View From The Tower

I've been looking for places to post non-fiction prose online, the idea being to make money from my writing. Since other people have the same idea and it takes forever to get paid — assuming the piece is accepted, I've posted it here for now. This is what it's like to be me at the moment.

Get Fitter, Not Fatter

Well the new year is upon us and now that we've stopped being all jolly and merry and whatnot I've decided to go all Krampus on the world. You see, we're just over the hump at the beginning of the year when our good intentions drive us gymward in an effort to lose the festive flab.

Good luck with that. And so I rant.

Copyright, Wrongs, And How To Make A Living From The Internet

I don't know if you realise this but we all infringe on copyright every day. Every single, no-I'm-not-pulling-your-leg day. Go on, read the linked article at least three times. It's staggering. I mean, even looking at this post requires you to download it onto your PC, at least temporarily, so you can read the damn thing. In doing so, it made a copy of this file to store on your computer, but you didn't ask me if I'm okay with that, did you, you dirty thieving pirate, you?! Just kiddin'. But that's the problem. If you're mad keen on copyright, contact the PRS and pay for a licence before you sing Happy Birthday in public. Seriously, that's where we're at.

Customer Service Shenanigans

It used to be said that the customer is always right. These days I'm convinced it's being said that the customer is a chump. A bit of respect, please?

I used to try to be a bit considerate about them, having worked in customer service myself, but eventually I came to the conclusion that people who can't or won't do their job and make no effort to be helpful deserve what they get, and if they annoy me I give them Hell. And nothing annoys me more than dun dun dunnnn...

Blogger bother

I was annoyed about the recent outages, but they seem to have resolved. After two Blogger-less days, it occurred to me that the powers that be might well have resolved the situation by now, and I should clear the cache and cookies, then try logging in again, which I did. 

It's alive! It's alive, I tell you! *Maniacal laugh*

Seven gloaty Songs For Nadia

My friend Nadia is a teacher in a London school. Since she started there, she has been tormented by this bullying fiend of a woman who seems more like a German football player at an international match than a teacher. She dives like Tom Daley, is what I'm saying, and she does this to get sympathy. That, and her PHD in BS and her gold medal in Olympic-standard delusions of grandeur have wound her colleagues up no end... to her utter surprise.

Anyway, when Nadia phoned me today for our regular gossip-fest, it was to tell me she felt bad that this ridiculous figure of fun had gone the extra mile in Advanced Douchebaggery and actually did herself out of her job. Let's call this sad sack Elaine.

Elaine, also a teacher, wanted a more highly paid position in the school and had convinced herself that they simply couldn't do without her, so she hatched the maddest plan ever to get herself a promotion: she went up to the head and handed in her notice. Yep, she honestly believed that the head would offer to give her anything she wanted and beg her to stay on, the idea being that Elaine would then graciously accept the new, better position. Can you see how this ends?

Yes, dear readers, to everyone's amusement (apart from Elaine's), she handed in her notice and the head just accepted it. No begging, no pleading, no suicide threats or emotional blackmail. Elaine was aghast. To make things worse, it seems she hasn't even lined up a new job. She was counting on the headmistress begging her to stay and offering her the job she wanted as a bribe. Well, she didn't. At this point, it gets ridiculous because Elaine then staggers out all shellshocked and everything, and falls over conveniently in front of the staffroom, which she then enters in a bid to get some sympathy. Which doesn't happen. Elaine then slinks away with her tail between her legs.

Nadia tells me she feels a bit guilty for gloating, but after all Elaine has done to undermine her, I think she's entitled, and have compiled a list of songs to play on her ipod for a guilt-free gloat.

Counting down, Top of the Pops style, from number seven:

7. Leaving Me Now - Level 42


6. I'm Free - The Soup Dragons


5. Unbelievable - EMF


4. I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down - Paul Young


3. Stupid Girl - Garbage


2. This Is The Day - The The


1. Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead - Wizard of Oz (original)

Link to video.

Gloat away, love. Gloat away. Here oop north, I'm gloating, too.

Frustratophone

My friend Nadia is being driven nuts by what can best be described as a Frustratophone. It all started innocently enough when she was offered a new phone by the people running her mobile phone contract, and she accepted it, as you do. The trouble with Nadia is that she's fussy, especially where phones are concerned.

She hates slider phones because if you leave them open for too long, they get stuck in that position (not an experience I've had, to be honest) and button phones annoy her by calling people unexpectedly if she has one in her handbag and she jiggles it.

After exhausting the possibilities, and because she wanted the biggest screen she could get, she settled for a touch-screen like the one on the left. So it begins...

First of all, she tried to import all the information from her other phone and ended up losing all the numbers. This led to her sending me an email to get my number. Then when she called me, it got ridiculous. Every once in a while, as we were yakking away, I'd hear a beeping sound. "Nad?" 

"I'm here."

"What's the beeping?"

"The phone. I don't know why it does that."

After a while the sound of her voice faded out. "Nad?"

"Wendy?"

"Nad, are you there?"

Just at the point of switching off the phone, the volume comes back up. "Sorry, Wendy, I'd brushed it. This darn thing is much too sensitive."

Great. So there's a good chance that, one day while she's walking along with it jiggling about in her handbag, it could end up dialling the speaking clock in Hong Kong and she'd be unaware of this until she got the bill. I mean, this thing freaks if she as much as breathes on it. So much for the wonders of technology.

Well that raises the spectre of the new phone I'm due to get from my contract supplier. Last time they called me to offer me a free new phone, I told them I wanted one the size of a half brick with decent-sized buttons because I'm not a flippin' Hobbit. I want to be able to see and touch one button at a time without the aid of a magnifying glass, is what I'm saying.

They sent me a slide-phone. The buttons are tiny. I avoid sending texts because the effort to type them is a flippin' ordeal. The buttons are tiny and don't always work when you press them. Or they do something unexpected. It took ages to work out how to get rid of that awful predictive text. I absolutely loathe that feature. 

So now, thanks to Nadia, I know to avoid the touch-screen ones unless they've got an option for switching off the screen touchability unless I want to use it. Otherwise I may find I've accidentally hacked into NASA while out shopping with the thing in my bag.

Online time-wasters

Should there be a twelve-step group for internet addicts? I'm becoming concerned that I may be addicted. I mean, I'm beginning to look like this:

The best excuse I can come up with for faffing about on Facebook, tweeting twaddle on Twitter and creasing up on Cracked.com is that, well, it's fun. And, as a certain Lolcat would say, it is relevant to my interests - if you like to read sweary articles about five reasons a zombie apocalypse will never happen. Which I do. Relevant to my interests? I'm a horror fan. Yeah.

It's beginning to take its toll. I've been up late at night just to read how some scary creatures *gasp!* resemble us, and 7 terrifying things the internet has unleashed on the world, etc. Cracked, is, of course, the worst offender. But it's so damn entertaining!

It's actually pushing the lolcats out. There's no escape. Once you get caught in the gravity well of ROFL, it's pretty much over. Like a fly stuck in a spider's web, you can struggle all you like, but you can't break free. And that's when the funny comes to get you. You've really got into 5 classic movies you didn't know were remakes and just had to read 5 reasons the good witch was a bad one. Then there's... but it's nearly 2am!

I could argue that I'm doing research for a possible future article about five naive art producers and why their drawings alone are hilarious, or five lol sites and why they are funny. But I'm busy doing this, and smoothing graphics for anything, particularly for this blog, can take hours. The more detailed the image, the longer it takes. And where do the images go? T'internet. 

Sigh!

The dangers of rain

My friend Pamela came over today and we went to the shops, as you do. 

"What's the weather doing?" she asked. "Is it raining?"

Rain. Fear it.

An innocuous enough conversation, right? Yes, but it got a bit silly when we got outside, it was raining and the umbrella stayed up long after the soakable part was over. I mean, personally, I don't mind a bit of rain. Drizzle away, I can live with it, but must we cower in terror at the mere thought of one drop falling on our helpless, quivering forms? To quote local comic Peter Kay, "It's spitting! It's spitting! Run for your lives!"

I don't get it. Obviously when I'm actually at risk of getting wet, i.e. dripping all over the floor when I get home, that's the time I'd reach for an umbrella, but the way Pamela sees it, you'd think she was the Wicked Witch of the West and would melt if she was touched by but a drop!

While it was still pouring, I huddled with her beneath her umbrella. We walked along as if we were in a three-legged race. The umbrella is quite small so I had to stick close beside her to keep dry. We were practically tripping each other up. When it slowed to a drizzle, I got out from underneath to get my space back, but she still clung to it like grim death. It wasn't until we were safely in the shopping centre that she finally took it down. It's not as if she has a fancy hairdo that might be ruined or anything. There really is no explanation for it. I just think it's hilarious.

A Whole Nother

What the heck does that mean? It's not in any dictionary I've seen and many people I know say it. Stop that right now! You're confusing the foreigners. And me. I keep thinking I'm a foreigner and have been only imagining that I live in a predominantly English-speaking country. End rant.

Designing the blog

I just had to go clicking on links to see what would happen if I did. I've discovered that there is a bewildering array of fonts to use on our blogs. I toyed with the idea of using one of the squiggly fonts for the page text, then thought better of it. Trying to read a whole post in cursive gave me a headache. I've changed the colours of the links. One thing at a time. Okay, two. Who's counting?