're totally different, but I wish she could see how fucking insulting she's being. I wish she would realise that he situation is not unique and special and exempt; and I wish she would acknowledge that if Steve became violent again, leaving would actually be a lot harder than she makes out.

kingyummy @ 2008-06-18T22:40:00

2008-06-18T21:41:23Z

I didn't die, but my boyfriend moved to America and I stopped posting for a while because (a) I was dramatically unhappy for a while and (b) I was living with friends and didn't have my computer with me so I couldn't really access Livejournal as much as I'd have liked, and (c) when I moved into my own place (a shared house, actually, but the city where I live is really expensive so that's how it has to be, for now anyway) I didn't have my computer with me, only a fascinatingly old laptop that I got from a friend who got it from a friend who got it from her dad. The laptop really is oooollllld - so old that it just can't handle LJ, so that explains my long absence.

But I really do want to start writing again - lots has changed recently, a big weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I feel lively again for the first time in ages. Plus, all my friends are total fucking freaks, and I really need to get my ire and outrage at their behaviour off my chest, but of course they all have these ridiculous ideas about loyalty: they seem to think that if you ever talk about someone behind their backs you should be excommunicated forever, which is just completely absurd in my opinion. But I need someone to go to the pub with, so I have to keep them sweet, so I will have to keep my ill will and criticism secret, and smuggle it into the open via a medium that none of them really cares for, namely LJ.

Things I want to discuss include the way my friend M and her sister C looked at each other and patronised me while I was talking about my crush; the use of CSI box sets as decoration; obsessive hair-dying, apparently with an almost religious conviction in the perfectibility of hair colour; patchworking and finding fabric that makes me feel like I'm going to have a heart attack.

Until then, adieu.

Bad smell.

2007-01-11T16:45:23Z

I think I need to take the rubbish out, because the flat is starting to smell like solvent.

One of the members of Take That looks like a skull.

2006-12-16T21:47:51Z

One of the members of Take That looks like a skull.
I don't know what his name is (I think it's Jason Orange, but he doesn't look like a skull in any of the pictures I found on Google. Maybe he only looks like that when he sings) but he's on TV right now, singing Patience on The X-Factor. Gary Barlow is totally carrying them. And they're wearing the same clothes they wore the first time they were famous: pin-striped velvet suits; shirts with ruffles on the front and big cuffs.
Actually the mebers of All Saints wear exactly the same clothes they used to wear the first time they were famous, too. They wear the same make-up as they did five years ago (or however long it was), as well - and the little dances that they do with their songs are the same too. It's weird, baffling and a bit creepy. It takes me aback every time I see them: the red eye-shadow, the straightened hair, the tracksuit bottoms worn with platform boots... so 2000.

Is this a bad sign?

2006-11-29T23:20:13Z

Okay, I hate my job. A lot. Every time I see a customer come through the door, the same words run through my head: "Oh God, just fuck off."

That's not good. A lot of people don't like their jobs, I realise that - but I think the levels of animosity, fury and frustration I experience every day by about 9am (I start at 8) are unusual.

I have decided, therefore, to take action. I know from experience that when I am slightly manic, I am un-irritatible and I don't get tired. However, I've been on lithium for almost a year now, and lithium works by suppressing mania. So I have decided to try and induce some mild mania by reducing my dose of lithium by 25% for a week or so, and see what happens.

Today was the first day of the experiment (I took 600mg last night, instead of the usual 800) and today was a better day than usual, even though we got absolutely slammed at work today and were stupidly short-staffed. I didn't lose my temper once, and I didn't feel particularly tired at the end of the day.

So basically I am relying on my mental illness to get me through the day at work. That can't be good, surely?

No lithium = max lolz

2006-10-31T16:51:19Z

I haven't taken my lithium for about 4 days now, I think, and today has been such a great day - I've been in such a good mood and I've been laughing shitloads, even though I've only had about 2 conversations. I felt a bit weird this morning - antsy - and I was worried because I didn't know if there was a reason for me to feel like that which I had forgotten. Then I realised that it was just hypomania, and since then I've just been enjoying it.

I laughed for about half an hour over a post on customers_suck this morning, and then I went into college and read Charlie Brooker's column in a copy of G2 that I found in the common room, and laughed without stopping the whole time.

It's nice.

USC

2006-10-29T01:39:23Z

There's some stupid dating programme on TV at the moment - I don't know what channel it's on or what it's called because it annoyed me so much that I tuned it off.

The source of the irritaioon wa that the host asked one of the female participants what she was looking for in a man and she went "Someone tall, and handsome hopefully." Um, yeah, I wonder why you haven't ever been able to sustain a relationship? Could it be because you're a stupid, shallow bilt who puts the entire gender to shame, perhaps? What the fuck kind of baasis for a relationship is height? Seriously, I want to know. And demanding a "handsome" man when you yourself look like a pig in lipstick is a bit hopeful, don't you think?

kingyummy @ 2006-10-29T01:25:00

2006-10-29T01:30:29Z

Dear Co-worker,

STOP WHINING. Yes, I know you are run down. You have already told me 14 times today. I am also run down and so is everyone else who works here. The chef, for example, worked 13-hour shifts every day for 28 days in a row - yet he has never told me that he is feeling "run down."

But well done: your constant passive-aggressive pissing and moaning ensured that the head waitress sent you home early today, just so that we wouldn't have to listen to your complaining any more.

Funniest fucking thing ever.

2006-10-29T00:26:46Z

Being the total winner that I am, I spent tonight (Saturday) in front of my computer, alone, drinking beer and looking through other people's memoried pages.

I found this:
http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/archives/whichcircle01.html
on bjsurvivor's journal (I think - it was 2 hours and many cans of Fosters ago).

Another letter to my manager.

2006-10-28T23:17:02Z

Dear FUCKHEAD,

I hate you. You are a fucking liability: when you are around, things go to shit. Today, I wanted to headbutt you. We had busier days than today while you were away and everything went perfectly. Today, however, was a mess, simply because you were there, being atrociously lazy, as ever, and making terrible decisions. Yes, on a Saturday, one o' clock is the perfect time to send one of the three members of staff on their lunch-break. Fucking brilliant; good move, well done. I wonder, though: does the fact that she had to go and sit outside because there was not a single table available tell you anything?

Take a tip: GO INTO THE DELI*, AND STAY THERE. We do not need you in the cafe, we can cope on our own. When you come in here, all you do is park your fat arse behind the bar and make it impossible for any of us to do our jobs properly. I fucking laughed when you dropped a jug of hot milk down your trousers, because it only happened because you were trying to show off and do 3 things at once. As a result of your adolescent attempts to prove that you are more efficient than everyone else, everything just went slower than necessary.

Also, STAY OUT OF THE FUCKING KITCHEN. You are not helping, you are getting in the way. When I am trying to put a new order up or pick up food to take it downstairs, and you just fucking stand there talking complete BOLLOCKS to the poor chef, who can't escape, you are an obstruction. Next time you do it, I am either going to push you out of my way, or I am going to shout at you.

Learn to look where you're going, you twat. I would have been so happy if I'd dropped that tray of crockery I was carrying when you walked straight into me because you were looking behind you as you waddled from the cafe into the deli.
And for fuck's sake, saying "Gangster" instead of "Thank you" is not funny, and it does not make you look cool, it makes you look like a complete CUNT. Just shut up. Nothing you say is funny or has any value whatsoever.

Fucking prick. I hope you get fired.

Rachel.

*The place I work is made up of a cafe and a take-away/deli. There's usually one person working in the deli and everyone else works the cafe.

FUCKING WASP DICKHEADS

2006-10-24T17:51:14Z

I fucking HATE the wasps that live in the bathroom wall - they are being a bunch of fucking un-cooperative DICKS.

This is the scenario: a few months ago my boyfriend and I noticed that we were finding a lot of wasps in his flat. At first we didn't know where they were coming from, but then I figured out where the nest was, because one day when I was outside I saw loads of them flying in and out of this tiny little crack between the bricks in the wall under his bedroom window.

We thought about calling the estate agents but they are such a bunch of twats that it's very unlikely that they would have done anything, so we didn't bother; we kept the problem under control by keeping the windows on that side of the flat closed or part-closed. Every now and again we'd still find the odd wasp inside, but nothing too serious.

But then the number of wasps in the bathroom started to rise: we would find 4 or 5 there several times a day, even when the window had been closed. Eventually I figured out how they were getting in: they come in through that weird fan thing that comes on when you turn the light on - the vent is directly underneath the entrance to their in-wall nest. I really do not know how else they could possibly be getting into the bathroom - however, neither my boyfriend nor I have ever actually witnessed a wasp coming in through the fan.

So today after I had removed FIFTEEN of the fuckers, I had a brainwave: I encased the fan, loosely, in cling-film (sellotaped securely all the way round) - the idea was to prove, once and for all, that that's how they get in. I was really excited to know if I was right; and I was pleased that I had found a method to test my theory that didn't involve killing them in large numbers.

But since I painstakingly set up my trap, three hours ago, not ONE wasp has fallen into it. NOT ONE. What the fuck is that all about? They're just taking the piss now, and it makes me angry, because when I find them inside I never kill them: I always go to great lengths to set them free - and this is how they fucking thank me? By laughing at my trap?

Fuck 'em. Any wasp I find inside now is going to get killed instantly and I am going to hang its body on a string and suspend it in front of the entrance to their nest, to show them what happens when I get pushed too far.
I now want to spray poisonous gas into their nest, and then smash a hole in the wall with a hammer so I can survey the carnage: all their stupid winged bodies strewn around. They think they're so fucking clever. Cunts.

A letter to my manager

2006-10-22T19:37:18Z

Dear Dick,

You misjudged that one, didn't you? I don't suppose you're ever going to try to pull rank on me in front of my co-workers again, are you? Because chances are, I'll do exactly what I did today: laugh in your face and walk away to go and do some ACTUAL FUCKING WORK, leaving you looking like a complete tool.

When you refer to yourself in the third person, you have to understand that people are going to think you're a pompous, jumped up twat. You also have to understand that when you're talking to someone who is 30 years old and has 10 years' experience putting up with shitty, incompetent managers, the natural answer to the (comedy) question "Are you, or are you not, finished being rude to The Manager?" is "No."

Go fuck yourself, you fat, useless fucker. If I was bad at my job - and if you were any good at yours - I genuinely wouldn't mind being spoken to like that. The facts are, though, that I am very good at my job and you fucking SUCK at yours. You change the rules constantly (do we stop doing breakfasts at 12, or not? Make up your mind, and fucking stick to it) and don't bother to explain them to anyone, then patronise us when we do things the way you told us to do them yesterday. You take orders from customers and forget to write them down, then hide in the kitchen when they start complaining. You give customers dirty cutlery - very nice. You refuse to just TELL the KP that she NEEDS TO WASH UP FASTER: instead, you order the waitresses to wash up all the cups in the timy sink behind the bar. You "just pop out" a minimum of 3 times a day, for a minimum of an hour at a time, and there is never anything to show for these expeditions. It's not like you're running out to get more milk, or trying to get to the bank before it closes: so where are you going? What are you doing, while your minimum-wage waitresses try to hold things together during the rush?

To be honest, though, it makes no fucking difference whether you're there or not because all you ever seem to do is either stand in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and talking bollocks to the chef, or stand behind the bar fucking around with the till and getting in the way of whoever's making drinks.

Tell me, why is it that for the 2 weeks that you were on holiday, the place ran without a hitch - and as soon as you got back and started running shifts again, everything started falling apart? Why is that? Why did we run out of 5 things on the menu today, 4 days after you got back and resumed responsibility for ordering? That didn't happen ONCE while you were away. Why were we so ridiculously short-staffed today? That didn't happen while the owner was running the place instead of you.

You fucking suck. And that pathetic attempt you made to assert your authority over yourself today just confirmed that I really do need to start looking for another job.

Namez4Twinz

2006-10-21T21:46:48Z

Okay my sister is going to have twins and I am freaking out with excitement.

I'm trying to think of names for them (they're identical but we don't know if they're boys or girls) but all the suggestions I've seen so far are supremely shit.

Taylor and Tyler? Shit and shit.
Amy and May? Twee and twee.
Um... Dorcas and Tabitha? Are you trying to get them killed? (That one comes from a very weird, OCD site called "Logical Names For Twins." Yeah that's what everyone looks for in a name for their new baby: logic. The reasoning behind Dorcas and Tabitha is that "both names mean 'gazelle,' but Dorcas is Greek and Tabitha is Aramaic.")

So I need some help. Can you think of a pair of good names for identical twins? I have already suggested all of the followng, and had them rejected (wtf?):
Pepsi and Shirley
Popeye and Bluto
Tom and Jerry
Laurel and Hardy.

So. Suggestions, please.

Why? Why??? Whyyyyyyyyyy?????

2006-10-15T00:01:20Z

Why do new customers in restaurants ALWAYS choose to sit on dirty tables? WHY? WHY?

WHY?

At the place where I work, if a new group walks through the door and there are 10 clean tables and ONE dirty one, covered with cups and plates and crumbs and spilt water and tea, THAT is the one the new people will sit on. And then they call a waitress over and whinge about how the fucking table is dirty! YOU CHOSE IT! You rejected aaaalllllll the clean tables and you CHOSE this lone filthy cluttered table! FUCK YOU!

Today we even had a group of people come in and sit on a clean table and then get up and MOVE to a dirty one! WHAT... THE... FUCK?

How bleeding on a customer's table helped me make a decision.

2006-09-25T22:29:07Z

Making a decision is a big deal because I am SHIT at making my mind up.

I vacillate terribly. It doesn't matter if it's a really insignificant decision (should I have coffee or tea? which pub do I want to go to?) or a really major one (should I move to Tanzania? should I defer my university studies for a year?) - I can never just make up my mind.

But today, I was decisive. I had to choose between 2 waitressing jobs: one was well paid, the other less so. I am seriously in need of money because I'm over £16,000 in debt, so really, I should have grabbed the better-paid one with both hands.

I had a trial shift there last night, and something happened that made me realise that it's just not the job for me. Bear in mind that it's a very nice restaurant, very formal.

I was opening a bottle of wine at a table and, somehow, I managed to cut my finger on the foil. It didn't hurt at all, though, so I didn't realise that it was bleeding profusely until the blood had smeared all over my hand, and then started to dry and go stiff. At that point, I looked down and saw that there my hand was covered in blood, and it was all over the corkscrew, and even on the cork, which was only halfway out. The lighting in the restaurant is very low, and the couple at the table were having an animated conversation and weren't paying me much attention, so I thought I could get away with it. I surreptitiously pressed the cut against my (dark brown) apron, and carried on. But it wouldn't stop bleeding; and when I finally got the cork out I looked down and saw that I had dripped blood onto the ice bucket, got it all over the white linen napkin I was holding and, classiest of all, flicked it onto the woman's side-plate. Bizarrely, they still hadn't noticed; and they were really nice when I pointed out that I'd bled on the crockery, removed it, and told them I'd be bringing a replacement.

So there was no complaint (as far as I know) but that kind of weird fuck-up is absolutely typical of me; and I know that it's not the kind of thing that usually goes down well in a place like that.

The other drawbacks associated with the job were:

It’s quite a long way from home;
lots of split shifts;
the manager is a cunt, and I hate feeling sick with fear before every shift;
I'd be finishing after 2am most nights;
the uniform sucks;
it's a very expensive restaurant so people expect a certain level of service, so if I fucked up - which I absolutely would have done, regularly - it would have mattered.

So I decided to go with the less well-paid, but infinitely less soul-destroying job, on the grounds that:

it’s much closer to home;
no split shifts;
latest finishing time is 6.30pm;
the manager is a human being;
it's a lot less formal, so the odd balls-up wouldn't mean instant dismissal.

So yay! I looked at the pros and cons and I was decisive! I know that most people do shit like that every day, but for me, it's a Big Deal. So I am chuffed

I swallowed my contact lens yesterday.

2006-09-17T12:02:36Z

I had it in my mouth because my eye was really hurting so I took the contact lens out, and I didn't want it to dry out.
I couldn't put it in its case, because I didn't have it with me: I was at my friend Miranda's place, where I'd slept the night before (we went out drinking and her place is closer to the pub than mine is.)

So anyway I was lying there with my contact lens under my tongue, feeling very pleased with myself because I knew I wasn't going to swallow it - no way was I going to do something that stupid - and I started napping, just half-asleep like. And as it turns out, I can't actually control my reflex actions when I'm asleep, so I swallowed, predictably enough.

Then I had to walk around for most of the day only able to see out of one eye, which is very disorienting. I felt a bit sick all day too - although come to think of it that might have been more to do with the quantities of booze I drank the night before than swallowing a really small piece of polymer.

People are never satisfied.

2006-09-15T16:19:41Z

This guy called James Frey wrote a book called A Million Little Pieces, which is all about his life as an out-of-control, meth-taking, crack-smoking alcoholic, and his "journey to recovery." I picked it up in a bookshop once, and read the first few pages, because the guy I was going out with at the time was trying to convince me that I was an alcoholic (this was because he couldn't drink, because of the meds he was taking, so he didn't want me to, either). I found it quite hard going and not very compelling, so I didn't buy it.

Needless to say, it features plenty of outrageous anecdotes about the crazy shit he did while off his tits - graphic descriptions of his gruesome injuries (including tearing a hole in his cheek big enough to put his finger through); accounts of his assaults on police officers (including hitting one with his car) and subsequent arrests and jailtime; analysis of his failed relationships, etc etc. Pretty standard, for the "ooh look how fucked up my life has been!!!" genre.

So anyway, it sold really, really well in the States - 3 million copies or something - largely because Oprah Winfrey thought it was awesome and made it one of her book-club books.

And then it turned out that he'd made up a lot of the content - and people got really angry and self-righteous. Oprah got him on the show and gave him a lecture: "I have to say it is difficult for me to talk to you because I feel duped. But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers." His publishing house has agreed to refund anyone who feels that they were "defrauded" when they bought the book.

Duped? Betrayed? Defrauded?! What a load of shit! The people who bought the book got EXACTLY what they wanted: a ringside seat; a close-up of someone's car-crash life. They wanted to read about how totally fucked he was, and that's what they got. They derived enormous pleasure from reading all about his pain. They got a kick out of his desperation. Reading books like A Million Little Pieces is voyeurism, plain and simple. It's compassion pornography: "oh, yes! yes!! tell me how horrendous your life has been! make me feel baaaad for you!" It's people getting off on other people's misfortune - and as long as it has the desired effect, what difference does it make whether it all actually happened or not?

And furthermore, shouldn't his readers be glad, instead of pissed off, that most of it was made up? After all, if they were affected by the book, surely that's because they liked the narrator - so why exactly are they angry and resentful that he didn't suffer quite as much as they thought he did?

I don't see why anyone needs to be angry: the readers got their kicks, and the writer wasn't having as bad a time as he might have been - everybody wins.

This whole episode reminds me: my friend Ana and I have been planning for ages to write one of those "my parents abused me - wanna read all the details?" books. It'll be called Butterfly Lost or Too Young... or Still My Courage Burns or something similarly dreadful. We're going to make the abuse in it super-terrible, and it's going to sell millions to people who get off on reading about the sexual torture of children - in a totally respectable way, you understand.

Help me with this.

2006-09-14T11:32:43Z

I have recently got involved in a nascent debate with a ~~fucking fool~~ person about Margaret Sanger. As an antichoicer, the ~~fucking fool~~ person has come out with the usual horseshit about how Sanger was a racist, just wanted to get rid of all black people, etc etc.

I have stayed away from the debate for a few days because I don't want to lose my rag, but I am not going to let it go: when I know I can reply without using the words fuck, fucker, and fuckhead, I am going to respond to his latest load of pious ignorance by providing the (very readily available to anyone who can actually be bothered to do their own FUCKING research, instead of just taking the anti-choice propagandists' word for it) evidence that actually Sanger was NOT a racist, and was working WITH the black community, not against them.

I just get so damn tired of doing other people's research for them that I am finding it really hard to compose anything even remotely civil. I just want to write "fuck off you retard," but that's not going to change any hearts or minds, is it?

So will someone help me draft it? I'd be very grateful.

ETA: I have the factual material I want to show the guy (evidence that the quotes he cites are either made up completely, or wrongly attributed to Sanger; Rev Martin Luther King's tribute to her; etc).
I just need help coming up with a polite way of saying, "You're a fucking retard. Have you ever actually bothered to do any reading on Sanger at all? Why are you so ready to swallow whatever bullshit you're told by propagandists? Is this the best you can do - making baseless personal attacks on the woman who founded PP - and do you honestly believe that this means you gain points in the debate?"

Actually, I suppose the problem is that I DON'T want to say ANY of that: I just want to present him with the evidence in a civil way. I really don't want to just copy and paste, because people like him typically take that as an opportunity to say "omg u can't even argue for yourself!!!!1" - ignoring the fact that they themselves, er, can't argue AT ALL.

I really want this lamp.

2006-08-15T03:21:26Z

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=004&item=140017374607&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

A scientific experiment to determine whether spraying a fly with Lynx kills it

2006-08-15T03:19:29Z

I did this experiment - sprayed a fly with Lynx while it was sitting on a bunch of bananas - and the conclusion I reached was that Lynx does not kill flies (I have never understood why some aerosols kill insects but others don't, because it always seems to me that the way insect sprays kill insects is by more by smashing their bodies with the force of the spray than anything else.)

However, hitting a fly really hard with some rolled-up computer print-outs, while it sits on top of a bottle of whisky, does kill it, and also makes you feel physically sick because the guts splatter out onto the paper and it's disgusting.

Why I am drinking espresso with Kaluha in at 3am

2006-08-15T02:58:21Z

I am helping my boyfriend finish his book, because the deadline for him to get it to the publisher is tomorrow (as in Tuesday). Well actually the deadline was today (as in Monday) but what's a day? He's in the final stages now, just going through the text to make sure that there aren't any glaring omissions, and then he'll be done. I had to rewrite 2 chapters (well I just had to merge them actually), but that's the reason for the foul caffeine-&-booze concoction: we need to stay awake. The booze was just to sugar the pill a bit.

It's a fucking great book, although it might not seem like the most riveting read on the face of things: it's about the domain name 'sex.com' and how a shyster stole it off the guy who registered it first, and the 10-year long legal battle the original owner had to go through to get it back.

I remember how my boyfriend used to talk about it when we first met and I would feign interest but I could never keep the names of the main characters straight. I just thought the whole thing was really boring. Then, when he got his deal with the publisher, he got me to transcribe the interviews he'd done with some of the main players and I got really into it.
There are some great characters involved - like Stephen Cohen, who did the stealing: he had previously impersonated a judge in Colorado and presided over court cases and sentencings. He's been married either four or five times, and he once trained his dog to open doors, I'm not sure why.

He's in jail in California now; he's been there since October last year but he's still refusing to tell anyone where he put all the money he made from sex.com during the five years that he had control of it. It's probably in a bank account in the British Virgin Islands but he's not telling. It'll be interesting to see how long he holds out, because the judge in the case, James Ware, is no fool and I don't think he's going to buckle and just let Cohen go free if he keeps mum for long enough.

I'm knackered. I think I'm going to have some toast and go to bed, where I will no doubt lie twitching, with my mind churning, until about 5.30.

Inspector Linley's car sucks

2006-07-27T19:57:45Z

Today on Inspector Linley Mysteries someone keyed Inspector Linley's car. He was all pissed off about it because it was going to cost a lot of money to repair.
He told his sidekick and she said, "It's a scratch!" So Linley went, "It's an expensive scratch!" And then his sidekick said, "It's an expensive car!!!"
The act of vandalism occurred in a pikey-ridden caravan park so the subtext was apparently that expensive things piss poor people off and drive them to vandalism.

I think that in this instance that hypothesis doesn't work. The car got keyed because it was fucking ugly: its visual offensiveness drove one of the residents of the caravan park to scar it.

Gret graffiti

2006-07-26T23:36:39Z

I was at my parents' place for a few days last week & on the way to the station to come back to Oxford I went through the subway. I was in a serious hurry (unnecessarily as it turned out because - shock! - the train was late!) but I didn notice on my way through that someone had scrawled on the wall,
<b>"if u want cat sex call 08796 985254"</b>

I made that number up, by the way, because I didn't note the number that was actually scrawled on the wall, so if you want cat sex I suggest you look online for a reputable service provider rather than relying on that contact.

BTW, if you're opposed to the concept of women's rights, or opposed to science generally, I would really appreciate it if you would just fuck off and die. In the long run, you will see that this would be the best course of action so why not save yourself some time?! Yayyy!