Journal Entries
What on earth am I doing
Posted Jan 9, 2008
[Not sure where I'm going to go with this...]
Got onto my PS today and noticed in small writing on the right-hand side: "last posted 5 weeks ago". Hmmm.
Real life has been getting in the way. In fact, recently RL has been getting in the way of RL. Is that a valid excuse for not turning up on hootoo for 5 weeks? Yes, I think it is, actually. Is this what I'm wanting to write about here? No, I'm not sure it is.
...
Back in nineteen-eighty-vvmmm-mumble-mumble I got my first 'real' job working for an investment bank on the dealing-room floor (I wasn't a dealer, but yes, this was a room of people shouting "buy" and "sell" down the phone for a living). A few months later I got a job working for a company who actually made real stuff in real factories and transported it in real vans to real shops where real people would buy the stuff for an actual purpose. Next job was in finance, as was the next, and the next, and most of the rest. For the best part of 2 decades I worked mainly for companies who made money out of taking money off of people in exchange for some other money.
By 2001 I had gone full circle back to the same investment bank I started at, but by then I was spending at least 5 hours a day on various trains and tubes, just so I could spend 9 hours in an office on the 15th floor watching literally millions of dollars being turned into billions of yen, then maybe into squillions of turkish lira, then back into dollars, and so on.
Then one day a couple of planes flew into a couple of tall buildings in NY, and London emptied, and I stood on a platform at Cannon Street station watching people quite literally climbing over each other to get onto the first train outta there.
Rat race!?! Rats, yes. Race, no. I was part of a huge great machine of people and money and green bits of paper going round and round, going nowhere fast. I had to get off. I had to get out...
Me and the missus dreamt of 101 acres of land on the North Devon coast and a run-down house and a barn conversion...
I packed in the job and did nothing for 3 months. Then worked for a company writing manuals, then a company churning out what they would call marketing, but what you and I would call junk mail.
Then I packed it in entirely. For a year. Moved down to Devon. Didn't get the 101 acres and the barn, but did get enough grass to have to spend one whole day a week cutting it. Did some bits of work, but round these parts people don't like to part with money, they'd rather fix your gate, or give you eggs.
A year later a recruitment agent phoned and I admitted I had to work again. So I went back to what I knew, just for a bit, you understand. Companies making money out of taking people's money off them. 9 months work. 3 months off. For a few years, it'd be OK. A Monday morning 3 hour drive up the M5, or 8 hours from one side of the country to the other, or 4 hours cab-plane-cab to a lump of rock in the English Channel. An office, a hotel room. Breakfast with colleagues, dinner with strangers, phonecall with the missus and nippers, sleep alone.
The nippers did 3 years of growing up while I was doing 3 years of growing weary.
So where am I? I've got back on the machine, joined the rat race again. By mistake, this time.
So what can I do about it? One of two things:
1) Live somewhere nice, work somewhere far away, see the nippers at the weekends.
2) Move back to somewhere not nice, work somehere near, see the nippers every day.
The other option hasn't - and isn't ever - going to work out: That is, no one pays you to cut your own grass, and they don't even pay you enough to cut theirs.
But, what if there's a third option?
What if I get on a plane, one last time, with the missus and nippers, and go to Jersey and... well... stay there. 15 minutes walk to work. 15 minutes walk back home. 15 minutes walk to the beach.
The down-side? I have to keep working for companies that make money out of making money. I can do that with my eyes shut.
Maybe if I do it with my eyes shut, I can pretend I'm not doing it at all. And just open them when I get to the beach. Every day.
Discuss this Journal entry [28]
Latest reply: Jan 9, 2008
Down a snake
Posted Dec 4, 2007
[ "Journal entries that you can snigger at" - 2 in a series ]
In RL I've been working towards something over the past few weeks. It's been like playing snakes and ladders, and has been going quite well. I've been up some snakes, as well as rolling a couple of double sixes. I'd say I'd just reached the top row and was on maybe square number 91. Last night I rolled a 1 and landed on that snake that takes you all the way down to the start.
Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Dec 4, 2007
Juggling with one ball
Posted Nov 21, 2007
Sometimes it gets difficult juggling so many things. Rather than start dropping balls, I tend to find it easier to put them down and juggle with one at a time.
Prevents mistakes. But is quite a bit slower.
Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [7]
Latest reply: Nov 21, 2007
A tad unfaithful
Posted Nov 9, 2007
As Rich so eloquently put it in 
last week, there is another site out there courting the affections of anyone who cares to stray. So let me own up and admit to having a fling with Facebook, and being a tad unfaithful to h2g2 recently.
I'm not going to feel guilty though. For a couple of reasons:
1 - I've been 'seeing' h2g2 for 2 and a half years now, and I figure that that's about the time when other people on here have gone through their mid-hootoo-life crisis, so I'm entitled to have mine, and I'm gonna embrace it.2 - Facebook is quite young and pretty.
Yes, on FB I can post photos and videos on my 'journal', but then, I've just this week re-used an old photo because posting new photos is becoming a bind. And yes, on FB I can throw sheep, become a Jedi (or a pirate), fly rockets through my solar system, have a water fight, etc, etc, but let's be honest, the novelty wears off.
And then there is the company that FB keeps. Yes, it's all friends and family, but I'm (a) appalled at the poor spelling/grammar of some people I've known for years but have never seen write, and (b) shocked at the bad taste of some of the YouTube links that they seem happy to put up on their 'personal space'.
So in reality I already realise that hootoo has the longevity. This place is a serious long-term commitment. And I like that.Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Nov 9, 2007
Bring back "Crikey"
Posted Oct 4, 2007
[1am. I should really be in bed, rather than writing what will turn out to be drivel in the morning...]
I've been single-handedly (or so it feels) trying to bring a variety of little used words back into every day conversation. This has been going on for quite a few years now.
I spent a good part of a decade getting "numpty" out there. You've got to say a word a lot to the right people to get it heard by the other right people before it ends up mainstream and then bob's your uncle. I could chart the progress of "numpty" here, but it would take a while. So I won't.
About a year ago I started experimenting with the word "nice". My English teacher (and youngest nipper) would tell me that "nice" is a weak word. I'd agree. But sometimes there is a time and place for "nice". I lost my bottle with getting "nice" out there though. I might give it another go some time.
Now "malarkey" and "blimey" are two words that I've had some recent success with. "Malarkey" in particular is spreading like wild fire at work. I've also seen "malarkey" and "blimey" used recently in posts on hootoo by people who I'm not sure were using those words previously.
Today I've decided to spread the news about "crikey". I'm about to use it in another post any moment now...Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [16]
Latest reply: Oct 4, 2007
aGuyCalledPaff
Researcher U1522321
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."