Day 26: The once yearly Internet Ticket Scrum (or, Why do I put myself through this every year.. oh that's why.. because the result is fucking awesome...)

It's nearly that time again.

Nearly time for the Glastonbury ticket sale... that time where anyone with any sense is clicking on a mouse until they get a crippling repetitive strain injury, with a phone pressed to the ear so hard that it burrows through to the centre of your skull and deep into your brain meat...

I take this kind of thing seriously...
Ever since I saw the David Bowie set where he performed heroes and I wanted to fucking cry until my eyes popped at having missed it I've fought like a fucking cornered and pissed of lion to get tickets.

I've not missed one in over ten years. I'd love there to be a kind of season ticket arrangement, but since there isn't I really put the effort in. My longest stint was 12 straight hours. I had meals brought to me, and tea. I only stopped for toilet breaks. Other than that I hit redial and pressed refresh the whole time. I failed. But only until the festival started when I managed to use subterfuge to get in, a matter of great pride since it possibly the last year that was possible since they began giving photo ID's to all of the workers... I got in AFTER the 'superfence'...

I wouldn't try that now, I'm too old to be sneaking miles out of my way in a field at night, with half a ton of goods on my back and pretending to be someone else...

No, I have to get those tickets legit. And so I'm putting everything in place.
I'm going to the ol' family home, because they have a more stable internet connection. I will take a laptop, because I usually do this with at least 2 computers and a phone. I set up several browsers on a one second refresh and then set them going...

...and I must succeed. Not because Fleetwood Mac might be playing, (Because I hate them), Not because the Rolling Stones were so amazing last year (I saw them, they weren't, I left and went to see Public Enemy instead... now they WERE Amazing) Not even because the rumour that Prince might be playing (Which comes around every year and is almost certainly wrong).

No I have to get tickets because I love it. I wish I could buy a 'life ticket'. If I won the lottery I'd donate a ludicrous amount to whatever charity Eavis wanted in order to get one... It's the greatest festival in the world... in fact it's the greatest thing in the world...

...and I WILL be going!

(This will have a very tearful and enraged update if I fail...)

Day 25: The feeling of inevitable Failure (Or, Brinksmanship? Pah!)

I recently got a job. I was brought into a university to assist with the implementation of a large scale I.T project.

Now don't worry, I won't give all the boring details, suffice to say that they'd tried it before and it didn't work... so they got me.

I'm good at this kind of thing incidentally. I can't really make computers do anything they weren't doing already, but I'm quite good at figuring out how best to use systems, and pretty good at getting other people to use them properly as well... I've done it in a number of jobs, always leading to a degree of success varying from 'partial' to 'dance in the street you've fucking nailed this one boy'

I have never failed at this kind of thing. Well not completely...
But then again I've never been brought in to get something working that just.. well.. doesn't...

yes. It's not working. The system itself is not designed to do what we want it to do. The other University faculties who claim they are using it aren't really.. and now I'm beginning to get pitying looks from my colleagues. When I joke that I have been parachuted in to the Titanic to look after the 'Iceberg' bit, they laugh.. but in a sympathetic way, not because it's a lame joke (It's pretty much a banger for our office) but because it's right on the money.

The IT department have refused to meet with me since I started, now they refuse to even take my calls. It's almost as if they knew it wasn't going to work when they bounced the project out of their hands like the hottest of hot potatoes, with a filling of grief and human excrement. I call and they howl 'It isn't our project, the registry is looking after it' before slamming the phone down so fast I can here the sonic boom of collapsing air in it's wake...

So how do I feel about it?
Strangely energised, excited even.. certainly not despondent (Although I do put it on at work a bit, otherwise they might think I was playing to lose). Despite the fact that I will box this one out to the end, the idea of it fucking up so royally has a curious fascination for me. I literally have no idea what will happen if the whole thing, and I'm afraid I may have to use a technical term here, 'Goes Tits'

I've failed at other things of course, but never something at work, something this big, something that literally has no alternative. If this doesn't work, there is no 'Plan B', no Deus Ex Machina will arrive to lift me out of harms way in a ludicrous contrivance. No I will be left 'naked' in the office, holding the Metaphorical equivalent of amy flaccid cock in my hand...

If you think the feeling of brinksmanship is exciting, of staying on the cusp of the whirlpool, just out of range of the fatal drag, is exhilarating, imagine what the heart rate does when your swirling into it's eye...

...and that's what I'm doing at the moment.

Of course I could still clutch a glorious victory from the jaws of this particularly large and hulking defeat. Sadly this is less likely that the next Pope being selected from the 'Mr Gay UK' finalists, no I may manage to clutch a slightly less overwhelming defeat from the jaws of annihilation... but for me that will be enough... If I end up with one shell shocked soldier, stemming the wounds on the bloody hamburger that used to be his legs, but alive enough to roll his eyes I will consider this one a triumph of bloody-mindedness over adversity...

Or More Literally, a triumph of me over an IT department who are the dictionary definition of the phrase 'Clutch of useless mimsy douchepumps'

Day 24: Sickies! (Or, why Man Flu is worse than face aids)

Today I woke up 'Mildly Ill'
The worst kind of ill... at least for me*.

When I get proper ill, I usually go all out... I once left a sore throat long enough that I ended up in hospital, with my throat closed and suffering hallucinations. I once had a flu that ended up with three days of bed sweating and hallucinations.. when I.. well.. basically, you can guess where this is going when I get badly ill I usually hallucinate... and of course you get a few days off work to pretend it's a day off school... you can watch rubbish TV and generally feel really really really sorry for yourself...

But Mildly Ill is terrible. It doesn't stop you going to work, so you go, all snuffly and fed up.. and if you work in an office that is majority women, like mine, woe betide you if you so much as mention that you are feeling under the weather... The shriek goes up from all corners of the room. 'Man Flu'...

Ok, I understand there is some science about Male and female immune systems at play here, but I've had girlfriends. I know the Advert stereotype where the 'can-do' lady does all the jobs while her loser husband slopes around red faced, huffing lines of beechams powder are pretty much bollocks... Go on, try it.. You're both ill.. try putting all the jobs on your partner, whatever their sex.. you won't be ill soon... you'll be dead... and single... but most importantly, dead...

But I digress. I don't want sympathy, or even empathy.. I just don't want that 'mockery'. They have been given a license to laugh at my watery eyes and sneezing, knowing that I have no equivalent. If they're ill I can't shout, hahaha, Girl Sick.. or if it's the Time when Ladies are at their most fragile, I can't prod them with implications that they are somehow 'faking it'.. mainly because I wouldn't dare.. I've seen how quickly 'Fragile' can turn to 'Terrifying'

So it's an early night tonight, and plenty of fruit. But If I'm still feeling ill tomorrow. Well. Then it's hankyless sneezing time. If it's so funny this 'Man-Flu' they won't mind me sharing it...

(*Yeah Yeah, I know... I'll This excludes almost all illness more serious than colds or flu which I have never had, and hopefully never will, I genuinely do feel sorry for anyone struggling with real stuff and I'm a total baby when it comes to doctors and all that.. although my ear did close over once and I had to have a new auditory canal drilled through my skull... Cool eh?)

Day 23: Best Blog EVER, 5 stars! (Or, The law finally discovers that reviews aren't always trustworthy online, also that Pope appears Catholic and that bears.. oh you know the rest...)

Something beautiful is happening in internet-world.
Something that has been a long time coming.
Something that could finally bring peace to large sections of this war-torn land, whilst decimating acres of free and useless 'content'

Yes, people are finally getting 'Tough' on people who post fake reviews. And by Tough, I mean taking them to court for hundreds of thousands of dollars.. Hurrah!

Yes in New York, generally known for being a 'Don't fuck around' kind of town the dagger is finally being put to companies that supply those fake reviews as well as their clients. Of course it's about time, and for the good of the universe it would be lovely if it was successful...

But there are some fun game to be had with fake reviews. Firstly the obvious spot the fake.
This can be great because they range from the blindingly obvious ones (usually containing the words: For the Record, I am not an employee). These are usually found on a host of rubbish restaurants, after 30 1 star reviews a whole raft of top mark reviews flow in to attempt to balance them up, saying things like 'I don't know what the other reviewers are thinking' or my favourite ever, a Dodgy Landlord who attacked reviewers of his shifty practices and counter-reviewed them, their clothes, their hair-style, their hygiene and claiming they worked for other landlords... he was later caught out posting hooky reviews of other landlords...

Which brings us on to the second fun game, which is based on the legendary Internet Game: 'Fake!' If you don't know Fake it simply involves finding a picture, youtube Video, or anything upon which you can comment, the more innocuous the better, and leaving one word 'Fake!' and then watching the poster tie themselves in knots of apoplectic fury explaining exactly why it couldn't be a fake. This variant works on the same premise, you find the most reasonable, balanced and downright fair review you can, and simply reply 'Well anyone who works for the company would say that'.. and then sit back and watch the mayhem...

The strange thing about this is that it's news at all.. Firstly this is totally illegal anyway. Fraud is still fraud, even on the internet.. That's why those 'This can enlarge your penis' emails go in the spam filters. They aren't legal advertising (Believe me, if anything other than painful surgery could genuinely enlarge a penis, most men would be carrying theirs in a wheelbarrow by now). It's fraud, you get caught, you get busted. So why has fraudulent impersonation taken so long to be taken seriously, particularly when most long time users can spot them a mile off. (Not that means they are ineffective, do you read all the reviews, or just look at the average star rating?)

At least it's a step in the right direction. And it has led to one of the most amusing piece of pure 'Meta' I have read in a long time. One of the 'Astroturfers' caught up in the New York 'Cease and Desist' writ had their internet presence announced by a glowing review, containing those immortal lines "For the Record, I am not an employee"

You can guess the rest...