J.R.T

It only takes bad Polish plumbing to make you question your career choices.

Some people have every right to complain about their jobs, sweatshop workers and Sarah Palin’s ghostwriter to name a few.

Others don’t.

I’m thinking bankers and BP employees here.

Now I do like to complain, in fact I only ever complain. Truth is my writing feeds off it. When I am angry and frustrated I can write in a more captivating mannor although this is intermitted with much foul and abusive language.

Cunt.

Now it’s a Monday morning. No one likes a Monday, just ask Garfield or Bob Geldof about Mondays.

I roll into work my accustomary ten minutes late and exchange a non-verbal greeting with my co-worker, pleasantries will be saved for hometime.

I slump down into my desk chair.

“Fucking Mondays” I exhale.

Silent acknowledgement and agreement resonate through the office, everyone is wishing it was Friday, or better yet the weekend so we would be free, free to drink and laugh and cavort with the opposite sex. All the while during this we are vaguely hoping that Monday never comes. That this weekend freedom lasts forever so we can live the fun life like a low rent, less lethal James Bond or whoever we wish we were.

I look around, my desk is a state.

The tenents in the flat above the office have had many plumbing “issues” over the last two months. These issues soon become my issues when the ceiling tiles collapse and cover my desk in broken plaster and water. It seems the lady who has moved in keeps forgetting that leaving a running shower head on the floor is not the smartest idea going. Three times now she has done this, either she’s stupid or just plain fucking stupid.

On a side note I must comend Dell inc. here as throughtout all these leaks and general dust abuse, my keyboard has not once stopped working and to this day is still working fine along with the tower and monitor. Shame their products are so shit, but hey at least they are durable.

Luckily today there are no broken tiles on my desk as, well as there are no ceiling tiles above my head anymore, just the flat aboves floor. So my desk is covered in a thin veneer of dust, and some splodges of liquid here and there.

I strike up conversation while dusting off my work space.

“You have a good weekend?

While cleaning I fire up my computer and load my database. I see I have an internal message from my boss.

Ha, sounds like you had a good one……erm, can you bring up the internal messages on yours, for some reason my mouse isn’t working…

I keep clicking the mouse, the arrow isn’t moving. I shake the mouse and realise it’s damp, I look down and see a few bits of water around the mouse. I pick up the mouse an out pours a steady stream of water.

Yellow water.

Errmmmm, what the fuc…

Tom comes over to see what all the fuss is about. He sees the look of horror on my face and in one fantastic moment we are completely on the same page.

That isn’t yellow water.

My desk sits directly under a newly installed toilet. A toilet installed by shoddy Polish workman with no qualifications and suspect drug habits.

A poorly constructed toilet nine feet above my head.

I feel sick and dash to the toilet to scrub my hands with soap or hopefully something stronger like bleach or car battery acid.

I usually save golden showers for the weekend.

I come back and survey the scene; there is a small puddle of yellow human waste sitting on my desk like a bad memo, it’s invading my working area and my patience.

So yeah I complain about my job, rightly so.

If it’s being paid peanuts, it’s having to wait four months for commission, it’s having to clean ceiling tiles off of my desk every other day, it’s not being able to sign a contract four months into a job, it’s my boss on my back about my targets. Now it’s having my desk covered in the stupid idiot upstairs piss.

Come in, take a seat, don’t mind the smell it’s just good ol’ fashioned day old urine that I’ve been storing in my mouse.

Those sweatshop workers probably don’t get their desks covered in piss.

Lucky buggers.

If you code HTML for a living you are not being paid enough.

So I have just spent the last two hours, yes thats right one hundred and twenty whole minutes trying to makeover my tumblr home page with natty HTML codes in the vain attempt that someone thinks “God his talent knows no bounds…”.

Turns out knowing how to turn text bold and even underline your posts when the occasion calls for it is not going to allow you to change the colour and font of the text of your homepage or link to outside pages etc.

I tried just asking the computer to do the things I wanted. I promised it gifts and I promised it love and I even promised that I wouldn’t ejaculate inbetween the keys ever again - but to no avail I couldn’t make anything work.

So with my tail between my legs and my ego broken I decided to google “HTML”.

Only 6.47 billion results.

Fuck.

Luckily I am not in charge of Google, and the dudes (read: god’s) at the Google head office sort their results basically with my retarded benefit in mind.

45 minutes later and I am basically a pro HTML coder. (Maybe with a little help from the guys at W3Schools).

Even with all this help it was interminable.

Seriously if you actually chose to this as a job then I hope you are being vastly rewarded with 5 star dinners and a passed out Olsen Twin on your bed. Naked. With amnesia. Because my friend you are a bigger, more patient, smarter and slightly gayer version of me.

Check out my home page and let me know what you think of the minimal changes. Be nice and compliment me greatly or my ego will eat your firstborn child.

Plenty of Fish Pt:1

Ok I’ll set the scene; I am bored.  Very bored.  So bored in fact masterbating with my left hand isn’t even a challenge anymore.  So like any self repsecting gentleman I signed up to a free dating website called “plenty of fish”.  Now this is just like Match.com but full of worse looking poor people.  Now I am not in the market for a girlfriend yet (although Dakota Fanning is looking pretty sharp) but I do like wasting mine and other people’s time.

This a private message I sent to “Lovissa”, a 29 year old surgeon doctor with lovely brunette hair…

______________________________________________________________

Finally, I have found someone who can help me…

I am like every other normal guy you have ever met but I instead of relaxing watching football and drinking beer, I like to operate on cute animals that I find in the woods outside my local primary school and in my sisters bedroom.  In all honesty I have had enough of operating on my sisters guinea pigs.  I need a new challenge since she got all pissy when Gizmo lost an eye that one time.  She will never let me live that down. Anyways I digress: 

I don’t usually proposition ladies unless it’s for sex so this feels a little strange.  A lady in your unique position could allow me to take over mid-way through a routine surgery, say when your bored or thirsty allowing me some table time to hone my skills.  This would allow me to get some much needed practise so the next time I operate on my sisters pets, I don’t balls it up and have to live with her constant whining. 

Now I know you’ll start talking about “a lack of experience” but I have operated on guinea pigs which are much smaller than humans, thus vastly more intricate and complex.  (Especially since I can’t afford any sedatives, just duct tape to keep the buggers still). 

And before you start talking about how different operating on guinea pigs is too operating on a human, I once read that they use part of a pigs heart in some complex heart surgeries - aren’t guinea pigs just smaller, hairier pigs?

Please help me out Lovisaa, my sister cries a lot and I am at the end of my tether.  We have run out of guinea pigs and the dog is looking worried as he has seen me in action and I feel he fears he is next.*

Damn “Onkle Donalds Club” : or how an 80’s pop classic opened my closet.

I am very concerned.

It’s the kind of concern a headmaster shares with the parents of a boy who prefers eating PVC glue to colourful crayon work.

I never was any good at staying inside the lines.

Anyway…

 After a thoroughly enjoyable weekend in Norways capital something has been fundamentally wrong with the world.  The world I left was full of beards, meat on the bone, loose women, cheap beer and the other fundamental tennants of my heterosexual chauvinist world view.  The world which I have returned to is filled with an 1980’s pop song.

The “Eighties” or “80’s” was in all intents and purposes, a decade to forget.  If it wasn’t for the messiah being born (read: me), it would have been a complete write off.  I mean if a big concert, a broken wall and the end of a imaginary war are highlights then I would have opted for cryogenic suspension.  Enough about the decade that fashion forgot and on to the music.

The Eighties had it’s ups and downs when it came to music, notable highlights; Jackson, The Smiths, Joy Division, Pink Floyd etc.  Low points: New Romance, Hair Metal, Duran Duran, Journey etc. 

Since my return one particular pop song has been stuck in my head.  Of all the good pop songs I could have to choose from, what would it be? 

Nope your all wrong it was:

Like a Prayer.

Hi, I’m Jamie and I am a closet homosexual. 

I’ll set the scene; a few beers in on our last night in Oslo, I find myself alone on the dancefloor happily grooving to the music.  Now before I get slated for being a camper version of Billy Elliott, when I dance on the dance floor I get chicks.  It’s like my hunting ground, my natural environment as it was.  I like think of myself as something of a Justin Timberlake only you know, more awesome. 

Alas of late I have lacked my once considerable consistancy, and my killer edge wouldn’t look out of place on a sleeping kitten.  So there I was throwing shapes that would have a mathematician scratching his head, when on comes the seminal 80’s pop classic “Like a Prayer” by Madonna.  At this point I was within striking distance of a set of gorgeous Norweigan women, one of which looked like she was drunk enough to make a Jamie sized mistake.  If I played it right I could be that mistake.

I was so close to making contact to my prey, I couldn’t let that pop song singing, klepto-adopting maniac ruin my chances. Did I panic?  Did I make a bee line for the bar while complaining how gay this song was? 

Hell no.

I stood my ground, busted out a pirouette or two, sung my lungs out and enjoyed every second - the boys at the YMCA would have been proud.  The song came to a close, I turned around and the girls, along with my last shred of dignity had vanished.  Some killer edge.

Since I have come back I cannot get that song out of my head.  It’s taunting me, like a big gay lumberjack.  I have had it on repeat for the last hour and I am finding myself, eyes closed, arms aloft singing this ridiculous track.

“When you call my name it’s like a little prayer
I’m down on my knees, I wanna take you there
In the midnight hour I can feel your power
Just like a prayer you know I’ll take you there”

ARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I am off now to blow my head off.

Now where did I leave my shotgun?  Oh there it is, under all that KY and gay porn.

I mean hell, I like trees as much as the next guy but I am not fucking Tarzan

On my way back to the office I was nearly killed by a falling tree.

That’s right, you read that correctly.

So there I was walking down a quiet footpath, briefcase in hand and a spring in my step, little did I know I was about to rub shoulders with death himself.

Ok, I admit I am hugely over exaggerating this in a vain attempt to get some hits - so what?  I am just that fickle.  So fickle in fact that I am not sure what actually happened and what actually happened in my head ten minutes ago……just take my word for it.

So there I was, walking backwards through time on my way back to the office, with a salmon fillet steak in my third hand when out of nowhere this giant shark that looked just like a red telephone box, and was actually a red telephone box came flying out of the woods and attacked Murray.  Oh didn’t I mention Murray?  He is my portable toaster that can turn toast back into bread that I carry around with me.  You look confused, just think how Colin looked, his speakers almost fell off…

Suffice to say I was on my way back to Narnia/My office when I heard this low rumbling sound, I thought the earth had just farted and was ready with a the standard flatulance high five.  This was followed by a loud creaking and groaning noise straight from the book of Treebeard, I spun around so fast I landed on Saturn’s third moon for a brief second - it’s great although the lack of breathable atmosphere was slightly uncomfortable.  I continued spinning around to see this huge tree coming right down on top of me just in time for me to jump out of my own skin and to to safety…

Suffice to say part of this story did actually happen.  I was walking back to my office when a large tree fell down onto the ground about ten yards in front of me.

An open letter;

——————————————————————————————————————-

Dear Mr. Tree Surgeon,

I wish to thank you. 

Last Christmas I asked Santa for a skateboard with square wheels and diamond skin.  Alas you can imagine my disappointment when I ran downstairs to find an Xbox 360 Elite bundle with COD:MW2 - beardy old wanker.  I know you can feel my disappointment, as I feel your disappointment when you poke your wife in the back late at night with your raging semi, all the while she lays there motionless, pretending to be asleep until you give up and go to sleep unsatisfied.

Obviously you wanted to make amends for Santa’s incompetence and deliver to me a surprise worthy of mention in the annuls of time.  I am, to all intents and purposes a very greedy and hard to please individual, but imagine how grateful I was when out of the sky a 50ft tree like present, gift wrapped in pine cones tried to mate with my brain through my cranium.  How didyou know?!  You really shouldn’t have…

Cunt.

Thanks to you I now care ever so slightly less than I did before about the depleting rainforests.

Yours

ilikemytreeslikeilikemychildren.hitrepeatedlywithanaxethensprayedwithagentorange@yourface.net.

So this is what slave labour feels like: or how I regret missing a career in fast food.

So this is what slave labour feels like…

Two weeks, 115 hours down and I received £347 today for my troubles.

Two weeks down at my new job; “Sales Negotiator at a local estate agents”.

If I walked around central London for 115 hours I would of found more money on the fecking pavement.

Everyone has told me that I am very lucky to have a job at the moment and to a certain extent I am - (I, for one really appreciate having a job after being unemployed for so long).  But when my boss broke to me what my actual basic wage was going to be, it turned out I would earn more money for less hours work flipping burgers at McDonalds.

“Would you like fries with that?”

So anyway, I am actually really enjoying the job, it’s challenging and plus I like houses and my imagination runs wild with how I would decorate them if they were my pieces of property.  Alas your imagination does run wild when you are sent to walk around the housing estates, delivering leaflets and flyers in the cold.

Delivery man or fast food worker?

Hopefully my basic will increase over the next few weeks otherwise I will basically become a wage slave.  Maybe that is an over-exaggeration but on this wage I actually am losing money.  Hopefully I will be able to sell a few houses (or a lot on this commission structure) and bump up my wage so I can actually make a profit.

I don’t like to complain about money, it’s the bane of all evil and problems but I need to vent after an eleven hour day with a only a 10min break.  I am actually happy with my current work situation, as I said I am enjoying it and I may be able to make good money here but sometimes you just have to be patient.  I hope my situation improves so I can stay her and make a successful career - that is until the book deal comes in….

These days it’s a pleasure to be a part of the world.

Somedays it is simply effortless.

I wake up and it’s just there; a muting and peaceful serenity that washes over me like English summer rain.  It’s better than any drug, it’s cheaper than any drug but all the while I cannot find it when I need it the most.

These days it is a pleasure to get out of bed and experience the world.  These days I feel capable, as if I can achieve anything almost as if it was meant to be.  I am witty, funny and best of all it’s 100% natural, I don’t even try to be like this.  I am confident, suave and modest.  I realise and contemplate, am thankful and generous, I don’t care about the little things.  I mean I care, but they don’t anger me or beset my day with worry.

These days it’s a pleasure to be a part of the world.

In dark contrast, the days when I wake up and the world has already got me beat are becoming overwhelming.  The days when I wake up and cry myself into a small ball under the bottom of the shower drain my very conscience.  I fade away to a very pale shell of fraility and dejection.  I am angry and bitter, I show a fake pleasure on the outside to my own chosen isolation but inside I am screaming for attention, but am too proud to admit it.  I want to be alone in a world full of people, a very selfish thought process when you consider how alone I want to be.

These days it’s a pleasure to be a part of the world.

Somedays it is just so simply effortless.  One day it’s smiles and jokes and the others it’s manic depression and an outlook so bleak you’d think I was a victim.  The worst part is the day after a bad day when you realise your a fucking waste of space for wasting another day in a haze of suicidal thoughts and depression.  You realise how much of a cunt you are for feeling that way when you life is in contrast fairly straightforward.  After this epiphany you feel even worse, worthless and embarressed.

These day’s it’s not a pleasure to part of the world

I forgot Toyota’s were built differently to other cars

Today I heard a story about the recent technical issues with Toyota cars in The United States.  It seems there have been a spate of faulty accelerator pedals which have caused a few accidents across the country.  Accelerator troubles are probably my worst nightmare when it comes to driving issues, that or being raped in the back of a green Prius.

(Incedently the Prius is still made by Toyota but one which is not at risk in this situation as it cannot obtain enough speed to be an actual danger.  If you are in a Prius and your accelerator sticks, may I advised you open the door, get out and walk briskly to the front of the car and push firmly against the bonnet until the vehicle stops - just doing my job folks.).

Now that this “minor predicament” has gone public and a cheif exc at Toyota has gone on record advising all Toyota drivers to stop driving their cars immediatly and take it to a dealer, I am not surprised their sales will take a slight dip.  Obvioulsy a multi-national corporation such as Toyota would never admit it was their fault, they typically towed the line of blame on “driver error” and “ill-fitting car mats”.  It only takes people to die and an over paid executive to let slip the severity and they begin to take action.

But I digress…

This is in fairness, a very tragic story.  A male driver and his family were driving along a highway in their Toyota when the accelerator pedal seized open and sped the car up and out of control.

Simply terrifying.

With his wife and children in the car I can only assume he tried everything to slow the car down in a vain attempt to save his family from certain death.  Unfortunately he couldn’t stop the vehicle and the resulting crash killed him and his family.  Tragic, oh so very tragic, but there was just one small detail that did confuse me somewhat.  During this ordeal he found the time to locate his phone and dialed 911.

So while at the helm of his out of control and speeding vehicle he called 911 and narrated his ordeal to the hapless operator.

Now I can only assume he was calling them to warn them of the escalating situation, but for the love of god man! Am I the only one who, in that situation, would have thought to apply the brakes?  Turn off the ignition?! The last thing I would consider would be to get my mobile phone out and start a jolly old conversation with the operator about “How I knew that I should have bought American” or “Is this Japan’s way of revenge?!  It’s like Pearl Harbour all over again?”

Now I know many of you will start to harp on that under full throttle the brakes will not stop the vehicle, the will just cook and smoke etc.  Well, being the modest genius that I am I have a rebuttal for you:

All vehicles work on a simple process of drive from the engine to the wheels via a drive train of sorts so take the fucking car out of gear. The engine will no longer drive the wheels, and you will start to decelerate due to wind resistance, then you can even apply the brakes to ensure a safe stop.  “But what if the car is automatic?”  Well place the stick into either “P” or “N” or heck even “R” if your feeling brave and apply the brakes and thank your lucky stars all cars work on the same general mechanical principle.

May he and his family rest in peace and let this be a cautionary tale to anyone with a Toyota, although I am sure you will be fine, but if you are careening out of control with a sticky throttle, please take the car out of gear, turn off the ignition and apply the brakes.

Peace and love.

Opening that box is like diving into shark infested waters, the last thing on my mind is how high the jump is.

My hood is pulled down over my eyes, I am sat in this chair as still as a sleeping cat.

True love waits.

The cool liquid running down my face is dowsing the fire beneath my cheeks, I’m not even tempted to wipe them away.  My vision is blurred and my focus is shot to shit, but all this is academic now.  I am hushed in my crying, holding it in so it doesn’t envelope my whole body like an epic convulsion.  The pain in my chest grows with each shudder, I feel inconsolable and unresponsive, seperated from the universe.  I feel dread, despair and terror.  It’s like looking into the devil’s eyes, nothing but pain and a eternity of emptyness.  Everything is meaningless and futile, pointless and painful, I shake with this realisation.  A negative epiphany hits me like a shotgun to the chest, I double over and a tear hits my leg and navigates it’s way south around my hairs.

True love waits.

I spent my fledgling adult years, forgetting and burying emotions.  Useless emotions which spread around my body like cancer, smothering me like an avalanche.  They say it’s the weight of the world is on your shoulders, I felt like the heavy world I was carrying was empty.  I felt empty, shell like and brittle, I look back on those years as something of a mystery.  I learnt quickly to lock away those thoughts but occasionally, just occasionally I regress and relapse and find myself facing a black hole where not even my breath can escape.  Opening that box is like diving into shark infested waters, the last thing on my mind is how high the jump is.  I know once I open it, I will have to fight hard just to close it, let alone deal with the monsters that escape.

True love waits.

Slowly rocking back and forth in a trance, sobbing uncontrollably I run my hands through my hair, making a fist at my crown, the tension reminds me I can still feel.  If anyone was watching me they would question my mental fortitude and advise me to seek professional help.  But this is something I have to do, this reminds me of a time where I had no hope.  If only they knew how strong I have been to get to this point, that no matter how far I regress into this black hole I can always pull myself out.  It took time but now I can fall back in there and come back out, leaving the monsters and shadows behind.

When you turn to face the light all your shadows fall behind you.

True love waits.

My eyes stop leaking and my heart rate slows, a sense of calm washes over me, intense relief.

Everything is going to be ok.

True love waits.

Writing exercise: The city by night.

I look up with the same wide eyed gaze of wonder that I had when I was a child.  I almost cannot fathom it.  It’s as if the buildings are built downwards from the sky, their foundations in the clouds rather than in the soil.  The light is intense, surrounding like a billion airborne fireflies, everywhere and every colour.  It makes you forget the sun has set and that you should be curled up in bed.  The problem with standing in Times Square at night is that the last thing on your mind is sleep.

The light floats down the streets like electronic ribbons.  The light breaks out of the grey cocoons.  It races toward me, streaking across the sky and chasing the yellow cabs into the night.  There doesn’t appear to be a dark corner in sight, the city seems exposed.  It stands tall, naked and bare beneath it’s own unyielding light for all to see.

Every taxi cab tells a different story, their colour isn’t the only thing that is loud.  They crawl through the city like glistening glowworms, the gap never more than a few feet until the next one passes.  I stop walking.  I stand in the centre of Times Square and watch the city animate before me.  People everywhere, tourists and natives, new comers and veterans alike.  Everyone is soaking up the energy all with their own expression of wonder.  My own wide eyed, childlike expression is back, but in truth I don’t think it has ever left my face.