Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
Entropy in the UK
A: What's the most important thing in life?
T: Respect.
A: Too dependent on other people.
C: What, love?
A: A little Disneyland, isn't it?
E: God's will.
A: Close.
T: What is it then?
A: Necessity.
T: As in?
A: As in people do what is most necessary to them at any given moment.
To the snippet from the script of "Three Kings" above I'd like to add the two other defining forces in my life. Paranoia and Entropy.
Entropy pretty much guarantees that if I'm doing really well then something awful will balance everything out for me. Entropy is a measurable quantity which represents the randomness of a configuration of matter and energy and tends to increase in any isolated system.
This of course is counterproductive when combined with paranoia where you tend to shy away from other people. I can't help my paranoia though, everyone else knows that, at least, thats what you all say about me behind my back. The other problem with paranoia is that it tends to become exhausting being so cynical and suspicious and any entropic system needs a continuous input of energy to continue working rather than excessive expenditures.
I'm not clear whether there is any sort of solution available but here's an example of my outlook on everyday life.
Where I work is very close to a helicopter hub and we'll see all types of helicopter come and go during the day. Yesterday as I was walking to the nearest sandwich shop for my lunch a twin-bladed Chinook in military colors flew overhead towards Westminster. My first thought was not "Cool, a Chinook" it was "Cool, military coup, better get some supplies."
How Things Work
Okay, hypothetical situation here. Lets imagine that everyone in the UK needs a doohickey. The doohickey is the latest in everything and people can't live without their doohickey.
Lets say for argument's sake that a doohickey costs $10 to produce. One brand of doohickey is sold for $30. Out of those $30 has to come the production and the marketing costs and some sort of profit margin.
Imagine that there is a marketing agency who is told that the cost of the doohickey is $30, that the actual production value is $10 and that they have to ensure that their costs to advertise the doohickey must never exceed $10 so that the actual profit margin remains a minimum $10 per doohickey.
I have a doohickey with a monthly contract. I pay about $30 a month for my doohickey which was actually given to me free when I signed my contract. Imagine just how screwed I feel to find out that doohickeys only cost $10 to produce, that the profit margin equals the cost to produce and that the rest of the money is used on very large expense accounts for long lunches and bar tabs where I work.
This system sucks. We need a new one. I want to pay wholesale.
Shocking
For the first time in as long as I have been tall enough to change lightbulbs somebody actually remembered to turn the damn switch off after they blew the lightbulb in the kitchen.
Of course I would have prefered if they had also gone and got a spare bulb and changed it but hey, why do that when you can wait for me to come home when its already dark outside and discover that there is no light in the kitchen.
So I scrounged up a spare bulb. Fitted it into the fixture, discovering that the person had turned the light off afterwards (cause nothing scares the crap out of me more than the thought of having my hand and eyes shredded simply because I'm over six feet tall) flipped the switch and enjoyed a split second of satisfaction before this second bulb blew.
Buggeration.
Went and stole the bulb from the unoccupied room on the top floor. Came downstairs and tried to fit it into the fixture in the dark. Bulb slipped out of my hand and exploded dramatically on the chair at about knee-level (luckilly I'm not a midget or that would have been crotch level)
Buggeration 2: The Return.
Went and stole the bulb from the upstairs landing, turned on the TV in the kitchen to avoid standing in glass as I tried for the third time to replace the bulb. The eerie glow of the cathode ray caused the light to flicker across the shards of shattered glass and remind me that for fuck's sake, don't stand on a white bit. Bulb in place I went to switch on the light and lo and behold, the series did not become a trilogy (I would have called part 3 "Buggeration 3: The Final Straw")
So if I have one conclusion to draw from all of this it is that it is incredibly difficult to replace a lightbulb in the dark when you risk standing on glass spikes and the only illumination available to you is something as distracting as a television. Also, if you cause a light to blow in your house, can you please do me a favor and switch that switch an odd number of times as you ascertain that yes in fact you have fucked another so-called "long life" lightbulb over. Cheers.
Domestic Contribution
I think it was way back in february when I was enjoying my unemployment and discovering the delights of domestic life (woohoo! laundry!) that I came across the secret to making it all that little bit more exciting.
Lets face it, sometimes the hoovering can get a bit dull and its not like you can host some big Sally Jerry Jones odd-sock reunion special...
"Lefty here has been without his mate since last laundry day, isn't that right Lefty?"
"Yuh, yes, Sally, (sniffle) I just haven't felt complete since that day"
"Well Lefty we have a surprise for you here today, as it was laundry day once again and wouldn't you know it, we found Righty! So here he is! Come on in here Righty!"
(crowd goes wild, Lefty and Righty ball themselves up into a pair and the bouncers have to pull them apart)
Just doesn't work, does it?
Filling the dishwasher and setting the dial as if it were a thermonuclear white good loses all appeal when the microwave doesn't agree to your demands and you push the button only for the pre-rinse cycle to start.
Emptying the fridge can take on the semblance of bomb-disposal only because if you drop those rotten eggs or that well-wrapped centenarian cheese you risk the stench of ages permeating your kitchen and there is no way I'm diving onto that to save the rest of the household. Everyone down! That yoghurt is live!
So the secret... as I'm sure you're breathlessly awaiting (and long-time readers are going to be disappointed cause I said as much back in february) is to hum either the Indiana Jones theme or the Bond theme music to yourself as you work. I may look like I'm vaccuming, but in fact I'm sweeping for carpet mines.
The Unspoken Speech
Some things make it all worth while. Some moments you'll just never forget. And some moments you wish you'd had the courage to go through with.
Ten months ago I was best man to Ann's father when her parents remarried. Her father had been diagnosed with cancer and was given six months to live. being there for him in his already poorly state was one of the hardest life lessons for me. Here was a man who had done everything within his power to live a good life and provide for those around him being given only six more months. It just didn't seem right. It still doesn't.
Four months ago he died and we returned to Scotland for the funeral. The whole thing was hardest on Ann and her sister as well as their mother. I didn't feel right showing bereavement when other people were suffering far worse than I could imagine. They had lost their father for no good reason.
Yesterday was Ann's sister's wedding. Joy made a radiant bride and the groom is a great guy, a lot like myself in character and in some ways also like Ann's father. After the best man had read out the messages and made his speech the groom stood up and said his thank-you's and when he had finished I realised that the reason I suddenly felt so remorseful was that the father of the bride wasn't there to say anything.
So some moments of the past few days are going to stay with me. The sound of pebbles being caught in the surf. The look of unspoken adoration when the groom saw the bride approaching. Propelling cocktail sausage missiles into the night's sky at errant helium balloons... don't ask.
My next endeavor though is to persuade Pix to keep her hair in curls. Go see if you agree.
Transform!
I'll write about the wedding some other time, and maybe about getting trapped in an elevator with a woman who's colostomy bag was quite full too, however in the meantime, and only because it has been such a long time since I linked any other site here, I'd like to present...
I suppose it beats trying to get your girlfriend to pose beside things. Like the nightstand...
On the QT
Tomorrow is Pix's sister's wedding. I get to carry the video camera.
I'm a trained professional at this, I know setups and compositions, focus pulls, depths of field and white balance settings... and I'll be doing a wedding video. This of course means no slow-mo at the dramatic moment of "I do" because there won't be white doves released inb the church or a ballet of gunplay across the pews.
No chance to do cut-aways and reveals... the mother of the groom is actually the evil Columbian druglord from act one! None of that. No subplots of forlorn loves bursting into the church demanding that the bride run away with them to a lesbian colony in the South Pacific before running off to catch the bus. Nope, not going to happen.
And yet I have to wonder, does anyone actually want any unpredicted excitement on their wedding day? Apart from Hugh Grant of course when we're all rooting for him to forget Duckface and go find Andie MacDowell again.
I won't even get to add a soundtrack to this thing. A bit of the Carpenters "Why do birds" as she enters the church and he sees her for the first time to be followed by the rest of the ceremony sped up and set to Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" with wild MTV-style handheld camera shots as I clamber over the altar and hang from the pulpit.
I'll just stand there and point the thing at the happy couple and maybe do one or two extreme close-ups just to sate the guerrilla film-maker in me.
Meeja!
One of my duties in my new place of work is to assess emergent online technologies and decide whether or not we can tailor them to suit our various client's needs. A large global portal has sent us a demo URL for streaming video technology and it was as I was watching the Spiderman trailer that I realised a few things.
1) I've seen the trailer a half dozen times and know the music cues and words by heart.
2) I can distinguish between the CG spiderman and the man in the suit in all the fx shots.
3) I know the various pieces of music used.
4) I know that the car used as Uncle Ben's car is in fact Sam Raimi's and is used as his director's signature in all but one of his movies.
5) There are a lot more things that I knew that nobody else would even care to hear or read. But basically I think this conclusively prooves that I have a useless encyclopedia of geek knowledge in my head.
This is a leetle problem because I can't remember a string of numbers more than five digits long. I can't remember birthdays or anniversaries. I can remember faces but not always names and never more than the first name unless its a really distinct one (like Sasha Paradis, hi Sasha, miss you sweetie. Or Jo Vigilante) I think its just the way my brain works. Can't be helped I suppose, sorry to have bored you.
In other news, orange Smarties really are filled with orange chocolate. Well blow me.
Is this cardboard box taken?
I know exactly how this guy feels. Except replace "ATF" with "Landlord", and "unregistered missiles" with "girlfriend" oh and if the US had agreed for him to have his missiles then that would mirror our current situation perfectly.
Although I'd be tempted to trade Pix for a couple thousand missiles... I'd strap loud children to them. And Juliette Lewis. And as much Marmite as I could find.
So what do we want? We're looking for another couple or a few friends/volunteers to group together and move in with us in North London. Angel is a great area for restaurants, clubs and the new Warner Village cinema so we were thinking there, or Belsize Park.
Have you seen Kalifornia? Okay, imagine Kalifornia meets Shallow Grave. Thats what we don't want. Unless you really are Brad Pitt, in which case what are you doing reading this site? Go and make Choke before Jim Carrey does.
Where was I? Oh yes, so anyway, here's a smaller graphic, and rather than linking this post or the root URL (thats the bit that ends in .com people) link back to here.
Got a quarter mister?
Updated:
Looking for a room or flat in the North London zone 2 area although we're open to any other offers, wouldn't mind moving into an existing houseshare or even starting a new one. Being wired for cable Internet is probably a very strong condition although if installation is possible in the area we'll pay for it.
>>Original post is below<<
Everyone remembers certain songs. Songs that sift through your brain and surface some mornings through the haze like tiny nuggets of gold in a pan, leaving you whistling Enya's "Sail Away" without you even realising it. Hey, I didn't say it was necessarily a good thing.
What I've noticed though is that the song usually applies to your current situation. Maybe you yearn to break free of the everyday tedium and Enya embodied that sentiment perfectly. Or maybe you have really shit taste in music cause Queen's "I Want to Break Free" works just as well and your screwed up mind went with the weak-ass easy-listening option.
Well after the events of yesterday I've had "Tubthumping" in my head all day. Well, not just Tubthumping... yes you do know it. You may not have known the title of the track but the second I start singing:
"I get knocked down, but I get up again cause you're never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down, but I get up again..."
See, you do know it. You've heard it on America's Funniest Home Videos because they have *such* an expansive knowledge of popular music when it comes to setting the one millionth prat fall caught on camera to music. Maybe they should have America's Funniest Home Videos Avant Guard where they set that sort of stuff to Holst's "Mars" or something by Philip Glass. I might watch that with the same disgusted fascination that I watch things like Jackass, Cops and Andromeda (yes, Andromeda... well see its sort of Star Treky but with boobs and tight outfits and stuff.... oh shut up)
A series of minor emergencies have arisen in the past 36 hours. They all sucked. Come to think of it that's why I called them minor emergencies instead of "fucking excellent developments" (the clue was in the name afterall) and although I haven't lost my sense of humor about this, I do require a small favor from my readership.
You have a blog. I know you do, I've read it. I wish I had time to read them all daily but most times I don't. You might not live in London but someone else who reads your blog probably does and they may just be looking to fill an empty room in their house or know of someone who is looking for a quiet but pleasant blogging couple to share their house with. Pix and I are looking and we're open to offers.
See that button below? Things tend to propagate faster if they have a signature, either graphical or musical (see there is a link to the start of the post) so if you feel like helping out and spreading the message, add the button to your page and hum Tubthumping as you do it, cause I get knocked down, but I get up again...
Ker-SPLAT!
I forget what it was called but, in the days before Jackass, MTV used to have some Saturday night comedy show where a bunch of mid-twenty-somethings would fake what Jackass now does for real. A variety of comedy skits, the only two of which I can remember are the dinner party one where the couples are eating Muppet and the piss-take of MTV Sports "HeyI'mDanCortezandthisisMTV SPORTS!" where they had "EXTREME GOLF" which was basically a normal round of golf filmed at weird camera angles with hard-rock music.
If the show ever comes back then, for their consideration, I would like to nominate Totally Uber-Radical Bus Absail Navigation. And of course the subsequent even more hardcore EXTREME T.U.R.B.A.N.
The premise is this: having observed the Evil Kinevil method in which London's bus drivers take corners, taking into account that their vehicles have an upper deck and the back right corner of the bus is open to the world meaning that a right turn taken at speed can conceivably catapult people descending from the upper deck out into the street I think we the passengers deserve scores for our dismounts from the buses.
Remember here that the driver's cabin is purposely obscured from the rest of the bus and the conductor doesn't so much conduct as blithely ignore the passengers unless requesting money from them. The driver drives at his own pace and stops at erratic intervals and there is an 8 inch drop between the internal part of the bus and the back duckboards and a further eight inches between the duckboards and the open road so that at times you are weightless during your descent.
This doesn't even take into account the height of the s leading down from the upper deck in a treacherous curve difficult to navigate for anyone under six feet tall.
The reason for coming up with this is because as the number 11 bus barrelled down Buckingham Palace Road past Victoria station this morning a man with a heavy backpack tried to get off the bus as it accelerated and landed flat on his stomach with a resounding splat! noise. And a new sport was born.
Gaychalking
We're flat-hunting. See Pix for details when she finally writes something about it.
Flat hunting when it is so damned hot can be a bit exhausting so we stopped into one of the restaurants on Upper Street and sat at a window table while Pix took to gaychalking (judging from appearance, stature and stride if someone is likely to be gay, bi or straight).
"Gay"
"Gay"
"Oh look at that outfit, she'd have to be gay. Or at least very confused"
"Aw, how cute, guys hugging"
This got pretty tiresome after a while so I started to take the piss.
Gay.
Gay.
Bi.
Butch dyke tomboy.
Uber-gay limp-wristed poof.
Sham relationship, she obviously wears the pants in that couple.
80's Disco gay...
Two women walked past with arms around each other's waists. Both had that cropped tussled hair look and one wore a pink top while the other wore a matching blue top.
Ok, I said to Pix, I'll stop now.
Whose right is right?
So many, many years ago Britain ruled the world. The sun never set on the British Empire. Our colonies were vast and we had huge... tracts of land.
So why the fuck are we the only ones who drive on the wrong side of the road?
Was this some sort of independance scorn or something "Eh, fucking English pigs, just to spite you all we shall drive on the opposite side of the road from you. Also, this tea? S'no good, throw it in the harbor."
Same thing with the continent "Sacre bleu, zees English peegs and zair stupid leetle bowler 'ats. Jus' to peace zem off we will drive our automobiles on ze rung side of ze rode. Pass ze snails s'il vous plait."
(I say English here cause everyone loves the Scots, don't they? Well, except the English, but I can live with that sort of ratio. You never heard a Yank say they had English ancestors)
I realise there are other countries of the world where they drive on the right, but we're definately in the minority here. In fact... forget cars, it probably stems back to trains. Trains passing each other on the right... well, except on single tracks where they do that annoying collision thingy.
Howareyoooooooo?
Theres a format... a very easy-to-follow formula for early morning greetings. This is of course assuming that enough time has been left between the moment of initial awakeness and the greeting otherwise the greeting format tends to be:
"Ug"
"Ug..."
"Now shut up and go back to sleep"
So assuming you've had time to shift up through the lower cognitive gears away from neutral towards a possible third gear (for those of you who drive automatics imagine that you haven't quite got to the level of acceleration that produces that "I like to drive" feeling but you're well on your way) you're likely to be able to string basic sentences together. "See Jack run. Run Jack run. Run away from the polymorphous protoplasmic xenomorph pursuing you." That sort of basic level.
The format goes like this:
"Good morning"
"Good morning, how are you?"
(this is the tricky bit, this is the bit you have to master even if you have a gushing head-wound and rabid wolverines are savagely gnawing at your legs)
"I'm good thanks, and you?"
The "and you"... I cannot stress how important that is. Although you may have started the exchange you must remember at all times that the other person wants nothing more than to tell you either how fabulous their life is right now or how poorly they are.
So, as I see it, you are left with two options when it comes to greeting people in the morning. You can wait there, with the wolverines chewing on the mangled stumps of your legs, for the other person to initiate the exchange so you can tell them how awful it is to have been hit by a piece of shrapnel from MIR and your vision is fading OR you can start with the "good morning" and patiently allow yourself to be digested by wildlife as you are made aware of every little health trouble the other person is experiencing.
I suppose another alternative would be to foist some of the ravenous rabid wolverines onto the other person... but anyway, how are you this morning?
The ol' Nigerian 419er
About six months ago I recommended my former boss for a job that I was trying for myself. He got it and I didn't. Two months ago he got back to me having suggested me for the job I am currently in, working for a friend of his we'll call B.
B is a bit of a media guru and I knew from the start there was a lot I could learn from him. As the Agency's resident media specialist he was asked what the best way to propagate a "viral marketing endeavor" would be, would spam be a viable option perhaps to get the viral nature kicked off?
B became my hero yesterday when he replied "don't even entertain the idea of spam, people know what spam is and can tell the difference between clever marketing and carpet-bomb messaging. If the product is a good one then people will pass it around themselves."
I think I like working with people with a sense of integrity. Sure beats the last place.
Road Tripping
Sorry, sorry, I forgot to write yesterday, as such I will endeavor to make two posts today, so check back later if you're interested... Pix... and... the other person who reads this site.
London was subjected to almost its entire August rainfall in less than half an hour yesterday and there is more to come. The Tube was flooded and my nearest station was closed, and neither I nor Pix realised this until we were standing outside it. Ah.
Buses were very slow too as some roads had been flooded and blocked off by the police. I came to something of a revelation whilst observing the behavior of other commuters.
Nobody likes to wait.
Everyone thinks there is a shortcut.
Against all common sense everyone is looking for that Golden Taxi that can stretch up on telescopic axles and drive over the traffic. Oh, and the meter is stuck on a flat fee of £5 and the driver doesn't talk much, there is chilled Chablis in an ice bucket in the back and caviar niblets are served by a man in a penguin suit.
Or the secret Magical Mystery Tour Bus which just happens to be going in your direction. Ringo is driving, John and Paul are brainstorming some groovy new lyrics and want your input and George is sulking but making you a greasy bacon sandwich to eat as the Fab Four convey you to the office, eschewing all delays and flooded streets.
I'm convinced that some people are actively scanning the lanes of traffic as they sit bored out of their skulls listening to music or reading Louis de Bernieres(although recently there has been a spate of How to Lose Friends and Alientate People) but then I wonder... when they get to their office and fire up their computers, do they sit and criticise the man in black sitting in the corner of the bus grinning menacingly at them?
Presentable
In the past I have had to make the occasional client presentation, and these things don't always go smoothly. I may also have disclosed my inate mistrust of all people Sales related.
Today, for the first time I was the client being presented the product and it was on home turf. Sales boy was a fish out of water for this one. Our Agency has a large wall display screen used for presentations in the boardroom that overlooks the Thames. The display is controlled by a wireless touch-screen, keyboard and GyroMouse.
The GyroMouse is a great little piece of kit, a cordless mouse that can be used freefloating if you're standing up to make a presentation with tilting controlling the direction the pointer moves across the screen.
As the presentation began our guest got to grips with all this uber-technology.
"Oh I see..." he said, "when you move it forward it moves the pointer down... sort of like a flight simulator. So left and right are inverted too. Very clever."
No, sorry, you're holding the GyroMouse back to front you Sales-monkey. A true Dilbert Moment.
Into the blue
I watched a man die today. To be fair he was most likely dead by the time I saw him, and what I actually witnessed was the circus of paramedics and emergency service personnel doing their best to revive him. I watched from the top floor of our Agency offices.
He was a worker on a new block of offices being built in Battersea, right beside the river. At the moment its just a superstructure of concrete pillars and floors, the whole thing just channels wind into these incredible vortexes. I suspect he was caught up in one and swept out into the wide blue without his safety rope, only to plunge ten storeys into the foundations below.
A rescue helicopter landed in the middle of the road outside our building, with police blocking the traffic both ways, but he wasn't loaded on, by then it must have been obvious he was dead. It was a very solemn moment watching the chopper arc gracefully upwards without it's intended cargo.
New levels of pain discovered
I sprained my ankle. Yes it hurts lots.
I had to stay home from work today and as I sat in my chair with my strapped-up foot propped atop the sub-woofer tower of my PC I realised I listen to music with too much bass and that vibrations just make pulled tendons hurt more.
All I can say is thank God for home broadband. If Ironside had an Internet connection then he'd have solved the Kennedy case, impeached Dubya and declassified Area 51 without ever having to leave his chair.
Also, I saw the guy across the street murder his wife and bury her in the front garden but I didn't want to cause a fuss about it, I mean this isn't the fifties anymore, people can do what they like and anyway didn't James Stewart end up getting thrown out of a window for meddling? I just wish he'd planted roses instead of daisies.
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RTFM
I'm sure I've written about this before, but Pix is the kind of girl who has this blind faith in technology. If somebody made an automatic shoe-lacer she'd expect it to work straight out of the box at the press of a button. No instructions manual, no tutoring or reading of the handy features on the side of the box, no looking upon of the simplified diagrams. She wants hardware to work, right first time, immediately or else.
There is such a thing as the Technology Adoption Curve, the curve shows the level of inception of any particular type of technology into common usage in relation to the years it takes. Typically any technology will follow an S-curve with very few people (the "early adopters") using the hardware to begin with until it suddenly takes off and can be found everywhere ("the crowd rushes in") until finally the curve flattens out again gradually as the technology saturates the market ("the laggards").
It has been noted that increasingly the period where the crowd rushes out and buys new technology has become steeper and steeper with emergent technologies, leading to less time before a technology dominates. Compare how long it took for the television to become universal as opposed to the rapid growth of the home video recorder for instance. (the TV took 30 years, the VCR took 20, the PC is still in the crowding phase)
And so it was that yesterday I went out and treated myself to a new Net MD Sony Minidisc recorder/player. Half the size and weight of my previous one it can compress 320 minutes of music onto an 80 minute disc, which is just fine by me. With three small discs I can store enough music to keep me happy for the entire waking day. I haven't actually used it yet as there is quite a lot of information to assimilate in the manual and I don't want to screw it up. The controller "stick" halfway along the headphones wire has one button that fills five different functions depending on whether you push it, twist it left or right or pop it outwards and twist it.
You could see where this is going from the first paragraph, can't you?
Now Pix wants one.
We had a nice long argument earlier today as she's just bought herself a wireless keyboard and mouse to match the set she got me 18 months ago. She plugged in the receiver, inserted the batteries and demanded that it work immediately. No such luck. She then proceeded to argue with me that it should work without the user needing to even glance at the manual, otherwise it was crap technology.
I'm really looking forward to showing her how to work a tiny silver device that has five functions assigned to single buttons.
Gimme what you got
Don't move
Don't talk out of time
Don't think
Don't worry
Everything's just fine
Just fine
Don't grab
Don't clutch
Don't hope for too much
Don't breathe
Don't achieve
Or grieve without leave
Don't check
Just balance on the fence
Don't answer
Don't ask
Don't try and make sense
Don't whisper
Don't talk
Don't run if you can walk
Don't cheat, compete
Don't miss the one beat
Don't travel by train
Don't eat
Don't spill
Don't piss in the drain
Don't make a will
Don't fill out any forms
Don't compensate
Don't cower
Don't crawl
Don't come around late
Don't hover at the gate
Don't take it on board
Don't fall on your sword
Just play another chord
If you feel you're getting bored