Mmm... minty


Thanks to Mooglemania for giving me an idea for this week's challenge. (http://www.b3ta.com/board/6319098)

EDIT: Thank you mysterious mod for my first ever FP, you've made my day.
(Mon 11th Sep 2006, 19:34, More)

» Well, that taught 'em

Sheet stealer gets a kicking
Many moons ago I went on a holiday arranged through my school to somewhere in the north (it could have been near Sheffield, I'm not sure, the North all looks the same to me) where you stay in one of those dorm type arrangements that all kids stay in at some point in the school life.

I'd been on the same holiday a few years before but by now my brother an sister were in the same school as me and we could all go together, a good excuse to get away from home for a week.

We got to our room and unpacked, chose beds and put sheets and pillow cases and whatnot on them and went downstairs for the welcome meeting. The kids in the room I was in were all quite annoying and talked until late at night keeping everyone up. Every morning I would get up, make my bed and head down for breakfast and when I'd come back upstairs I'd find me bed sheets pulled off the bed and all over the floor. Not wanting to cause trouble I duly made my bed again and headed out for badminton or basketball or swimming or whatever mind numbing 'fun' had been arranged for us.

And every time I came back to the room my sheets were on the floor and stupid annoying kids were giggling in the corner.

This went on for about three days before I finally went over the edge. I'd just finished remaking my bed for the umpteenth time when one of the kids who were still in the room thought it would be funny to pull the sheets off again while I was stood there.

He grabbed one corner of the duvet and pulled while I had the other corner in my hand. He yanked the quilt away and threw it on the floor and ran back to his bed tittering like a twat.

"That's it!!" thought I (with two exclamation marks) "I've had enough..." and chased him to the corner of the room and promptly floored him with one punch. While he was lying on the floor I put the boot in as well punctuating each kick with words.

"Don't... [kick] do... [kick] that... [kick kick] again!" As he looked up at me with tears in his eyes I felt a smug sense of satisfaction that he wouldn't mess with me again and he didn't. In fact I got a reputation after that for the rest of the week away as a bit of a nutter, which was nice.

The really shameful thing though is that this kid, along with the rest in the dorm, was in my brother's year at school which means that while I was about 16 he must have been only 13. Still, nothing more satisfying than giving a snotty 13 year old a good kicking, shame I can't get away with it now.
(Sun 29th Apr 2007, 10:45, More)

» Failed Projects

Okay so some years ago me and a couple of friends
Had a massive project on the go. There was a massive risk of industrial sabotage, we were told, so we couldn't discuss the scheme with anyone. In fact the project was so secret that the plans were kept under lock and key most of the time and only available in parts and only to those who needed to see the relevant section.

My friends and I were close to completing our part of the project and couldn't satisfactorily work out how to fix a cooling problem. Basically the system would overheat horrendously when in heavy use and there was no way of venting out the excess heat so we came up with a compromise and added a small venting port to the plans which was subsequently approved by the planning team and went in as part of the design.

When the project finally went live it was a roaring success and during a trial run it performed better than anyone expected. We all celebrated in the local and toasted our collective success. The head of the project was more than happy and treated us all to a slap up meal at his own expense and told us what a great job we had all done.

Sadly it all went downhill after this point. Apparently someone in the marketing department got a bit loose with his tongue when slightly inebriated and told someone he shouldn't have about this fantastic new project. Our office systems were compromised in, what was described as a 'sustained hacking attack' and the blueprints were stolen.

It turns out that our venting solution was just big enough to fire a torpedo down which took out the main reactor core and the whole station went belly up. We weren't involved in any more projects after that.
(Thu 10th Dec 2009, 8:08, More)

» Kids

Mrs woodbines neice....
Made me titter the other day. Two years old and already a comedian. We took round some photo's of a family get together and while the missus and her sister were nattering I took to showing Gracie the pictures.

"Who's that?" I asked pointing at a person.

"Mummy," came the reply.

"And who's that?"

"Daddy," she say's and so on until I got to her.

"Who's this?"

"It's you" a tiny voice replied.

"No Gracie that's not me, it's you"!

Oh right. Of course. When teaching a child which one she is in a photo, or a mirror or on a family video "it's you" is not the correct way to describe them.

Also evil uncle Mike has taught her how to say "Oh bum" whenever she falls over or gets frustrated trying to get the circular peg in the square hole. It's hard to tell her off with a big grin on your face.
(Fri 18th Apr 2008, 17:57, More)

» Phobias

Belly buttons
Something about them just makes me go all shuddery and not in a good way either.

I don't like to touch my own at all so why the fuck would I want to touch someone elses? Never-the-less, Mrswoodbine still feels the need to dig her finger in my belly button and wriggle it around in there, which make me want to throw up.

The other night I actually gagged when she wedged her finger in my vile stomach tunnel and then tried to stick said finger in my mouth. It would have been her own fault if I'd been sick all over her.

On the plus side I may have the most blue belly button fluff in the world, I'm just not brave enough to have a root around in there to find out.

Belly buttons... yuck!

Length? Are we still doing this gag or is it old hat now?
(Tue 15th Apr 2008, 17:50, More)

» Call Centres

"You need a new client machine setting up?"
That was the question asked of the customer when they rang to tell us that one of their old client machines had gone pop in the tech support company I work for.

It turns out that a hardware fault had killed one of the old PCs at one of the customer sites that we support and they needed our software setting up so they could carry on with their work.

First things first, lets establish that they have a machine capable of running our software. Joy of joys they have had the brain power to buy a suitable box with all the right stuff needed.

"Right," we said, "we need you to install the remote desktop software we use in order to carry out the install remotely. Can you open a browser window and type this address in?"

A simple enough request met with an unexpected response.

"What's a browser?"

"Well, you've used Internet Explorer before, right? That's a browser."

Luckily yes, they have used it before.

"So can you open the browser please?" we asked.

"Not at the moment, no."

Okay, maybe they haven't got an internet connection. Lets test that.

"Are you on the internet there?"

"Yes, we can all get on the internet, I'm on it now, thats how I got your number."

"Ah, okay," we're getting somewhere at last, "Can you type this address into your address bar?"

"I don't need it installing on this machine, it's on the new machine."

This is starting to get a bit odd now.

"Okay, can you move over to the new machine and open a browser for me?"

And this is where the whole reason they couldn't do this in the first place becomes *very* clear.

"Well, we haven't unpacked it yet."

"It's still in the box?"

"Yes, it only arrived half an hour ago."

"Riiiiiight...."

"I thought you could do all this remotely?" for some reason the customer sounds baffled.

"Well we can," we replied, "but it does kind of depend on the PC being on."

Oddly the customer seemed to think that we could assemble, plug in, turn on and install software onto a computer... over the phone.

I think the customer was on hold for 5 minutes until the entire office, who had been listening to the whole conversation stopped laughing.

The customer was politely to get the PC plugged in and connected to the internet before calling us back. He called back two days later and everything was fine.

I really don't think they needed to write a letter of complaint saying how unhelpful we'd been. I think that went home with the manager to be framed.

Length? Are we still doing that gag?
(Sat 5th Sep 2009, 18:17, More)