Hollywood, where didja put them wimmins?

Laddles and Jellyspoons, I was recently discussing with some pop-culture geeks the disturbing trends of women in the movies. Now I realized it wasn’t just me when I uncovered about 30 articles on the subject therefore outlining the trend in articles about the trend in movies of frail women. Before I get thoroughly meta, I have a simple question- Do men EVER identify with female characters, and do women ever identify with male characters?

Does anyone even remotely identify with... em... the individual above?

I remember when I was a kid playing “Aliens” on the playground at school, and despite the traditional gender roles, ALL the boys wanted to play Ripley. It’s not uncommon for kids to want to be the main character, but it is uncommon for boys to want to be a female character. Traditionally speaking kids born in the 90s have had few serious female role models, the spice girls and girl power revolved around looking pretty, and the 2000s have got Beyoncé thrusting around in hot-pants and a bikini top proclaiming that Girls “run the world”, difficult to imagine Hillary Clinton dressed like Lady Gaga at a UN Council meeting. I guess I saw the last Hurrah of the 80s before the mid-90s robbed me of logical, normal, women, who could do more than look pretty and shriek.

"Who run the world? The Music execs who make us whore ourselves for a paycheck, leaving dignity by the wayside" Still grammatically incorrect, less catchy but with more truth.

Yes, there weren’t that many women to look up to and the 80s were highly geared towards blowing stuff up (which to be honest was great before Michael Bay over did it). BUT, despite my intense hatred for Holly Gennaro, she took no crap, she was John MacLane’s wife but she had a career and a mean right hook. Sure she was supporting cast, but she didn’t sit there and do nothing, she stood up to Gruber, organized the hostages,got taken hostage, didn’t die, and whacked the annoying reporter in the face. She had a speaking role which wasn’t based on how short her skirt was!!!!

(actual Dialogue)
Gruber: Oh? What idiot put you in charge?
Holly:You did. You murdered by Boss. Now they're looking to me. Personally I'd pass on the job. I don't enjoy being this close to you.
SAY WHAT?? Isn't she a hostage???

Speaking of mean right hook, Sarah Friggin’ Connor, ok so the first film was her being chaperoned by Hicks (he’s always Hicks, you can call him Kyle but really he’s Hicks) away from the Terminator, but she becomes a crazy Kick-ass monster mama given time and some training.

What's the difference between a pitbull and a soccer mom; the submachine gun

Even Indiana Jones has a decent side-kick with style and strength in Marion Drink-you-under-the-table Ravenwood, who is then replaced by a blonde who can’t do anything but squeak and then by a cob-webbed Sean Connery, which I firmly believe was an upward move after Temple of Doom.

I'm tempted to sing Dropkick Murphy's " We drink and drink and drink and drink until we fight" every time I see this scene....

Women being able to hold their own with their male counterparts was okay in the 80s, Princess Leia managed to do it with poise, and film geek that I am I can tell you that per shot fired she has the most hit of anyone in the Rebel Alliance. Higher than Luke who has the force, higher than Han who before being a rebel was basically a gangster…. Do you hear me??? The poised and graceful princess is better at killing than the bootlegger arms dealer and the professional soldier!!!!! How’s that for equality!!!!

The kill ratio for this group photo is over 9000

Annie Hall was the quirky foil to the ever awkward inducing Woody Allen, she was funny and opinionated, she smoked pot, she was neurotic and she didn’t save a galaxy but she was integral to the plot!! Somehow though we have somewhat lost our way, with a few notable exceptions the 90s failed to keep women up there.

She may have dressed as a man, but she was all woman, you know in that elbow-y pallid way, like JD from scrubs.

The following are my exceptions if there are any other decent female characters who don’t cry/scream/wait to be rescued/don’t annoy the ever-holy-tamale out of me I don’t know of them: 91, Clarice Starling as done by Jody Foster, 92, Catwoman as acted by Michelle Pfeiffer, 92, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, and 96, Madge from Fargo. After that come the dark times.

A dark shadow has spread across the land, its name is 'stupidity'

I freely admit these tend to be action/blockbuster movies, and that strong female characters have kept the ground one in indy films. But let’s be honest, how many kids out there have seen Steel Magnolias? Or Sophie’s Choice? Or Paradise Road? My guess is none, small independent and art-house films do not appeal to kids and teens as big budget action movies.

Big budget action movies have the tendency to lean towards token-ism, one black guy and one chick, or y’know simplify it to one black chick, that’s inclusive right? So we get Token this and that but most of the cast are white males. Which makes no sense, firstly the Latino population f the US is growing steadily and by 2050 estimates predict that there will be more Latinos than Whites. As a European I personally don’t understand the difference between Latino and white…. Aren’t they both white, isn’t this just picking ethnicities within ethnicities? Anyway that’s not the point here. Secondly, half of the global population are women, but rarely is 50% of the cast female, and if they deign to have more than one woman, the trend is one blonde one brunette, maybe a Latina, no Chinese, no Indian, no Caribbean, no Black, no Arabic… because obviously all women are white and a size 2, and have double Ds, right? Although If it’s an all female cast tokens are okay…

Wow... yup feel like I'm being decently represented by the criminally insane size 2s and their samurai swords, and look at me saying I didn't identify with women...

Is it mysterious that girls act like spoiled children who demand to be saved? It’s what they see in blockbusters; sure you also get the girls who act like all of Michelle Rodriguez’s characters, basically with less femininity than Jean-Claude Van Damme. Hell is there really no middle ground??? The recent Hunger Games would show that there is. Everdeen is gentle and sweet to those she cares about, and mean to those she doesn’t. Although she really makes few decisions, and nothing she does sticks it to “the man” she is bringing people round to the idea that men can identify with women, and that women can carry a film. So enough of the so-called heroines who sit back and wait to get rescued will painting their nails, enough of the women in the story solely because you can’t hand out trophies for covertly shooting a bajillion terrorists. ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH!!!

You know what, I take back what I said about Holly Gennaro, I do like her. She was a lady who was tough when she needed to be and soft when she needed to be. Hollywood, can we have more like her?

Business Engagements and My Impersonation of an Adult

Boys and Girls this week will be an adventure in corporate whore-mongering. Sadly I’m pretty terrible at this.

Well do ah punk?

I’m currently, or rather procrastinating-ly, supposed to be writing a presentation for a scoping exercise for Wednesday morning. Problem is, I’m not 100% on what exactly it is we’re scoping. Nor how the hell I’m going to write about this stuff, or present it. Tomorrow I’m attending the first day of an international trade exhibition (to which My bosses and I are going to for free- because we’re important I guess), the exhibition is three days long but we’re just going for two days, tomorrow to ‘scope’ it, and Wednesday to meet with the organizers and tell them how they can facilitate our job so that we can facilitate theirs.  Sadly I don’t know how that is going to work. Which is a pity as I know neither of my bosses will do diddly about that, so it’s left to me. Somehow I need to prepare handouts and information packs that are vague enough for me to not misdirect them but pertinent enough for them to think I know what I’m doing.

Misdirection: eating tons of bamboo to hide your craving for human flesh

Added to this is the fact that Tuesday evening I have a cocktail evening with a firm of lawyers (of whom I know only one person), they won’t know who I am so I’m going to have to do the jumping into the pool full of sharks thing and hope they don’t like how I taste while also promoting my company. I’m extra nervous about this one due mainly to the fact that it is my Mom’s old law firm; she will be interrogating me like a KGB agent in front of a capitalist pig-dog. I’m imagining bright lights, sleep-deprivation, starvation and possibly some mild electrocution until I divulge all I know to her.

"Mommy PLEASE!!!! I'll tell you!!!!"

Wednesday evening there is a cocktail part for the Exhibition so I have to attend that too. I’m a great believer in ‘fake it until you make it’ which will be my technique for everything this week. Somehow though I still feel a little nauseous about having to introduce myself, and the company, 80 or so times to a group of complete strangers: with no back-up whatsoever.

Rhinojets, I think they adequately count as mechanized reinforcements, don'tcha think?

As eloquent as I am when I am using smack-talk, I become a monosyllabic sloth with a stutter when I need to focus on conveying information to people I have never been introduced to (or worse; that I have had to introduce myself to, ye gads!)

Added to all this stress of presentations, scoping, and cocktail evenings is the fact that I have to write up everything for the office, who I meet what we talk about, whether they are useful for the company, the kicker being that after speaking to someone for exactly 25 seconds I forget their name. My jacket ends up full of business cards of faceless people of whom I have little or no recollection of. Credit to me though, my write-ups always look flawless, I’m a natural storyteller and I find it easy to make stories up about people of whom I have little information. Also Google and Linked-in really help with the whole ‘ WTF did that guy look like?’

" the guy looked like he would be at home in a box and his business card just said 'Iroquois Plisskin' "

The point of this rambling, meandering, point-evasive post, I can totally do this, but sending me some pro-tips wouldn’t hurt… Thanks!

Apartment Purgatory

Once again I took a long break from writing. Although this time I have a valid excuse. Sita has temporarily moved in until she can move into her new apartment in town. So we have been busy basically cooking metric-f*cktons of food and then watching terrible TV.

Now Sita actually looked at quite a few places before choosing the one she will get. I can’t say I saw many of the others, but the one I did see was so shitty I couldn’t register properly the concept of renting property at such a high price for such a shit piece of real-estate.

Okay, so not quite this bad, but not great.

First off, this place was in an ok location to the business district, a brisk walk. However it was in the seedy, sticky, icky looking part of town. I’m sure it has its charms and when you get to know the neighbours it’ll be fine, but at first glance all you can see is shifty glances and people whispering loudly in unfamiliar dialects obviously about you. There are some lively fruit markets with loud banter and large women heartily laughing but most of the shop fronts are boarded up. Some of the shop fronts are covered with graffiti. The only one that isn’t the strip club, painted black with tinted windows, I assume large bouncers would emerge if a spray can came within a foot of the building. I’ve lived above a strip club, but the area I lived in was friendly, even the bouncers waved ‘hi’ to me. Not that I think that this is drive-by  country, just that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone threw garbage out their window and it landed on me.

"I resent that!"

Anyway like I said, I’m sure once you get used to the area its fine. So we get to the front door. Which is only around 30 years young and hanging onto its hinges through willpower. The locks on the door number about 4 or 5, obviously when one lock gets busted they leave it there. The older locks are rusted over and you can barely see the word ‘Yale’ on them. Anyway we are ushered into a dark, unlit, tiled sarcophagus which the realtor explains is a hall. Two people cannot stand side by side, if someone were to pass us we would all have t press up against the mailboxes and breathe in, if a larger resident needed to use the hall we would all need to back the hell up and get out of the house.

The realtor explains that the apartment is on the third or fourth floor, but I’m not really giving him my full attention, my feet are sticking to the floor and for me that’s a bad sign.

We amble precariously up a narrow flight of concrete stairs, the stairs are not lit at all, the only reason we manage to get up them is the light coming off the grimy landing windows. Once on the first landing I note that the stairs are painted a deep red, verging on magenta. My inner Edgar Allen Poe starts maintaining that it is due to the ability of this colour to hide blood stains; I mentally punch the macabre little jack-wang and replace him with a gentle humming of a tuneless song.

We eventually get to the third of fourth floor. The realtor smiles broadly explaining how he’s sure the landing lights will be fixed soon, how everyone is expected to clean the common areas such as stairs and landings. My first thought is that maybe he should tell the ground floor; the stickiness seems to indicate they missed that memo.

He opens the door. The apartment is sparsely furnished, but we were aware of that, the door opens on a small hall maybe 7 feet by 4, not exactly palatial, one wall has a couch leaning against it, the opposite wall has a fridge. The kitchen is behind us and consists of a small alcove with a sink, hotplates and oven, as well as a window that opens onto a wall; at least there is some ventilation. The kitchen floor and the hall floors are grimy, fake wood paneled floors. The bathroom is next to the kitchen and is a narrow low ceilinged room. It’s claustrophobic in there and I don’t bother going in. Through the paper thin walls I can hear kids playing loudly, I can’t tell if one is screaming from joy or from pain, but I hear their voices clearly, like cut crystal. Sita hates kids, I think about how she’ll probably murder one if she has to listen to that noise through the wall day in and day out. I don’t mind kids and I’d probably be driven to superglue their mouths shut if it was permanent.

Semi-accurate portrayal, although there was less trash and less light...

The realtor ushers us to the bedroom, the only place with actual light. There’s a bed and some shelves. The window is decently sized and gives the whole apartment light. Despite this window’s best efforts, it can’t redeem the rest of this buildings squalor. The room is a decent size, it doesn’t feel like it belongs to the apartment. Sita starts asking technical questions. I roll my eyes around my head lugubriously, mini-Edgar Alan is back running increasingly grim scenarios “You’ll have to visit her here, this place is rife with disease, I bet it has rising damp and descending black mould…”

The windows were about that size... well maybe slightly larger, my trauma is making me remember badly...

I start to soundlessly whistle a tune: Sita asks the realtor why the lights don’t work. I suddenly realize that all the light emanates from the bedroom. The realtor explains that the lights had a fault when they were installed and that she can just buy a lamp. My eyes are no longer rolling, they are attempting cart wheels.

Sita smiles pleasantly and asks about the fridge, she is assured that it is brand new and that the old fridge can’t be removed. He tells her she can keep the couch. I start trying to remember if you can get tetanus from couches, I concluded that it is unlikely but that this apartment appears to be a black hole for norms. Sita asks if they will clean the floor before she moves in. The realtor looks surprised, he tells her she can clean it herself, or get a maid in. Sita asks about the deposit and payment. He gives her the price; I choke on nothing in particular when he tells us the price. It’s double what it should be. Sita calmly asks whether it includes gas, electricity and water. I think “it better had”. It doesn’t.

The realtor explains that the deposit is two months’ rent cash-in-hand. He escorts us out of the building. As we stand on the doorstep e tells us that Sita isn’t exactly what he’s looking for. He would prefer a student (the University Campus is the other side of the city and there are no direct buses or subways to the campus from here). Sita asks why, I wonder why she bothers, this place is skeevy at best, and a fire risk and crack den combo at worst. The realtor explains that the area is very metropolitan and multicultural and she doesn’t seem to really fit the bill. I try not to crack a rip, instead I smirk with pure superiority, Sita is the epitome of multicultural, a trilingual Italian-South African, brought up in France. Hell she makes me look positively normal.

Sita inclines her head and enquires further, “How do you mean exactly?”. She’s laid a lovely trap for him; he puts on foot in his mouth, removes it momentarily and puts the other one in. His half-assed explanations about cultural diversity, city-living, can-do attitude, and student expectations make him sound like a racist, back-water, snake-oil peddler. He comes off as a mega-douche.

As we leave I tell Sita I need a stiff drink after that chronic display of sh*t-shinning.

What is up with: Happiness and Money????

I was reading this morning about how GNP has finally been de-bunked as corollary to fulfillment/happiness. The article in part on CNN and in full on CRF seems to state the goddamned obvious. There is no quantitative link between your usefulness to the states use of you (GNP in this case) and your level of contentment. Realistically, did anyone ever think that? We are raised from our youth to repeat the mantra ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’ and we’re then surprised when it turns out that we are spot on. All respect to Stiglitz and his Bro-conomists, “Duh!”

"Brah those lame-oh economists wanted to throw a toga party, I was all like "SON, you be trippin'!' Then I was like 'HELL NAW!' but then I was like 'sweet, dude!'"

I vaguely recall reading ‘ Anarchy, State and Utopia” by Nozick, although much of the information contained in my sieve like brain has sadly fallen through the holes in my cerebrum, one clear point of his remains. Taxation makes me a slave to the state. Now without going to an extreme let’s quickly point out a couple of things: taxes are necessary to keep roads in good condition, to keep public services running, and to generally ensure that those who cannot fend for themselves (the ill, infirm, unemployed, young, and crumblies) are not executed summarily on street corners. However, it does mean that if I my monthly paycheck is $5 before taxes (thank god it’s slightly more after taxes), and I want something that costs $10, and the government charges me $2 taxes on each paycheck, I will need at least three paychecks to achieve that. Now without the states intervention I would only need two paychecks, so the state is forcing me to work for it an extra month to achieve my goal. For 30 days the state enslaves me. Now yes the idea is somewhat flawed. Nozick’s idea doesn’t mention that the state is providing me with security (or at least supposed to), it pays the Emergency services, city maintenance, and other costs that all encourage my life to be slightly better than it would be living in a swamp surrounded by gators… BUT I still feel like the state is coercing me to give up my money. Even though I know money doesn’t equal happiness, I feel I should be given the opportunity to be the exception to that rule.

The honorable Mr. McDuck cannot be the only one so joyous about monetary accouterments in his life, can he?????

I digress; my point is, in truth, that saying money does not equal happiness is tautological. We know that money, utility to our nation, and productivity do not make us happier, but they are necessary to get money and to be a normal member of society. Being a part of society, whether it is just your family, friends or the wider society, makes us feel like we belong. AND MONEY!!! Money is not happiness, but it is a happiness facilitator. Money means you can go see your folks more often, it means you can visit your best buddy who has gone off to an obscure province in central India to become a swami or ended up in L.A. as a waiter/actor. It enables our desires. And I am all for enabling of happiness. So money as the root of all evil, yes I can see that. Like with everything taken to an extreme, it ends up impacting everyone in negative ways. I love tea, but if I drank  20 gallons of it a day I am relatively sure there would be consequences, nasty, jittery, diuretic consequences.

You'll bloat up like the Blob here.... only it won't be a cool super power, you'll just be a tender lump of tea infused flesh....

My point, I suppose, if I am being brief: Money obviously doesn’t mean happiness, but it does help us acquire happiness.

Like a ladder helps me acquire tallness.

Or how a finger-longer would make my finger longer.

Nords, Germs and Moi

I recently became heavily addicted to SATW web comics. Mainly because it is an adorable representation of Northern European foreign relations, and because they make funnies.

Finland and I have a lot in common, we only beat you with birch branches because Russia taught us how to sauna...

So this morning after finishing a piece of work that was due yesterday (oops on that). I sat down and tried to draw a derpy Finnish lion… I failed; it turned into a retarded, lascivious hyena. Oh well this is what happens when I draw nothing for 2 years. Aside from this the last week or so has been going along nicely, at the weekend I went to a Barbeque where there was so much Germanic heritage I started to feel like perhaps I was invited for my Judaic heritage to make the other guests feel ‘inclusive’.

Everi-bohdi vaz kank-fuh fihtink, zose kets vere fast az lihtnink, it vaz a liddl bit frihtnink...

That idea was tossed out when someone asked me if I went to their church, I blanked and stared at them with my mouth open. Finally I mumbled that I doubt she had seen me in her church, this caused her to ask which church I went to. I think I mumbled under my breath until she lost interest. How do you politely tell a hardcore religious person that they have never seen you at their church because you haven’t set foot in a church willingly since you were ten!?
If you’re me you just look awkward until they take pity on you and change subjects.

Anyway along came a gargantuan amount of food, and then the huge amount of beer, and then the schnapps until I could barely walk, at which point the hosts mom decided to tell me how I should have a ton of babies…. As soon as possible.

Seriously, every conversation I had that day, became awkward within about 2 minutes. I don’t even know how. Oh wait yeah I do, everyone there knew exactly how I should be leading my life, and apparently I’m leading it totally wrong.

" To be honest if you haven't had enough children to pull a sled by the time you're 7 you're.. oh wait you aren't a husky!"

Now you may say “they care about you” and “they want the best for you”, these people met me that day. They didn’t know me from Adam, and I’m pretty sure they would have told him a thing or two as well. What really got my goat was how each one lectured me and told me how to live my life and every time it was directions on how to be like them. I understand narcissism, I understand self-help, I do not understand how you can know everything in your own life and then insist that someone else is exactly the same and should mimic you down to how you chew potato salad.

Chew it like this!!!!!

I also got very pissed off when one happy housewife, who had been happily lecturing me about how I should drop my whole life and have kids got insulted by me saying if I did that it would be a waste of an education. I get it, she is happy being 100lbs overweight, with no intellectual stimulation, a useless high-school diploma, and 3 ungrateful brats, but I haven’t given up on myself yet.

Although this is part of my life plan

I can still do stuff. I cannot handle a dog right now, who is she to tell me I should become a single parent to some poor bastard kid???

Conclusion: Germans good food, good beer, BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD advice.

I no longer trust this woman's opinion on the Eurozone...

Ego-boost, then she-go boost, then weallgo-boost!

Some days give you a boost, some days grind you into dust.

Why is the copy machine broken again? Why is there so much yelling? Why must all the deadlines be at the same time??

Today was the boost sort of day. Yes work was work and coffee is only so good at keeping me afloat in my sea of paperwork. It was lunch that pushed the day into the happy-grin-like-a-loon day.  I had lunch with K2. We talked a lot of shop, but K2 also dropped some gigantic compliments.

Basically we decided earlier in the week to have lunch away from our desks as the weather is fine and we’re sick of staring out our dam desks all day. So we went to a little bijou restaurant down the boulevard. We were eating happily when she suddenly blurted out “You’re doing so much better than any of us hoped, I mean you’re replacing two people and you manage to do all their work more promptly and more happily than either of them. The DG was telling me how nice it is to have someone who lives up to their CV”.

"Hi-ho, Kermit the frog here lying on your CV is tantamount to telling Fozzy his jokes are good!" (You just read it in his voice, muahaha)

Now much as I like praise I assumed this would be followed by ” But we’re firing you anyway”. Luckily enough she just continued to tell me how nice it is to have someone who is an all-rounder, and easy-to-talk to co-worker.

Now I like my job, I know I whinge but the fact is I am one of life’s natural complainers, it is my default, factory setting, I can’t help that. However, the fact that the  job I enjoy is enjoying me, really encouraging…

I’ll just float away on my cloud of beer and happiness now.

I said BEER and happiness not BEAR!!

Dedicated to Sita and Gigantor

Yet again I must make amends for my absence, I wish I had a recondite reason, but alas alack, I just had to get shiz done at work.

So Last Thursday I had a mega-conference, more peeps’n we’ve had at any previous conference since I have been working here (6 months on Friday!) and it all went off without a hitch, which is great because I was freaking out, of course externally I was gliding through problems like a hot knife through butter, but on the inside I was having endless heart palpitations and minor cardiac infarctions. It went well and now I am writing the tedious minutes of the keynote speakers, as well as helping a colleague write minutes for some high fallutin’ Special Investigation he and some other Heads of companies are undertaking. The minutes for him are hilarious as he has realized in reviewing my minutes. Basically he is working on some highly technical engineering contraptions. From that sentence I feel my PolSci background breaks through, basically my own conference minutes are a gleaming beacon of politics and trade. My colleagues look like a phonetic copy of what is being said. Case in point: ‘Machinery directive protocols for civil engineering int he time frame of…’ would become ‘mash in eerie dur hecktic proto calls 4 civil engine earring’.

Also I was in every one of these positions as my earphones are too short to reach the computer so the transcript was a testimony to my flexibility (literally, not figuratively)

Anyhow to the BIG NEWS:

Finally, I get to break some good news to you (my 2 loyal readers featured in the title, both of whom will feature in this post)! So Sita is moving to town, which means I will finally have a friend in this grey, god-forsaken, gargantuan pit of decadence, disdain and debauchery.

Only there’s a hitch, or at least there is until there won’t be. See I’m going away over the weekend to see my other loyal reader, and some buddies, and my Dad. I leave Friday (running out of work early, although my boss doesn’t know that yet), and taking Monday off, which my boss has probably forgotten about by now as I last mentioned it about a month ago. In any case I will be armed with my phone and any serious emergencies can be dealt with by me, from 840miles or so away.

Sita is moving to Brussels and is going to crash at my place while we find her an apartment, only…. She arrives while I’m away.

"Where the hell is my ride, and why am I in a laundr-o-mat?"

Now this is kind of a non-issue. It means I need to clean up slightly more than I thought I would have to, and impress the concept upon my brother that under no circumstances can towel day happen while Sita is around (there are some things that should not be inflicted on people).

BUT I wish to talk about the confluence of events here. For months (nearly 6 of them) I have bitched about the lack of society and camaraderie that I have so missed, and within the space of one weekend I will see pretty much everyone I know in fast succession.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side- pretty much my rule to live by

Now I’m not one for esotericism, and hokey religions but even I am suspicious about this convergence of people on one point in March. Screw Lin-sanity, March madness is here, and it will come in the form of my favorite people

WORK FLU combo

Hey-ho kidlets, God I realize how bad I am this when I begin each and every post with a preamble about how sorry I am.

Well not today, I’ve got the flu (again) so I have a chronic case of bitch-face, coupled with a lousy sense of boundaries and civility.

This is how it be.

This morning I got to become an expert on GPS and RADAR guidance system legality on imported goods. Now boring as that appears to be, this kind of information is solid gold in awkward silences. I mean who doesn’t want to sit next to the person snotting into their beer, who turns a red-rimmed hooded eye to you and says in a voice hoarse from coughing and heavy from mucous “Yo buddy, did you know the FDA approved 35 new drugs in 2011, that’s 15 more than in 2010, and those figures are based on the Fiscal calendar, not the annual one, oh yeah…” at which point I charmingly fall into unconsciousness and whack my head against the bar top then decorously crumble to the floor.

Oh yeah, what’s not to like. Anyway, this week I have a seminar and a conference, to explain the difference, a seminar eats up a couple of hours of my time and I have to look presentable for it, a conference takes up at least one day and requires me to look like a team of Hollywood make-up artists have been primping and polishing me since dawn, while I run around ensuring the conferenciers are not chewing on electric cables, beating each other with their iPads, and generally not peeing on anything ( swear to god, juiced-up business douches are worse than 4 year olds). So this afternoon I get to have a super early lunch and then buzz off to a conference about the  role of ‘ knowledge-intensive business services’ which as far as I can tell means “telling people what they should do”. Which is funny, because my job is nothing like that.

I am a sailor on the sea of life, and conference attendees are my giant floating babies... this simile is peculiar.

In fact usually I tell people what not to do. Due to the impartial nature of my job, and the fact that we are not diplomatically chained, I get to tell people how bad their ideas really are. In a totally polite and non-cruel way… most of the time. I mean once in a while when someone call up and says “I WANNA SELL MY CAR” and  I explain that we don’t that and they should call a car dealership and the response is “I WANNA SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER”. This makes me laugh, because a) I’m the head of the damn investment section & of PR, and b) because my directors told me to hang up on a**holes like that because it’s a waste of time. SO, what I tend to do is to pretend I misheard them and say “Ok then, it was lovely talking to you too, bye!” then hang up. If they call back, I put them on hold, forever. I mean I will put them on hold until the end of the working day. I will put the phone on answer machine and leave them there. If they cannot guess that we do not deal in used cars from our business name, then they deserve all the pain they can get (I’ll explain that my business is essentially called ‘Big-Business Trade: from Country A to Country B). It really is quite obvious what we do from the name. I really resent having the switchboard phone, yeah sure it means I’m aware of what everyone is doing, but also means I get the douchetards who have somehow managed to divine how to use a phone and more impressively, make outgoing calls.

Mr Bush I told you last time you called, we do not deliver pizza..... no we don't make it either.... Mr Bush could you just put your wife on the phone for me, 'k? Thanks.

Now I hear you ruminating back there. PR… and yet I seem to hate people. Well you’re right and wrong. I hate people who want me to do things that have no purpose for free. Now all of the facilities my company offers are for free, BUT and this is a big ‘ole but, they create jobs, trade, investment, and help the global economy. So when faced with people who can make this happen, I am a dream. I walk on soft clouds, I gleam like I am enlightened by the strength of a thousand glowing moons, I am gentle as a summer breeze, and as warm and delicious smelling as the air from a bakery. I am a goddamn sight to behold. I’m good at schmoozing, which is comical considering how hard I find it to make friends. However when working I put on the war-paint, and I make things happen.

....and someday I'll be as cold and numb to humanity as Veronica

Now that I’ve told you how sick I am, how mean I am, and why I haven’t been fired. I think I’ll call it quitsies for today and go check on my lunch.

Punched My V-card (Volunteering)

Odd socks, hammers and tongs! It happened again, I got busy and I forgot my internet life. It’s surprising to me that this happens considering how little activity outside of work I do in my daily life, but occasionally I do things.

Last weekend was pretty exceptional for me, firstly I went out with some people I know, and secondly I volunteered. Really, selfish-me worked for free for people who I never met prior to the day. And you know what? I even enjoyed myself.

As I recall it was just as this picture illustrates (p.s. I <3 Fozzie)

Before making this sound like I developed a halo and brought life to a dreary soup kitchen let me warn you, it wasn’t for a charity. My Alma Mater were participating in a universities fair in the city, I’m on their mailing list and they said they’d like to meet up Friday night to chat and just generally have a little community alumni drink. What the hell, it’s not like I had anything else planned. Actually I will now digress from this and tell you a weird story of that Friday night.

So I finished work around 6, and we were supposed to meet up in the bar ‘from 7’ which meant no-one would be there until say 8. So I put a call out to some people to see if anyone was near me drinking. I got a response from a film critic/journalist friend (who else is drinking at 4:30 on a Friday?) so after work I went to have a drink and some food with him. He was already seated with a friend of his. Now children, let me warn you, if there is one friend of a journalist you don’t want to meet it is the journalists pseudo-intellectual, lecherous, attempted journalist friend. Guess which friend was there? Yup it was him, I’m gonna call him Fletch, not because he is like Chevy Chase but because he is a f—ing letch. Now the bar we were in isn’t what you’d call a dive, but it is by no means trendy. It serves burgers, chili, general bar snacks like fries and onion rings. Nothing fancy, but decent enough. So I join my friend at the bar order a drink and some food. Now here I should point out, I know the bar tender. He used to work in a different bar, and I bitched about that bar’s wine, how t was more paint-stripper than grape juice. Now he remembered me, and told me to avoid the wine, and we joked and laughed and chit-chatted away. Until, Fletch decides to invade the conversation. Fletch demanded I buy him and my friend , who we will call Cronkite (because I can’t think of any other famous journalists), drinks. I complied and asked the barkeep for a round. The drinks came, but I had two. Confused, I asked why.

I'm sorry you want me to do what now, for the why?

Friday night is ladies night, buy one get one free style. Now the problem is Fletch decided to be a goddamn asshat. He demanded free beer as I had place the order. Barkeep explained in an incredibly polite way it was a promotion to encourage ladies to drink, and now I’ll paraphrase: not to encourage jobless, gutless winos, I think his actual words were “you”. Fletch then demanded to speak to the manager, yelled at the barmaid and the barkeep, yelled at the bar-back who was changing barrels, yelled at Cronkite, yelled at me and eventually huffed and puffed himself bright red. He then sat down. Cronkite and I apologized to the bar staff. It was at this point my food arrived, as a joke I asked if he’d be sending another plate when I’d finished this one, barkeep gave me “that’s funny but this is really not the time as I’m still pissed off” look. I took a bit of my burger and realized half my fries had vanished.

I lifted my plate to see where I’d knocked them, nope not on the bar. So I held onto the bar and peered down to the floor on the other side of the bar, with my feet resting on the brass railing running around the base. Nope no fries there either. I sat back down and resumed my burger. Where the hell did those fries go?

And then I noticed Fletch’s fat hand making a second kidnapping run of my fries. Let me explain that this was no mean feat as Cronkite was sitting between us and there were six or so glasses of varying fullness. I just stared as his fat hand grabbed another fistful of fries. Cronkite stared too. Barkeep started staring too. There was silence. The usual background noise continued but we were silent aside from Fletch’s loud-as-hells-bells chewing.

Opportunistic sumbitch!

When I finished my burger I got up to leave, it was nearly 8 and I thought that If I stayed longer I would kill Fletch. I hopped off the bar stool and began paying my tab. Barkeep beckoned me to come close and leaned in, “I’m charging you for one beer and the burger. The other beers and the fries are going on Fletch’s tab. I’m amazed at how you handled that, considering how often I’ve seen you blow your top over nothing.”

Barkeep, you changed the angle of my night. I was about to go meet up with some complete strangers in a pissy ‘I hate everyone’s guts, the nerve of some people, imma break your fingers for touching me’ mood, and you made me happy. You gave a douche what he deserved, and you rewarded my lack of hissy-fit. Thank you times a trillion.

Apparently Japan feel the same way and they drew a cartoon for their bartender O_o

So I tottered off to meet with the Alumni group. Luckily for me I recognized two people immediately and we struck up a nice conversation, I was impressed by how easily we engaged everyone else in conversation too. Having one thing in common immediately made us a lot happier to speak to each other, it reminded me of those halcyon late summer days of university.

Anyway, somehow I ended up assuring the host I would drop by the universities fair to say hi even if only for 10 minutes. I got up early the next day, went to the bakery and picked up some breakfast, they were having a muffin sale (I mean wow, people who do this, I am amazed at your marketing skills) 6 giant muffins for $12 SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

Hey muffin, what are you doing there? Get in my mouth right now.

So armed  with some tribute I shuffled off with my coffee on the cold winter morning to go and chat for ten minutes and then spend the day doing whatever it is you can do when broke. I got there and noticed that one of my friends who wasn’t at the alumni meeting the night before was helping out, just chatting away to  people. Somehow I started chatting to people, and from 10 until about 5:30 I encouraged people to go to my old university, explaining the different departments and the different Masters courses available. I had fun, not only reliving my glory days, but also being an example for people to strive for, I’m so used to being a horrible warning rather than the shining example. It was a nice change. I’m glad I did it.

On douches

Lemme see, what interesting things do I have to talk about today… hmm well I’m trying a new shampoo, and uh, I have an appointment with the ophthalmologist next Monday. Er… yeah, so I’m doing nothing, and I have nothing to say. My brain is running on auto due to transcribing the entire 6hrs of a conference. It wouldn’t have been too bad except for a couple of things. Firstly, the speakers were all heavily accented and kept interrupting each other, and secondly the person making the recording was a million miles away from the speaker in a swimming pool telling jokes about the French.

Ahmed, say what?? I can't hear you, the FBI clicking noise is too loud....

Funniest part for the office was watching me plug my earphones into the tower for audio and realize that I couldn’t quite reach the keyboard if my earphones were in. The next 20minutes were spent working out the ergonomical (see only) way to type, see my screen and have audio all at the same time. It started as a yoga exercise and ended with me balancing the tower on a low rolling gurney so that I could do my task.

How I looked tying up the conference recordings...

Another thing happened yesterday that made me realize that although a mild-mannered little oaf, I’m a lot more tolerable than most. I realize some of my posts I swear and yell-type to high heaven but I’m not that bad, really. I’ll tell you why. I went to a meeting with a Chamber of Commerce that will remain unnamed. Three people greeted us and we gave a presentation about what we do, they nodded along and gave encouraging noises, asked good questions and generally were pretty nice. About half way through the meeting in pops their director, who by the way was supposed to head the meeting. He buffalos in and demands that we re-start the entire meeting. Now bear in mind, they were clear that they had an hour and a half slot for us. Now half an hour in to our 40 minute presentation we have to restart. I turned to my colleague who looked like someone had just told her they had repealed sliced bread and we would all have to eat PB&J on potatoes from now on. So I took up the slack and gave a cliff notes version of the presentation so far. Only I got about a minute in and he got up and left.

That’s right, after demanding a re-start he buzzed off. So I continued the previous presentation to the other three, just as I was concluding the guy returns with coffee and a Danish, sits back down and tells me to continue. So again, I stopped what I was presenting and started the cliff notes version again. At this point he whipped out his iphone and spent the rest of the presentation playing on it, I’m guessing Angry Birds but it could have been the bubble bursting one because that is fun too. Now at this point a vein on my neck is starting to try to escape my body for the sole purpose of strangling this guy. Eventually they give us a briefing on their plans for the next year, and tells us they want to work with us. As we are leaving the douchebag with the phone, looks me up and down and says “charmed, next time you and I should have a private meeting”. Remember this guy has been doing screw-all during the entire meeting, and then in front of his subordinates and my colleague decides to flirt in the most obscene manner.

-____-

So I did what I usually do in these situations, I simultaneously turned purple, laughed it off, and swore to destroy that douche in fire, thunder, ice and other Icelandic natural resources.

Too snowy for ya? Here have some bruning steam!!!!! MUahahahaha

The nerve of some people…. Also my hatred of corporations and businesspeople only grows daily, maybe I should just resign myself to a life of corporate assholery.