21st Century Cosmodemonic

Ironically enough - or is it...

2007-02-12T15:23:00.000+10:00

The Alanis song has been re-written so as its content's actual meaning is the same as its title's literal meaning. This may or may not be ironic.

And where have you been all this time?

Hoffest spunk dispenser ever

2006-06-14T15:57:00.000+10:00

OK, I think there should be more of these. But then, I never wash my hands anyway. Not after number ones. I mean, isn't that like admitting you were dirty down there, or, you missed and peed on your hands? I think that after peeing, you should have to wash your penis. Your hands have been touching things all day, while your bits have been washed and then safely tucked into clean underwear. At least so the story goes...

Some corrections to Lackey's story

2006-06-08T15:35:00.000+10:00

Hi everybody, Cute Nurse here. Hope you're well.

I thought it would be quite tricky to get access to this blog, but then I remembered that if you look at Lackey in a certain sideways angle, drop your eyelids a little and use your Marilyn voice, he goes all trembly at the knees and gives you anything you want. So now here I am with my own user i.d. and everything!

I just need to set the record straight about some of the things Lackey said a couple of blog entries ago. You know, the one where he was taken sex-prisoner by a beautiful woman and her evil executive partner and totured for weeks in a dungeon.

Mostly, I want to correct the bit at the end. I didn't say "Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? Anything… at all?” I just asked him if he needed anything else. And that's not what I meant. Lackey can imply whatever he likes, but it is not the case that I am turned on by treating the wounds of a beaten up wreck of a man who I've had to tunnel through tons of dirt to save. Sure, I felt a little sorry for him, that's all.

And, I did not break a fingernail. I broke two fingernails! The rest of the story is all true, as far as I know.

Too cool

2006-05-29T14:47:00.000+10:00

Now this is just too cool.

And I don't care what anyone else says, I want a magic cloak.

A remarkable story of courage, survival and lubricant

2006-05-25T19:40:00.000+10:00

You may have been wondering where I’ve been lately. I’ve been a little tied up. I’ll try to explain, but it’s a long story and you’ll probably get bored:

These last few weeks have been the toughest and most humbling experience of my life. They have taught me more than I thought possible to know about the random nature of peril and salvation in this world, about myself, and about my friends and family who never gave up on me. And about the remarkable properties of lubricant.

You’ll remember I told you how I met Ebony, the stripper mistress of one of the nameless executives from the penthouse level of my building. As she left me to tend to my (rather significant) wounds, burns, contusions and bruises in the building’s sick bay, she left me a business card.

EBONY
Professional, personal, pliable
Call…

And a phone number which I have decided not to publish at this stage due to possible forthcoming legal action.

So I spent a week or two being nursed back to health, first by Cute Nurse in the Sick Room, then, after she sent me home, by the demons in my room. (They helped in the end. Better not to dwell on it though.) After several nights of tossing and turning and waking in severe pain, I rediscovered Ebony’s card, and it prompted me to forget my pain, which I did by inhaling a quart of vodka, followed by a litre of tonic (for the inoculating effects of the quinine, and it makes a nice mixer too). Thus fortified, I made the call.

Hello?
Uh, hi, is that Ebony?
… Who’s calling please?
Um, it’s Lackey here, we met a couple of weeks ago? I was the one in the elevator at Cosmodemonic, and then at the party, and getting beaten up a lot, remember? With the firey drapes, and the bouncers came from nowhere with the sledgehammers, and the hell hounds?
Oh yes, Lackey, how are you healing up?
Oh look fine really. No worries! Actually, I’ve just been to my yoga class, and was at the gym before that. So, ah, I was wondering if you were free, maybe we could catch up some time?
Well, I was hoping that you’d recover ok. Look, I told you I have a partner, right? And you know what he did to you when he saw you with me that night.
Sure you told me you had a partner, but I didn’t realise he was one of the executives!
What did you think I was doing there?
Actually I thought you were the entertainment.
Hm. Well, that is how we met actually. But that’s beside the point now. He is my partner, and he gets quite jealous.
No shit. So you’re dating a Cosmodemonic executive. Wow.
Well, dating is such a loose term. Put it this way: we see a lot of each other.
He’s married isn’t he? To someone else I mean.
Well, yes. But it works out well between us.
So can I see you sometime?
Well, I am happy to know you’re ok, and I do feel partially responsible…
Oh, don’t worry, I get maimed every time I make it to that floor, honest.
… So, sure why not. But listen, because my partner is so jealous… look, come to my place tomorrow night, but just don’t tell anyone you’re coming ok? Make it our secret? Promise me.
Ok, I promise. A little intrigue is always intriguing.

She told me her address, and I wrote it on the card and hung up. Life was, once again, looking up.

The following evening, I sang my way to Ebony’s home. It took longer than it should have, since I forgot the card I had written the address on it, and after a while I was mostly singing “Ebony? Do you live around here? Helloooo…?” But eventually I found the place.

It was a big house, set on a big lawn with manicured gardens and pedicured grass. The door was big too, and made of oak, and when I rang the doorbell it swung open all by itself, like in a bad horror movie. It was spooky, though, and maybe I should have known then. But I didn’t. I walked in.

“Ebony?”
“Come on in,” she called, from somewhere down the hallway.
“Hell of a place you’ve got here,” I sauntered, hands in pockets, at ease for no good reason, and only more at ease when I looked through a doorway into a room to my right.
There was Ebony, curled on an armchair in front of a log fire, holding a glass of wine. Wearing only a negligee. She was beautiful and I felt more and more Raymond Chandler with each step. I went to her.
“You’re beautiful.”
“Thanks. Wanna drink?”
“Sure.”
She got up from the chair and moved to the decanters over by one of the floor to ceiling bookshelves, and as her blonde hair flowed across her throat I was in love. She poured a whiskey and added a little water, walked back across the room and handed it to me.
“I’m glad you came. I’ve been looking forward to tonight.”
“Really.”
“Yes. I want to apologise again for getting you into all that trouble last time. I do feel bad about it – you were really beaten badly.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it. It wasn’t so bad. I’m over most of the injuries, and the bruises are pretty funky colours now. It was all a bit of fun really.” I seated myself on a chair opposite hers.
“A bit of fun? Well, I guess that makes me feel a lot better. A heck of a lot better actually…” She nearly purred.
“Sure, a bit of fun, don’t worry about it… now how about you? This is a hell of a place you got. You live here by yourself? You really are a lady of mystery, aren’t you.”
“You don’t know the half of it, Lackey.” The lights started to dim, but I couldn’t see any switch, they must have been on a timer. I finished my whiskey.
“So what have you got planned for me tonight? It’s a great start so far!”
“Oh you just wait and see, you won’t have to wait too long, I promise. Now how about another drink? I know you like a drink.”
She got up again, and seemed to fade from view as she walked toward the drinks trolley. “Hey this house – it’s his isn’t it? I bet it’s his. Is his wife out of town or something? Hey, who’s that?”
A blurry figure had appeared on the outside of my vision, fading somehow in and out of focus, it seemed to be a middle aged man with a hairy pot belly, exposed by the leather straps of his bondage outfit. But it couldn’t be. This night was about Ebony and me… I dropped my glass. It was him.
“Ebony, look out, he’sh here, in the roommm…”
“You didn’t waste any time on him, my dear.”
“He’s a thirsty man, ok.”
“Well done. Now, come here…” The room went black.

I came to and immediately wished I hadn’t. This thought was stuck in my brain like a strobing sign: “NAARGGH!!” After a couple of long moments, it was gone, and my muscles relaxed. When the pain cleared and I could see again, I realised I had been woken by a pair of bloodthirsty psychopaths who had attached electrodes to my privates, and were now cackling at each other as I gasped and tried to collapse. I couldn’t collapse as my wrists were cuffed to chains hanging from the ceiling. My feet were chained to floor. And my balls were wired to a battery. We were inside some kind of a cage in a basement dungeon that the executive had spent a lot of time and money on fitting out. There were racks and arrays of various weapons and implements, restraints and This night had become a lot worse than I thought.
The executive and Ebony were standing in front of me, she had her hand on a switch, and he had a hand on her. They were both wearing leather bondage outfits, which could have been kind of cool, in different circumstances, like say if he wasn’t there at all and she wasn’t electrocuting my balls at will.
“Hey, this isn’t… so cool anymore.” It was hard for me to talk, or breathe, or pretty much do anything.
“Shut up, scum!” the executive shouted, and Ebony twisted the switch and it was spasms and contractions and NAARGGH!! for an infinity. “You think you’re good enough to share an elevator with my Ebony? You think you’re good enough to talk to her? You think you’re good enough to lick her boots? Well? Lick them scum!”
She kicked me in the face. Way too quick for me to clean her boots properly. So of course I was in trouble and here cam the zap again.
Anyway, look, I’ll save you all the gory details, and they were gory, trust me. Basically it transpired that he wasn’t happy that I’d received enough of a beating the other week, and she just liked electrocuting people. I still like to think that she had a soft spot for me, and that if he hadn’t been there, things might have been different. But get the two of them together, and they’re a pair of bloodthirsty, sadistic freaks. I’m pretty sure they did things to me that I have blocked out and hopefully will never remember again. Certainly, I have no recollection to explain some of the odder scars.
The torture continued, off and on, for a period of days, maybe even weeks, I lost track. They didn’t feed me, just left me strung up. Circulation started to go, I was out of it or light headed most of the time, so it’s hard to know anything for sure.

I spent a long time, alone, trapped underground in a cage. I survived on lubricant, and sucking the moisture from the leather straps that bound me. One or both of them would come in, to torture, molest, or beat me at whim. Let’s put it this way – it wasn’t very pleasant.

Somewhere going into the second week, I woke to hear a strange sound, it sounded like a voice, but it wasn’t full of rage and malice. I recognised that sound, it came from a different world, a world of dreams and pleasure, a world that no longer existed. The I heard it again.
“Lackey!” it was a hissed whisper, but I did know that voice! Cute Nurse! Ahh! Was she one of them? Was she with them? God no, it would be too much. I closed my eyes, and pretended not to hear. I could bear no more. My body was more orifice than entity, and most of those orifices and been violated numerous times, generally unlubricated, because I had eaten all of that. My genitals were damn near planed off, but had been trained to respond to a slap of a baton to my right nipple. The pain if I didn’t get it up after such a slap was so intense I now had a Pavlov’s dick. My legs and arms were constantly on the verge of dislocation, I was slowly starving to death and I hadn’t shaved in quite a while. These things I could handle, but if Cute Nurse was with them, well that would break my spirit. I dared not open my eyes, dared not look around.

“Lackey you bastard, are you alive? I’m in the window, look behind you!” I did not respond. I was dreaming, and it was probably going to turn into a nightmare. “Lackey!” came the hiss again, “Are you alive? I’m behind you, turn around. God, what have you got yourself into this time, you crazy bastard? Can you move? Lackey!” I gave in, and turned a little in my chains, and opened my good eye. It was Cute Nurse, and she was staring through a grill high in the wall, which must have been ground level outside. When she saw me turn she started to smile, but when she saw my face, the smile turned into a gasp, which she quickly tried to smother. That made me kind of laugh, which made her gasp again. We could have gone on like that all day, but the situation called for attention.
“Lackey, you’re alive! Kind of! Look, I came to get you out, but if I pull this grill out it’ll make a huge amount of noise, and they’ll probably hear us.”
“God, don’t do that!”
“Shh! They’ll hear you!”
“Don’t do that, they’ll kill me, and they’ll probably kill you too. It’s too risky! There has to be another way. That can be plan B.”
“Ok, I’ll go call the cops. Don’t worry, I’ll come straight back.” She started to move away from the window.
“No! No cops.”
“What?
“I have unpaid parking tickets.”
“Oh cripes. Well, there may be another way. There’s some kind of entrance here, looks like it leads down. I’ll dig it out, and see where I get to, hopefully come out underneath you, but it will take some time, ok?”
“Yeah, no worries. Hell I’m getting kind of used to it in here. Not so different from Cosmodemonic, you know.”
“Oh, and Lackey, here, have this.” She threw a small package at me and disappeared. It was a good thing Ebony and the executive had broken most of my bones, it made me flexible enough to pick it up in my feet, transfer it to my hands, all while chained up. It was an iPod. I put it on, and hit random. Stuck in the Middle With You. Brilliant.

Soon, Ebony and the executive both came in to the cage they did a strange kind of sadistic sexual aerobics class that lasted several hours. Then, lying on the floor, the both of them spent, they noticed the white headphones hanging from my ears.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s an iPod, stud. They play music.”
“I know what it is, where did it come from?”
“I don’t know, maybe he had it hidden in has arse?”
“Well I reckon we’d have found it by now. I reckon maybe you gave it to him. Got a soft spot for this piece of meat, have you?!”
“Don’t you talk to me like that, or I’ll take to you with a vacuum cleaner!”
“Ooh I love it when you talk clean like that!”
“You love it now, it’ll be a different story when you’re inside out my little boy!”
They carried on, got carried away, and left some time later, iPod forgotten.

“Man, those guys are really sick, aren’t they!” It was Cute Nurse popping in for a chat.
“Shouldn’t you be digging or something?”
“You’re welcome. Any time you get yourself chained up in a rich man’s dungeon, and tortured by two psychopathic chainskanking robofreaks, hell I’ll come over and dig for a week to get you out, and don’t you worry about a thing. In fact, be rude to me if you like. I love it.”
“Sorry. I’m just dieing down here, I haven’t eaten in weeks and you know, it’s not altogether pleasant. Hey how did you find me here anyway?”
"After you were missing from work for two full weeks, I went to your apartmentlooking for you.I broke in and found that tacky card with the address scrawled on it pinned to the door so you wouldn't forget it. You really need to clean your place by the way."
"And get better security locks."
“Look, I haven’t got too far to go. I don’t have much in supplies, but maybe you can chew on this.”
She threw me her lipstick and disappeared. Great.

Soon I could hear scratching, and bumping and faint explosions coming from underneath me. It was Cute Nurse, making good progress underneath me, towards a trapdoor next to the cage. I was so proud of her!

Soon enough, the trapdoor burst open and there she stood, smiling, covered in dirt, and somehow never more glorious. She rushed to me, made as if to hug me, then balked when she saw just how disfigured and disgusting I had become.
“I broke a nail,” she said. “Let’s get you loose, shall we” Soon enough all the chains were untied and I staggered to the floor. She helped me up, and with my arm over her shoulders and her arm around my back, we made toward the trapdoor.
As we reached it, we heard a commotion, and Ebony came running into the dungeon.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing! Give him back, he’s mine!”
“Not any more sweetheart,” replied Cute Nurse. “Lackey, get going, I’ll sort this out.” She showved me into the hole, and I fell, squealing like a girl. I managed to make my feet again, and the last thing I heard as I ran tottering along the tunnel Cute Nurse had excavated was: “Your orgy of ugly is over. Now, suffer.”

I ran to the entrance, and out into the light. Blinded, I staggered on, running and blundering as far as I could before my legs finally gave out and I collapsed. Apparently Cute Nurse picked me up about a meter from the entrance, carried me to her car, and drove me to her house to resuscitate.

I faded in and out of consciousness for several days or weeks, and awoke to find Cute Nurse bathing my face with a cloth, tender and beautiful in the moonlight.
“Hi.” I smiled.
“Hullo there, how’re you feeling?”
“Better I guess.”
“Good.”
“Hey, Cute Nurse, what happened back there? Between you and Ebony?”
Her face hardened for a moment. “Don’t worry. You won’t be seeing her again.”
“How’s your fingernail?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I’m tough, I can take it. You just worry about feeling better I was really worried about you. I didn’t realise how worried I was, I think until now, now I know you’re going to be ok. Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? Anything… at all?”
“Oh, no, you’re doing great, I’m just so exhausted still. The physical wounds will heal, but they made me have so much sex, so much filthy degrading sex, that I’m just exhausted, and I just need to rest. Thank you so much, you are so good to me. I don’t deserve it.”

I know. I am not always so stupid, and now that I’m better, whenever I look back on that conversation, I kick myself. Every night.

I tell you what, these guys had it easy.

Attitude Adjustment Day

2006-04-18T16:38:00.000+10:00

To: All Staff
From: Attitude Adjustment Dept

Hello.

We do hope you had a good denominationally neutral break and have returned refreshed and dedicated to working ever harder for the Good of 21st Century Cosmodemonic!

If you need inspiration, please visit this site: Lookatmebeingserious.com. It shows a man who is serious about his work, and concerned about the misuse of funds. We need more people like Ryan Holt here. Enjoy, and be inspired!

Regards,

All at The Attitude Adjustment Department

How to Pick Up Chicks

2006-04-12T15:03:00.000+10:00

I was once given a piece of advice by a very wise man.

“If you want to pick up chicks, go somewhere where there’s lots of chicks,” he said, and sure, he was wise. But I’ve since doctored this advice into a subversive and non-intuitive piece of dogma all my own: If you want to pick up chicks go somewhere where there’s lots of guys.

You see, plenty of people have heard the original idea. So if you go somewhere where there’s lots of girls, probably they’re not there to meet men. And, pretty soon it’ll be over run by canny men trying to pick up. They steal your thunder, best lines and all the girls.

Nowadays, what with women’s lib and all, apparently women are allowed to try to pick up too. I did a quick poll, and 100% of all Lackeys surveyed think this is rad. And where are all these interested women going to go when they want to meet men? Somewhere where there’s lots of men, of course. So the plan is to get there early to get a good spot. And then we play the waiting game. When a lady arrives you can be fairly sure she is there to pick up, and all the other men won’t notice her because they are doing manly stuff like talking about cars and real estate, comparing biceps and teasing each other about being gay. So play the waiting game with confidence that this plan will eventually pay great dividends. This plan is sublime in its simplicity, unique in its design and awesome in its ambition. When it works it will be a transcendent moment of revelation, which will quickly be followed by great sex.

But, one more word of advice: don’t try to explain all this to puzzled workmates who notice you’ve been in the men’s room all day.

Ebony and Lackey

2006-04-06T15:03:00.000+10:00

Ladies and gentlemen I have met a woman. A little older, a little mysterious, and with far better dress sense than me, but your friendly Lackey has met a lady, and he thinks he’s in with a shot!

I was in an elevator, you see, minding my own business. Trying to block out the haunted sounds of lost lovers that scream through the elevator shafts by concentrating on the arse of the woman standing in front of me. It was a fine, callipygian arse, and I lost myself for some time dreaming sweet dreams of grabbery, pinchery, and general gropery when all of a sudden this beautiful woman turned around, and asked: “Are you here for the party?”

What party? I wasn’t here for a party, I was here for a paycheck for God’s sake. This is Cosmodemonic, they don’t have parties. Play it cool Lackey, for God’s sake. She spoke to you, you gotta say something back, be charming for God’s sake. Since when did I care so much about God’s sake? Just say something!

“…Huh? I mean… party. I certainly am here for a party. You too huh?”
“Oh yes, I’m looking forward to it. I’ve heard good things about these do’s. Have you been before?”
“Oh yeah, once or twice.”
“I see. You don’t look like what I expected, are you an executive?”

What? What the hell? Why would she… oh. Oh Christ. It’s an executive party she’s talking about. Of course – if I look past her arse she’s pressed number 17, she’s going to the Executive Floor. This is my chance, now or never. And since I’ve had a couple of moments to get my pretty girl bearings sorted, I can do a little better.

“Oh, every now and then.” I smile a crooked smile, that I hope is still charming while hiding the missing tooth where the homeless guy punched me last night after I tried to steal his blanket. Bastard.

“And how about you?”
“Oh no,” she laughed, “I’m the entertainment.”
“You certainly are.”

And I smiled and she laughed and the elevator stopped at my floor. The doors opened. No one got in. She looked at me, I looked at her and shrugged.

“So what’s your name?”
“Ebony.”
“Ebony.” She was the whitest girl I’d ever seen, with curling blonde hair falling below her shoulders and bright red lipstick that shouldn’t have worked but did on her heart-shaped face. Long legs, and I already mentioned the arse. She looked like a… stripper. But a really classy one.

The elevator doors closed, and we jerked upwards towards the Executive Heaven. I felt good, I felt confident, I felt alive. This is the day, I thought to myself, this is it, I’m going in there, and noone’s gonna stop me now. We jerked to a stop once more, I took Ebony’s arm, and we stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby of the Executive floor… music and revelry is eard in the dim lighting…

Next thing I know, I’m limping, supported by Ebony, towards the sick room.

You cost me a lot of money up there.
Sorry, I grimaced, let me make it up to you. Let me buy you a drink. Dinner.
I have a partner.
Oohh…. Where are you going with this? You want to bring her to?
I mean I have a boyfriend!
Ah. Well, we better skip straight to the sex then, so you’re not home too late.
I don’t know why I think you’re funny.
Funny ha ha? Or funny-lookin’?
Ha, a bit of both my friend. It looks like they knocked one of your teeth out back there, funny I didn’t really see them punching you in the face. Maybe the fall after you were tazered.
So that’s how they got me.
Oh they got you a few ways. And they threw me out, just for being with you!
Did I at least make it to the canapes?
That was the problem, you ate half of the table yourslef as soon as you walked in. If you’re going to gatecrash, try to be less conspicuous. It was kind of sad though, when was the last time you ate a nice home cooked meal?
Ah, yeah. Well, it has been a while. We’re here. It’s just this door here.
The one that says Sick Room? Go figure. Seriously, you need to look after yourself a bit.

Nurse Battleaxe opened the door, groaned and said “You again? Sweet Mary mother of God, what now?”
Ebony replied, while I was still trying to throttle Battleaxe, and discovering I still couldn’t move my arm, “He’s been assaulted, it really wasn’t his fault, do you think you could help him out?”
“Oh of course, why not, after all it’s been days now since he needed help! He keeps this place running just about by himself. If he didn’t keep getting hurt, we’d probably only need one nurse you know, I could run the place fine by myself! Sit him down on the bed there. You’re very kind my dear, but I must warn you, this boy’s not a one to be around. He’s bad news.”
“I’ve seen that already, don’t you worry I can look after myself, thank you though.”
“Okay, well I think you should be going, I’ll look ater him from here. You’ve been very good, thank you.”
“Okay, well I’ll be off then. Look after poor Lackey.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I will.”

I got up off the bed and shuffled to the door, opening it just before Ebony got there. “Thank you for all your help, sorry about ruining your evening.”
“Don’t be daft, that was the most entertainment I’ve had for ages. You really don’t go down without a fight, do you? Although I think you’ve learned not to try to swing from drapes that are already on fire next time.”
“How about that drink sometime?”
“I told you, I have a partner.”
“And I told you…”
She left, but left me with a piece of card with her number on it. Just as Cute Nurse walked through the door to take over from Battleaxe. Could this day get any better!

Later, sponging my wounds:

Who was that slapper?
Ebony.
You were totally coming on to her.
No I wasn’t.
You opened the door for her!
So? I’ve opened the door for you before, does that mean I was coming on to you?
Yes!
Well, I might have done it anyway!
You were totally coming on to her.
What do you care? Jealous?
Oh don’t be ridiculous, Lackey.
You are aren’t you? Admit it, you’re jealous! Ow!
Sorry, this might hurt a bit, just hold still.
A bit, hell. It’s harder to sit still through this than through a Lindsay Lohan triple feature. Ow!

Great Great Outdoor Fight

2006-04-04T14:59:00.000+10:00

Someone needs to make it clear, and I guess it falls to your pal the Lackey to do so:

The story of the Great Outdoor Fight on Achewood is the greatest story ever told, the story by which all future stories shall be judged and found wanting.

You must read it, it's a couple of months worth of brilliance, so take your time.

Lackey's Life Line

2006-03-31T14:34:00.000+10:00

It can be fun to randomly edit wikipedia pages. It can be fun to make them false, and then wait to see how long it takes someone to fix them. But ultimately what you are doing is becoming a pawn in someone else’s life. You see, some kid somewhere will be fooled, and get their homework wrong as a result of your meddling, and you will be nothing more than a footnote in the story of this kid’s life, when you should in fact be writing the story of your own, large, across the sky. So be careful, and only pick the most obscure of topics if you must indulge this habit.

Out of Control Barb Wire Marathon Ends

2006-03-30T17:06:00.000+10:00

There I was just the other day, watching that all-time classic movie Barb Wire – you know the one – the same plot as Casablanca, but improving on it by adding tattoos, disabilities, Pam Anderson and Jake the Muss. Probably the Lacky’s favourite movie, because of it’s searing honesty and depth of emotion. Hell it’s at least as good as Casablanca anyway, I mean it’s the same bloody movie, so it’s gotta be goodish. And if that doesn’t convince you nothing will.

Anyway, there I was, sitting around idly watching Barb Wire, when my phone rang. It was my boss:

Lackey: Mmm..uuhh, hullo?
Boss: Lackey? Is that you? Are you sick? You sound asleep.
L: What? Who is this?
B: It’s Boss, Lackey. What are you doing at home? Apparently noone’s seen you for a week or more. What’s going on?
L: Jeez… are you even allowed to call me at home? Isn’t there a law or something? Can I take the fifth? Hey yeah, right to privacy, and you can’t stop me having an abortion either.
B: Lackey, you live in Australia. There’s no constitution here. Only commies have constitutions. What’s going on?
L: Umm… train strike?
B: What? Train strike? Oh… I heard something about that.
L: Oh, you did? I mean, oh yeah, you did.
B: How long’s it been going?
L: Um, about a week?
B: I see. Well, when’s it finishing?
L: Umm… hopefully tomorrow?
B: Right well good. Don’t be late, you must be running behind in whatever your tasks are by now.
L: Yes sir, don’t you worry I’m champing at the bit to get right back into it!
B: Very good son, very good.
L: Thank you sir, and don’t you worry about me, I’ll find a … you’re gone aren’t you. Dammit!

So tomorrow I better get off the couch and walk the half hour to work.

Lift Surge

2006-03-22T19:13:00.000+10:00

Talking to Young Eddie the other day – he seems to have forgotten he hates me, ha! – I learnt something a little bit interesting. Cosmodemonic’s lift system is apparently derived from an old Soviet model, which itself was designed at a time when the Soviet bloc was starting to show signs of financial strain. Apparently the engineers needed to cut as many corners as they could, and so they made the elevators as stupid as they could, so they wouldn’t have to pay for smartness, which I think sometimes is referred to as memory or something like that. You know, ask someone else who also does IT for a living, they might be able to help you. I’m hungover.

Anyhow, the engineers designed it with so litle memory, that sometimes if there were a few jobs on the go at once, the thing would forget a floor altogether. So if it had to go up to 16, then down to 13 then down to ground, starting off at ground, it would freak out a bit, and, for instance, forget that levels seven and eight existed. Which was no big deal, except that it woulod freak out a whole lot more on the way up when it got to floor six, and then not immediately to floor nine. Since the elevator had forgotten about floors seven and eight, it would try extra hard to get to nine, since it thought it was late or losing its mind. This would result in sudden bursts of acceleration up to floor nine, and possibly in this example, on its way down again t would accelerate crazily between floor nine and floor six.

This tendency was not corrected when the elevator system was bought at a bargain basement price by Cosmodemonic from some guy from some guy in a Lada somewhere outside Kiev.

Young Eddie’s explanation actually consoled me for a while, since I had always thought the sudden surges were caused by a worn out rope, which would only be fixed once it broke. Until I realised that the effects there might not be too different to the elevator forgetting about the ground floor. Best not to think about it too much, I decided.

Mama Mia! What is that infernal racket?

2006-03-22T18:48:00.000+10:00

I have a new hobby. I’m trying to learn Italian by having my alarm clock radio tuned to the local Italian radio station. It’s a slow process, and so far I’ve only learnt the words “Mario Lanza” and “Madonna” but once it kicks in I expect I’ll be waking up singing along to the Lord’s Prayer in Italian, which will freak out the yuppies next door.

Scratch and Win

2006-03-17T11:52:00.000+10:00

Three people were decapitated by flying windows on their way to work this morning. Cosmodemonic has announced what they called a “Comprehensive Severence Package” for their families. Prizes include 21CCd memorabilia, such as t-shirts and mugs, vouchers for 21CCd services and products, and instant scratch and win lottery tickets.

Every cloud has a sliver lining

2006-03-15T13:06:00.000+10:00

Just went outside, nearly got hit on the head by a window, it smashed right in front of me. The shards splashed out in all directions, but none of them hit me so I couldn't take any time off. I went to the sick room just in case I had post traumatic stress disorder, but Nurse Battleaxe took one look at me and scowled.

"Go away Lackey, we're trying to work here, " she said.
"But a window nearly hit me on the head, and I think I'm traumatised in my mind."
"For once I think you might be right. We've got five people in here who actually have been hit by glass, and you're traumatised. We don't have time. Go away."
"But if you could just let me talk to Cute Nu..."

She slammed the door in my face! Geez, the nerve of that woman. It nearly hit me in the nose.

So I came back here, to my desk. There are a few windows missing, some the whole pane is gone, some still have ragged shards of glass around the edges. The company has taken the opportunity to shut off the air conditioning.

Rotting from the outside in - so commonplace and yet so right

2006-03-14T17:57:00.000+10:00

More windows fell off the building today. At first I thought the bump was a bird committing suicide, then there was another, and I thought how romantic, that was her lover. Then a memo went out alerting all staff that it was dangerous to go outside, so we should stay in and keep working. Again. Seems reasonable I guess. If you’re insane. They did say that if you do need to leave the building to go to the shops, you can take the back way, which leads to the weird alley full of broken things and broken people, and winds for about twenty minutes through the bowels of the building before you get to the outside world. And don’t remember you only have twenty nine and a half minutes for lunch. So I gave up on that, it wasn’t so bad. Sitting inside a building that’s falling apart seems to suit, sometimes.

It’s not easy to work in an office filled with insanity.

2006-03-09T18:20:00.000+10:00

It’s not easy to work in an office filled with insanity. People cower under their desks, others just sleep there, some scream and shout, some gibber. There’s those that sit with one hand jiggling in their pocket while they incessantly check the tennis websites, and those who just play games. Some ignore it all and chat casually with each other – it’s these lackeys I think will need the most therapy – and others wander around trying to encourage their co-workers to keep on striving and putting in 110%. Some watch at the windows when the jumpers go, others look away as though that won’t be them in ten more years of nothing new. There’s a pretty high turnover rate here at 21st Century Cosmodemonic, and I guess I can understand that.

Hunting Yuppies at IKEA

2006-03-08T17:58:00.000+10:00

If you’re ever forced – probably by a vengeful girlfriend - to go to IKEA, follow this simple advice, and you should get through the experience with your spirit intact. And you’ll probably never be forced to IKEA by that girlfriend again. If she’s even still your girlfriend.

First off, this isn’t something to be rushed, you just evolve into it naturally. So you start out at IKEA in the standard way, following a winding path through a jungle of sad yuppie bedrooms and living rooms and rooms that aren’t always identifiable to the average lackey. A jungle over grown with throwrug and toddler undergrowth, a twisting turning path of death and decay and lost hopes and forgotten dreams. A jungle of floorlamp trees and cabinet foliage, where the cries of predators are heard over loudspeakers, echoing off bookshelf displays and kitchen displays and bathroom displays of dubious merit and taste.

Soon you discover, as all great hunters and warriors will, that the jungle is not an easy place to negotiate and survive. Your spirit is weakened in this environment – the constant drumming of three-year-olds on pots and pans, the air humid with yuppie bargain sensing sweat, the onstant meaningless chatter of your girlfriend’s friends (looking for something with character in a bulk buy warehouse), and this goddam path that seems to lead you in circles. You are unnerved, and you need a way to fight back. I’m telling you: You need a weapon.

Find a box of some sort that can be fashioned into a gun, or at least a gun-like box. Floorlamp boxes are particularly good for this. Get one that’s square, with a gun-barrel-like extension from one edge. Hopefully it’s big enough to rival Jesse Ventura’s gun from predator, but so long as you know what it is, that the main thing. Now, hoist your gun and stand broad across that damn path, ad the next yuppie that tries to make their way past you, blast them full on with all actions and gun noises necessary. They'll get out of your way. Shoot your girlfriend. Shoot her friends who she’s discussing colour schemes with right now. Shoot the goddam toddlers. Most importantly of all, shoot the goddam toddlers.

You’ll quickly find that your way has been cleared, and it is much easier to move swiftly to the exit, you’ll probably have your girl’s full cooperation in this endeavour as she realises that you are the alpha male and she should forgo comparing slightly different cutlery sets and follow you, for ancient evolutionary survival reasons. Don’t forget to shoot up the café on the way out, that’s important too. If for some reason your girlfriend is not cooperating, then you have a choice to make. You can blast your way out regardless, and leave her for evolutionarily dead. You can do that. I prefer to climb to the top of one of the storage shelving units, and sit atop the boxes like a primal jungle lord. I prefer then to level my gunsights at passing yuppies and snipe them, nay, smite them, from existence. If they don’t run when they hear your “Bang!” then yell at them that they’re dead. Once they understand the underlying truth, they’ll be crushed and die quickly:

“You’re dead!”
“What? I am? No I’m not, I seem to be perfectly alive, my pulse is… oh. I see. Metaphorically. Metaphorically, the strangely captivating man on the top of the shelves is already right.”
“Damn right I am.”
“Arrgh…”

Nothing better than telling it how it is. Immediate results. Pretty soon, your girlfriend will climb the mounting pile of corpses and apologise for being so slow, evolutionarily speaking, and beg you to take her home. You ought to take her and go, as by now you’ve made your point.

New Contract

2006-03-07T18:06:00.000+10:00

I was offered a new contract today. It was nice, really. My boss rang and said Lackey, “I’m tired of you being a glorified temp,” which was the point at which I realised that I’m a glorified temp.

“Lackey,” he continued, “Why don’t I have my law guy draft up a contract to get you proper contract with all the benefits, GBD’s, quarterly negotiations, all that jazz, what do you say?”
“Uh, sure boss, sounds great.” Of course my suspicions were already raised, since I don’t know what GBD stands for. “Just send it to me, and I’ll have a look at it.”
“Well it would really speed the process up if you could just fax your signature to me, and I’ll append it to the document once we’ve got it approved. How ‘bout it?”
“Look boss, I don’t really think it works that way with contracts… sounds weird.”
“Weird huh? Are you telling me that my business practices are flawed, you know I’ve written books on my business practices. And you have some sort of problem with them? What are you trying to say?”
“Uh, no – nothing, boss, I obviously have been misinformed, I’d love to fax you my signature right away… Oh, you know what, unfortunately, our fax machine is broken. Remember it broke at the end of last financial year, and the repair budget only covers things that occur this financial year. So it’s sort of just sitting there, actually, sometimes we use it as wickets.”
“So you can’t send a fax?”
“Nope, sorry.”
“Right, damn it. Well, look, that sort of ruins the surprise, but tell you what, how about I send a copy down to you. Just do me a favour, and don’t read it, just sign the last page and send it back to me. Okay? Can you do that for your old boss? Then it’ll still be a surprise for you when we unveil it. It’s important.”
“Um, sure boss. Okay. Will do.”

Funnily, when the contract arrived, I read it, and learned quite a lot about my boss’s mind. GBD = good behaviour day, which he can award me if I humiliate myself to his pleasure.

In the end I signed it. The conditions were a slight step up from my current ones.

Pitfalls of Success

2006-02-28T16:06:00.000+10:00

Yes!

It took me three hours of working at it, but I finally got that annoying nose hair. Now everybody thinks I have a serious bogey problem.

You Can’t Come to Work if You Have an Accident at Home

2006-02-28T13:36:00.000+10:00

I received this memo this morning. I pass it along without comment:

Dear treasured employees,

Please take a moment out of your busy working day to reflect on the following cautionary tale about safety at home.

Technical Technician Barney Blatherton has a reason to be thankful but also a strong message about safety. “Having recently viewed the compulsory Health and Safety Initiative video You Can’t Come to Work if You Have an Accident at Home made me think about how fortunate my family have been following a recent accident at home.

Some time ago Barney’s wife was changing a lightbulb when the phone rang. Startled, she dropped the new lightbulb, costing the Blathertons a couple of dollars, but, more importantly, nearly so much more. “Well, anything could have happened really. She could have fallen off the chair she was standing on, and landed on the lightbulb shards, and severely cut herself, there might have been major contusions. In a worst case scenario, she might have died.”

Luckily, Mrs Blatherton didn’t fall from her chair, instead she stepped down, swept the broken lightbulb aside, and answered the phone. But the lessons have been learnt in the Blatherton household.

“My wife has assured me that she won’t be climbing up to change any more light bulbs, she’ll call a professional in instead. And if there’s some emergency, and she has to do it herself, she’ll climb up and remove the old bulb, then get down and fetch the new bulb instead of carrying two at once. And I’ve made her promise to take the phone off the hook while she does it. I fully understand Cosmodemonic’s You Can’t Come to Work if You Have an Accident safety policy and appreciate the ongoing education.”

So do we, Barney. So do we.

Near raise experience

2006-02-24T14:52:00.000+10:00

My boss called me today. This is usually a cause for a feeling of great boding, but this time it’s all turned out ok(ish):

Lackey: [Sarcastic, obviously] Welcome to Cosmodemonic, how may I be of your assistance?
Lackey’s Boss: Oh, hello Lackey, nice phone manner there, very good, very good.
L: Oh, hello boss, yeah. Thanks.
LB: Not at all. Quite alright old chap. Now I’ve been hearing a story about you lately. Can it be true?
L: Um, possibly. But it was nothing, honestly. It’s all back to normal now, honestly. Honest.
LB: But for an entire week?
L: Um, yeah, pretty much a week, yeah.
LB: My God man, spending a full week at work without even leaving the building is inspiring stuff! I’m proud of you for once. I was even going to give you a raise, but you say everything’s back to normal now, so never mind. But just so you know the thought was there! That should keep you inspired!
L: Uh, yeah, thanks boss, I appreciate it, I sure will stay motivated and maybe even put in another week real soon, thanks for the thought anyway. You’re gone already aren’t you? You bastard. Shit.

Incident Report

2006-02-23T13:41:00.000+10:00

Aright you motherfuckers, now just where did I put that nitro glycerine? Today I’ve finally had it – something’s gotta be done and I reckon I’m the guy to do it. Hell, this is one Lackey who’s finally had enough. There’s bits of the building still falling off and I’ve got the shakes worse than ever. There’s less and less sense being made here every day, and there wasn’t much to start with. I don’t think I can take it anymore and I definitely don’t want to! There’s a feeling in the air, a sense of revolution, and I know you feel it too. Join with me, let’s sing La Marseillaise and knock a few heads about. Cut some off and play soccer with them through the streets.

Um, hello everybody it’s the Cute Nurse here. Lackey has told me about this blog of his once or twice, in fact I think his exact words once were "Goddammit Cute Nurse, if you don’t open this door and give me more pills right now, I’m gonna post on my blog and tell the whole world how evil you are!!"

Anyway, I found this half-written post on his PC just now, and I thought anyone who does actually read this thing might want an update on what’s going on with Lackey. The poor man really can get himself worked up, as you probably know. And judging from what he’d written at the top of this post, he sure was worked up when he wrote that. And I guess he had a bit of an episode. Don’t worry I’m looking after him now. I’ve put him to bed down in the sick bay, and I’ll make sure he gets plenty of rest for a while. I’m sure he’ll be back to his old self in no time. Which is what worries me!

We’ve pieced together events as best we can between us all, and here’s what we think happened. Lackey was approaching the end of his tether, and probably needed to come down and see me for a sedative of some kind. It’s standard practice at cosmodemonic to sedate the staff as necessary, and Lackey takes advantage of this more than most. Management think it’s good that he uses the facilities as he thinks appropriate, I’m not so sure myself, but it’s my job, and I really do think it stops people from going off the deep end while they work here. I do feel some confliction regarding my job. Lackey is a special case though, and I sometimes have to give him aspirin and tell him it’s morphine.

It appears that just as Lackey was finally losing his cool, and no doubt that blue vein at the side of his forehead was starting to pulse again, he found a dead fly under his desk. He must have decided that it was the fly he once named Vodka-Legs and made friends with. And this seems to have transferred him from a psychopathic rage instantly into some kind of impotent, tragic self-pitying near coma.

It would appear that Lackey was curled in the fetal position, rocking slowly and muttering to himself for nearly a week. This is not an unusual sight at Cosmodemonic, although I am quite disappointed that nobody called me. It’s my job to take care of people in these situations. Anyway, Lackey doesn’t seem to be the most popular staff member here, sometimes he can actually be quite obnoxious, which I think is a shame, because I think he’s quite a nice boy underneath it all, and he was a long way under his desk, so I guess he was hard to spot there, rocking and muttering. Until this morning, that is, when one vigilant soul noticed that he wasn’t wearing his ID badge. They called Young Eddie from security, who usually sorts the ID cards out. Eddie’s lovely, a nice cheerful old Irishman with a red face and white hair. He knows everyone in the building and looks after us well. He always has a story to tell me when I stop by. He’s had a couple of run-ins with Lackey, and doesn’t seem to trust him, but he took one look at him under the desk, and called the Sick Room. I came straight up and found him pushing a dead fly around with a pencil, and saying "Vroooom! Vroooom!" like it was an airplane about to take off. "Fly Vodka-Legs, fly don’t die! Vroooom! Vroooom!" He seemed almost autistic at that point, and I was quite worried.

Eddie helped me carry Lackey to the elevator, and down to the sick room. I sedated him heavily, and we’ve left him to sleep it off. The last words he muttered as he was passing out were "Don’t die. Don’t ever die. You’re the only one who understands me vodka nurse angel wings." I took it as a compliment, and a request for refreshment. He’s got an I.V. drip in, as he was severely dehydrated and the only thing he’d eaten for a week was his ID card. He’ll have a new one waiting for him when he wakes up, let’s hope he doesn’t eat that one!

...

Jesus Christ, what’s going on around here?! Shit I take a blog hiatus for half a week, you’d think it was the end of the world. Well, let me tell you, if they want to keep me away, they’ll have to tie the restraints a lot tighter next time! Anyway, sorry I’ve been away for a bit, had some orgies to attend to, you know the drill, but I’m back now. Will keep you all updated, but I’ve got a bit of a headache at the moment, so I might just go for a lie down in the sick room. Cute Nurse was here before, on my PC, but I told her if she didn’t want to give me food or head, she could at least pop down and get me more morphine tablets. For once, she was agreeable (well, not about the head, but I’m working on it, don’t you worry). She is usually a formidable adversary, so something must be up. Will keep you all informed later, after I’ve had a rest.

Hunting and Gathering

2006-02-16T10:24:00.000+10:00

Once again wisely taking its lead from the most powerful institution in the world, 21st Century Cosmodemonic has decided that all team building exercises for the year should be hunting trips.

There's one way that management here is in fact leaps and bounds ahead of the leaders of the free world, and that is credibility. Cheney, apparently, didn't tell anyone what happened because he thought noone would believe him. Up on the executive floor, while they fool around in their jacuzzis, management brazenly create their own reality every day. I don't think they care whether we believe it or not, the thing is not to say anything out loud. Voicing skepticism is grounds for instant dismissal.

A couple of days ago a memo came out specifying a new corporate wardrobe. Of course, the models were naked. None said anything. A couple of days later all but one of the group that drew up the memo were summarily sacked on grounds of indecency. They'd all ordered the uniform and were wearing it. The one who wasn't sacked was seconded to the executive floor. Of course, she was a little younger than the others, and she got a hefty raise.

Sometimes it's hard to know just who is fucking with whom.

Cosmodemonic's Valentine to its Staff

2006-02-14T11:35:00.000+10:00

This is something I honestly didn't expect. Normally the management here at 21st Century Cosmodemonic do appalling things in a generally predictable manner. But today, this was sitting in every email inbox in the company:

Dear employee, thank you so much.
Without you our lives would be very tough.
You liven our days with your unceasing toil,
And grow our company like a flower from soil.

We’d like to take his opportunity to say
That on this, St Valentine’s Day,
Even though there are redundancies in the works,
We value your work just as much as it’s worth.

Yours, the Management.

I'm not sure which bit I appreciated the most, comparing my work to dirt, or rhyming much with tough. And I'm not sure if that last line was meant to be read as a threat or not...

Bugs!

2006-02-09T12:46:00.000+10:00

It's when you actually see the bugs that things get bad.

When you just suspect they are there, you can put it down to alcohol induced paranoia, or some kind of flashback. But once you've seen them, you're on a whole different level. And now I've seen them, they're bloody everywhere. My desk is crawling with them, I even had to brush one off my shirt in the elevator. Freaked me right out. And it's really got me worried - after all when you're in a really bad way, physically and mentally wracked, these are the sorts of hallucinations that get at you. Day and night, looking in the shadows, seeing bugs everywhere. But it just seems so real, it can't be my mind, it just can't.

Either I've totally lost it, or Cosmodemonic's new Staff Security initiative is even more invasive than I ever expected. And for once, I'm backing my sanity.

Two Types of Rudeness

2006-02-07T15:10:00.000+10:00

It’s extremely rude to tell a man that his girlfriend looks just like her father, has her father’s eyes or, well lets just say hinting at any resemblance is not nice. Sure, it might be there, it might be obvious, but for crying out, there ain’t no need to point it out and leave the poor bastard trying like hell not to think of an old man of questionable wit and smell every time he looks into his lover’s eyes.

But apparently it is also rude to tell a girl you’re leaving her because she looks like her dad and it’s freaking you out when you shag.

So: don’t tell him, and if you get told, don’t tell her. Just say you have six months to live and would rather spend it reading some good books.

Bad sign?

2006-02-06T17:30:00.000+10:00

I take it as a bad sign for building maintenance when pieces of glass rain from the top floor of the building on to the street below.

On the other hand, the top level is executive territory, so the alternative possibility is clear. The executives, in their boundles wisdom, have decided they are not getting enough productivity out of us lackey's, and so they have decided a shower of glass splinters resulting in an anouncement that no employees can leave the building is just what the doctor ordered. Along with the martini and the supermodel sandwich.

So in retrospect, it is probably a great sign for building maintenance that they were able to produce this rain of glass on request. Nice work guys!

Rules of Office Etiquette V

2006-02-03T16:19:00.000+10:00

It is unacceptable to let a door swing closed behind you when there is someone following directly behind you to go through the same door. It's rude. I know you're at work, and probably preoccupied with finding a Costanza venue or worried they know about the hipflask (don't worry - they know) but just be slightly human and look around for other poor humans stuck in the same boat, and don't close the door in my face!

It is, however, perfectly acceptable to walk straight into the door so closed on you, and bang against it repeatedly, pretending to be retarded and not understand how such a barrier could suddenly be there where it wasn't a second ago. And, if the door is glass, feel free to blowfish away to your heart's content. The people on the other side of the door, if they think it's weird, are clearly not au fait with modern office etiquette.

Emotion modulation

2006-02-02T17:34:00.000+10:00

How to cheer up: Spend a couple of minutes rating everybody a one out of ten at hotornot.com.

How to cheer right back down again: Spend more than a couple of minutes.

What's up, doc?

2006-02-02T16:58:00.000+10:00

Hi kids.

Your pal the Lackey had a little chat with his boss today. It was brilliant. First, he called me up from whichever remote holiday destination his latest conference is being held in (we were going to wait until he was in town, but realized that that is in infinity weeks, so better to go ahead now) . Then I answered the phone with my best Daffy Duck voice, which went down remarkably well. This was suspicious, as I am not officially supposed to answer the phone with my Daffy Duck voice. We've had discussions on the topic before. I had to use my Porky Pig voice in those discussions, but he stammers a lot so I don't know if I ever really got my point across. Anyhow, so it's a bit like this:

Lackey: Welcome to 21tthht Thentury Cothmodemonialand, how may I be of aththithtanththththh?
Lackey's Boss: Lackey, is that [unintelligible off phone noise and laughter] is that you?
L: W-w-w-w-w- yes...
LB: Listen [giggling] listen, I need you to fill in two requisition forms for me, ok? And drop them in the mail today, because we're running low.
L: Ah certainly sir, no problem at all. What shall I order for you?
LB: Eh? Oh, Jesus, what are you some lind of a moron? Don't name the stuff, that's ridiculous. Idiot. Just say my usual, and on the other one just say my other usual. The guys in Supplies'll know. [Off phone chatter] No sweetheart, don't put that there, ow! [Wild giggling] Can you do that?
L: Are you talking to me?
LB: What? Yes of course I'm talking to you, fool.
L: Sorry sir, yes of course I can do that, I'll do it right away.
LB: Good man, hey do that voice again, that's hilarious!
L:Thuffering Thuckatath!
LB: [Manic laughter, followed by a clunk and a popping sound] Brilliant! Just brilliant! Ha!
L: Thanks! I'm here all day, and week, and...
LB: You know what, this is crazy but what the hell. You deserve a pay rise, yep I'm gonna give you a raise next time I'm there. Just for that voice! Whaddya say? How do you like that - oooohhh! - I'm gonna give you a raise! Oh baby don't stop No I didn't mean don't stop, I meant Don't! Stop! Do you want me to get electrocuted? How do you like that?
L: Me? Sir, thanks a lot! But ah how about processing it now, rather than when you get here? Just might be easier is all...
LB: What? Nope, don't be silly. It's just as easy from there, and I want to able to shake your hand when you get it ok?
L: Ah.. thanks, sir...
[Wild giggling, snorting noises and strange seventies jazzis heard]
[The phone line dies]

One more thing

2006-01-27T16:14:00.000+10:00

Found this link as well, because I've been working extra hard.

NAMBLA's answer phone. It's really disturbing. Now, I'll get back to work.

Stuff wot I found on the interwebs

2006-01-27T10:13:00.000+10:00

So two things I found while I was working hard today.

Spot the difference between a Google.com image search for Tianamen Square and a Google China image search for Tiananmen Square.

And, a Kurdish proverb:

A man is crazy. He believes he is a flower and birds are trying to eat him. A doctor takes him to the hospital. After months of treatment he improves. "I am not a flower," he tells himself. As he is walking home from the hospital he looks up at the sky. "I know I am not a flower," he thinks. "But those birds still want to eat me. How do I convince them that I am not a flower?"

That is all. No stories, I'm too hungover. Oh, FYI, don't try to cure a hangover with a laxative. It doesn't "get it out of your system."

That's a relief

2006-01-25T15:50:00.000+10:00

Next time you get that feeling that you're insane, click here and compare. You ain't.

New elevator algorithm

2006-01-25T13:51:00.000+10:00

Over at Collision Detection, Clive Thompson tells us about a new elevator algorithm, where you wait for a bit longer for the elevator on the floor, but it takes you to the floor you want with a lot less stops on the way. He says people will hate it, and I think I can confirm that.

I'm pretty sure that once someone presses 16 around here, the elevator won't pick up anyone else as it rushes to the executive floor. It usually stops at the floors other passengers have requested, though, but I think that's because they think we smell and want rid of us asap. They might be right about the smell, but still... how rude! Still what this means is at about 11:30, when their morning coffee "meetings" are finished, the upper levels of management drib and drab back to the building, and take the elevator straight to 16 for their pedicures, champagne parties and ritual disembowelments of lackeys even less fortunate than yours truly. Those of us still with our bowels in know not to try to take an elevator in the late morning hours, as we're often left standing stranded in the floor lobby, as lift after lift swishes by filled with singing, maniacal giggling and the stench of unlaundered money.

I still haven't made it in and out of Executive Heaven with my memory intact, but I'll keep you posted. You may rest disturbed that all descriptions you read here are quite accurate.

Perspective

2006-01-24T18:26:00.000+10:00

Sometimes the corporate angst gets to me, and I find myself thinking that I should have just joined the army. Better pension scheme, structured career path, and more intelligent conversation. But then I read BoingBoing and remember, even though there's some strange goings on around here, I never get told to shoot ten year olds.

Thirsty?

2006-01-23T16:21:00.000+10:00

A while ago I created a cocktail. I wanted something you could down during work on Friday that would get you through the weekend with no need for further intoxification. So all you'd need to take during the weekend proper would be whatever you felt like at the time, rather than having to calculate your mood and the effects of any prospective fundrop.

I called this creation the Lacktini, but then someone said it sounded like it had breastmilk in it, so new suggestions are welcome. It is a five course cocktail, naturally.

Recipe:

Fill a high ball half way with absinthe, pour in a gram of cocaine and stir thoroughly. You can also caramelise some sugar, according to taste.
Cook up some morphine tablets, and suck contents into a syringe.
Throw some ice, and whatever spirits you have to hand in a shaker. Shake thoroughly. Garnish with ecstacy tablets.
Three shots of tequila
Three bottles of beer.

To take:

Down each shot followed by one of the beers.
Take the lid off the shaker, and pour contents down your throat.
Sip the absinthe casually, while discussing art nouveau with the dancing shadows in the corner.
Wait for the pain to hit, and when it does, numb it with the morphine. Once you come to, you should be right for the weekend.

Operation Alibi: Kitsch

2006-01-23T15:28:00.000+10:00

Those of you with the slightest awareness of current pop culture events will know there is currently a huge, very kitsch Chuck Norris revival. This follows on from, and complements nicely, the Mr. T revival of 2005.

However, it turns out that claiming to have been caught in the middle of a bare-knuckle brawl between the two, with Mr. T saying "I pity the fool who thinks he can take over from me in the kitsh revival stakes, hell I only just got ahead of the Hoff to number one, and I ain't giving it up!" and Chuck sending out roundhouse kicks left right and center (all at once which is pretty good, considering he appears to have only two legs) and obviously I had to talk to the two of them, get them to see eye to eye, give them a joint to chill them out, and before you know it we were all giggling together like school girls and they were both just so relieved that all of that competitiveness had lifted from their shoulders, so they could pursue their first loves, which incidentally were watercolours and dyi renovations, but I promised not to say whose was watercolours, so I walked them into town and showed them where they could buy paint and power tools and left them to go into business together in a watercolour house venture, hence saving the rest of the decade from what would have been an intensely uncool era of kitsch-wars! doesn't hold water as an excuse for being late to work on a Monday.

Don't bother trying a "stung by a new species of waspfish" routine either.

In fact, stick to the tried and true "Morning!" with a big bright smile, acknowledging nothing before you slip under your desk into the fetal position and wait for late.

Sugar Glider

2006-01-20T10:44:00.000+10:00

One of the most beautiful things about life here at 21st Century Cosmodemonic is the wide range of opportunities the company offers its employees. A range of opportunities limited only by the imagination and chutzpah of the employee.

Today we have a beautiful example from level 11, the floor of petty bureaucracy gone madder, and home of the Sugar Glider - one ornery middle aged, morning-tea-cake eating grandmother of none. Named for her resemblance to the flying squirrel, Sugar Glider is very elusive when there's work to be done, and has enormous deposits of fat under her arms, causing mild consternation amongst innocent passers-by whenever the wind gets up.

She has lately performed a minor coup and set a new level for all aspirants to corporate laziness to aspire to. The health and safety officer role used to be part of one supervisor's job. Recently Sugar Glider assumed the responsibility, and cunningly set about complaining about all the health and safety issues that were creating imminent dangers in the work place.

Convex mirrors were erected at all corridor corners so blind and quiet walkers didn't walk into each other. Signs were posted everywhere warning of everything. Other signs were posted advising that the signs should be read diligently. Other signs were posted advising that it is a sackable offence to graffiti the signs. Meetings were held to design more signs, which were duly created and posted. It was decided that it is too dangerous to walk through doors holding coffee. You must walk the long way around the floor, or down the coffee first. Sitting on desks was ruled out, and signs were posted on desks to so advise. Open toed shoes and mobile phones were ruled out, unless you were higher in the organisation than Sugar Glider in which case they no longer posed a risk.

Quickly in this process, Sugar Glider had done so much good work, that it was clear that the health and safety role needed to become a full time position. I thought at that point that she had achieved everything she wanted, and the madness would soon cease. But I was wrong. Sugar Glider wasn't just after the easy job and a laugh, no! Sugar Glider craved power, authority. So she kept going, relentlessly signing signs and ruling rulings. Anything she didn't apporove of was a health and safety hazard - slightly sexy clothes could cause colds and flus. Laughter could cause headaches. Open blinds could cause eyestrain. Soon the floor resembled a cave. With everyone wearing full length drab clothes, and at all times maintaining an expression of aloof indifference, it was clearly a cave gulag filled with robot workers. You could almost hear Stalin laughing, but of course he wouldn't have been allowed to.

Having created this atmosphere of fear, loathing and automated misery, Sugar Glider has now acieved what she really wanted from the start: 21CCd has given her two assistants! Sugar Glider wanted a cabal, and now she has one.

They wanted to throw a party, but it turned out they had already ruled against parties on or off the business premises, in or out of working hours. So they threw a health and safety meeting open to the floor, and it turned out the big issue was the toilet paper seemed to have got rougher lately. A letter was drafted to the building maintenance people and that was, for the time being, that.

If the Lackey had a pet parrot

2006-01-18T14:04:00.000+10:00

It would say "Beer." A lot.

Rules of Office Etiquette IV

2006-01-18T09:36:00.000+10:00

An illustrative story, from your pal the Lackey.

I went to the loo. As you do, sometimes. However, this particular time, I decided to combine the loo break with a general lunch break, mostly so I could take a long lunch break with a ready-made excuse if anyone asked. ("Oh, yes, I did take quite a while for lunch I suppose, but you see, I was in the toilet for the first half hour or so. So.") So, because I was going to go downstairs and eat whatever I could find claiming to be food in these parts, I needed to take the newspaper with me. So I could do the sudoku, you understand. Nothing to do with a general knowledge of current events or what's going on in hollywood, don't worry.

Anyhoo, in a moment of rash common sense, I left the paper sitting on a big-arse wheelie-bin while I went in to do my business. So no one would think I was going to the loo to read the paper see. Since I wasn't. After I've washed my hands and I'm wandering out, Moustache Man wanders in. Holding a paper. I congratulated myself, because I certainly thought I'd busted him going in to read the paper on the loo for the next half hour or so, and no-one had busted me for anything for minutes now.

My mood changed when I turned the corner and found my paper was gone. I had a sinking feeling that I knew just where it had gone, too. Later on, I found the paper, back where I had left it. Suffice to say, I decided to buy another copy.

So, new Rules of Office Etiquette:

If you see something lying around in the office environment, at least wait five minutes before nicking it, in case the owner has just popped to the toilet.
If you're taking the paper to lunch, you might as well take it into the toilet on the way. It's safest, and you just might learn something. Or save a buck.
It is silly to leave something safely on top of a recycling bin, and expect it to be there when you get back.
Dude, don't return a paper you stole after you've touched it with hands that just wiped your bum. That's gross.

Pass it Forward

2005-12-19T10:05:00.000+10:00

Some things are stuck in your head until you can pass them on. Songs that are on repeat in your skull, resounding and usually awful, often dissipate once you've sung them to someone else (especially if you only know one line or half a verse, those are the nastiest). Stories that haunt you and make it impossible to sleep at night, stories that make you shudder, tremble and sometimes even send you into catatonic shock are immeasurably easier to deal with once you have told someone else. Much like that great video chain letter the Ring. You know what I'm talking about.

Here's a really gross story told to me by a friend. You will probably not be able to relax until you have told someone else. Somehow, it just helps.

Seriously, this is a bit gross. I'm warning you.

So anyway, a friend of a friend of mine (let's call him Mr Tri-Nipple) picked up a boy (let's call him Mr Very Very Sad) at a club one time, and took him home. They were starting to get it on, getting hot and heavy, the shirts were off... you know the drill. Anyhow, Tri-Nipple was having a great time, but he was wondering why VVS kept concentrating so much on a particular part of his chest. It felt fine, but it wasn't his nipple or anything so it was a little weird. But no big deal... until he realised what was happenning, just a moment too late, as the enormous zit exploded into VVS's mouth. Mr Very Very Sad got up, said "I have to get a glass of water," and never returned.

Told you it was gross. Sorry. But at least now I can stop thinking about it myself.

And Goodnight.

Endearing/Irritating

2005-12-19T10:02:00.000+10:00

A lot of people think that endearing and irritating are antonyms, never to be accurate adjectives of the same behaviour. Others, who have half a clue, think that there is a fine line between endearing and irritating, which is crossed at one's peril. A small chuckle can be followed quickly by a hearty slap if the line is misjudged.

A little guide:

Badly singing Hey Mickey you're so fine you're so fine you blow my mind hey Mickey to your partner, maybe even switching names for better effect, is endearing. (Of course, it really does depend on delivery here, but I'm assuming you know what you're doing, and can pull it off. If not, don't try it. It's not something I'd ever actually try, but I would try to be endeared (yes it's a word, look it up, ok don't. Just trust me.) if it happened to me.) Singing two lines is endearing and irritating. Singing the whole thing gets you shot.

Of course singing the whole of the I like Pina Coladas... making love in the rain song is acceptable at anytime if only becasue it will demonstrate a remarkable retention of so-bad-they're-good lyrics.

Going on a trip with only the Killers CD, so it turns into the soundtrack of your holiday, is fun. Going on two is fun and irritating. If it happens a third time there will be payment extracted somehow from someone.

Someone ties my shoe laces together while I'm napping, I can laugh along. Someone shaves an eyebrow, I'll laugh, but just watch it. But if anyone ever takes my contraband morphine supply smuggled from the sick room where the cute nurse secretly loves me, and replaces it with jelly crystals, sugar pills from contraceptive packs, and sherbert again, there'll be Mr T. style Trouble, fool. But without the pity.

Anyway, I'm back now, and nearly normal again.

The Lackey is Sick

2005-12-16T11:59:00.000+10:00

Or so he's been told. Rather rude I thought, but the power of suggestion duly delivered a slightly sore throat. Being a man, this is self-diagnosed as severe influenza, possibly bird-flu. The Cute Nurse is not in today, which makes me think neither should I be. I hung up when Nurse Battleaxe answered the phone, and sat silently trembling for five minutes, recovering from the less than dulcet strains, like chainsaws scraping down a blackboard.

So obviously, I have to lie on the sign out sheet and run away. I'll be cruising the streets of red light areas, looking for a hooker I can afford to pay to rest my head in her lap and whisper soothing, healing words to me. That always works a treat. Then I'll get drunk and hopefully tomorrow I won't be able to remember I was sick.

Pirate Shirt

2005-12-14T14:39:00.000+10:00

I ran out of morphine tablets today, so I rang the Cute Nurse.

"Hello, sick room, the Cute Nurse speaking."
"Hey baby, how's it hanging?"
"Oh it's you. Lackey. How can I help you today, man child?"
"I'll ignore that remark and give you a chance to redeem yourself. I was thinking I might pop down in a bit, and grab some more morphine from the cupboard, just to keep me going you know. It's fine, I'm not addicted, I can stop anytime I like, I just feel like a hit is all. So I was wondering if nurse Battleaxe is around?"
"Why do I need to redeem myself if you already ignored my subtle insult? And no, she's not around, she's not in all day, in fact. Christmas holidays start early for battleaxes."
"Not in all day. Right. I'll be down shortly then... say, that means we'll be alone in the sick room, you me, drugs and a bed. Whaddya say we have a party?"
"I grew out of that mindset in my teens. It's kind of sad in what should be a grown man you know. And I do have a boyfriend you know."
"So you keep saying. But I never see him. I think he’s imaginary. You made him up because you’re scared of the power of your attraction to me, and what you might do if you allow yourself off of this tight leash. And I understand. Sheer animal lust is intimidating. But you don’t need to worry. I’ll be gentle."
"Uh, yeah, that’s it all right. You read my mind."
"Like an open book, baby. Large print, lots of photos."
"But, come to think of it - hmm - what the hell. He’s been pissing me off lately. Come on down, you've been wanting to for a long time, haven’t you? And you’ve been looking so fucked up from all your parties I almost feel sorry for you. What the hell."
"Uh – what?"
"Come on down. Let’s do it."
"Now?"
"Now."
"Berightthere."

…

"HeyImherewhysthedoorlockedletmein."
"Hold on a tick. Let me just hide the good stuff… And… come on in."
"Uh, hi. So. How’s it going."
"Hi Lackey…. What the hell are you wearing?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"That thing you’re wearing. What is it."
"My pirate shirt."
"Well get it out of here. It’s disgusting."
"What? But…"
"Honestly, it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in this room, and you’ve been in here a lot. Here’s some drugs, please just you and that thing better get out of here, and stay away for God’s sake. It’s hideous!"
"But… No… What about…"
"Oh, you can forget about it. It’s going to take me a long time to block this image out. Yeesh. And my boyfriend just sent me flowers and chocolates. I don’t eat chocolate but it still counts. He’s in the good books for at least a week. What are you doing still here? Ewww, go go go!"
"But… no… don’t… you locked me out!? Damn! One day, Cute Nurse, one day."

The best site on all the interwebs today

2005-12-13T10:55:00.000+10:00

and the award goes to... Collision Detection for two consecutive headlines:

Jellyfish Invasion!

and...

Telepresence paintball game lets you shoot chicks in bikinis over the Internet

Thus combining technology, scantily clad women, guns, monsters from the deep, potential apocalypse and the internet into two brilliant stories.

I attempted to beat him by emailing C21Cosmodemonic's R&D area, suggesting we get super-intelligent dolphins, arm them with lasers, release them into the sewage system to swim to the houses of late paying customers and blast their clothes off, and webcast for a small charge until the billing difference is recouped.

They said they'd considered it, but decided the dolphins blowholes would clog too easily, resulting in high turnover, and some people actually leave the toilet seat down. They're currently working on a new breed of dolphin, and behavioural modification technology is getting better every day, so sit tight.

Evil priests are the worst kind of evil II

2005-12-09T09:33:00.000+10:00

Evil priests are the worst kind of evil. We know it from the headlines but the anecdotes make it true. There are lessons in life that most people know but some will always need to learn - you don't need to eat ten hash cookies, don't call out the wrong name in bed - but everyone knows the worst kind of evil is evil priests.

Evil priests are the worst kind of evil

2005-12-08T13:48:00.000+10:00

I crawled into cosmodemonic today more hungover than a gallows trapdoor and feeling seedier than a non-seedless watermelon. It was a xmas party last night. In case you were wondering. The midgets with the cocaine trays were efficient and prompt, and the elephants did a pleasant acrobatic display, so the night wasn't a total loss. But a confusion of invitations made the outfit I chose a tad inappropriate.

Co-partier: Hey, I think I recognise you. Were you at an orgy themed party last week?
Lackey: I was at a couple. I'm the Lackey.
C: Nice to meet you clothed, Jackie. What's with the get-up?
L: I'm an evil priest.
C: I thought you worked at cosmodemonic?
L: I do, but I came as an evil priest.
C: You know the theme for this party is Pretty in Pink, don't you?
L: It is? I thought the theme was Evil.
C: Nope.
L: Bugger.
...
C: So why an evil priest?
L: Because evil priests are the worst kind of evil.
C: Hmm. That sounds right.
L: It is. I've done studies.
C: Pass the meth pipe?
L: Here you go.

The Lackey's Reverie

2005-12-06T11:53:00.000+10:00

I woke up this morning dreaming of candy. She was apparently very pert and needed a spanking. Or so a lucky little Lackette told me in a jealous rage as she threw whatever was in reach at me - stilettos (the knife kind was even sacarier than the shoe kind, but I dodged good) bottles of absinthe and lubricant, pieces of fruit, clothes pegs, scraps of clothing and rope, a copy of Opus Pistorum and a stereo.

As the detritus of last night flew past my ears I had time to reflect on just how cheap and tacky my subconscious can be, and I have to admit I was a little proud. I allowed myself a smile before a vase collected me square on the head. When I came to this time, I was pretty sure I hadn't dreamed at all.

Genius

2005-12-02T12:24:00.000+10:00

I'm not always the politest of Lackeys, but even I, if caught having sex in someone else's office, would not think to get indignant and accuse the office owner of sexual harrassment. That's just pure genius, that is.

Or not...

2005-12-01T18:56:00.000+10:00

OK, don't worry, I'll survive. I think. One of those Lackey sort of days where nothing is quite as it seems and the world is upside down. It's the inside out bit that bothers me. Gotta lay off the special K.

Anyhow, nearly recovere from the last lot, just in time to find I have four more xmas parties starting in about five minutes, going through the weekend.

Re that last one, turned out the dog belonged to one of the sales guys on 13. Real friendly dog too, still a disconcerting way to come to. The debauchery I can handle, though, it's the activities that get me down, the lame ass give aways and team sports events to kick off the mayhem. I mean strip twister for God's sake!?! Why not just start how we mean to go on, with something raunchy instead of lulling everyone into it with a nice fireside game of strip twister? Those first couple of hours bore the pants on me.

Four parties to go. Let's get down to business.

Back now

2005-11-30T18:18:00.000+10:00

Hey kids.

Sorry I was gone for a bit. Went for a walk and got lost. Back now. Popped my head into work today, they didn't seem to notice, so I billed them for a couple of weeks. That should pay the booze bill, and keep some, um, friends of mine from chopping off my hands. Just yet.

Should be a normalish day tomorrow, might try to fill you in on it... Should have my head together for the next xmas party, anyway.

Pray for me.

Joy to the Lackey

2005-11-24T09:52:00.000+10:00

Your pal the Lackey awoke this morning suffocating under a pile of bodies. Mostly human, they were in all manner of dress and undress, some semi-conscious, many comatose, all reeking of alcohol, nicotine and untold illicit substances.

He had that funny feeling you get when you've had sex recently, but can't be sure with who, or how often. Looking around, he was pretty sure the answers were most of these people and possibly a couple of the animals, and quite a lot. The Lackey struggled for oxygen amid the press of flesh, and fighting his way through a jungle of limbs and hair, wine bottles and sex toys, he made it to his feet and surveyed the scene.

Beside the pile of bodies, there was a still mostly stocked bar, and further over, a couple of tables laden with cakes and cheese and crackers. He looked back at the people he had extricated himself from with such aplomb, and a flicker of recognition crossed his face. He knew some of them. The room seemed familiar, and there was a santa hat draped discreetly over an otherwise naked comatose cosmodemonic middle manager.

Our young hero's head buzzed and crackled into life, and he realized that this could only mean one thing: office Christmas party season had begun.

I have seen the light

2005-11-23T15:31:00.000+10:00

I was on the road to Damn Ass Kiss, an alternative and fetishwear clothing shop I sometimes go into for a perv, when I saw a blinding ray of light, I fell to the floor, and was nearly trampled to death by about a million dumbass teenaged raving boppers with glowsticks heading to the warehouse next door. And that was enough to convert me.

I grabbed a bunch of the glowsticks and tried to snap them , which somehow only made them glow more, burbled something incoherent even to myself and hurried away, hunchbacked, through the undergrowth of bum fluff and gum wrappers. Spent a few hours sitting at the top of a crane's tower in a construction site in the city howling at the moon until I realized it was attracting the ravers to me. I jumped for life was no longwer a livable thing but at some point in my rage one of those little crazies must have tied my shoelaces together, which when I thought about it explained the hunchback thing from earlier, and I hung from that crane until morning, when the construction blokes arrived for work.

Right after smoko, they used another crane to lower me to the ground, since I was apparently "too rancid smelling" to touch with their hands. I hobbled from there to work, and my boss was not impressed with my excuse for lateness, despite all the evidence of (even) new(er) scars, abrasions and filth.

Fear and Loathing in 21CCd

2005-11-22T10:05:00.000+10:00

Well they took their time, but finally they've identified the fear gene.

I can't wait for cosmodemonic to get their hands on it. It'll make our customer service so much easier...

Customer: I'm afraid the sparks from our new product will electrocute our baby!

Cosmodemonic scripted robotic faux employee: No problem sir, we'll fix that for you right away! Just head straigt into our fear gene removal clinic in the mall nearest you, I'm making your appointment right now! Have a nice day.

---

Customer: Hi there, you seem to have added a terrorism prevention alarm to my bill, but I don't know what that is, or how it's supposed to help me. Can you just remove the service please?

Cosmodemonic scripted robotic faux employee: No problem sir, we'll fix that for you right away! Just head straight into our fear gene augmentation clinic in the mall nearest you, I'm making your appointment right now! Have a nice day.

Chupacabra Found Alive and Well

2005-11-17T13:53:00.000+10:00

Just a quick public service post, to let these people know I have found the chupacabra and he is alive nd well, if a little on the aggresive side.

In fact, he attacked me as I was walking home from the pub last night. I'm pretty sure. What else can explain the scratches and clawings I woke up with this morning? And the sense of postboding?

Glossary Entry 3: Postboding

2005-11-17T13:47:00.000+10:00

Postboding: An overwhelming feeling that something bad happened last night, but it has been blocked or blacked out from your memory.

The Art of Alt-Tab

2005-11-15T13:14:00.000+10:00

The Alt-Tab. It is an important skill, and one of the first learnt in the corporate environment.

It is deceptively easy to grasp the essentials of the Alt-Tab, but it can take decades to master the intricacies and finer points of the art. Indeed, it is said by many a master that like any great art, the Alt-Tab is impossible to perfect. I am but a lowly practitioner of this discipline, and here I record what little I have gleaned from those so much wiser than me.

Like the wind whistling through tree-tops, the flicker of monitors being Alt-Tabbed follows an important man on his every journey through an open-plan office. It is beautiful, like a half-found memory of a long-lost love. And it is a guide to one's standing. A wise man does not acknowledge the Alt-Tab tide that accompanies him, but will smile secretly on the inside and chuckle like the dalai lama discovering viagra when he is sure he will not be heard.

The wise man of low standing knows better than to Alt-Tab if he is unsure his monitor has already been seen. Better to ackownledge the inappropriate website or game, smile sheepishly and offer to email it on, than to desperately flick too late to a work-related program. Especially if it obviously hasn't been touched since you opened it.

This is why it is vital to regularly flick to your some work-related screen or other, whether being spied upon or not. One must maintain the pretence that this is indeed how one works, and update the page slightly, so all skiving is less traceable. Wise advise indeed, kemo sabe.

Once one has mastered the impulse to flick, and can steadily and bravely hold off from the Alt-Tab when it is too late, one has reached as high a level of mastery as your Lackey has managed in all his years of practise. I have since investigated possible roads toward my improvement, but there is an impediment to Alt-Tabbing nirvana which I have thus far found it impossible to overcome. The problem is: once you have mastered the impulse to flick, and remained at this level for some time, there is the issue of finding oneself stuck shamelessly surfing the internet all day. Because after a while, everyone has seen you're on the web, and no one has made comment, so you grow a little bolder, a little bolder. Baby steps to corporate decrepitude.

The only solution I have been offered thus far is to actually and deliberately do work, and it seems to me there must be another path, perhaps the infamous "Road Less Travelled." I aim to soon travel a section of this road, and seek out an answer to my impossible quandary. I shall consult great oracles and dirty strangers, I shall climb highest mountains and run through the fields, only to share with you the greatest mysteries of the Alt-Tab. You're welcome.

Shoeless Lackey and the Identity Scandal

2005-11-14T13:40:00.000+10:00

So your Lackey, for reasons undivulged but possibly involving sexual intercourse, alternatively involving a nice lie down far from the scary yuppies, but definitely involving not nearly enough jelly beans, spent the night away from home last night. I made sure I packed my over-night bag as carefully as I could - I fished the toothbrush out from the toilet cistern where I hide it so the roaches can't get at it, and threw it in the least stained-up takeaway bag I could find. Then I threw in some actual different clothes and stuff too.

This was all fine, and I was feeling pretty confident, if a little low on jelly beans, when I woke up this morning. I threw on the clean clothes, brushed my teeth, and hit the road to head into my demonic telegraphical corporation for another exciting day's blagging and blogging. Of course when I walked out the door I realised I had forgotten a couple of things - my shoes. And when I got to work I realised I had no id card, and Young Eddie refused to issue me a temp card on the basis that I was clearly some homeless vagabond. I thanked him, for vagabond at least sounds like the highest class of the homeless derelicts, and trudged away, barefoot and identity free.

I found a library where they're still nice enough to talk to homeless people, which is where I'm typing this, while I consider the irony that most morings when I have slept in a culvert or under a dumpster, noone seems to notice. Never again shall I under estimate the worth of shoes and id cards. Now for a free coffee from that van. Only gotta wait seven hours...

Phone Conversation Notes

2005-11-11T13:08:00.000+10:00

There's news lately of a bloke getting indicted for stuff said in phone conversations years ago.

Now, I have no problem with dickheads getting indicted, and I have no problem with the idea that spoken words can be bad enough to get you into big trouble. The problem I have is that it's apprently possible to create a great big legal case against someone based on a bunch of notes of phone conversations from years ago. I just wouldn't have thought they'd be reliable evidence.

This is because I had a phone conversation with my boss this morning, regarding a project I'm "working" on. I seriously thought I was taking serious notes during the chat, in dot form and all. But when I looked at them later here is what I saw:

Tasty

creeeeamy

FUNK!

So I'm just not sure what a judge would make of that.

Water cooler moment

2005-11-09T12:35:00.000+10:00

They talk about water cooler moments - those cultural events, be they on tv or in actual real life that everyone talks about the next day. Well I just had a water cooler moment all of my own.

I went to the water cooler in the kitchen to rehydrate, however, as I was shaking out the cobwebs that seemed to envelope my cranium, I bashed into the door frame, rather than suavely sashaying through the door like what I meant to. Anyhow, this led to a brief loss of bearings, a fatal loss of coordination and a subsequent loss of dignity and self respect. I slipped on a pickle.

Embarrassing as this was, there was worse to come. The pickle slid, my balance went, and the floor tilted alarmingly. I woke up seeing stars, and more thirsty than ever.

Luckily the stars were the ones that Cute Nurse pinned to the ceiling of the sick room. Mostly posters of hideous boy bands, there's one of T.a.T.u. hiding in there just for me. I'm her most regular patient, she tells me, which I take to mean I have a great bum. "Hey, you too, babe," I smile as I drift into consciousness, only to find it's Nurse Battleaxe and she's frowning down at me, the grey hairs on her chin and the ones falling out of her tied back old lady do all a-quiver with the chance to hurt, maim, tell off, and (maybe still somewhere far back in her twisted conscience) heal all at once with a helpless Lackey lying on the sick bed.

She's made one mistake, however: she hasn't used the straps to tie me down. Clearly she underestimated the power a Lackey's thirst has - it woke me, now I'm finding water immediately! "Water..." I groan. Don't worry it's only tactic number one.

"I'll fetch you some in a moment, just you lie still while I finish this bandage. Oh you've been in the wars again, my boy, I don't know how one man can double the nursing staff of a building."

Typical! There she goes already, starting with the snide insults, pretty soon she'll be on at me to change my ways. Not bloody likely! "Away, foul harridan!" I scream, as I hurl myself from the sick bed headfirst to the floor.

I wake up seeing stars. As T.a.T.u. fade into view I feel a sting progress through ache to hurt to hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt before!!! Through the blood that seems to cake my eyes, I see the Cute Nurse, smiling at me as she deals savagely to a wilful needle that has dug itself into my arm, and is now twisting and yelping like a beast. "Sorry, matey, I was just practising taking blood, I’m not too good at it yet, as you can tell – so I thought I’d give it a go while you were sleeping."

"Hey, Cute Nurse, that’s aarrgggh ok, no arrggghh problem at aarrgggll. Whaddya doin later?"

"Oh, my boyfriend’s taking me to the rodeo. Wanna come?"

"Um, no thanks. Arrggh! When are you gonna arg leave that arg bum for me?"

"Oh, Lackey, you’re such a charmer you sweet talking devil!"

"Argh."

"It’s cute. In a puppy dog kind of way."

"Argh. How much blood are you taking!!?"

I woke up seeing stars.

Technical terms for nothing at all

2005-11-08T18:37:00.000+10:00

OK, maybe there are too many series on this jandal, but this is potentially one more.

Sometimes you have to pretend you know what you're talking about when in fact you don't have a clue. Luckily the corporate world is built around this very concept. Your friendly neighbourhood Lackey finds himself dealing with the odd word or phrase which grabs the attention for the very meaninglessness of it. And recycling those very same phrases the next time he is asked about something new and bizarre, old and forgotten, or real and too hard.

So I'm compiling a list of the most excellent words and phrases to use in that email to your boss explaining everything you've done, when in fact you've done nothing at all.

Of course the email could read Dear Boss, you suck arse. Felch me as I walk on out the door. Nothing personal of course, you've just bought into the system. Laters, Lackey. But that would be disingenuous because the fact is I've bought into the system too. Doing nothing and getting away with it by making it sound like something, and the pangs of corporate ennui that come along with that, is the system. Hence this list, to help us all achieve that stage of ennui that is virtually indistinguishable from nirvana, or at least a lot like that feeling you get when you ate all the lollies and have to lie down for a bit.

Best phrases to use to cover having done nothing:

Drill-down - you can use it in lots of ways, because it doesn't mean anything at all. I mean, unless you're digging a hole. So: "Yeah we drilled down into that to investigate the avenues of opporunities that might arise." "The chart has a drill-down mechanism for better your convenience." (Don't worry, no one ever looks at the charts except to see they're pretty.) Etc etc etc.
Extrapolate - as in you can extrapolate from what I've told you, and please assume whatever you can think of is what I actually did. Unless it's bad.
Proactive - as in actually doing something, so ok, active. It's supposed to be opposite of reactive, but reactive means getting pushed around by others, not doing anything of your own, which is pretty much inactive, so the opposite of that is active I reckon. People think it sounds better because it's silly to say we should be active - sounds like you want to go for a rollerblade or something. So proactive means professionally active, because it means you sound like a professional while you're active.
Going forward - this actually mean in the future, but someone thought it sounded much more proactive. "How will this impact us going forward?" "Um, like, I dunno, maybe the opposite way than if we were in reverse?" Speaking of which...
Impact - This can also sound like it means anything, when in fact it's usually short for nothing. But a cool nothing, being verb, noun, adjective , adverb and sentence or even paragraph all by itself: "Going forward the proactive impact this will have on the business needs will impact on product development impactingly. This will created impacted demand and supply issues which will then oscilate over the course of time. Extrapolating from there, we see great impact going forward. Jim, can you drill down on that for me please?" "Impact!" "You said it Jim. Thank you all for coming, and goodnight."

Successful Hangover Cures II

2005-11-03T14:12:00.000+10:00

I have found a new, expensive way to cure a hangover: all you have to do is spend $67.45 on hangover cure products. Any combination of analgesics, eyedrops, antacids, relaxants, stimulants, methamphetamines, nicotine, narcotics, greasy food and sports drinks will do.

When you've spent your moneyMurphy's Law will have a brief tussle with Stirling's Hangover Immutability Theorem, which states that no hangover may last less than a time calculated on your age and fun factor, with a small adjustment for amount actually drunk the night before.

Murphy's Law, on the other hand, states that if you spend a lot of money on something you need, the reason for that need will vanish once the cash is handed over. I now have empirical proof that $67.45 is the point at which Murphy's Law beats Stirling's Hangover Immutability Theorem. Next time you're feeling the effects, all you have to do is ask yourself just how much it's worth. And, if it's worth enough, you get the unexpected side effect of a refreshed bathroom cabinet!

Brief Elevator Conversation

2005-11-02T15:36:00.000+10:00

Sneery Middle AgedLady 1: ... Yes, well he would wouldn't he. And did he tell her?

Sneery Middle AgedLady 2: Oh no.

Sneery Middle AgedLady 1: No. Well he wouldn't would he. He wears a skirt that man. I'm sure when he gets home he puts on a skirt.

Lackey: Well I know I do!

...

Sneery Middle AgedLady 1: Well at least you admit. Nothing wrong with that is there? At least you can admit it.

Sneery Middle AgedLady 2: [Smiles] That's right!

The elevator reaches their floor and they walk off. Both wearing trousers.

Office Immutable Laws II

2005-11-01T15:09:00.000+10:00

THE MURPHY_WAS_A_GAMBLAHOLIC THEORY OF OFFICE SWEEPSTAKES

The effort (e) an office member (L) puts into creating office sweepstakes is inversely proportional to the winnings (w) one takes from them, until the cumulative effort eC reaches the threshold level eT where L becomes dishonest.

Rules of Office Etiquette III

2005-10-31T16:36:00.000+10:00

There is no need to point out that I look like crap. Most people manage to stay quiet about it.

Office Immutable Laws

2005-10-31T14:30:00.000+10:00

A new series, where we examine the universal laws of the Office, those facets of behaviour and structure which do not vary building to building, city to city, country to country. Sit tight and I'll give you the good OILs.

LACKEY'S THEORY OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION

Any two colleagues who sleep together will soon be coincidentally moved by management to work very nearby each other, thus making every walk to the photocopier, kitchen or filing cabinet much more awkward than was foreseen at the time of the encounter.

COROLLARY: LACKEY'S FRIENDLY REPULSION HYPOTHESIS

The chances of two people being moved x distance apart from each other is equal to (f/b)*(cA+cB)/2 where c is not the speed of light, but the coolness coefficiant, A and B are the two colleagues, f is the friendship strength, and b is the maximum possible friendship strength (called bestfriendship) and x is the maximum possible reasonable move (MPRM) distance as calculated in some future theorem which I might call Lackey's Theory of General Movability.

Failed Hangover Cures V

2005-10-31T14:09:00.000+10:00

Marinated sizzling organic beef with asian vegetables and jasmine rice. Sounds fancy, doesn't work. Kind of coagulates in the stomach to just make you feel worse. Next time, I'm sticking to the curry.

Rules of Office Ettiquette II

2005-10-28T15:03:00.000+10:00

Under no circumstances attempt to schedule a meeting for Friday afternoon. Or Monday morning. Or between noon and 2pm, or after 4 or before 9. That makes it easy to schedule fake appointments in Outlook the rest of the time, hence looking busy while not having to go to meetings.

Thank you.

Rules of Office Etiquette I

2005-10-27T09:40:00.000+10:00

Yes folks, a new series starting today, where I tell you off for things somone else may once have done! Ready? Drumroll please...

Do not make a lift or any part of an office smell of sushi before 11am.

Thank you, thank you very much...

A Morning Fiend, an Afternoon Friend

2005-10-24T13:01:00.000+10:00

Traffic in the city this morning moved at the speed of a walking Lackey.

One of the advantages of living in the city, despite the ubiquitous yuppiness of the surrounds, is that I don't need to take public transport in a crush of people who just don't want to be there, or drive through polluted traffic jams to get to work. I get to walk beside those traffic jams instead.

Sometimes this is a mood enhancer as you leave those poor worker ants, trapped in their stainless steel and plastic cages, in your dust. You stroll merrily past the stuck cars, whistling and waving as you walk. Sometimes, it's a bit less uplifting, and they whiz past you, farting exhaust and throwing trash. Today the traffic moved at exactly the speed I was walking, which you might think would be mood neutral.

Well I'm afraid not. Keeping pace with me for almost the entirety of my half hour walk to what is commonly known as the f*ck-hole of suckage, was a goddam big enormous smelly and putrid garbage truck. How perfectly apt, I thought, how absolutely fitting that this should be my escort to monday morning at cosmodemonic.

And so that was fine, and I trudged undeterred through the pollution soup and the garbage stench, with the garbage truck pacing me, sometimes racing ahead, only ever to wait considerately at the next set of lights. Hey, I produce as much waste as the next lackey, I can cope with a bit of a stench reminder once in a while.

I did not count, however, on the flies. About halfway to work, they descended en masse from some secret inner bowel of the bastard, and they headed straight for me. I spent the rest of the morning perambulation waving my hands about my head in a demented haka. Eventually I shooed most of them over to a passer by who seemed to have used an unfirtunate fruit based hair product. He had a swarm about him so thick you could hardly see his face. But I'm pretty sure the expression under it all was unimpressed.

There remained one fly, buzzing around me, and indefatigable in it's interest. For moments I would think I'd lost it, only for it to suddenly emerge from behind me, or somehow come buzzing back from in front of me. Like something out of a horror movie, this fly was possessed of a will stronger than anything natural, and a monomania outside the bounds of the rational. He would fly towards me, I would flap my arms ineffectually, missing, and he would buzz around and away, sniffing an irresistable call in the smell I had now picked up from the garbage truck and the process would repeat. Of course, now that its job was done, the garbage truck, that rubbish repository turned demon dispensary, now turned off my path, no doubt in search of another victim.

The fly followed me all the way to 21CCd HQ, escorted me through the morning rituals with Young Eddie, and made his way into the lift with me. By the time we reached my desk, I had named him. Vodka-Legs. Because things that fly should be named Vodka- something and he has lots of legs. Also, he flies in circles similar to those I walk after drinking a bottle of vodka. Come to think of it, he reminds me of me in a number of ways: he's smelly, dirty and persistently irritating. He's lazy, judging by the way he prefers to sit on me when I walk rather than fly for himself. And he probably has bad breath.

It took a while for me to warm to Vodka-Legs. After all he is a filthy and annoying insect. But he has grown on me, and I have to confess, I'm rather fond of him now. Now I think he might be my best friend in the building. I tell him things and he doesn't tell anyone else, I start to feel close to him and he doesn't leave. Everyone else seems to wrinkle their noses as they pass my desk. Not my friend Vodka-Legs.

Lunchtime Questions

2005-10-21T15:06:00.000+10:00

Lunch today in the Hall of Bad Food raised a lot of questions without really answering any hunger-related issues:

Why oh why do I keep coming here for lunch, knowing that no matter what I order there's no better than a ten percent chance it will be edible in any more than the most superficial sense of the word?
Why isn't there actually any where better for the million or so 21CCd employees who share my buildings to eat?
Why don't they care?
Why am I a lone island of cultural, culinary and cuticular class in a morass of indifference, a swampy sludge of saddenned superficiality, stained with a singularly strange sobriety and stupidity of spirit?
What have cuticles got to do with anything, and am I over rating them?
Can you go too far with alliteration?
Would anyone notice a hunger strike, or would I be carted away from my desk after three months, when someone finally noticed the smell that was my skinny rotting corpse?
Is it possible that Dr Phil has hit a new low with a show about a woman who is scared of throwing up, or was he already as low as a 21CCd executive's moral judgement?
Will they notice this time if I go to the pub for the afternoon?
Should I have had that 5th... no was it 6th... shot of hard liquor?
Am I too juiced up on the hooch to go back to work?
Am I juiced up enough on the hooch to go back to work?
Why is everyone looking at me funny?
Why do I have three computers, I used to have one, didn't I?
Where can I hide?
Can they hear me whimper under here?

New Trick

2005-10-20T15:40:00.000+10:00

I've found a new trick to cure the office snoozes when there's no costanza in sight.

The kids around the corner have a sideline in racketeering. They sell coke, diet coke and coke with lime out of a fridge near their desks, for a small amount of change. They keep a cardboard box for change in the fridge with the cans.

So now, whenever I'm sleepy I can pop right around and grab a coke for cheap. The chilled change from my dollar sure wakes me up once I drop it in my pants pocket.

Failed hangover cures IV

2005-10-20T12:34:00.000+10:00

Lying in the park at lunchtime. Not comfortable. Not relaxing. Nearly drowned. Mental note to try again when it's not raining.

Temp Card

2005-10-20T11:11:00.000+10:00

Every now and then, ok quite often, ok all the time shut up, I forget my 21CCd access card.

This results in an awkward confrontation with Young Eddie, the nonagenarian security guard at the front entrance to the building, which usually goes something like this:

Lackey: Hi Eddie, I've forgotten my card sorry mate, could you chuck me a temp card for the day?
Young Eddie: Ooh ah, hello there. So, you've forgotten your card eh? You work here then?
L: You could say that mate, yeah.
YE: Right, ooh. So you're a Cosmodemonic Employee then?
L: Yes Eddie, I am.
YE: Ooh ok. Well I'm going to need you're team leader or supervisor to come down and confirm that then so I can give you a temp pass.
L: Eddie, my team leader works out of a different city. And I don't have a supervisor. We went through this last week, remember. And you always let me sign in in the end. We always have this conversation. It's quite fun actually, mate.
YE: Ah, so your team leader or supervisor can't sign you in then? You'll need to go home and get your pass sorry, ahh....
L: Oh come on, I haven't been home in days. It's not like I'd find my pass there. It's probably in the dumpster I slept under last night (can't remember her name now...) or I traded it to subversive agents in exchange for beer and bomb-making tips or it evaporated in a puff of smoke just after the pink flying elephants danced with the squirrels on the field of bok choy. I'm not sure.
YE: Well calm down, boyo, would you like a temp card then, maybe?
L: Hey that's a good idea! Yes please, Eddie.
YE: Here you go mate, just ask me next time.

The best thing for a hangover

2005-10-14T15:33:00.000+10:00

Eight jugs of beer, two and a half bottles of red wine, and 12 shots of tequila.

Thank you... thank you very much.

Mental Health

2005-10-13T17:52:00.000+10:00

It's important for a blokes mental health to have hobbies. Probably for a girl's too. Nothing strenuous, you understand, but simple hobbies distract you from the overwhelming banality of existence, and enable you to function in society. So it's in everybody's interest. For example, my hobbies are drinking too much, and wandering aimlessly to avoid work.

By indulging these hobbies I maintain the health of a very important sector of the economy, and maintain my own sanity. I manage to turn up to work - most days - and that saves me from becoming a drain on the government coffers and a booze-thief. So it works out great for everybody.

To get to the point, on one of my recent excursions around the bowels of my building here at 21CCd, I recently discovered a sick room several floors down that seems to always be left open. Brilliant for a Costanza. But that ain't the half of it. I was there early yesterday, napping pleasantly through some scheduled meeting or other, when I opened one eye and happened to notice the medical supplies cupboard had a key in the lock.

Well, what's a boy to do? I mean, we try to be nice, we try to stick to simple rules to live by, and sure, one of those rules regards how rude it is to steal someone else's drugs without at least apologising and giving them a big hug afterwards and pretending you didn't know that was their stash, but hey, this is the 21CCd stash, and I just don't like them all that much.

So I got up, opened the other eye for better balance, and strolled casually, looking only every half-second over my shoulder at the doorway, to squat in front of the cupboard. I turned the key. The door wouldn't open. I turned the key back. The door opened. Turns out it had already been unlocked. Fair enough. I got over that minor stupidity, checked behind me half a dozen more times, and turned to examine the contents of the cupboard:

Bandaids...
Regulation pain killer with no active ingredients to avoid allergies...
Roll of bandages...
Morphine tablets...
CPR guide books...
More bandaids...
Hang on a second!

Morphine tablets!?!?

Now here was a thing that doesn't come along everyday. What the hell were decent drugs doing in a place like this? Ah, who cares for reasons and questions at a time like this. I grabbed the tablet bottle, with all the tablets, then reconsidered, replaced the bottle with a couple left in it, threw a bunch of the tablets down my throat, put the rest in my pocket and waited for a bit. Took a few more, and threw this track on repeat on my iPod and zoned out... for a couple of days. Great days. I think.

The Cute Nurse woke me up this afternoon when she was bringing Sick Sally in from 11 for her weekly hypochondria check.

She was shaking me with some urgency, and I was all like "Wha... wha.. shtop it ma... I'll get up in a minute..."
"Jesus Lackey, I didn't know you were here, what the hell... ah..." She grabbed a couple of tablets that had fallen out of my pocket. "You prick, these were mine."
"You need a better hiding place," I said, sitting up.
"I guess so, how are they? How many'd you take... oh. All of them."
"No I left a couple there..."
"They're not here now. You must have coma-walked for more."
"'Spossible I spose..." I grinned. "Don't know if I could have made it though... Sorry."
"Well I guess they're pretty good. I'll order more and hide them better. Look, you gotta move, Sick Sally is right outside, and I didn't know you were here, so I called Battleaxe from the other building, she'll be over in a second. You'd better get out now!"
"Why, does she still hate me? Could you hate this face? How could anyone hate such a harmless man as me?" I asked as I tried to pinch the Cute Nurse on the butt, missed, tripped and head butted the door at the end of my fall from the bed.
"Could be the smell, could be the manners. It's hard to be sure, Lackey."
"Right." I struggled up, grabbed the door handle and nearly managed to open it straight away.
"Lackey, you forgot something." As I turned back to steal a kiss, she put the extra pills in my shirt pocket, turned me around and pushed me out the door, a slap on the arse for good measure.
"One day, Cute Nurse, one day," I murmured as I sauntered, as much as a recovering morphine fiend can saunter, which I reckon is plenty, past Sick Sally and down the corridor. "Hi Sal. Bye Sal."

As I turned the corner, Nurse Battleaxe stormed past me in the other direction. She wasn't in a hurry especially, it's just she always storms. I winked at her as she passed. Don't think she caught it though.

Somewhat disturbing

2005-10-12T17:45:00.000+10:00

Some guy was found dead in a cubicle in the male toilets today.

Moustache Man wondered what the smell was in there - everyone else assumed... well, the obvious. He called security, and Young Eddie came up and used a screwdriver to open the cubicle door. I assume he knocked first.

Anyhow, slumped there on the loo, looking not too pleasant at all, and smelling feral, was some guy who people remember vaguely from the southern corner of the floor. Sure enough, his PC was on, and people who sat near it couldn't recall seeing the guy who sat there for "Well, some amount of time I guess."

Investigations are underway to find the man's name so his next of kin can be notified. If anyone knows a non-descript gentleman between 30 and 55 who worked(/works) for 21C Cosmodemonic, please get in touch with the local authorities to help out. Meanwhile, I'll keep you posted.

The Story of Lunch (to the tune of Under the Boardwalk... kinda)

2005-10-11T13:44:00.000+10:00

When the sun beats down
And burns the tar up on the roof
And your shoes get so hot
You wish your tired feet were fireproof

Under the overpass
Down by the expressway
In a Thai place with my hangover
Is where I'll weep

(Under the overpass) With lots of rice
(Under the overpass) I'll be having some spice
(Under the overpass) People serving curry
(Under the overpass) In quite a hurry
(Under the overpass, overpass)

From the street you'll hear
The unhappy sound of a crying lackey
You can almost taste the chillis
And sauces that sent him batty

Under the overpass
Down by the expressway
In a Thai place with my hangover
Is where I'll weep

(Under the overpass) I'm far too hungover
(Under the overpass) I'll never make it through the day
(Under the overpass) I swear it's just curry powder in my eye
(Under the overpass) I break down and weep, Ok.
(Under the overpass, overpass)

Oh, under the overpass
Down by the expressway
In a Thai place with my hangover
Is where I'll weep

(Under the overpass) OK maybe it's the pollen
(Under the overpass) Or the pollution and the noise?
(Under the overpass) Fine maybe this hangover hurts
(Under the overpass) But deep down I'm just as tough as the other boys!
(Under the overpass, overpass)

Failed hangover cures III

2005-10-09T14:42:00.000+10:00

Two panadol and a lot of water before you go to sleep. Bullshit. Just makes you have to get up and pee, hungover, in the middle of the night.

Dissention in the Ranks

2005-10-07T15:50:00.000+10:00

I've always thought the 21st Century Cosmodemonic was a monolith. It does not tolerate dissent, the only way to get ahead is to pander to your superiors, while kicking at your underlings. I've always thought that it was like a police state, where freedom of thought is not promoted, freedom of speech actively restricted, and freedom of behaviour strictly regulated.

But it turns out, 21CCd has nothing on America.

Henry Miller was a Dickhead

2005-10-07T14:38:00.000+10:00

Henry Miller was a famous writer back in the thirties and later. A lot of people have even heard of him today.

He wrote one of my favourite books, not the most famous, Tropic of Cancer, but Sexus, which is heaps of fun, a bit wild and probably really self-indulgent. But I read it at an impressionable age, and I will love it forever.

Henry Miller worked for a giant telecommunications company, sending boys and men out with telegrams to hand-deliver. Things were different back then. He worked there until he reached 30, when he had an epiphany of sorts, and left his wife for a dance hall floozy named June, and started plotting with her to run away to Europe. Eventually they got to Paris, from where he launched his literary career. His books had rude words and sex scenes, so they were banned for a long time. Marketing genius, the rest was easy. It's all described in his Rosy Crucifiction trilogy, of which Sexus is book one. Rosy Crucifiction relating to his transformation between the ages of 30 and 33, just as Jesus began preaching as a carpenter at 30, and was nailed up as a deity three years later. Miller described the company that employed him as a telegraph delivery despatcher as the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company. Quite a coincidence, hey?

Henry Miller was also a dickhead, but we like him anyway.

The Ballad of Reading Contradictory Reports

2005-10-06T17:42:00.000+10:00

You get the delivery report from logistics
and tally the totals to tamper
with accountants who ought to be mystics
for whom ethics is just not a hamper.

You ask for the numbers from billing
and eventually billing comes good
the numbers show we'd have made a killing
if they'd have billed half as much as they should.

Why are half of these deliveries free!?
You cry in a rage to all present
and the answer begins "Well you see,"
from some lowly lackey-slash-peasant.

"Most of the company product
is delivered to you and your ilk,
but your attitude's we can get f**ked
there's no way that you're paying a bill.

"So all the deliveries un-paid up for
are to executives, their wives and mistresses
and there's just no way they'll be made up for
it would clash with executive privileges.

The quandary you find yourself in sir:
your own largesse has ruined your numbers.
I suggest you flush all the reports, sir,
and leave the mess to the plumbers."

The insubordinate has much to say,
and he seems to be right and not dense.
Happily a solution occurs in the usual way,
and you fire his ass for making sense.

A board meeting is called, to Barbados you fly.
The question is raised: "Where's all that money?"
"An useless lackey stuffed up, he's been fired," you reply.
"I should have known he was no good, he looked funny."

Consitutional Crisis

2005-10-06T14:32:00.000+10:00

The Lackey is suffering from a personal crisis.

I was in the bathroom, only minutes ago, and after I had washed my hands, as I was walking past the basins toward the door, I clenched my biceps and looked appraisingly in the mirror. Of course at that moment, the door opened and Moustache Man walked in. "How are ya?" I asked as I strightened up, brushed past him in the doorway all nonchalant-like.

He mumbled some response, but it was lost in his moustache. But I know he saw it, he knows he saw it, and I know he knows he saw it. The problem is, he doesn't know I was doing it ironically. I pondered this as I wandered back to my desk. He saw me clenching my muscles at the mirror. Now he thinks I'm some kind of vain weirdo. He doesn't know I was being ironic. Was I being ironic? Was I in fact a vain weirdo? Does it matter? Does he care? Maybe I was just innocently wondering how silly I looked if I clenched my biceps. Moustache Man is probably standing there in front of the mirrors, clenching as we speak. Eeugh... How do you clench ironically? That doesn't even make sense you strange little freak. Ok, ok, calm down Mr Passive-Self-Aggression-Guy. But am I constituted of vanity? Or irony? Or general normality? Or a mixture?Or what the hell's going on? Take a lunch break for God's sake. Good idea.

That moment, that moment as the door starts to open is at once so long, stretching into hours on frame-by-frame advance in your mind, and yet so brief that you can't get further than started with any reaction, nowhere near finished nowhere near ready to face the next moment nowhere near anywhere at all.

And so I'm going to lunch, taking a book and sitting in the sun, and checking out my muscles in peace.

Lackey's Life Lessons I

2005-10-06T12:50:00.000+10:00

Never take on three jobs at once.

It can leave you feeling like you bit off more than you can chew.

Failed hangover cures II

2005-10-04T16:08:00.000+10:00

Actually working. Doesn't help at all.

The Yuppies vs The Executives

2005-10-03T14:30:00.000+10:00

It's like Alien vs Predator, but with more mandibles and scarier weapons.

I spent the weekend holed up in my apartment, hiding from Executive revenge which never came. The bastards are playing it cool, they know I'm on the run after last week's escapades. They know there's no hurry and they're closing in on me in their own good time.

A weekend on my own, you're thinking, in my own apartment. Finally I can calm down, come back to terms with the real world and move on from last week's trauma. A beautiful thought, and I thank you for it. (Honestly, thanks. I'll get you a beer sometime.) But wrong. (So you owe me a beer now, too. We'll have to do a trade off because as everybody knows beer-debts, like all drink-debts, are non-negotiable, non-transferable, do not cancel each other out and cannot be traded for cash, other goods or services. Get we to a brewery.) Because the calm after the Executive storm only gave way to Attack of the Yuppies.

The Yuppies are everywhere in my apartment complex, dining in the restaurants and shopping in the shops downstairs, wandering the concourses, and of course living in the apartments. They stroll, arm in arm, blankly staring at what passes for quality art or quality footwear or quality travelling accoutrements. They sit, blankly staring at what passes for quality cuisine, drinking quality plonk and nibbling on quality snacks. They drive quality four wheel drives or sports cars to blankly browse in the quality shops and blankly breathe the just plain quality that my apartment complex exudes.

Yuppy: a good life given to the wrong person.

I am going to subvert them. I'm starting small. I will wear my ugliest clothes and my homeless man rags and walk to close to them. I will be loud and uncouth and have footpath parties. Hell, I'll even talk to them. They won't know what to make of that. Not if it's not about real estate.

So the yuppies are trying to destroy my soul via a sped up process of erosion, while the executives mean to explode it with a pervasive and mystical fury. These are interesting times, my friends, interesting times indeed. Pray for me.

Unexplained absence

2005-09-30T13:05:00.000+10:00

I know I've been away a while, and I'd like to let you know the reason. But I'm not so sure of it myself.

Something bad happened, I think: I took the lift on Monday morning, but forgot to press my floor. I was half asleep, I guess. Some bloke in a sorry excuse for a power suit got in, and pressed for 17. That's right. 17. Still oblivious, I followed him out of the lift, quickly realised what I'd done and woke up.

I was on 17. Right on the doorstep of Executive Heaven. Well, of course, I froze. Tried to stay cool, turned around and called the lift. The last thing I remember is standing there, waiting for that damn lift, hoping my heart wasn't as audible outside my body as it sounded thumping in my skull. Then I heard a movement behind me, started to turn, and... blackness.

That's all I've got. That, a renewed sense of the great and mystical evil that lurks in the heart of man, and some worryingly sore body parts. They say a cleaner found me naked and shaking in a stairwell somewhere in the basement levels late last night, but my first memory is with a blanket and a cup of coffee in reception, with Young Eddie, one of the doddery security guys, telling me an ambulance was on its way. I remember wondering what the hell was going on, but I had to put it to one side. I knew I couldn't be here when the ambulance came. Who knew what they would discover as they sought to cure me.

I got unsteadily to my feet, and staggered toward the door. Young Eddie tried to stop me, "Settle down, fella, ye've had a time of it a'right. Ye best wait on the docs to see to ye." But I was scared, and lashed out, tried to run. Young Eddie tried to catch me, but his false teeth were slipping out of his mouth, he had to catch them. I made it to the automatic doors, with Eddie just catching the blanket, and I burst unsteadily as Eddie to freedom, with a triumphant scream, leaving him standing there, clutching the blanket and shaking his head.

I ran, and walked and stumbled and crawled to safety a long long way from here, slept the night in a culvert out near Chinatown. I've been told more than once today that I'm not looking so great. Not feeling either. But I came back, nonetheless. This is the last place they'll look for me, ha ha, the last place. I hope to God I'm right.

A new day

2005-09-23T12:33:00.000+10:00

Awake my pretties, my sweet ones. A new day is dawning.

And this new day shall be known forever as International Everybody Missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day Day

Because we all did, didn't we. We all meant to say aaaaarrrrrr all day, but we totally missed it. So I think we can make up for it today. We can make up for it by whining on and on about how it sucks that we missed international talk like a pirate day. Until everyone else is just as sick of us as they would be if we were saying "Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrr!!" at them all day.

A subtle sign

2005-09-21T15:10:00.000+10:00

Yesterday a woman was taken out of the office on a stretcher. She was wheeled past my desk by paramedics, oxygen mask attached. Apparently it was not a heart attack, and she'll be ok. But it's not her I'm worred about - it's me.

Here's the thing: Paramedics rush in, give her first aid, put her on a stretcher with oxygen and an IV drip, and wheel her out straight past my desk to the elevators. And I don't notice a thing. I only know something happened because one of the health and safety nazis went chasing after them to sign out. Time for a holiday I reckon.

The Human Cymothoa Exigua

2005-09-20T18:35:00.000+10:00

Never pause mid-sentence when dealing with Backchat Barry. He can't resist, he won't resist. He'll finish that sentence for you before you've drawn breath, and fire off three responses while you're still dazed at the rudeness of the whole thing and just how wrong he can be. He has whole conversations by himself, staring at the non-participant, talking for him, then, with a "Glad we could sort this out, thanks," he's gone. He doesn't even know it's wrong.

"Barry, have you seen those ah.."
"Spreadsheets you were looking for? No I think they're still on a cd somewhere. I'll go have a look around - talk to you soon, bye!"
"... bits of parsley in your teeth, I was going to say... bye..."

"Hi Dorothy."
"Barry, what can we..."
"Do about the inaccurate reports? Three options - hide them, use them as is, or fix them. Fixing them's no good, we already ran them wrong once who's to say they wouldn't still be wrong. Hide them's no good, we put in a lot of work, don't want to waste the resources do we? So we'll use them as is and hope noone notices. They never do. Right. I'll go send them out now. Good thinking!"
"...have for our office morning tea? Oh, right... bye. I guess I'll get a couple of cakes."

You should see him trying to deal with the petty cash gnome. It's a subconscious battle of wits, Barry waiting for a hint of a thought to emerge from the gnome's domelike, while the gnome voicelessly searches every possibilty of escape or sleep, methodically crossing off ideas one at a time.

Backchat Barry, you see, is a human cymothoa exigua. He will kill your tongue, then become your tongue. And that's just gross, especially if you've ever seen Barry.

The Love of Lost Lauren Love

2005-09-19T15:52:00.000+10:00

She'll take the elevator late at night, listening for him, hoping he'll call out to her. She'll ride it to the top, to fateful floor seventeen, then down to the parking basements and back. She'll be in the elevator through her whole lunch break when the melancholy takes hold of her, listening and hushing her fellow elevator riders.

Longgone John Silver had a friend, you see. While he was liked by all, he had a special someone. And that someone is known by all except those who see her timesheets, only as Lost Lauren Love. It's in her eyes you see how lost she is. She does her job in the call centre as well as if not better than ever, but take one look at her eyes and you know she is somehow wrong.

While the spectre of Longgone John is something to terrify little children with, something (we can just feel it) horrible, a phantom of larrikin she'll-be-rightness turned cankrous and rotted to a listless core, that's not what Lost Lauren sees.

Lost Lauren remembers the good times, sees only the good times, still lives, somewhere deep down, the good times with Longgone John. Back when he was just plain John Silver, back when the sun shone brighter, the days seemed warmer and full of life. Last summer.

Last summer Lost Lauren and Longgone John initiated and brief and fiery affair. It started at an office party, they were at the bar late, and mad on the hooch. She was shooting lit black sambucas and he was downing pints of beer with vodka depth charges. It was a classy and sophisticated night until, happily plastered, Longgone John decided to let his animal urges get the better of him, and turned and kissed Lost Lauren passionately on the mouth. Just as she was raising another glass full of burning alcohol to that same mouth.

A quick thinking bartender spritzed both their faces, leaving minimal scarring, evidence and memories the next day. As Lauren came to on the tacky floor of the tacky bar, at the exact same time Longgone John decided exploding glass and napalm was definitely an omen, and it was over between them, she decided that it had been the most romantic moment of her life . A brief and fiery affair.

By the time the office party and the burns ward were hazy memories, Lauren had taken to wandering the corridors, living in a fantasy world where she and John kissed, and doused each other's fires every day. Soon after, John walked into the executive floor, never to be seen again, and Lauren's sighed doubled and redoubled as she took to riding the elevator for hours at a time.

So while the thought of Longgone John Silver brings fear and a sense of dodginess to the hearts of many, for Lauren, it brings only a wistful melancholy, tinged with regretful drink choices and unfortunate snog timing.

Lost Lauren's love lost Lauren Love, but Lost Lauren Love never lost her love.

Successful hangover cures

2005-09-19T15:09:00.000+10:00

Waiting. For about the length of a weekend.

Executive Heaven and the Tale of Longgone John Silver

2005-09-16T16:30:00.000+10:00

It's common knowledge that the executive floor (17) has a hot tub. It is widely and credibly rumoured that 17 has a bar, tennis courts and a flamenco dancer. Reports of pet tigers and yeti are in dispute.

We lackeys and mere mortals are not allowed on 17. It is, after all, the executive floor. Tales have been told of low level employees finding their way in, never to be seen again. Some cosmodemonic employees scare their children with the tale of the most famous of these, Longgone John Silver.

Longgone John Silver was a likeable larrikin, loved by most of the call centre on floor 7 for his easy-going nature and quiet dry wit. There was a sense of essential niceness in him, people said, that oozed out of his pores sweet as bourbon sweat. He was a fine looking young man, with a mop of curly yellow hair and a warm tan and a warmer smile, looked the quintessential country boy minus perhaps the dungarees and straw in the mouth. Half the girls in the call centre had fallen in love with Longgone John, and the other half had terrible taste in men.

But Longgone John had an adventourous spirit, and one day he (fatefully) decided to follow an executive who got out of the lift on 17. He stayed at the back of the lift as it went past 7, and flew on up to 17. The executive, of course, did not look around or sense the presence of another human in the elevator. He was an executive, and there was no memo advising him that he had company, so he did not have company.

There is security camera footage showing Longgone John exiting the elevator, sneaking after the anonymous (they all look the same, you see) executive. We can watch in the corner of the screen as the executive scans his special pass at the security door, and walks straight in. The door nearly closes, a hand stops it with an inch to spare, pushes it open just far enough, and a mop of yellow hair disappears through.

That is the last recorded visual of Longgone John Silver. Some say he was fed piece by piece to the tiger. Others that he was fed into the chipper and used as fertilizer for the cocaine garden. No one really knows for sure.

It is said that late at night, you can sometimes hear his ghost, howling in the elevator shafts. Others say that's just the wind you crazy bastard.

I want to get in to the executive floor. I want to solve this mystery. I also want to cavort in the jacuzzi with the supermodels and the pampering and the non-stop misuse of the company profits. I will find a way. I will not bow in my quest. You lousy executives do not scare me. Much.

Failed solutions to being hungover at work

2005-09-15T18:33:00.000+10:00

Champagnes at lunch time (well, not so much failed as too temporary)
Food fantasies (I don't know how they started either)
Costanzas
Vitamins
Doing work
Not doing work
Eating
Not eating
Water
Juice
Coca cola
Staring into the distance
Quick walk outside for fresh air
Ham and cheese toasted sandwich
Cold and flu medication (perked me up till I realised I still felt like crap, just awake crap)
Pretending to work while sleeping at my workstation (and I had high hopes for that one...)
Meditation
Prayer
Really sincere pleading prayer with lots of bargaining
Loud cries of "Oh Father why hast Thou forsaken me?!?!"
Quiet weeping under my desk
Louder weeping, with extra sobs, same place
Hitting head hard on desk to distract from hangover pain
Painkillers (might have worked earlier though)
Stealing snackfood from the snack bar
Paying for it to assuage hangover paranoia and guilt feelings (too late they're there for the day now)
Soft music
Loud music
Attempts to suck it up and get on with it
Regular visits to the pub (it just seems to rub it in somehow, and I'm then tipsy and still hungover.
Blogging (Bugger.)

Update: (Heh. My first update. Also my first heh, now that's progress.) Sorry about the really ugly dot points, I'll try to fix them tomorrow if I can breath and do stuff at the same time. Although, maybe they won't repulse me quite so much tomorrow...

Perspective

2005-09-15T12:35:00.000+10:00

Man, I thought some of the management here was bad.

I mean, there's the Managing Dutchman floating around somewhere on 14, with a funny accent (though I'm pretty sure it's not actually Dutch) and a head full of ghosts, calling people by the wrong names, and asking about long-completed (or written off) assignments. There's Cluelith Cletith, whose every report to his boss has always been "Bithnith ath Uthual" which is a poor choice of phrase, we think, though probably true, as far as he knows. And there's Rita Rita Underling Eater who just wants results and fires someone most weeks just to make that point.

But I'm pretty sure none of them asks permission to go to the loo, least not since they finished school.

The Politics of the Office Morning Tea 2

2005-09-14T17:00:00.000+10:00

Well I'm feeling better now, I've got a lot off my chest that really needed to be said, now I can take a deep breath, and move on to other pressing morning tea issues.

So - a quick thought for today:

Why go to the trouble of buying sausage rolls and those brilliant little party pies (oh party pies...) to feed to people for morning tea, if you are only going to microwave them to soggy hell just in time for the meeting? You know the scene, you walk in to another crappy morning tea, someone's birthday no doubt or an update on the reasons for those last people disappearing one day from the office, along with all records of their previous existence (just to quell the rumours you understand, can't have unfounded rumours). Your eyes light up at that unexpected lack of three cake syndrome. You see the sausage rolls just sitting there, looking nice and warm and you think to yourself "Today just might be my day after all." You happily saunter towards the table, idly picking hold of a paper napkin from the top of a pile on the way, until you find yourself face to face with a plateful of sausage rolls. You reach down and pick one up. It is hot, too hot, and soft, too soft, but you do not let yourself think the worst, not yet, no, for you are an optimistic person, you refuse to let the soul be torn from your soul hole oh yes you do. So, you rest the roll on the napkin, and blow, then raise it to your mouth. But you know as soon as you've bitten in that all optimism in this worl is due eventually for a nasty letting down. For the pastry is soggified all to hell, and it peels off the meat and sticks too hot to the roof of your mouth as you look wildly around the room for water, cola, and stare bug eyed for help but there is no help, for there is no help for anything in this office. And as the roof of your mouth slowly blisters and peels off, all you can do is stand, try not to cry, and think to yourself: "Why oh why oh why???"

It is a terrible terrible thing, the microwaved sausage roll. And so easily solvable with a small amount of forward planning and preheating an oven. So, obviously we'll need another slogan if we are to beat the monsters in our break out rooms, let me think, how about:

If the roll is soggy feed it to the doggy

or,

It pains my soul to eat soggy sausage rolls

or,

If it's microwaved, it's too late to save

OK, They need work.

The Politics of the Office Morning Tea 1

2005-09-11T11:46:00.000+10:00

I imagine several major academic studies have been done of the office morning tea, concentrating on the sociological impacts, the sociopathical tendencies brought on, and the economic drivers of the soggy sausage roll industry, but I couldn't find them when I searched on the interwebs. So, I thought, this is clearly a job for the cosmodemonic lackey to do instead of his real one.

There are a number of issues that arise again and again in discussions about the office morning tea. I shall cover them one at a time. Some readers will be well familiar with most of the points I'll make. I hope you stick with me, though, you might just pick up a little something new, or a different angle. Others may see the office morning tea in a whole new light, especially middle aged, cake loving women. It is to these readers, in particular, that this message is addressed. Please read carefully, and change your ways.

I think I'll make this a new episodic feature, because I might have to go to the pub shortly, and there's just so much to say. So any suggestions for future topics are welcome in comments.

The issues I aim to discuss so far include:

1. Three cake syndrome
2. Ways to make mediocre food edible - esp. supply tomato sauce
3. Great food - esp. Cheese, Crackers
4. Ways to ruin perfectly good food - esp. over-microwaving

Let's start today, for a radical change, with number one, and let's just say it straight out: There is nothing - nothing - so infuriating in this whole wide and wicked world of ours as being invited to an office morning tea, and arriving to see a bunch of chairs surrounding three tables, each table with only a crappy pre-made supermarket cake on it. Oh, it aches. It tears the heart right out of your body, drops it disdainfully on the floor and smears fake whipped cream all over it's still beating ventricles.

In my experience there is only one particular type of person who can willingly, even eagerly, eat any cake - let alone three cake syndrome office morning tea cake - at ten in the morning. This is the middle aged woman who has given up all hope of ever working or living outside the office she currently inhabits. She is at work when you arrive, there when you leave, rarely working, but usually fussing.

Now don't get me wrong, she might be very nice, often the office mother hen, delivering dollops of good homespun advice and never giving up on you no matter how many times you go tot he pub at lunchtime and forget to come back. Then again she might be the office dragon. Either way, she has no hope left in her. It's not her fault. The corporate will has seconded her soul to turn the corporate grindstone, much like Arnie at the start of Conan the Barbarian, but without the smarts. And without hope, due to some interference in the space-time fabric that I can only assume is caused by aliens from the planet Dessertius Prime, she is left only with cake. And she loves cake with all her heart and all her soul-hole.

The only thing stronger than her love for cake is her hate for disorder, and for crime. Everything must be in its place, everything must have order hence, one cake per table.

So: we must band together, fellow normal person, you and I must band together to reject this behaviour. Our only chance is to broadcast this message and broadcast it loud to all office dragons and all office mothers:

Cake is a Crime Before Lunch Time

I came up with the catchy slogan myself. Like it?

More to follow, but I need a beer after that.

Glossary Entry 2: Jandal

2005-09-08T17:55:00.000+10:00

The number one term for everything, JANDAL is the word to use if you forget the right word, never knew the right word, or if the right word just isn't funny enough.

Say a building's been burnt down and the people are shocked: it's jandalising behaviour.

Tina Turner is my private jandal, but Billy Jean is not my lover, the jandal's not my size.

I thought I'd better post this on my jandal, in case you didn't understand. Get with the jandal! Also, it's a flipflop, a thong if you will. But you won't because you know it's a jandal baby.

That is all.

Glossary Entry 1: Costanza

2005-09-06T14:44:00.000+10:00

Named after the Seinfeld character George Costanza.

Costanza (noun: a sneaky nap taken in the workplace)

Typical usages:

I tried to take a Costanza today, but they've moved the toilet paper dispenser in the ladies' cubicles, and it's just not comfortable anymore.
Lackey! What the hell are you doing!?! I've told you before: No Costanzas under your desk. Now get the hell out of there and do some bloody work.

It was our xmas party last night. It'll be Costanza City by lunch time.

Goddam filing cabinets have been moved, and now people can see my feet when I take a Costanza there.

Not to be confused with a Frank Costanza (verb: to hit the brakes hard, and hold out your arm to cop a feel of your passenger, while pretending to be concerned for her safety) which was named after George's father.