The Official Nonsense Thread

[Minty]

Those eyeball things look revolting!

It seems I've joined another of those workplaces which "insists" on people "dressing up" for Halloween - they got told up front to sod off. Quite aside from it being a place of work, they're not taking public transport.

Response? "You can get changed in the workplace". My response? "Am I going to be paid overtime for the extra time taken to come in hauling an extra bag with a costume in it into work & changing into it?" That was the end of that & a couple of others that were being bullied into it found themselves a spine also. I don't go to work to "have fun", that's when I leave work!

Twice this week I've had to take five trains to get to work, because of Scotrail's idiotic policy of chucking people off late trains at the nearest station & making them "express" trains to only one or two remaining destinations. So if your stop is in the middle of the list, tough luck, you will have to hope from train to train up the line to get there.

Friday!

[Caspin]

Ooops I forgot that you said you don't like your food looking at you, so the eyeballs are probably not for the likes of you. Sorry about that. They taste quite nice though!



Fortunately we are not requested to dress up for Halloween at work. Probably because the staff here are not aged 7 years. Good grief. There are some Christmas expectations, but at that is all. I'm glad to hear that you were able to avoid sitting at your desk dressed up like a pumpkin.

As a grown-up alternative to Halloween, last night I went to a Dia de los Muertos event at a Mexican place. It was really fun and the food was lovely (no eyeballs). It's an odd mix of morbid and jolly, with lots of skeletons and skulls but with smiling faces. They have a video here in case you are interested. The staff looked amazing with their painted faces.





Did you ever play 'Grim Fandango'? It was a bit like being absorbed into that game.

I guess there might be little sproglings coming round tonight for their spooky treats but since I'm out of chocs already I'd better get some more. Last year I'd given most of them out from my coat pockets before I even got home, mostly to the exhausted dads who were struggling to shepherd their little wizards and ghosts around the neighbourhood. A large group of kids hyper-excited, trailing their capes and pointy hats through the mud and hopped up on sugar - I do not envy them the task and felt that the chaperones were in greater need of chocolatey rewards than anyone else!

Hope your trains were OK today. And yeah Friday!

[Ollie]

Hehe, I never saw the point of Halloween, a bunch of kids going around to houses asking for candy from stranger, contradictory to what we're taught in schools.
Maybe it's just that my mum never would've let me celebrate Halloween and got trick or treating anyway, while friends at school went out. :/

Side note: I should stop starting posts with "Hehe", it's becoming my trademark.

[Caspin]

Hehe (I'll join you) it's true- 364 days of the year it's "don't talk to strangers or eat too many sweets", then one day suddenly it's "visit strangers' homes and collect a multitude of sweets there". Mad, really.

[Minty]

Back in my day the "guisers" had to earn their sweeties by telling jokes, doing magic tricks, singing or whatever. This trick or treat crap is vile, go round to your neighbours & tell them to give you sweets & money or else, accompanied by your parents.

My dentist despises halloween because of all the emergency dental treatments they end up having to do on children the next morning that have had fillings prised out by toffee bon bons or broken trying to crunch gobstoppers.

Up here it seems more an excuse for adults to go out & get drunk or old goths to relive their youth in the days they thought the world sucked before joining the world of work & bills & discovering what "sucked" REALLY meant!

[Caspin]

OK Mr Grumpy-Green. Back in your day? Are these not your days too?

That's it, though. Next year, witchy hats and ghost costumes made from a bed sheet just won't cut it. I want to see three card tricks per chocolate eyeball, fire-breathing or similar for a caramel pumpkin and a Shakespearean tragedy via interpretive dance per jaffa-cake. That should liven things up.

What is fun is doing things old-school Pagan style with a big feast. Although obviously that necessitates me going to bed between 7.00 and 11.00 pm, then getting up again for midnight, or there is no way I can stay awake so late!

Another quiet weekend for me, ahead of a busy month. Went to see a short film about India at the yoga studio yesterday. That was very interesting. I'd love to go to India one day, although I am not sure how I would cope in the heat. A friend of mine went there on his travels and sent me back loads of teas from different estates. I had all my teapots in action to taste them all! Today I tested TS3 after upgrading my Mac to Yosemite. Lots of simmers have been reporting problems but mine seems fine. I really don't get it (but am grateful for my lack of difficulties).

I see that EA are releasing pools for TS4 players this month. That's nice of them isn't it. It is so odd seeing people "waiting" for all these features to be added. So then after a few years when toddlers, pools and CASt are back, the series will end, TS5 will be announced and everyone starts again. It is so strange. How many times will this loop be repeated I wonder.

Time to watch a programme about Frankenstein!

[Caspin]

This is certainly a very rainy Monday here and it is making me feel quite chilly. Plenty of large puddles to step into.

I hope that Minty was able to reach work with just one train journey this morning, as a treat to start the week on the right note.

This made me do a double-take. I feel tempted to try to make a copy of that painting, to create a fake fake fake.




I wonder how much art is forged? Possibly quite a high proportion.

[Minty]

If you're going to buy a fake painting, get a print of it - much cheaper & no one will notice the difference.

This is going to be a long week, as I'm not getting home until ten due to the shift I've been put on to coincide with management's latest "cunning plan" (which will end in tears like all of those I've witnessed in the last month have). Still, it means spending hours getting paid for doing little due to their stupidity.

Everyone up here is wetting themselves over bigotfest returning (that is, the Old Firm derby). They'll be smiling the other side of their faces when the reports come out from the English newspapers of the dozens hospitalised & trouble after the games, which the Scottish papers have censored out for years but the mainstream English press began taking a long overdue look into after Rangers bankruptcy & the subsequent investigations by Alex Thomson of Ch4 about them.

Knowing my luck I'll be working that day & be out bang in time to run into the headbangers.

Elsewhere, anyone else noticed that Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership deal our government looks set to sign? Corporations will be allowed to sue governments if they make public policy decisions or pass laws which harm future profits. Sooner these idiotic f**kers are out the better!

[Caspin]

Not home until 10.00 pm? Oh dear! Poor Minty. I'm fast asleep before you even reach your house. Hugs for you. Take it easy when you can.

Ah yes, TTIP. I've been involved (albeit to a very small extent) in a campaign against it. It has the potential to destroy the NHS, for one thing. Tobacco companies suing the Australian government for introducing plain packaging for cigarettes is an example of how things will go. There are plenty of large companies that would sue governments for policies that protect the environment if those policies jeopardise their profit margins. The current government don't care and will probably personally benefit as they all seem to have shares in such companies. Thanks to the complete failure of the media, most people aren't even aware of TTIP and, if you try to tell them, many don't seem to care. If someone had told me a few years ago that I would be spending time writing to MPs/Lords/parliamentary candidates about political matters and going on marches and that kind of thing, I'd have laughed at the improbability. Somewhere along the way something changed and I decided that I didn't want to be one of those people who does nothing, says nothing, tries nothing and then just wrings their hands when everything goes wrong. One of my friends called me a champagne socialist a while ago, which I don't think is accurate, but even it was, fudge it at least I try. (Sorry, I know this isn't the place for my soap box.)

Woke up with a banging headache this morning. I hope this isn't the start of me picking up on all these viruses circulating all around. Good thing I had my flu jab, at least that's one thing that shouldn't get me!

[Minty]

The "cunning plan" has already been changed to another cunning plan, the original deemed a failure after only one day of operation. Therefore a new "cunning plan" will come into effect next week, where I will be home at 9pm instead. They're also abandoning the stupid weekend "half days" which for a lot of people cost as much to travel in for as they were earning for the hours. The Saturday shift was meant to clear up work left over from Friday, so Monday would start fresh - but too often they were left with nothing to do & everyone was sent home after two or three hours (bosses being c**ts this was to avoid paying people for that excess time like we're casual staff in a MacJob).

None of this would even be needed if their shiny new computer system didn't do a Virgin Spacecraft at the slightest overload, meaning people have to come in to clear up its week long messes. How this crowd have £5 billion in the bank is a mystery, but as long as they've enough to pay me that's ok!

Sorry about your headache, really hate those - they floor me total & I'm unable to do anything, male wimp that I am.