Showing posts with label Vic is Pretentious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vic is Pretentious. Show all posts

Sunday, September 14, 2008

This Week In The News

Things That Happened This Week (in no particular order):
Disclaimer: the following items are not 'real' news on either a domestic or an international scale, just, well, Things that Happened This Week.

1. I am currently having a Romance (I say Romance because I'm not sure if it's a Fling (probably, but now he is Emotionally Attached so hard to extract Self), or a Fledgling Relationship (Gah! Hope not that one)) with a friend of a friend. Have just been (harshly and undeservedly) labelled "a spring-loaded baby" by Sister Flatmate's boyfriend, as the other key player in the Romance is 7 years older than me. "Spring-loaded baby" appears to be the reverse application of cradle snatching. Oh, he elaborates - "launching yourself from the cradle to latch to some poor unsuspecting man! Doing! Zat!" ('Doing' being the noise of a spring, to rhyme with 'boing'. 'Zat' is presumably the sound of me hitting my intended victim.) So yes - love life interesting, at least, although don't want to get accidentally stuck in Serious Relationship. Perhaps Romance ill-advised. SIGH.

2. I am becoming more maudlin and grouchy by the day - am still trying to decide if am going to move back to Chch or not. Probably not, to be honest - the idea has NO merit except that it would be something to do over a week or so at the start of November (which is when I will be resigning - VB resigned on Friday, it's obviously the season for it). Maybe I could go on holiday for a month or so? (My commission bonus is paid at the end of October). Oh no wait that's right, I will be going to job interviews. I shouldn't quit until I have another job, and I'm much more likely to get a decent job within the company, but - and this is the million dollar question - who really cares?

Not I.

3. I'm watching Becoming Jane, which I've seen before. It annoyed me then, too. Why can't movies display people having realistic emotions? Is all idealism and romance and feet-sweeping. Bleh. Realise quality of blog decreasing rapidly, but then so is mood. Also had a rehearsal this afternoon which went badly as had to sing songs which I didn't know and which were out of my range. Solo! Yay how could that not make my day awesome. I am going to the fridge now and getting a beer out because I've worked myself into quite a rage! Haha.

Not sure where sudden surge of irritability came from, but it's not adding a lot - think might sit quietly fuming to myself and shouting at the telly, rather than blather incoherently on, incensed about nothing easy to describe. Although, it is quite nice to have a rant, and so I shall continue! You know, I have one all lined up.

4. Our Team Leader had his last day at work on Wednesday just been. This is not something bad or rant-worthy as it is good for everyone (him included) that he's gone. Really nice guy, lovely guy, but poor people skills and just in the wrong role. Goodbye, Pigling Bland! Never darken my pod again! ...anyway, now that he's gone his manager is doing the day-to-day running of the team (because hiring a replacement within a sensible timeframe would just be unthinkably well-organised). The only flaw in this plan is that a) she's too senior to know the systems we use and b) she's too senior to be familiar with how we spend our time and c) she's too senior to, um, be in the office for more than about an hour a day. So she's delegated responsibilities (when she's out) to one of the guys in the team. However! Doubt about his competency is widespread in the team and the FIRES OF MUTINY are spreading fast! No-one is keen on Not Being In Charge, and so we have a classic case of too many chiefs, not enough indians. Or, to be more precise, we have a classic case of 'too many chiefs who spend all day running about with their heads up their arses, whooping and hooting and shouting and essentially not doing any of the work that they're meant to be doing, and about two indians.' I seem to have become the unofficial Actual Person to Ask Stuff & General Contact in My Team (for people in other teams), (because the guy who's officially the second in command, as it were, is, um, not overly helpful or for that matter knowledgeable). This would be OK except a) I still have a lot of Regular Stuff to do, which is gettin' all interrupted and backed-up like some hideous overflowing Paperwork Toilet, and b) it is intensely frustrating when someone asks me a question (to which I know the answer), and three different people pop up from their desks and start shouting answers, at least 2 of which will be conflicting and probably wrong - and even if everyone's right, there's no point in 4 people being right at once. Especially not when two of them dislike each other, and every tries to explain at the same time, actually shouting each other down in their manic fervour to prove that they, and they alone, have drunk from the Fountain of Temporary Leadership!

Ooh, I do like to rant. To rant is grand! (Rhymed better in my head.)

So work is frustrating at the moment. Have re-read post and decided Romance definitely ill-advised - oh I feel another rant coming on. I feel like one of those really bad stand-up comics who does a two-hour show and every joke starts "So you know those SUV's/cheap airlines/reality TV shows? What's up with those?"

So you know those people who come across as normal, rational human beings but are actually so emotionally bizarre that you wonder how they manage to function on any deeper emotional level? Yeah, what's up with those? It's really irritating when someone decides that their emotional issues don't only involve them (which would seem like the logical conclusion) but are also somehow your problem. And then they begin to tell you about every nuance of whatever emotional mess they have gotten themselves into (because it is invariably an emotional mess of their own creation). But they do not realise that actually their emotional mirage (as in, I am mired in this emotional um swamp, not as in lost in the desert or what's on a Chinese odometer (am I allowed to say that? hmm)), where was I, their emotional mirage is actually pretty boring and a little pretentious. This in itself is ok. Everyone is allowed their emo moments, even people who are hideously self-indulgent and mawkish about it (and also expect you to realise that no-one else has ever felt like this before, and not lose your temper and shout SHUT UP YOU SILLY FUCKER THIS IS YOUR OWN FAULT AND I AM BORED OF LISTENING TO IT, ALSO STOP TELLING ME ABOUT YOUR DREAMS BECAUSE THEY ARE ALSO BORING, YES THAT'S RIGHT YOU KNOW THAT DREAM WHERE YOU WENT TO THE SUPERMARKET BUT EVERYTHING WAS IN THE WRONG AISLE OH NO, THAT IS NOT INTERESTING, AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT WE BOTH KNOW YOU'LL NEVER WRITE THAT NOVEL SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP TELLING ME EVERY TIME YOU MAKE A MINUTE CHANGE TO THE PLOT WHICH BY THE WAY IS A TOTALLY CRAPPY PREMISE I MEAN WHO WRITES ABOUT A DYSTOPIAN FUTURISTIC SOCIETY SET ON THE MOON OH COME ON - and sadly I am always too polite to start shouting) - as I was saying, everyone is allowed their emo moments and it is fine if a friend is having an emo moment! but as soon as someone starts trying to make their emotional dramas something which it's my responsibility to solve I become highly annoyed, which makes me get really flippant about the emotional drama. This comes out in the form of blatantly unhelpful comments, which always go down a treat. I love it when I am being all distraught and wanky and accusing other people of being responsible for it, and they're all "maybe you'd feel better if you had a look at this comic I found on the Internet, it is pretty funny" or "i wonder if potatoes have changed much in shape since people first started growing them thousands of years ago" or whatever - but if you're going to accuse other people of making you emotionally weird then in that case, my friends, that is what you get. This usually goes on until I make a shockingly crap analogy involving a) Hitler or b) amputees (for some reason all of my really, really terrible analogies feature one of the former) and the person having the emotional drama abruptly becomes the person who is no longer talking to me and I think Oh thank God, now I can drink my tea and watch Coronation Street in peace.

This is becoming a very, very long post and for that I am sorry but hey, maybe you didn't have much to do and needed something to read. So maybe I helped? One final concept which I would like to put forward: what if your internal organs could email you? Actually that will be a new post and it will be above this one. But, what a good rant that was. I feel...better.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Critical Flirtation Mass (A Theory)

Today I was introduced to the concept of Critical Flirtation Mass (the point when you've been flirting with someone for so long that it becomes obvious that something is going to have to be done about it).

Described by one of my associates (invented by one of my associates...I have better associates than a law firm! boom boom) as 'It is when someone walks up to you and says "for fuck's sake, everyone in the room knows you're going to hook up, just do it already," and you CLEARLY HAVE NO CHOICE.'

I'm not sure that's necessarily the best definition (I'd go for something more along the lines of 'the point after which either a passionate sex scene, a huge fight or a combination of the two is inevitable'), but it's still a term I like.

(For some reason when I first wrote the original definition down I put after it 'Critical Flirtation Mass - when flirtation reaches a critical mass.' Did I think I was going to have a dramatic drop in IQ before I got round to reading it again? Hmm)

Now, prepare yourself for The Token Crap Analogy! (Accidentally typed 'Alanogy' - which is of course the study of people named Alan - but that is not what we are talking about.)

Critical Flirtation Mass is the point at which you have climbed the steps of Mutual Attraction until you are standing (with the other individual involved - you can't get to CFM all by yourself) at the top of the Slide of Inevitability.
(You are in a children's playground. I forgot to mention that earlier.)
As you stand there at the top, thinking to yourself, "Is this really a slide I want to go down?" (for you can see the Messy Pool of Emotional Entanglement which awaits at the bottom a lot more clearly up here), a freak gust of wind comes along and pushes you off balance. As you teeter on the brink of the slide, arms pinwheeling wildly, about to fall off the edge forever, you realise that no matter what you do, it's too late! You have reached Critical Flirtation Mass.

(Well, what did you expect? It's not called the Token Crap Analogy for nothing.)

Incidentally, this is the only thing of merit this particular associate has ever produced (can't remember if he reads this blog - I don't think so. I think I never gave him the address because I've written about him before in a similar vein). He is best known for signing into MSN Messenger with a hideously pretentious sign-in name and wanking on about his love life. He is the barometer by which we calibrate our wankometers.

(Do barometers actually calibrate things? I don't know. My father used to have a barometer - he said it was for predicting the weather based on air pressure, but it (he?) was almost never accurate. In hindsight, I suspect his knowledge of barometers may not have been as extensive as he led me to believe.)

Three Beautiful Things (because why not stick them in here?)
1. One of my closest friends, who moved to Canada (Canada!) a few months ago couriered me a parcel. All the way from Canada! (I am always slightly amazed by overseas mail. It seems amazing that someone in Canada can buy something, pick it up, package it and sent it all the way across the world. Strangely enough, I have no such amazement about talking online to friends in America). A parcel for me, all the way from Canada, because someone cared enough to go to the bother of sending one.

2. A customer called me at 4 minutes to 5 (I finish at 5) and wanted to have a long-winded sales conversation (nice thought, crap timing). At the end of the call he said, "Sorry to ring up right before you knock off, love, I know it's a pain in the arse." So few people actually acknowledge that they're being a pain in the arse. What a nice man. (I said "No, not at all!")

3. The Mouse and his Child rode my bus this morning, which always makes me happy. See below for more on The Mouse and his Child.

The Mouse and his Child

It was a book from my childhood - I can't remember what it was about. Anyway, there are a man and his small son who catch the bus in the mornings, always at the same time as me. I walk on average 4 out of 5 mornings a week, but when I get the bus I'm always looking out for them and they always get on. I'm not sure why I call them TMahC, but it suits them and gives me a point of reference besides "that guy and his son who catch the bus in the mornings etc." I think maybe because my main lasting impression of the original MahC was of a father-son duo, with no Mrs Mouse in sight, and this is what the contemporary MahC appear to be (although apparently Mummy got on a Plane, so who knows really.)

The man is probably in his mid- to late-thirties and dresses in a very corporate manner. He always wears the same brown coat and has freckles, a bit of a five o'clock shadow and a lot of smile lines around his eyes. In one hand he carries his briefcase, and in the other hand he carries a Thomas the Tank Engine school bag (v small variety) which I presume belongs to the child. The child is about 2 or 3 and has masses of shortish curly brown hair and enormous brown eyes (it is a boy child).

The man is a great dad - he answers all the child's bizarre questions with perfectly sensible answers, all of which are carefully phrased to fit child-logic. "What are those men doing?" "Building something." "What do you think it is?" "Well, it could be a hotel." "What's a hotel?" "It's where people stay when they're away from their house for a long time." Pause while the child digests this. "Is it like kindy?" "Um...I suppose it is. A bit." "OK!!"

The child makes a lot of observations; to himself, to the man, and to other passengers. A current favourite is "We're on the bus." This is delivered in one of two ways -
Number One: child says gravely to the passengers at large, "We're on the bus." He turns to the man and asks, in the same solemn manner, "Aren't we, Dad?" The man nods. We are indeed on the bus, son, we are indeed.
Number Two: child announces in an excited yell that we are on the BUS! "Aren't we, Dad?!?!" And then it is much more exciting that we are on the bus.

I really like The Mouse and his Child. They are my favourite fellow commuters.


Anyway I am just tired and blathering on now, so I think I might go to bed.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

It has a T

Pretentious. Yay!

Saturday Afternoon Fever

I haven't got it, but it isn't saturday night yet.
I went on another date with myself last night (maybe on the next one I'll put out!...that is so wrong). Went to a classy cocktail bar and drank classy cocktails and chatted with the classy barstaff and read my classy book. I felt classy. It was very nice but I spent money, which is a bit naughty. Speaking of, one of the people living in this house (and there are only Dad and I, and I doubt it was me) left a pack of gingernuts sitting about overnight and now they have gone SOFT and SOGGY. Blast. I realise that dipping them in my tes makes them soft and soggy anyway, but that's beside the point, isn't it.

Barb's Nephew Tim (he of the good looks, socks & sandals and clandestine Coro St. watching) has expressed interest in taking me out for a drink. Wheedled my number off Barb (bollocking Barb). I'm bored enough to go for a drink with him this week- and he is a nice person, I am just highly judgmental- so watch this space for news of the Romance of the Century! in Nelson.

News news news...I don't think I really have any. Andrea and I are discussing being stuck inside the head of a particularly pretenscscsious (is it an s or a c? i put several of each because i wasn't sure) acquaintance of ours, who shall remain nameless. We have decided that it would be like being trapped in a horribly amateurish attempt at a Surrealist painting, with wonky clocks, dripping with PRETENSION. Pretension looks like golden syrup and smells like burnt toast and is dripping from every surface inside the head of this person who shall remain nameless (not Hugo, he escapes in this post, but after a Think in the Grapes I have come to the conclusion that he is still the Antichrist- I am going to have to smite him! That is not a dirty euphemism. Andrea has dubbed me Thorog the Smiter. For who else could smite Garuface, Prince of Darkness? Nunchicat, Bringer of Light! ("Got a lighter?" "what kind of a question is that, I'm only the Bringer of Light aren't I?" "sorry, Nunchicat...I forgot again." "Hmph.")) I closed that bracket there because I forgot to do it earlier and there didn't really seem to be anywhere else in my ramble to close it. Have also corrected the spelling of acquaintance, so that Andrea will continue to be my friend.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Things That Are Better On The Telly

- The weather. Even if it’s crap weather, it is at least dramatically crap weather. Except in things like Coronation Street. But I am not talking about that sort of telly.

- People’s hair. Also their makeup. Again, excepting Coronation Street and its ilk- also anything made pre-1990.

- Romance. Also witty banter. Decent witty banter requires hours of scriptwriting. Which is why any flirtatious witty banter in real life quickly degenerates into “Shut up.” “No, you shut up.” “No, YOU shut up.”

- Life. It is more EXCITING on the telly. I never get attacked by Storm Troopers at work and suddenly find a spacecraft to fly away in (I know how to fly the spacecraft, despite never having had any lessons. this is the magic of television.) I am never trapped in a small space with someone dramatically dashing for hours on end, trying to save both of our lives and hopefully getting a shag in the process!

- Military uniform as a fashion statement. It seems to be one of those things that looks ‘edgy’ in music videos but ‘ridiculous’ in real life. (Vic, are you listening to this?)

- Soundtracks. At work the other day, I had Carvin the Copy-cat, Some Enchanted Evening, and Hey, Mr Tambourine Man stuck in my head for hours. And I only know the chorus of Hey, Mr etc. Had I been on the telly, I would’ve had some hardcore rocking out song playing. For the twenty seconds of montaged work that I actually had to DO before there was a tasteful fade to Me Coming Home (or getting attacked by Storm Troopers, or whatever.)

- Men. I know it’s obvious, but still. On telly the rule is not, as it is in life, ‘Single, Attractive, Mentally Stable: Pick Two.’ On telly the rule is all three, plus witty and charming and roguish- without being a total wanker, which in life is Tricky to Find. Sigh.

I wish I were on telly. I feel it is bitterly unfair that life is not like the telly.

However! When I am rich and famous life will be a lot more like it is on the telly! Apart, perhaps, from the Storm Troopers. (I am watching Star Wars.)