Jeezy Creezy

Sitting there, minding my own business on the tube this morning.

Lady next to me taps me on the shoulder. I go through the mental checks – iPod’s not too loud, paper’s not in her face, haven’t put my bag on her foot…what does she want?

“Excuse me” she says, “are you a Christian?”.

I am very polite, as one always should be when dealing with those less fortunate than oneself. I do not tell her that in fact I am probably the least Christian person on the carriage, and that I think God is on a par with the Loch Ness monster, but less likely to be real. I just smile, like you would to a small - yet potentially dangerous - child, and say “No, I’m afraid not”.

“Oh”, says the nutter (for so she has proved herself to be), “I have this overwhelming feeling that God has a message for you”

“Really” I smile. Again, I do not say “Isn’t he a bit too busy to be making personal calls? Have you checked it is the right number?”

“Yes. He wants you to know that he will soon be taking you out of this situation that you are in, and that you should feel comfort from that. You will soon be free”.

“Oh. Um. Thanks”.

And she beams at me. (As in a big smile. Not, like, a great beam of celestial light. Cos then maybe I would have been more impressed with the Heavenly Postal Service).

Now. Is it just me, or is that possibly the least comforting thing a nutter on the tube could say? I know I don't look that great in the morning, but I'm pretty sure I don't come off as some sort of crack addict or beaten wife or anything. I have no obvious situations I want to be freed from. I'm really rather happy with my lot at the moment, as it happens.

"You will soon be free". Come on, that's just God doing Mafia speak.

So now I'm just looking over my shoulder for thunderbolts. And I'm going to avoid crossing the road today. Just in case.

Bloody God-botherers.

*sigh*

Roger.

Welcome to Three-fail

I don't know if it is just me, with my seemingly magnetic ability to attract idiots, but I don't have much luck with customer service types.

See my post on Dell. I rest my case.

Or I would rest my case, but I'm afraid I have to shake it into wakefulness for another round, this time concerning those ever-helpful bods at 3 Mobile.

Don't worry, it's not a longwinded rant. I'm really not cross about this one. Like Ron Burgundy when Baxter eats the cheese, I'm not angry. I'm impressed. With the sheer level of idiocy.

It's a quickie. And here it is:

My phone broke. This happens. I took it to the 3 shop (one of those ones in a Superdrug, where you can't tell if they are shop assistants or muggers, you know the ones). They sent it off on a three day repair on Monday. And credit to them, it came back into the shop, all shiny and fixed, today.

Of course, when I switched it on it went mental beeping away with hundreds of voicemails and texts from lots of terribly important people trying to get hold of me (it's a social whirl being me, it really is).

And here's the thing.

One of the messages was from 3.

Telling me my phone was ready for collection.

Let's see if we can spot the flaw in their logic, shall we?

*sigh*

Roger.

Fancy Dress Picnics - the next big thing.

So. Last year. some time after the Oranguwasp debacle but before the whole Free-60 issues. Roger and James are in a pub.

Many good ideas have been hatched in pubs. Like the underwater helicopter, the Guinness Book of Records (fact), and..um....the theory of relativity. Probably.

Now, claiming its own wonky pedestal in the slightly spinning Pub Ideas Hall of Fame, we bring you:

The Fancy Dress Picnic!

Oh yes.

The thought process was simple. Fancy dress is great, yes? Picnics are brilliant, no?

You see where we're going with this one.

IT CAN'T FAIL!!!

The rules are simple.

1. Come as your favourite animal.
2. RSVP to Roger or James with your animal. Then, that's it, that animal becomes yours. Nobody else can copy it. This does, of course, mean that the last people to reply will have to be some sort of zoophyton, but eliminates the tiresome possibility of 75 tigers and 3 dogs.

And that's it.

So. On 2nd August 2008, in broad daylight at 1pm, the momentous inaugural Fancy Dress Picnic will see Clapham Common tranformed into a riotous pageant of fur, feathers and fins as the animal kingdom descends to eat sausage rolls, play frisbee and attempt to pour beer down their throats without smudging all that carefully applied facepaint.

I'm gonna be a lemur.

James is gonna be a shark (hammerhead).

It's gonna be big.

This is the Facebook Event

Just don't come as a bloody cat.

*sigh*

Roger.

*Cough*

..and it's an Elite.

*cough*

(Although, to be fair, don't get an Elite. It sounds like a spitfire is sitting under the telly. But maybe that's just the sound Free makes).

Right, got to go. Busy organising the company trip to Thorpe Park. It's all work, work, work....

*sigh*

Roger.

I am NOT a Happy Bunny!

And yes, I know that ^ is a CAT and not a BUNNY. But that's not the point.
The point IS, in a word, ROGER.

Y'see - you may've noticed that this blog's tagline is:

"Conversations we have had with Growdups".

Which is fine and good and all grand and wot not. However. Some things don't get reported that often.

A bit of background. Roger and I bonded over a love of killing Zombies. Killing Zombies is fun. Roger knows this. I know this.

Thusly we are friends.

Also - Roger and Me - aside from wandering Clapham Common of a night time, hunting the undead - we are also gamers.
I am a Nintendo boy through and through. Always have been, always will be. Roger is also a Ninty fan. However, we both love gaming as a whole, (although we both secretly hate the PS3 - it's a GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL... No Really!) and as such, owning other consoles are allowed.

Roger used to have an Xbox 360, in a previous life as it were, and this was fine and allowed and there was no problem with this whatsoever. However, when said life ended and new life was embarked upon, some things had to be left behind. Namely: Roger's 360-dom.

Not a problem.

I have Wii.
Roger haz Wii.
We both have Resident Evil 4 (aka - Resident Wii-vil - say it)

Life is good.

UNTIL!

Roger decided she needed a new job.
Fine.

Roger looked around for new job.
Fine also.

Roger got an interview for a new job.
Fine by me.

Roger gets into a conversation about gaming IN THE INTERVIEW
Fine. It happens.

Roger mentions that haz Wii, but misses her 360ness.
This is also Fine.

Roger says something like: "So yes. First pay packet? 360 all the way!"
Fine. Who wouldn't.

Roger (two days later) receives letter outlining 'benefits'.
Normal stuff, pensions, holidayz etc...

AND THEN:

"as an additional welcome to the team we'd like to offer you an xbox 360 bundle of your choice, to the value of £300. Let us know which one you want and it'll be on your desk on your first day. Beats waiting till payday..."

WHAT?!

"as an additional welcome to the team we'd like to offer you an xbox 360 bundle of your choice, to the value of £300. Let us know which one you want and it'll be on your desk on your first day. Beats waiting till payday..."

PARDON?!

"as an additional welcome to the team we'd like to offer you an xbox 360 bundle of your choice, to the value of £300. Let us know which one you want and it'll be on your desk on your first day. Beats waiting till payday..."

WTF?!

A job interview! Nay, a job OFFER, that includes a freakin' XBOX 360 l33t as part of the welcome pack?!

AARGH!

Most people get forms to fill in, courses to go on, new laptops, crackberries etc etc...

...NOT SODDING XBOXES!

I am not happy about this turn of events, as you can well imagine. Yes I love my Wii and yes, I am pleased that Roger has re-joined the ranks of the Wii-60ers out there.


But I am without such l33tness and I want an Xbox. I want one yesterday plskthxbai.

S'not fair. :(



*sigh*

James.

(Shaolin) Monkey Business

So, apologies for not posting in a while (bad times). But part of the reason is that I've got a new job (good times).

There is a whole other post regading the way I got said job - which James is harrassing me to complete, and I will, I will - but in the meantime I just wanted to share something.

I don't start my new job (yes James, I know, details to follow...), until the 1st April. So I'm still here, coasting through the old notice period. And today I get this email, thusly:

"We need to put a new fridge on the building account. Just a standard domestic one. The one at the moment is on its last legs, due in no small part to finding a monk in it after a show one night during their last visit..."

I will miss this place.

*sigh*

Roger.

Working Life

Roger and I have a running joke that one day I'm going to get, and I quote:

"found out"

If I do, I'd like to think it would happen a little bit like this:



Can I Touch Your Shonkey? - Click here for funny video clips


Not that it will ever happen though.
Both Roger and I have managed to master the skill of blending in with Grownups quite well of late (at times).

Which is a shame because The Shonkey would quite frankly, Rock.

*sigh*

James.

Politics. No, really.

I've noticed we've been a little off-topic recently so I'm going to bring us back to the old school origins of R&J today with a little run in I had with some bona fide grown-ups last night.

Yesterday, I went to a pub quiz. There were a few folks I knew there, but most of the team was made up of a bunch of people I'd never met before. Now, I'd like to state at the outset that they were all very nice. But they were most definitely Grown Ups.

They were all Involved in Politics (I'm using the capital letters advisedly here, to indicate the true seriousness of this statement). The following was actually said upon introduction: "Hi, I'm X, this is Y and Z, we are all into politics. We work in politics, we watch it on TV, we read about it, we just love politics." Seriously. As a positive thing.

Possibly in reaction to my barely-disguised terror, X went on to excitedly tell us all about the 'Super Tuesday Super-All-Nighter' they had planned next week. O...k.... um, please explain. "Well", she bounced, "Super Tuesday is the day when all the States hold their first-round elections." (Are you scared yet?) "And we set up each of our TV's to pick up a different news broadcast so that we can watch coverage of each state as it happens, all night! It's SO much fun!"

"Ahh, I seeee....so it's like Eurovision but just really, really boring?"

They did not like this. Tough crowd.

Later. Mid-conversation.

X: Blah blah de blah [insert politicians name here], defected from the Tories and is now the only Labour MP to have a butler. Isn't that hilarious!!!
A [A is, I think, on my side]: I bet Gordon Brown has a butler.
X: No. No he doesn't. He has staff.
ME: I bet he doesn't either. If I was Gordo I wouldn't have a butler. I'd have a monkey. He's PM, he can have anything he wants, I'd have a monkey.

Silence.

X: Well, he has one doesn't he, Prescott.

Hilarity ensues.

ME: No, really, I'm not being satirical, I mean, he's the most powerful man in Britain. Fuck it, if it was me, I'd have a team of monkeys to do my bidding. In bellhop suits. One to open the door, one to hold my briefcase, one to polish my shoes.....

X: Ah, like the cabinet.

They nearly wet themselves.

ME: ...and the butler one would be called Pierre. It would be brilliant! And he'd smoke a little pipe and ride a tiny bicycle.

Silence.

What is wrong with this crowd??

X: So. About the mid-terms.

And we lost the quiz. All that politics but you don't watch QI, do you?

*Sigh*

Roger.