mikey

I can't remember specifics but this was in the era of when Jon Ronson was profiling him for Them! and the accompanying TV series the Secret Rulers of the World. He seemed out there but much of what he was saying was pretty much right. A specific thing, erm... there was a thread on here about the Obama Deception. I watched the documentary and agreed somewhat with the crux of what he was saying; Obama's rhetoric doesn't match his policies, he's pro-Wall Street whilst railing against it in speeches, he's just continuing Bush's policies. The problem is, he takes that to the absolute nth degree, talking about FEMA Camps, forced national service, a Hitler Youth-esque pro-Obama civilian force and warrantless wiretapping. Then again, you see whistleblowers like Edward Snowdon and the NSA Prism project, you have to wonder just how fantastical these claims are?

A few years ago, I recall that a fair criticism of Alex Jones was that the wackier and clearly spurious stuff he said would detract from all the times he was absolutely dead-on, which was more often than you would think. However, the last few years, he's become so much more fantastical and, at the same time, so much more commercially-exploitative so I can see why you guys now hate him so much.

I was an FWA hardcore for a while, once a referee and timekeeper too. I liked it at the time, if only because it was "our" product. With hindsight, there was never a business plan or cost controls so it could go on and be a success. The management often listened to the wrong people because of the influence those people could have rather than listen to those who had the best interests of the product at heart. I always liked Mark Sloan and I was glad when he concentrated on his academy shows because what was the FWA by that point was not the FWA he started. All in all, it was all a wasted opportunity. I walked away before Lambert turned up but he wasn't there when I was there so I imagine his book has a different angle than I would have taken on the subject.

This is the sort of advice I could use too. I have six years of BA and testing experience but the testing route is a dead end given I'm a manual tester and everybody in London wants automated experience. I have an ISEB/BCS in software testing, have the books and so forth for the BA foundation but my current job is more account management so not sure where to go. Honestly, I'd like a little more money for less bullshit so would the BCS help me on that route?

This job has degenerated today. My developer is an utter cunt. I'm trying to fix things so we don't get these situations where clients have not been charged for work and where we have no idea what is in a release. The account director left a bit of a mess behind. I need help but I'm getting hindrance and the managing director doesn't give a fuck.

I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, I barely recognise myself. Some people smoke or drink or take drugs but my vice has always been food and I'm comfort-eating again, a problem I thought I had beaten. I'm really worried because I'm going out tomorrow night and the only thing on my mind is getting absolutely mullered. This is a terrible mental situation to be in. I turned up here not drinking at all, eating salads and having green juice every morning to detox. Now all I want to do is consume wheat, sugar and booze and you can see it in my complexion and in my waistline.

My mum worked as a recruitment agent in the 60s and in 2006, when I was last unemployed, we had an argument about my job search. "Get in a suit and get up London," she said. "That's where all the jobs are" but she was living in the past and I told her so. The hard part for an agency was always, finding suitable candidates, and so you could take 10 copies of your CV and hit all the agencies in a relevant field, even as recent as 10 years ago.

Now, with job websites, finding candidates is a piece of piss and it's all about keeping your employer clients happy. A lot of agents work from home via email and mobile phone under the umbrella of an agency as a one-man band. Some of the agencies still going often employ people in a small, provincial city to hire for clients and candidates hundreds of miles away. They not only have never met anybody, they've barely had a conversation with them. Agents used to earn their money finding people who could blend together and stay in a job for many years but now it's a chop shop, a volume industry. I treat them with the contempt with which they treat me. I was honest with the agent who got me my current job when I said that "I want as much as possible and, to be fair, it's in your interests to get it." All I am to them is a commission so I'm pretty open about that.

Essentially, what you need is to rewrite your CV, get on Totaljobs, Monster, Indeed and other job sites and the agents will call you when they have something. One guy won't just take you on and keep going until he finds something, it's counter-productive for them. Get job alerts going on these sites so that if something does come up, you'll see it. In my view, it's a fucking soul-destroying experience that caused me ridiculous amounts of heartache and actual genuine tears. I applied for 40 jobs a week and would seldom get a response. I honestly thought I'd end up dying at the last job because I felt I couldn't leave. I didn't earn enough to support my obligations, let alone save money, so I couldn't resign.

Have you thought about going back to your old company? They're recruiting for BAs at the moment (not sure which division) and your previous experience with them might come in handy.

No, I could never return to them. Besides, they're so fractured it's not like you can cross from one branch of the company to another, so my previous work with them would be irrelevant. Yesterday was very hard at my current job because I'm getting shit from lazy people over work I have yet to do when I'm utterly swamped. One guy, who is supposed to be doing the software helpdesk, is so stupid and lazy and yet he's openly looking to leave, thinking he can make 35k. There really is no justice in the world.

Need some advice about my current job. Been involved in some elements of software testing and business analysis for around 6

Reed suck. Terrible agency, terrible website.

Saw a movie a couple of weeks ago and in retrospect I've little idea why I sat through it.

On Lovefilm it is called something like American Hot Babes

I think I might've sussed that one out for you there.

I was fascinated by how they got a bunch of decent actors who are good in other things and made such a terrible movie.

Saw a movie a couple of weeks ago and in retrospect I've little idea why I sat through it. It starred Chris Pratt and Brendan Hines, more known for being on Lie To Me, and it involved them being sucked into an alternate reality where the whole world is like a campy, early 80's porn flick. On Lovefilm it is called something like American Hot Babes but its original title is Deep in the Valley. Even if you're curious, avoid avoid avoid.

We should all just start speaking Esperanto, the English language has been destroyed.

I've seen less makeup on a drag queen. I'm not convinced.

To pick at the definition of racism, there needs to be a word which describes prejudice or discrimination against somebody of a different nationality based on the belief that each nationality possesses certain characteristics specific to them. Nationalism isn't it.

 

Nationalism is being prideful of the country you belong to.

 

Xenophobia is a dislike or fear of people from other countries or of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange

The lexicon is lacking. Xenophobia is a phobia, it's an irrational fear. Racism isn't a phobia. That's my point.

One of the older members of my rugby club yesterday quite casually used the word half caste to describe a colleague of mine who is half Chinese. Maybe this is something we should be taking back.

To pick at the definition of racism, there needs to be a word which describes prejudice or discrimination against somebody of a different nationality based on the belief that each nationality possesses certain characteristics specific to them. Nationalism isn't it.

A few that came to mind recently. My uncle lived in West Dulwich before it got tidied up and my grandparents, who lived in a very white middle class area, used to take my sister and I to see him. On the journey over, my grandad used to take great pleasure suggesting we play a game where we "do the world a favour and run wogs over ". If you could "run over a spade", you'd get a point but you could get "bonus points if you run a paki over". In hindsight, I am horrified that this is what I was exposed to growing up. Strangely, my cousin did a similar thing about 10 years ago, who's 15 years older than me and has no excuse.

My aunt, without a trace of irony or humour, explained to me that homosexuality is unnatural and would lead to the destruction of our society. She said that all the great civilisations that liberalised attitudes to homosexuality fell as a result, including ancient Rome and ancient China. It was also the root cause of the destruction of Atlantis, that famed fictional continent. I'd always tried to keep an open mind when she'd discuss spiritualism and palmistry and fortune telling but the fall of Atlantis being linked to homosexuality was the last straw.

Also, has anybody else found white Australians to be fairly casually racist towards Greeks and Italians?

Needless to say, the dog in the Peter Jackson remake will be called something different.

Digger apparently. Like what happened with John Barnes.

That's not what happened.

 

There was an article online on a website where the editor had clearly done a find/replace on "black" for "African American", and accidentally applied it to an instance where the article was referring to the colour black and not the race.

 

The Christian news website OneNewsNow still word filters "gay" and as such, poor Tyson Gay is known as Tyson Homosexual.

 

So Marvin Gaye would be Marvin Homosexuale?

Very possibly, sort of like the Simania's word filter on Real In Memphis where the word "Rangers" is changed to "dirty orange bastards", making the word "strangers" into "stdirty orange bastards". The Gay word filter came to light before the Beijing Olympics.

And to think the founder of BET was supposed to be one of the Dark Crusaders...

That's not what happened.

 

There was an article online on a website where the editor had clearly done a find/replace on "black" for "African American", and accidentally applied it to an instance where the article was referring to the colour black and not the race.

The Christian news website OneNewsNow still word filters "gay" and as such, poor Tyson Gay is known as Tyson Homosexual.

"Oriental" is racist in the US, as they tend to use it more to describe items like rugs and whatnot, but I've never heard of it being referred to as racist here.

 

Keep in mind that the word "black" is "officially" racist in the US as well, though.

I find the term Caucasian to be greatly offensive.

Speaking of words you can't use anymore, a friend of mine shook his head when I remarked I was doing really well on International Cricket on the XBox 360 due to my brilliant chinaman who is unstoppable from around the wicket. I didn't even realise what I'd said until a while after I said it but I don't think the word had such a negative influence as it does in the US. I recall an American I know taking exception to my usage of the words Orient and Oriental, though in the former case I was ranting about the football club from Leyton. Is that now a racist word?

Another gem from my mum was to my sisters eldest step-daughter. She is 18 and has been described by my mum as "Lesbian on occassion" because sometimes she has a boyfriend and sometimes a girlfriend. A few weeks ago when they came round to our house for dinner she was greeted with the question "Do you like cock today or what?" Needless to say that the awkward silence that followed was broken only by the sound of me trying not to laugh and everyone else trying not to look at each other.

See if Steve's stepmother had said that bisexuals were doing it for attention, I don't think it would have made this thread.

One of my colleagues helps out in his father's Indian restaurant when they have a very busy Friday night. As a result, another colleague will always come up with curry and Indian jokes right out of the 70's which I find very uncomfortable.

"If all the spaccers in the country went to do their fucking shopping at the same time they would not need this many parking spaces. Not that they need them, people are paid to do their shopping for them and they could fucking walk like everyone else. It's a waste of time giving them all spazz chariots and parking spaces it really is"

 

That is actually a very salient point. People do do their shopping for them.

While we all know people who use the badges properly, the amount of blue badge abuse is off the scale. Sit outside a supermarket for a few minutes and see young people stick a blue badge on their dashboard because they managed to get their mum's/dad's/grandparent's badge registered on their car. I knew a wastrel who basically spent his mother's mobility allowance on trying to impress his friends by being their personal taxi service.