Ways to Amuse Yourself #217

Know how spammers use those random word generators to try and bypass your spam filter?

Try writing a short story with the subject line as your title.

Latest favorite spam subject line : Drastic Cocoa Powder

The whirlwind adventures of a psychotic Grandma who drinks cocoa laced with crack in order to fight crime!

Random Thought

I’ve written in the past about what I think of the sale of drugs on TV. (In a nutshell, your doctor diagnoses you and decides on a treatment, there’s no need for pharmaceutical companies to market to us directly).

Today, however, I felt myself getting sucked in.

It was one of those commercials for depression, and as they started reeling of the symptoms, I started mentally checking them off in my head. ‘Yep, I feel like that, that too, holy crap! And that!”

Luckily, common sense kicked in just before they started reeling off the side-effects.

Of course I’m a little depressed. I’m currently going through a paperwork marathon, and like I mentioned in my last post, I’m still about 2 or 3 years away from being at the point I was at before I left England. Like all couples, there’s a couple things between me and Sunny that I’m not thrilled about, all of my friends are over 3500 miles away, I’m approaching 4 years unemployed and I haven’t seen my family on over three years (except my parents who I saw last year).

So, as you can see, I’m not exactly on top of the world.

Now, before anyone thinks this is a ‘poor me, look how many problems I have’ post, it isn’t. Yeah, I’m a little down in the dumps, but I know things could be much, much worse.

But here’s the thing. I’m not going to go all ‘Tom Cruise’ on you and start calling psychiatry and anti-depressants a fraud…I wonder how many people are on anti-depressants who have absolutely no need to be.

For a split second, I thought I might benefit from taking one of those pills, but the point is, I feel the way I do because I have some problems that I need to sort out. The day I get a job, have a drivers licence and citizenship papers in my hand, I’ll be a very happy bunny.

Sometimes you feel depressed and down because there’s something in your life that needs changing. Taking a pill is treating the symptoms but not the disease.

In short, people should learn to deal with their own emotions, and not reach for a pill bottle just because they feel down.

Random Thoughts

Women are the ultimate bundle of contradictions, and they act like it’s the guys who are at fault when we don’t understand them.

Ladies, you’re simply not understandable. You’re a species who will run from a mouse or a spider, make a huge deal over the slightest bruise or cut…but will gladly PAY someone to cover your privates with boiling hot wax, then tear out your pubes by the root.

What is it with these advertisements on TV where they claim to be the exclusive user of “flex-tech”, “hug flex”, “Enzyme-tech” or whatever technology.

“We have patented isoflex technology, which is not available anywhere else!”

Oh shit! I can only get this amazing technology from you? I’d better run out and buy your worthless product.

Of course you’re the exclusive user of this technology, because you just made that shit up off the top of your head.

For example, this blog is the only blog you can read that uses a “Direct pressure-activated data input system” (I use the keys on my keyboard to type this shit)…and it’s the only blog you read using “Opto-Photontech interrface technology. (The light comes from your monitor to your eyes).

Oh, and to the good people at “Bowflex”, you can call them “Iso-grips” all you want. They’re handles .

Who pays these people who do these stupid “studies”, where they essentially spend millions of dollars and man hours to research a “mystery” that’s plain common sense…then either state the obvious, or fail to get an answer.

Like the study into why cornflakes go soggy in milk. A year goes by and the answer comes back “inconclusive”.

Could the answer be that they get wet? More importantly, who the fuck cares?

Then we get to the studies that show that “90% of accidents occur in the home”. No shit? The place I spend 90% of my time? What’s next guys? Are you gonna study why fire burns? (It’s hot). Or why getting punched in the face by an irate Englishman hurts?

Finally, there needs to be a change in the law.

When a person walks into a busy gas station and attempts to pay for a pack of gum or a can of Pepsi with a debit card or check, and not only refuses to just pay cash for a buck-fifty purchase, but also spends 45 minutes searching through an over-stuffed wallet or purse for their card or check book…especially when they had 20 minutes time in the queue to look for it and have it ready…it should be perfectly legal to kill, or at least maim them, in fact it should be illegal for the person behind them in the queue to not bludgeon them over the head with the nearest heavy blunt object.

The same goes for the people who smash into you with their shopping cart, then tut and give you a dirty look like it’s your fault.

Oh, and the people in the parking lot who stroll out in front of your car like the laws of physics don’t apply to them (IE a car hitting them won’t actually hurt them), and then when you stop, refuse to even speed up slightly to get out of the way…you should be allowed to gun the engine and watch them sail over the top of your car.

A Missed Opportunity?

Today I decided to design a new outfit for my SL store.

Now this usually involves a lot of switching backwards and forwards between avatars. I upload certain textures under my male avatar (So my ‘real’ SL name is listed as the owner), send that to my female avatar, then switch to her to actually create the damn clothes.

Then something weird happened.

I logged out of my female character, then logged back in as my male character. I went to send my female character something…and it still had her listed as ‘online’.

That’s impossible.

Only one person has the password for that character, and that’s me. I’d just logged out of that identity mere moments ago.

So I did what anyone would have done. Put it down to a glitch.

Sure enough, it let me log back in moments later under the female character…no-one had hijacked it.

Then I started to think…Did I just miss a once in a lifetime opportunity?

What if there had been some rip in the time space continuum, meaning that at that precise moment, I was online both as my female character AND my male character? What if I could send myself a message, back through time itself, to five minutes ago…and tell myself all about the future?

Sure, I’d only logged in as my female character 5 minutes ago, and I couldn’t tell myself any earth-shattering revelations.

But it would have been long enough to say:

“In about a minute’s time, you’re going to try to pick up your drink. Not only is the glass not nearly as full as you think, but Sunny brought it to you in a plastic glass rather than a real glass.

So when you pick it up, don’t use the amount of lifting force you think you’ll need for a heavy, full glass…because it’s much lighter than that, and you’ll throw it all over yourself.”

Moral of the Story:

When faced with a rip in the time-space continuum, make sure you use it, and don’t throw red Kool-Aid all over yourself.

Random Musings

God I’m sick.

Well, not that kind of sick. I mean I’m ill. In fact, I’m not just ill, I’m ill!

(See, not only did I use italics, I put it in bold as well…that should let you know how ill I am.)

Basically, it’s one of those ‘hit ‘n’ run’, cough/sore throat things. The ones that’ll let you go for a few hours and think “Hmm, I still feel pretty crappy, but I haven’t had a coughing fit in a while, maybe I’ve broken the back of it and I’m getting better!”

Then, five minutes later, you cough so hard you nearly pass out…then go throw up.

Seriously, I’ve not felt this bad in over a decade. Just to give you an idea of how I’m feeling, I woke up this morning with no memory of actually getting into bed. Then I looked at the clock. It said 2:30.

I had to get up and look out of the window to work out whether it was 2:30 in the morning, or 2:30 in the afternoon. My internal clock is completely screwed up

The only upside is that Sunny, who I managed to catch this from, is almost completely better now…meaning I only have a day or so of this left. So until then, I guess it’s all the hot tea I can force myself to drink, as many Hall’s Vapor Action I can stuff down my neck, and saying “This is all your fault!” to Sunny every 15 minutes.

On a brighter note, my Greencard came in the mail today, although rather disappointingly, it wasn’t actually green. It was actually a rather boring beige-cream color.

I poked it with a stick, in case it was a trick of some kind. Perhaps as soon as I touched it, hidden scanners embedded in the card would read my fingerprints, and the immigration police jump out of nowhere and drag me back to England.

Hey, I’ve dealt with these people for almost 7 years now, I know how their minds work.

Once I had the thing in my hands, I was reminded of Boromir’s speech from ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’

(For maximum effect, think of the theme that plays every time Frodo looks into the camera with an expression on his face as though he’s about to burst into tears, and play it in your head….that’s the one, that ‘Doooo, dooo, da, do, do, da, dee, dooo doooooo” one)

“It is a strange fate we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Such a little thing.”

Basically, We’ve spent 7 years and more money that I wish to count on something that looks suspiciously like a Blockbuster Video rental card.

The one thing I absolutely adore about the Greencard though, is it’s the epitome of Government thinking.

Seriously, this thing has so many watermarks and holograms on it, you get the feeling that if you hit it with a laser-pointer at just the right point, a giant projection of George W. Bush will spring forth from it, like Superman’s dad in the Fortress of Solitude.

But why is this the epitome of Government thinking?

Well, basically, this thing has so many anti-fraud devices on it, they manage to completely and totally obscure all the actual identifying marks. Sure, it has an image of my fingerprint on it, but not many police officers carry fingerprinting gear around with them…and my picture is a very faint monochrome image, that only shows the very deep shadows on my face.

I’d scan it and show you, but I’m afraid if the light from my scanner hits it, I’ll end up with a 50 foot George Dubya telling me I’m the last son of Krypton.

Last, but by no means least, my Darling wife surprised me today.

Tuesday is our grocery and bill paying day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t work up the energy to leave the house. (Not to mention I haven’t showered in the past four days…when I get ill my skin gets so sensitive it feels like I’ve been burned, I can’t even stand to be touched…basically, imagine having fairly bad sunburn all over your body, so standing under the shower would be absolute torture).

Anyway, she arrived back at the house, and wheeled in a brand new office chair, and said “Happy Greencard.”

So let me explain why this is a big deal.

For the past two years, our computer chair has been one of those awful plastic jobs. Basically, it’s as uncomfortable as hell. As much time as I spend at the computer (That chair sees more of my ass than any other item of furniture in our home), and the fact I have back problems….it was pretty painful.

Well, the new one is one of those high-backed, leather pneumatic ones. Comfortable and stylish.

Best…wife…ever.