Sdtrk: ‘F for fake’ by Wallpaper

*flips through stack of papers* According to my records, it seems that I’ve been using Twitter, the microblogging service everyone loves to hate, for exactly one year, which is a surprise to me as it is to you, more than likely. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d get that much use out of it! But it’s not a bad little service if you use it right, apart from all that timewasting I manage to do with it, when I could be writing legitimate posts. Ah heh.
It’s actually connected me with more than a few fab individuals with similar interests; or, at the very least, people who are willing to put up with me going on about how I’ll be joining the lads for another tokusatsu-watching session, or whatever videogame that’s captured our collective fancies that eve. Also, I like to view my Twitter feed as like the secret Davecat Fan Club newsletter of sorts, cos with it, I can share stuff with my followers that might not necessarily get posted to ‘Shouting etc etc’, or, thanks to this blog’s WP-to-Twitter plugin, they’re always the first to know of any new posts that get published, which they can ignore at their leisure.

One of the personalities I follow is actor and writer Stephen Fry, a man who has been likened to a contemporary Oscar Wilde due to his breezy and witty approach to things, wrote a post to his blog in defence of Twitter:

The clue’s in the name of the service: Twitter. It’s not called Roar, Assert, Debate or Reason, it’s called Twitter. As in the chirruping of birds. Apparently, according to Pears (the soapmakers presumably – certainly their “study” is froth and bubble) 40% of Twitter is “pointless babble”, (http://is.gd/2mKSg) which means of course that a full 60% of Twitter discourse is NOT pointless babble, which is disappointing. Very disappointing. I would have hoped 100% of Twitter was fully free of earnestness, usefulness and commercial intent.
the rest of the article is here

Twitter does a rather good job of conveying information and ideas in a pretty expedient and fun manner. You can keep your Mybook or your Facespace; I’ll stick with the birds instead.

Speaking of Wilde, yes, I’m reading my copy of ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism‘ again, as it’s a fantastic essay. Also, I’m in need of new books.

A great deal of nonsense is being written and talked nowadays about the dignity of manual labour. There is nothing necessary dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading. It is mentally and morally injurious to man to do anything in which he does not find pleasure, and many forms of labour are quite pleasureless activities, and should be regarded as such. To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt.

Try to tell me he’s wrong! Try to tell him he’s wrong! The answer is simple:
you can’t

Sdtrk: ‘Old man’ by Andrew WK

from the ‘Work is a four-letter word’ Files:

MRS BESMERTNIK: [I can’t turn my donation in,] I’m just getting deeper and deeper in debt. Do you remember that song?
ME: Yes! ‘Another day older and deeper in debt / St Peter don’t you call me cos I can’t go / I owe my soul to the company store.’ Tennessee Ernie Ford, ‘Sixteen Tons’.
MRS BESMERTNIK: That’s me, that’s where I’m at. So yes, you’re…
ME (interrupting): ‘One fist of iron, the other of steel / If the right one don’t getcha then the left one will’! Actually, thanks for bringing that up, I have to see if I can hunt down a copy of that for my .mp3 player! Great song.
MRS BESMERTNIK: You should! That’s a good song! But that’s like how I am, I can’t go until I’ve paid my debts…
ME (interrupting): Have you got one fist of iron, the other of steel?
MRS BESMERTNIK: Well, I don’t know about all that…
ME: Perhaps you should look into that, that’d be pretty impressive.

Sdtrk: ‘Narco Martenot’ by Stereolab

Right, I fully admit it: I’ve been a lazy tosser. So lazy! Between the bizarre weather (literally, close to 50°F one day, close to 20°F the next), fighting off yet another supercold because of the aforementioned weather, finally finishing off Half-life 2, Monti and I finding out last Saturday that Nippon kai, our favourite Japanese restaurant, has apparently lost their lease, and voraciously reading David Levy’s encouraging ‘Love and Sex with Robots‘, I’ve been slacking off on my duties as a blogger* in a major way. It’s not like I have absolutely nothing to write about — for instance, right this minute I’m peering at my bookmarks folder for potential subjects for the ‘This was the Future’ series, and there’s like twenty-seven candidates — I just haven’t felt compelled to sit down and write. This is due to the fact that I am an indolent sack of ordure. So lazy!
The upshot of it is, I will get back to writing soon enough. Well, typing. Doing this now, I feel like I’m returning to a more writerly mode, so that’s reassuring. So don’t panic!

In the interim, have another Ribald Tale from my Saucy Workplace!
ME: Okay Mrs Porpyruptup**, we’ll send you out a reminder card; you should see it in about three to five days.
MRS PORPYRUPTUP: That’s fine. Be sure to make a note on it that it’s a reminder, to give me a kick in the shin.
ME: Ha ha! We wouldn’t do that! It’d ruin your chances to win the, err, shin-dancing… competition.
MRS PORPYRUPTUP: Oh no, I never learned how to dance. My parents didn’t allow it.
ME: They didn’t allow dancing? How is that even possible? Were they Quakers? Did they arrive on the Mayflower?
MRS PORPYRUPTUP: Well, it just wasn’t in the environment.
ME: Well that was then, but what about now? What do you do when you hear a song you like? You just kinda lie down on the floor in a cold sweat, wishing the song would end? *starts giggling uncontrollably*

*Yeah, ‘duties as a blogger’. It’s okay, I’m snickering too
**her name wasn’t so much changed to protect the innocent, as it was me completely not remembering it

Sdtrk: ‘Dead plane’ by No age

ME (blinking at name on screen): Hi, err… Mr Ponce?
LUCKY CLIENT: Who?
ME: Mr Ponce?
LUCKY CLIENT: …I’m sorry, I’m not understanding you. Mr Potts?
ME: PONCE! MR PONCE! YOU ARE PONCE?!

Yes, my cubemates were staring at me laughing like a madman. Yes, I’m ten years old

Sdtrk: ‘Able bodied’ by Subliminal self

So I should be back online in the next couple of days! No, I’m serious; Comcast is sending one of their finest agents round to mine this Friday, in order to throw the enormous knife switch labelled ‘Inter Net’ into the On position. Which’ll be nice, as I’ve got some tidbits of negligible interest that I’ll nevertheless be writing about coming up soon.
In the meantime, lookit:

Looks like crap, tastes like shite. Such value!

Management actually went up and down the aisles a couple of nights ago at work and passed out cans of luminous intestinal bile Vault, in an effort to get us all whooped up to make more sales. No, I’m serious.

I have a question: who habitually drinks that swill? In my mind, I’m picturing people with lobotomy scars, dribbling rivulets of Vault down their hospital gown shirtfronts… and even they’re wincing at its extreme ‘citrus’ ‘taste’.

Hours later, I passed the can, which was only 2% empty, to our janitor. He probably naturally thought it was completely drained, as it slipped from his grasp and landed on the open end, dumping most of its lurid contents onto the carpet next to my cubicle. About a minute later, I couldn’t stop smelling Vault.

Clearly, management has it in for us

Sdtrk: ‘Romeo’s distress’ by Christian death

ME: Hi, Mrs (muddling through impossibly over-syllabic Russian name)?
*pause*
GLORIOUS SOVIET MATRON: rrrrRussian. English. No.
*click*

I laughed like a drain for like three solid minutes

Sdtrk: ‘Mass riff’ by Stereolab

Finally: a name worthy of a Benny Hill character.

*chortle chortle*
She didn’t pick up. Which was disappointing, as I’d really wanted to reply to any and all statements she made with a saucy ‘Ooh matron!’
And another heartwarming scene from my workplace…

ME: Hi, I’m Dave [horrid last name], calling from [Blazing Shithole Industries]. How are ya this afternoon?
AGEING TOSSER: I just got back from the doctor.
ME: Heh, is that Good or Bad?
AGEING TOSSER: Good and bad.
ME: A little bit of both, eh?
AGEING TOSSER: I have to go change my clothes; I just peed my pants.
ME: Aaah… *hangs up quickly*

Brilliant. Yet another reason to not get old