Comment Fuckery

Here's a few quotes:

"lkdhsflkdsjflskdjfhkljdfskdjfdlf... oops sorry, my balls were in the way... let me wipe the screen first so i can see what I typed. "

(re: Keira Knightley)
"Tits like two asprins on an ironing board. Yuck."

"by the way beef, this blog make me sex-wee. "

At first glance it looks like some of the Dahli Lami's teachings, but it is in fact a quick selection of the comments left on this very blog. I feel honoured that such astute readers stop by every now and then and leave touches of wisdom on my little chunk of cyber-space. I'd have nothing but fondness for the whole blog-comment system, but then I get bullshit like this:

"Here are some links that I believe will be interested"

"Greets to the webmaster of this wonderful site! Keep up the good work. Thanks."

"Buy Phentermine and Valium online. Lowest Price."

The first two comments are thinly veiled ruses that lead to other bullshit web crap when you click the posts, the third one doesn't even try to hide it's intentions. Spammers. Filthy Fucking Spammers. They've taking over our web based email addresses, and now they've infected the blogs aswell. No I don't want to buy drugs online, no I don't want to get a thousand fucking "smileys", no I won't forward that fucking email to ten fucking people to get £200 from fucking Microsoft.

And have you ever actually met somebody who purchased a penis enlargement online? I have. He told me he woke up in a bath-tub full of ice minus one Kidney. He told me that was the third time that had happened to him. I told him that was biologically impossible, and he burst into tears. Fucking Spammers.

When does it stop? I can't get an Eagle Tattoo across my back, because I'm too paranoid the tattooist will leave Viagra advertisements inked into the wings. The spammers are starting to outnumber the normal commenters on the Shoddy Blog, so I'm going to have to turn on the comment filter and go back through and delete the bastards. Bah.

Fuck, I'm so busy ranting I just noticed the time 9:42PM and I'm still at work. But too be honest it was a conscious decision to stay. I had a choice, stay at work and surf the net, or go home and watch British television.

It was a no-brainer.

A harder decision: Fuck a Bear trap or watch British television - now there's a coin toss. A post on the visual dysentery that is the BBC will hit this blog soonish.

But I couldn't leave work either way, not until I'd finished this poster I've been working on for my new safety campaign:

If it saves just one life, it was worth it.

Encyclopaedia

I'm back in London after five days in Latvia and have a few tales and photos that will be revealed later in the week. Here's another web-site to occupy you til then:

"One of Adelaide’s biggest claims to fame is that it has the worst drinking water of any city in the developed world. ‘It’s the closest thing to Guinness without tasting nice,’ is the most apt description. Adelaide water is a bit like Vegemite and test cricket: you can’t acquire a taste for it as an adult. You need to grow up with it.

It's the Encyclopaedia of South Australian Culture, and you can visit it by clicking here.

Stobie poles, Magic Mountain, Pie Floaters - it's all in there.

Cheers to Jimmy for the link.

Gone

In roughly four hours I'll be on a plane headed to Riga and I won't be back in London until Monday night. Providing I don't get both my hands broken by a Latvian Bouncer, I'll update the Blog some time next Tuesday.

I'll leave you with this image I stumbled across from my web journeys (click to enlarge).



It seems the internet is only good for three things: Porn, Online Banking, and photos of insane cats. The first two I can take or leave, but I get mighty cranky if I don't get my daily feline fix (and if you don't get the Bat Country reference, you suck.)

BARFL Preliminary Final

West London Wildcats v Wandsworth Demons
Sunday, August 20 - BARFL Premiership - Clapham Common

The Demons had lost some of their star players due to injuries and travelling, and the Wild Cats capitalised on this with a strong win:

West London 110
Wandsworth 19

Yikes, bit of a caning there. Comparing the points is like comparing the pubes between 70's Porn and Modern Porn - Mountains and Molehills. The B Squad didn't fair much better:

Shepherd's Bush 131
Clapham 12

Even more depressing is my skills with a Digital camera, as can be seen in the following blurry action shots from the game. (Click to enlarge if the mood strikes you).

Jimmy Fucks his foot, out for the remainder of the Finals.




Micky also suffered a foot injury. Luckily somebody was on hand to provide some good old fashioned Australian First Aid, an ice-pack tied on with a sock.

Jimmy, Ronnie, Jimmy Sullivan (who has played 100 games. Quite a feat when there's 12 games a season), and Club President Sammy.

The Demons get a second chance in the final this Saturday against the Wimbledon Hawks. I'll be too busy getting swindled in some Latvian Strip Club to see the game, but wish them the best of luck.

Five Facts

1. The BARFL Finals are underway.

The BARFL finals started on Saturday with the preliminary between the Wandsworth Demons and the West London Wild Cats. The Demons got slightly obliterated (110 to 19), but have a second chance in the finals this weekend against the Wimbledon Hawks. A number of injuries occurred in the Weekend's match, including Jimmy fucking up his right foot. He first lost the big toe nail a few weeks ago, and now he's torn the tendons in the arch. He's out for the remainder of the finals series, and spends his days "hobbling around" - the way Edward Norton "hobbled around" after the shower scene in American History X.

2. Other people's Big Brother photos are better than mine.

Sean sent me the following photo (click to enlarge), his flatmate's girlfriend plus friends at a London Fashion Show. The girl in the middle is Imogen from this year's UK Big Brother, far besting my Blair photo from a few weeks ago.

For those who haven't seen UK Big Brother, Imogen's beauty is only matched by her astoundingly vapid personality. A Big Brother cast is usually whittled down from 50,000 hopefuls, and I am constantly confounded how the Producers of the show manage to end up with such tedious fuck-wits year after year. But the memory of three months of Imogen's Non-entity antics can be washed away by downloading her "private sex-tape" off the net, where you can watch her indulge in a number of acts including flicking the bean. That's right Flicking the Bean.

3. I'm High Class

From an email I received last week:

"Hi Beef. Last night we were catching up with friends and reminiscing about last Saturday at The Swan.....and a story came to our attention of you offering to buy a girl a bourbon and coke.....but only buying 1 bourbon and coke for the pair of you and then pouring half of it into an empty glass for her...."

4. Ceiling Cat has a son.



5. Thursday = Riga

I'm leaving for Riga, Latvia on Thursday afternoon with six other Booze Hounds for the sole reason of a drunk four day foreign adventure. It's going to be like a Stag Party, except nobody has to go through the agony of marriage upon our return.

Photos and stories to appear here some time next week.

Twenty Two

Happy Birthday to Jimmy who turned 22 yesterday. A group of us spent the night drinking Belgian Beer and waxing the lyrical. I also found out that Jimmy has plans to take his crazy drunken dance style to the West End theatres (click to enlarge):

I remember when I was 22, the world was a much different place back then. We didn't have I-pods to download music, if we wanted a song we'd leave a blank audio cassette on record, and just pray that the DJ played it over the radio. There was no Marissa from the O.C., the best we could manage was Caitlin from Degrassi High. There was no MySpace, if we wanted to meet new people we'd leave our phone number written on restroom walls. My how the times have changed.

Best Wishes also to those sharing a birthday with Jimmy (Aug 16) - Madonna, Angela Bassett, James Cameron and Ceiling Cat who spent his birthday inside a cow.

Many happy returns, Ceiling Cat.

Snake Bite

I know that I often babble like a Cartoon Cat with a massive head wound on this blog, but I generally don't like to leave anybody in the dark as far as my posts go. This is why I submit the "learn British" posts and write the little side note definitions, so that there is a general sense of clarity and understanding. Just because I'm an Australian Booze Hound living in London and you're a Single Mother living in New York, doesn't mean we can't form some kind of coherent writer-reader relationship. Fuck R.E.M there's nothing clever about ambiguity.

Which brings us to the next little London lesson, The Snake Bite. This alcoholic beverage will no doubt be referenced many times in future posts, and I just want to get everybody up to speed so that there is no confusion. Let's start with the ingredients:

Snake Bite:

1/2 pint lager
1/2 pint cider
2 splashes blackcurrant cordial

I know what you're thinking:

And it does sound pretty woeful. I still remember the first time I watched one of these being poured. Half Fosters, followed by Strongbow Cider - I was dry reaching by the time I saw the cordial being added. And this is from a guy who'd happily eat Roast Spiders. But as bad as the preparation looks, it actually makes for good drinking - like a fizzy version of Ribena. (Not sure if that's a universally understood reference - swap Ribena with your local black currant flavoured drink if you're scratching your head).

Oh it's tacky, nobody's denying that. I doubt James Bond has ever ordered a Snake Bite from the Morocco Casino Bar. But what it lacks in style, it makes up for in pure practicality. It's smooth simple flavour means it's easy to down, making it a favourite for pub drinking games (such as the Football Club's drinking race), and for those who generally want to get toasted in a short time-span (perfect for combating the harsh London closing times).

To be honest I'd never even heard of this stuff back home, yet they sell it by the bucketfull in the pubs and clubs frequented by Aussies over here. A lot of pubs sell it by the jug (oh, Fulham Slug and Lettuce off the top of my head) which means you can stock up on the tipple and cut the number of bar trips you need to make. That frees up your time for other pub activities such as drunkenly leering at the Brazilian girls, or stealing ash-trays.


So if you didn't know what a Snake Bite was, you do now. I don't want to see comments on future posts along the lines of "OMG Beef! You said you had a few Snake Bites on the weekend! Did it hurt? Did U see a Doctor? Was the Snake posionous :("

You silly kids.

Office Talk

I'm going back through today's work emails and slowly developing a throbbing migraine, here's six reasons why:

"Let's assess the team's bandwidth."

"We're going to have to think outside the box."

"You might find this draft generally useful as it pulls together old concepts and new ones, plus provides an update on options."

"Let's put this on the backburner..."

"...oversee the build and delivery of new client capabilities..."

"...contacts, organise the meetings, do the company intro pitch, summarise and close the meeting..."

Can somebody please tell me what the hell any of this actually means? I guess in a relative sense I'm quite new to the White Collar work industry, but what the fuck people. I see no value in this inane babble. People at my place of work actually speak like this too, they whip out some doozies during the weekly meetings. I often walk out of the conference room scratching my head, feeling even more hungover than when I first walked in.

So I've decided to learn some lingo myself, words and phrases I can whip out at my next Team Meeting and bamboozle my co-workers. Searching through Office Jargon is quite boring, so I turned to the random word search at Urban Dictionary for inspiration:

Flick the pirates ear
To go down on a girl who has her clit pierced.
I didn't realise Claire had a pirate's ear til I flicked it

fart goblin
A large brown log which pops out of your anal passage when you fart loudly.
Fuck me mate I farted yesterday and got attacked by a huge fart goblin!

fart on my boner
An incident that occurs which causes feelings of disappointment.
I told her not to fart on my boner, but she told me the bad news anyway.

taint
The area between the nutsack and asshole that prevent a man from shitting on his nuts.
If it wasn't for the taint, my nuts would reek of poo!

I can't wait for the next work meeting so I can impress everybody with my new dialect. I'm quite proud of my new vocabulary and on a kind of mental high at the moment.

Big hopes for Monday morning, hopefully the fart goblins in Upper management don't fart on my boner.

Random London Sunday

Here's a few photos from our random London Sunday. Click to enlarge the pictures, you can actually get drunk from licking the screen in some of the later snaps.

Is this a photo of Farmland swept by Bush Fires? Nope, it's Clapham Common one of London's many illustrious and beautiful parks. What many find hard to believe (taking into account the infamously grey drizzly shitful weather) is that the United Kingdom is suffering a water shortage. So as anyone who caught the British Open last month on TV could see, the hose pipe ban has left the usually lush greens of England looking like dried out yellow crap-fields.

I was in Clapham Common to watch the Wandsworth Demons play the Ealing Emus. They refer to the Common as "The House of Pain" because the bastard park is as hard as concrete. Many a player has dented his body landing on the cement-like field, Even more so now that the plush surface has been replaced with hardened dead grass. The Demons had a good win (won by 25 goals FUCK), after-game drinks were had at the Alexandra where the traditional drinking race was held. Play a game of sport to lose weight and keep fit, and closely follow that by buckets of sugar rich alcohol and kebabs - it's the Australian Way.

Jimmy, Sammy, and I left Clapham at about 7:30 to venture down to the Pitcher and Piano at Fulham where we were met by my other flat-mate Toby. We were having a few drinks at the bar when one of the guys pointed out a minor Australian celebrity. Blair McDonough, who first gained fame coming in second on the first Australian Big Brother and went on to star in the soap Neighbours for five years (By god, what a CV), was drinking and flirting with a few adoring female fans. He's in London for some play called The Vegemite Tales, and was bar hopping through Fulham because the suburb is full of drunk Australian women - and he was no doubt keen to knock the back out of a few Neighbours groupies.

I was pretty boozed up by this point, and thought it would be amusing to get a photo I could email back home to my sister in a "look who I met" capacity. I suffered the jeers of my fellow drinkers, who asked why I wanted to get my photo with an ex-Big Brother contestant and questioned my sexual orientation. In hindsight it was a pretty gay thing to do, but my mind was set.

I strolled over and I politely asked if I could get a quick photo with him. He declined (his exact words "Naah mate, I can't be faarked" - yes, that's a drunk aussie accent), and went on to suck the tongue out of some blonde booze hag. You ask Burt Reynolds for a photo you'll get one, but this Z-list celebrity knocked me back.

Fuck him. I took the photo anyway.

What a great composition and after I'd been denied permission too - I'm the king of paparazzi.

We dropped into the Slug and Lettuce (also in Fulham) to sample a few cold drinks, it was unusually quiet and there were only a handful of people in the place. Jimmy struck up a conversation with a blonde girl who was sitting with her friend:




I went to the bar to get another drink, and when I came back he was swing dancing with the energy of a young Patrick Swayze:

Quite a bold dance routine to perform with somebody you just met, Christ I thought they stopped this style shortly after the Roaring 20s. Definitely not the easiest of social maneouvers to pull off, as Sammy found out whilst dancing with the second girl. He swung the girl back and forth, and then up in the air, and then dropped her on her head. We helped the girl to her feet, she rubbed the back of her head, and then proceeded to passionately kiss her friend on the mouth. For at least ten seconds. I shit you not. As I was only armed with a shitty disposable camera with a flash that takes an eternity to charge up, I regretfully have no photographic evidence of this whole scene. You'll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, here is a photo of Jimmy and Myself at the Slug:

Becuase it's nice to put a face to the names you read in my posts. Jimmy is on the left, he only has nine toe-nails. I'm on the right, I have all my toe-nails.

We got home at about 1AM and found ourselves sitting on the roof terrace (in a drunken stupor) feasting on the best pizza I've ever eaten. But then again, Cat food tastes like caviar when you're completely smashed. Toby and I sat on the roof:

While Jimmy provided the night's entertainment - reenacting his daring wall-jumping break in of our apartment that he had to perform six months ago when he lost his house-keys.

Thrilling Amateur Theatre, and the perfect way to end our London Sunday.

Eight Facts

1. I'm currently at work.

Friday afternoon and the working week has almost finished. Job enthusiasm has been running a little low today and everybody's attention has been drawn to other pursuits. The guy to my left (Jimmy) is watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (care of LimeWire) for about the fifth time this year. The guy to my right is looking up Russian Mail Order Brides. I'm trying to make a paper Swan, which brings me to fact number two.

2. My Origami skills SUCK

I've got a project note in front of me (kind of like a cover sheet for a TPS report, and yes I got the memo), and I'm trying to fold it into an Origami Swan by following the instructions I found on the web. The finished product on the web-site looks like an elegantly folded paper bird. The crumpled mess in my hands looks nothing like that. This angers me.

3. Jimmy's toe nail fell off

Jimmy was playing Football a few weeks ago and badly stubbed the Big Toe on his right foot. The toe nail on said foot went completely black and a few days ago it completed lifted up out of the toe, kind of like Jeff Goldblum's finger nails in The Fly. Jimmy explained the whole thing to me in explicit detail, and I honestly have dry reached three time while typing this story.

4. Steve's veneer fell off

My other Co-worker was eating a bagel at lunch today, and he chipped one of his front teeth. Half of the tooth veneer came off and not realising it at the time, he swallowed it. Gross. And now he has to make a Dental appointment, which isn't something British people generally do.

5. Dirty Sanchez are making a movie

Just found out that Dirty Sanchez (known in the states as Team Sanchez) are making a film which will be released some time next year. If you're not familiar with their work, the group consists of four Bat-Shit-crazy British Skaters who perform a number of painful stunts to themselves, and each other. Obviously inspired by MTV's Jackass, these insane fucks have taken the self mutilation thing a few steps further. Situations from the film include a scene in Thailand where the guys drink from a glass of freshly liposuctioned fat while getting hand jobs from a hooker. I'm honestly not making this shit up, and I've just presented my third gag-worthy fact in a row.

6. I won 50 quid

I won fifty pounds on a scratch card I got from my local Newsagency. The usual and most common amount won on these things is £1, and the elderly shop owner actually came out from behind the counter and hugged me when I collected the winnings. Twas an emotional moment in both our lives.

7. My house sucks

Is more or less what Gary the builder told me when he checked the damage on Wednesday morning. He was there to get a repair quote for our landlord, now that her insurance has been approved and we have the green light for reconstruction. The casualties of our dilapidated domicile include a shower, toilet, multiple light fixtures, and the Kitchen ceiling. I have started referring to our home as The Paper Street Soap Company, and any women who got that reference without Googling can have my hand in marriage. Gary took notice of the cans wedged into the roofing, the leaky crumbling pipes, the slipshod floorboards. He then told me that the previous builders had not done a very professional job. I replied "Really? I thought Cave-ins were a sign of structural excellence."

We both bathed in the warmth of my sarcasm.

8. Jimmy and I cleaned the Kitchen

Sick of tip-toeing around the Hezbollah rubble of our Kitchen, Jimmy and I finally spent a night clearing all of the shit out. Filthy, mouldy, stinky rubble which included a fake beard we found amongst the debris(!?). The toils of our labour can still be seen in front of our house, as the Garbage Collectors did not take away the rubbish bags full of kitchen remnants. Useless bastards.

On that note, I'm out of here. Enjoy the week end.

Shoddy Shout Outs

Life is hacking on me at the moment, work is caning, finances are worrying and my house is fucking falling apart. Spare time has all but disappeared, and I'm finding it a bit hard to wrap my mind around the writing of an article. I'll try to update later this week with news on my living conditions. Got a builder coming in tomorrow morning to give us a quote (I'm guessing the quote will be something like "You're Kitchen's Fucked lol"), and I'll post the adventures right here.

In the mean time - I've created a Shout Out List to everybody who has commented on the Shoddy Blog in it's illustrious 6 month life span who owns a Blog themselves (easy list to whip up, there's only been eight Bloggers - I don't count the fuckers dropping links to porn sites). If people are checking out your site Aspin, you probably should add some new stuff to it. Slack prick. I've perused all of the sites myself, the splitting head ache I currently have is disallowing me to write any short descriptions. Find out for yourself.

Click away kids:


Andy
Aspin
Barnze
Bart
Desiree
Ozi
Peachy
Ranting Dullard


This list is a living breathing beast, any new blogging commenters will be added (except for that weird 'check out these links' dude).

Stay Shoddy,
Uncle beef.