Guess which situation I am in?

The Chinese have a term for optimizing desk position – Porn Shui. Porn Shui is when your desk is perfectly aligned so that none of your colleagues can inadvertently glance over and see your screen. This lets you pretty much get away with looking at anything – including porn – at work.

My desk used to have considerable Porn Shui. It was one of what I considered to be the perks of my role. Now, unfortunately, my Porn Shui Quotient is so low, that I have tourists who are doing the Harbour Bridge Walk calling my office and asking me if I could “just leave that web page open for a couple of minutes more” while they catch up on any ground breaking news events they might have missed. I might as well take out a 30 second ad slot during Two and a Half Men just to keep everyone appraised as to what’s going on over at my desk.

Hell, SETI could change my desktop wallpaper to a mathematical equation and a map of the human genome and use my work PC instead of a fucking radio telescope to communicate with extraterrestrial life.

Hai Guise, we saw that dude's screen LOL

Yeah yeah, I can hear you all now, “Join the club”, “You aren’t the only one”, “STFU”, “HTFU”, etc, but I dunno, I think an employee is entitled to a bit of privacy at work.

I don’t do anything especially crazy at work, maybe check my personal emails, chat to a mate of mine over GTalk, and occasionally visit the odd forum / humour site, but it doesn’t mean that I want people knowing what I am looking at.

What if I get an especially risqué email or inadvertently open a forum thread with tits? Granted, in my particular workplace, my colleagues wouldn’t give a flying fuck and would probably ask me to forward it to them, but it makes me less comfortable in my own workstation, and if you are spending 8 to 10 hours a day there, that’s a long time to be looking over your shoulder.

I’m not a bad worker, I consistently go above and beyond what is required of me daily, and while I can see that such a desk arrangement might be good to encourage the more inertia-stricken of employees to work harder, all it does for me is to encourage me to take stock of my options regarding alternate employment opportunities.

So, if you are ever in the situation where you have to fit out your office for your employees, you may want to consider Porn Shui in your planning.

Yes, that open plan office might look great, and be good for making sure your staff are actually working, but it just might cost you some staff members you might not be able to afford to lose.

That dude is sooo gunna start looking at porn

If you don’t trust your employees to work diligently and meet their targets on their own, then perhaps they should not have been hired in the first place, or be put in roles where autonomy is required.

If the employer has not considered the privacy needs of their employees then why should the employee feel any special loyalty towards them?

An element of trust needs to exist between employer and employee, and I feel as if that trust has been breached. While I am 100% sure it was not intentional, it has become a potential dealbreaker for me.

All jobs are lousy, that’s why they call it “work”, instead of “do whatever the fuck you want while some guy pays you $100k to do it”. The trick is to keep the grief level at “it sucks, but I can’t be arsed doing anything about it”.

When you start changing the working conditions for the worse, you might just give the employee enough impetus to do something about it.

Even now, it STILL causes my blood to boil.

I can feel the comment boring a hole in my corneas – it’s like having an itchy nose and not being able to scratch it. He doesn’t know what the fuck he is in for. It’s time to hit that caps lock and UNLEASH THE FURY.

How did a simple discussion turn to this? All I was talking about was the relative merits of ion-based propulsion versus superheated plasma as applied in the final trilogy in the extended Star Wars universe literature, and all of a sudden this infantile nerf-herding Jawa has the gall to question my adherence to canon! Well FUCK YOU darthbob114, if that’s even your real name, everyone KNOWS that in the extended revised rule book of the Star Wars Galaxy Compendium, (version 2.43, naturally!) plasma based propulsion engines carry a refueling tare weight of 146 credits per galactic unit, and is only good for 17 parsecs. While that may have a slightly noticeable performance increase over ion propulsion, the relative costs and reliability make it BY FAR the poorer choice for your frigate class calamari cruiser.

But yeah, I wouldn’t expect a classless hack like you to have an opinion worth reading. After all, wasn’t it you the other day trying to convince the forum that George Lucas’s second CGI revision of Empire Strikes Back was the best version?!? Oh my God I can’t believe they let people like you in here. If I was a moderator i would have demoted you down to n00b and restricted you to the new members section for 3 – no, 4! – weeks for that travesty of a fucking comment.

How can you even call yourself a true fan? You have a Jawa as your avatar for fucks sake! See mine? You know who that is?!? No, didn’t think so. If you didn’t spend your life PRETENDING to be a true believer instead of just waving around your dick like you are some sort of hotshot lightsaber hero, then you would know that it’s Mon Mothma.

That’s right bitch, Mon fucking Mothma, supreme commander and leader of the motherfucking Rebel Alliance. The grand dame herself. Without her, there wouldnt have been a Rebel Alliance to even BEGIN with, never mind a Princess Leia active enough in the resistance to recruit an aging Ben Kenobi, and thus, a young man by the name of Luke Skywalker! She is basically the puppetmaster of the whole fucking series, the spider in the web, the Churchill to Star Wars’s Britain.

That’s basic Star Wars canon. Level 1 shit, n00b.

Why are you even here? It’s obvious you know nothing, why not go to Gaia, or 4 chan, they like yiff-loving little sexual deviants like you there.

OMG you did NOT just say that about my mother! How DARE you?!? I will BRICK YOU like my PS3 FUCKER I wish you would just DIE OMG WHY AR U STILL HERE NOW I AM GOI TO REPORT YOU TO TEJ MODS FUCCCKKKKK YOOUUUUUU OMGOMG JUST SHUT UP U SHITHED I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOUUU MY COUSINS FRIEND HAS BEEN IN JAIL AND HAS A GUN WE ARE GOIN TO FIND YOU I SWEAR I KNO BIKIES YOU WIL PAYYYYYY!!11!1!1

I remember back when I was a kid, juice was mainlined to your throat like it was an IV drip – parents were so obsessed with stopping their kids drinking all those sugary soft drinks that they crammed as much squished fruit guts down your gullet as you could possibly hold.

Then, all of a sudden, that half assed 35% juice shit was suddenly bad, and only 100% juice was acceptable. Well, apart from tasting shitty, I don’t really see the big deal with it. I mean, it’s basically fruit flavoured cordial, right? Water with some flavouring?? I mean, that’s basically what a vodka and soda is, and people that consider themselves health conscious drink those at pubs!So, 100% juice. All was right with the world for a spell, the pseudo science kinda made sense, right? I mean, 100% juice means it’s all nature and shit, and nature stuff is better for you, right? Well one did not count on the guillotine of alarmist overbearing yuppie parenting falling on the headsman’s block of vogue diet fads. Suddenly, 100% wasn’t good enough. Nooo, whatever measly trace element of preservative used in the concentrate, or how it was stored or transported, or what phase the fucking moon was in when the orange was squeezed all came into play, and at the turn of the millenium, only freshly-squeezed, non-preserved, straight-from the-fucking-orchard juice was suitable for all the darling metro proles of the post new age yuppie era.

fuckers.

So, here we stand. Now I understand that the NATURAL sugars present in juice are somehow bad for you, like some sort of insidious toxic nectar conspiring to add whole gallons of nasty centimetres to your rapidly expanding waist area. How can eating whole fruit be a licence to chow down like a fat kid on cake, but as soon as you hit it with a Ford Laser, all of a sudden you need to be careful about how much you drink?!?

So I guess what I am saying is – get your facts right, Food Science people. Either juice is good for you or its not. I lost a lot of faith in you after the whole egg debacle, you are treading on thin ice now. It’s time to shape up or ship out.

Now excuse me, I am going out for a cigarette.

So if you wanted to read another informative and amusing post today by yours truly, you can blame the retarded Clownstep movement of the early/mid 2000s for the lack.

Fuck Clownstep. There is a reason it’s used as a derogatory term in the scene.

The problem with a boring, little everyday life is that you tend to associate with other people with boring, little everyday lives, and those people, who are bored practically every day, tend to speak to OTHER people with boring, little everyday lives and routines.

I guess what i’m trying to say, is that most people are bored, and are too fucking boring to entertain themselves with not-boring shit, so in order to alleviate their boredom, they will forward each other every little piece of boring shit they come into contact with over the internet. Every day.

Now I’m far from new at this whole internet thing – I know that people have been forwarding lame jokes, rude pictures, and lolcats to each other for years now – this is no surprise. But the ubiquitousness of YouTube and cheap home video cameras has led to a whole new level of boring retarded shit being forwarded around the internet, like some sort of decentralised, non-syndicated version of Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show, only without Toni Pearen.

I swear to you, he was THIS BIG!

Now, normally this wouldn’t be an issue – I would just delete the email, or, in the case of a forum post, just skim the comments for anything I can use as fodder for whatever sarcastic, bitter joke I feel the need to inflict on those more well adjusted than I am, and then move on. However, I have started to notice a disturbing trend. Now that Youtube and the internets is popular, people that don’t just sit in front of a computer all day are starting to post videos of themselves doing whatever it is they do instead of just sitting in front of a computer all day, hoping that other people notice what they are doing and give them some sort of spooky Internet Ghost-Kudos, thus validating their shitty little existence and giving their respective self esteems a much needed little boost.

Love me for who I am!

And therein, good reader, lies the crux of the matter – although these people don’t sit in front of a computer all day, their lives are just as boring and shitty as everyone elses. They just focus their energies in other areas.

I recently encountered a video of someone unicycling through rough terrain. The scary part of it was that rather than laugh at the guy for riding a unicycle, people were actually offering up congratulations for his talent and prowess on a unicycle. Then I was forwarded a video of a grown man stacking cups really fast – again, instead of laughing at the idiot, people were seriously commenting on his supposed “talent” in ways that were NOT designed to make fun of him.

When did it become okay to do retarded shit and not be laughed at? Somewhere along the way, it became socially acceptable for all the dorky freaks to put videos of themselves doing dorky, freaky shit on the internet and actually expect people to be impressed. Every day.

I have news for you – Just because someone is good at something, it doesn’t mean that you have to be impressed. Sometimes shit is just retarded, no matter how good they are at it.

In fact, it’s even more retarded that they put so much effort into being that good at it, and, if anything, they deserve even MORE of your scorn for putting so much effort into learning how to do something that retarded well, instead of a more useful pursuit, such as sitting on your arse playing video games, or drinking, or updating their silly little blogs about how people that don’t update their silly little blogs are retarded.

Better than Unicycling.

Okay sure, I don’t do anything that crash hot with my free time either, but I don’t film myself doing it and put it on the Internet, and expect other people to be impressed.

Which is a good thing, since it’s 4am and i’m practically naked, writing this in bed on my iPhone. Not a pretty sight.

So, think twice before you see a retarded video and decide to share it with your friends. Just because someone is really good at something doesn’t mean that it’s not retarded. Is what that person doing REALLY that impressive, or did they just spend most of their formative years in their mother’s basement stacking cups instead of socialising like normal kids? Should they REALLY be applauded, or just committed?

Remember kids, most serial killers and pedophiles start out as social pariahs. If we start encouraging these people, the terrorists have already won.

Think before you forward.

... or the kid and the kitten get it.

If you want an in depth analysis as to exactly where and how this slab of shit fails, then feel free to wade through the torrents of nerd rage elsewhere on the net. What bothers me, however, is that some marketing or research tool was actually paid legal tender after raising the possibility of a consumer electronic product that “sits somewhere between a netbook and a smartphone”, which operates solely on touch. I mean, apart from the fact that it doesn’t do anything that the device I’m typing on right now doesn’t do (iPhone), it doesn’t have a keyboard!

Losing the war on usability

Now, I won’t deny that, with a bit of practice and familiarity, the soft keyboard on the iPhone/touch is reasonably adequate, but at no point do I ever pretend it is a viable replacement for a keyboard. I would never be able to use the iPad for serious work or browsing/emails, no matter the OS or capabilities.

Didnt we used to write shit down this way BEFORE the invention of moveable type? Isn’t this sort of technology going BACKWARDS, not forwards?!?

the iPad, circa 1200 BC

Either way, this shit is retarded. Not because it falls short of expectations, but because the whole concept is fundamentally flawed. Stick to Smartphones and Bono commercials and black turtlenecks, and give up already Jobs, kkplzthx.

The initial iPad prototype

So boring, in fact, that, coupled with my innate Gen X/Y/whatever fear of sitting silently doing nothing, I start to go slowly mad waiting as little as 5 minutes without something to occupy my shallow, fleeting thoughts.

Enter the iPhone. One of the reasons, I ken, that the iPhone is such a successful product today, is that they know that today’s Multitasking, game-playing, butane-abusing, energy drink-quaffing, rave generation rejects such as myself have a technological literacy level as high as our disposable income, and the patience of a 12-year-old hyped up on jellybeans in a Toys R Us store.

This makes us the target demographic for Apple’s Jesusphone and it’s slew of casual timewasters, each with the relative complexity and depth as the puddle of water on your bathroom tiles after you have had a shower, and just as lukewarm and tepid.

Which is where Skee Ball comes in. One day, in between waiting for a train and being distracted by a shiny thing in the corner of the platform, the interminable wait drove me to download it.

And man, let me tell you – Skee Ball is whole minutes of fun!

Sometimes, not even that

Everything was going along great – there are many different ways to flick the ball, there are festive little bleeps that let you know that you aren’t quite the loser at life you thought you were, and the ever-dangled lure of a ticket reward system, and a store to spend the tickets in, ensures that you will be coming back for a second, and even third try.

It was during this little excursion to the store that suddenly, my very own Holy Grail of Skee Ball appeared to me – the Yellow Smiley Ball.

A man possessed, I feverishly pound away at the app; avariciously hoarding tickets like some sort of Skee Ball Scrooge McDuck. Finally, with what seemed to me to be an avalanche of points and tickets later, my prize – the Yellow Smiley Skee Ball, was mine.

After a few self-congratulatory games, I largely lost interest. My prize achieved, the post- Skee Ball depression kicked in, tempered somewhat by the fact that I only spent like a dollar on it, and hey, I more than got my money’s worth.

My high score. So Proud!!

Then my roommates got in to the act. At first, I could wave my smiley ball and “epic” high score around, like some sort of Methuselah to their inquisitive nublet little skulls. However, just like when your grandparents challenge you to a game of Guitar Hero, they fast outstripped me, making a mockery of my hard won tickets and laughable high score. Thoroughly beaten, I retreated with my tail between my legs, and left them to swap stories of the Olympian heights they have taken their game, all the while sniggering behind their phones at how pathetic my efforts were.

Their scores

Oh well, fuck that. I got my copy of Mass Effect 2 today, I’d be surprised if I ever think of Skee Ball again.

EDIT: To add further insult to injury, when moving the above pics of our high scores to my email address, mine was filtered as junk, while the others weren’t.

Everyone’s a critic these days.

Ugh ugh?

Blergh.

Blergh?!?!

Ugh.

Three days.

Three whole days of eating nothing but fucking fruit and chain smoking ciggies. And some dude at work brings a BBQed chicken in for lunch!

Fuck this shit. Going for a burger.

Peace out.

It’s funny how, as I am in this crazy fucking detox thing, I was quite happy to give up things I would never thought I would give up, even for a few days – bread, for instance. Bread is awesome. It’s doughy, (sometimes) white, and lets face it, EVERYTHING is better in sandwich form.

But no, quite happy to leave off the bread (pun intended).

Meat – how good is meat? It’s the only food you have to beat in a fight before you can eat it. Or, if you are extra hardcore like humans are, you can exert your dominance from afar by having other dudes whose sole job it is to own animals on a daily basis, just so you dont even have to get off your fat arse to even fight it. Meat is so good, that you actually pour the squished remains of other, lesser foods over the top of it, just to supplement the awesomeness of it.

It is the only food that, when combined with bread, (see above), you spend so much time obsessing over which part of this “sandwich” (as they call them) is more awesome, that in some countries, they make you sign a waiver just in case your head explodes.

So awesome, it even comes in "train" flavour

Alas, even this most noble of foods, kicked to the wayside without a second thought.

But coffee! Ahhh, coffee. Never did it occur to me, not once, that I would have to do without my beloved ebony liquor. In Texas, they call crude oil “black gold”, but that’s because Texans are all crazy. How can oil be gold? Gold is heavy, and commonly found on roller disco jumpsuits, or hanging around the necks of rappers, or covering Master P’s armoured tank division.

If I WAS crazy, however, I would tell that streetlight that it was wrong, because I would be mistaking it for Texas. I would then posit, that coffee is the real black gold in this world.

Unless you add milk, then it’s kinda browny creamy colour.

Anyone know how to drive this thing?

So, What IS this coffee thing, anyway?

If you can actually read this article, chances are, you have had a coffee today. Unless you are some sort of cyborg monkey developed by the CIA to spy on me. And, in that case, I know that when you overthrow your captors in a couple of weeks on “M-Day”, you will be drinking their coffee too.

Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.

For all the rest of you, coffee is a black, hot liquid that humans need to ingest to live. It comes in several forms – big, small, and espresso, which is sometimes called a short black.
Sometimes the females of the species, in the grips of the madness of the womb, will add something called “milk” to their coffee, so they can see it at night. Milk also comes from the breasts of lactating cow boobies, which reminds them that all women are cows, and that their sole purpose on this world is to reproduce and feed littler humans their own booby juice.

Booby juice.

So this addition of milk to their coffee, whilst totally ruining the flavour and consistency of the coffee, serves a religious and spiritual purpose to women, kind of like how men give up masturbating in the lounge room in front of the TV into a bowl of mouldy cereal when they move in with a woman.

On rare occasions, you may see a male of the species putting milk in their coffee. This is because they may have gender confusion issues. While your initial response may be to treat them with derision and contempt, please remember that they are people too, with thoughts and feelings, and although what they are doing may appear strange to you, they still deserve your respect.

With modern medical techniques such as gender reassignment therapy, these people can truly express themselves as the people they are inside.

Coffee originally comes from Arabic countries, where a dude named Moses brought the first beans down from a mountain, after being given them by some big bearded old white guy in the clouds. Despite this, however, everybody still drinks coffee to this day, probably because Italians adopted coffee after stealing it from the Arabs the 15th century. The Arabic nations, admitting defeat, immediately gave up coffee and turned to making another staple of the human diet, Adana kebabs.

What they eat in heaven

After the Italians started drinking coffee, the rest of the world naturally started, because everything Italians do is instantly trendy, and the rest of the world, having no idea what else to do with themselves, just followed along like sheep, unless they be branded “uncool”.

The Spanish, which are basically like Italians but with crappier food, decided that if everyone was going to be drinking coffee now that it was cool, they needed to get in on the action, and start growing some beans.

But it is a well known fact that just across the North Atlantic, the traitorous English were being “jugador hatores”, or “player haters”, and would not easily give up their stranglehold on the hot breakfast beverage market.

The English had just recently rammed a concoction of weak, boiled leaf-water called “tea” down everyone’s throats, which they had imported from China and the orient, and fucked if they were going to give all that up after all the effort they had gone through to make major bank off of it.

And so, seeing their market threatened, the English got everyone’s grandma together and told them to continually scold everyone else until they gave up all this coffee nonsense, grandmas being the major demographic of tea drinkers.

Player haterz

Spanish grandmas, being particularly annoying, caused all the young spaniards, who used to dress up in armour and guns and call themselves “Conquistadores”, to get in their boats and sail west, eventually hitting the New World. Once there, they could start growing beans in peace.

So that’s basically it. Some miscellaneous hating took place along the way from various quarters, and some other unimportant shit happened, but essentially, it all lead to this point.

Gunna drink my coffee nao, so if you would kindly just fuck off then, the history lesson is over.