Website is down!
About a year ago, I used to work for a small web-design company in the "Costa del Dosh". It was, and still is I understand, a small, dynamic company etc that required creative thinkers; not least of all if/when a server or website would go AWOL because of a data centre outage or, even worse a botched upgrade.

So, one monday we get an email from one rather pissed off client saying "The fecking website is down you cunts! Explain or dieeeee!".
A quick investigation revealed that, in fact, that would be because someone overwrote a production database with a test "pie" database accidentally the Friday before, and therefore completely our fault, so the boss replies with the following email after a swift restore of the last weekend backup, and I quote...


"Hi Bob

Yes this is your access code for the barbone network config which we have recently installed on the apache server which will allow you access to the root account with full access rights to our token ring jargonizer. If you receive this email again, make sure your random bottomiser is preconfigured with TAT optimization as standard.

Thanks,

Fred"

And yes, it worked too. No more questions asked.
( slippery doctore, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 10:52, Reply)

You big fat faker!
Faking it, eh? Well there's been quite a bit of that!

Besides the obligitory faking of details on forms, I guess the biggest fake which comes to mind is this:

Fresh out of college, the then young S55 used to love nothing more than to meet up with his dastardly partner in crime Col, and do nothing more all day than walk round the shops and local woodland enjoying plenty of... herbal cigarettes. Of course, when going round such stores like PC World and Comet, the last thing you want is some Sales Scrote coming up to you faking knowledge in the field of computers. Especially when the only thing he's interested in is his commision, not your needs.

We decided to get our own back.

As soon as one of these drones stopped us asking "Can I help you, sir?" we would launch into a rather speedy but important spiel that we were from XYZ Big Company, and we were wondering about A: whether there was a discount for bulk buying, B: whether these systems would be suitable to creating a high-end cluster system and C: whether the PCs would be suitable for XYZ Random Industry-standard software package. 2 games came from this. The game of winding up as many clerks who made the mistake of bothering 2 unemployed lads and the game of Who can keep a straight face the longest whilst Monged out of our trees.
I used to always win, very good at the "Poker-Face".

Click "I Like This!" and I'll give you some other gems from the Green-Era...
(Stephen5555 is posting on, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 10:43, 1 reply)

No-one likes being taken in

I faked something once. It was a pretty good fake, it took in lots of people. I hadn't really thought about the consequences when I did it, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

You see, I'd been working on a short story - much of it based on real experiences and the nub of the story was a father's love for his daughter - which is something that I've found difficult to express, perhaps because it's so deeply felt and personal.

So I had this story and it was pretty good and I wanted to post it on the QOTW, but, at that time there wasn't a special place for creative writing so I posted it under an assumed name.

And when I saw the response it got, I didn't feel willing or able to tell everyone it was me, so instead, I carried on the deception. Then, when it had all died down, I just kept quiet and vowed not to do it again - except perhaps as a joke on my b3ta-birthday or April 1st.

I think I've said enough actually, except: sorry.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 10:35, 15 replies)

It's time to play......
*cue music and lights*

Lifestyles of the bitch and ignoramus!

The rules for the game are simple, you play to see how expensive a house you can view without the estate agent realising there is no way in hell you can pay for it and essentially chucking you out.

Obviously this requires a small amount of preparation, turning up to a £750,000 house in a Fiat Panda wearing jeans and a hoodie are not even going to get you through the door. So what do we need….

• Couples are always more convincing so find yourself a partner in crime
• Dress to impress. Suit for him, dress or a light suit for her
• Accessorise, girls your hair and nails must be looking good
• Car. This is the tricky bit. You need a car that suits the house. Something with class like a Jag or Aston or something with a bit more arrogance like an Audi TT or a Lotus etc. You will probably know someone who has a nice car, see if you can borrow it, if not hire them as a chauffeur/partner in crime
• Attitude. Girls, bitch it up finding fault with everything is how the upper class amuse themselves. Guys, asking if the solid oak front door is pine is always a great start. If you require guidance please see either Jordan & Peter Andre or the Beckhams.
• General snobbery. The estate agent will try and ask you questions about what you do, be vague and almost dismissive but always remain polite.
• “Business calls” get a friend to call you or even set your alarm as a ring tone. Telling James that 476 just isn’t good enough and hanging up and exhaling angrily works well.

So if you have a quite weekend planned see how well you can fake being filthy rich. With the help of my partner in crime’s dad’s Aston Vantage (ex fleet - high miles low price!) a rather nice Armani suit he picked up cheap somewhere and, in my opinion, a fantastic snob laugh from myself we once viewed a lovely £1m mansion in the country with room for the horses (oh yes dharling one loves to ride), huge 5 space garage (can’t leave the Ferrari 275 GTS outside) and 10 person cinema room (hmm the Harris’s have room for 15 in theirs dear, could we expand?).

Length? Full size indoor pool so 25m
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 10:18, Reply)

Double blag
I was visiting my mate in Paris. (I'll call him PM for now on) While I was there his Hells Angels biker mate came round (known as HA from now on). HA is a bald, black, brick sh*thouse.

PM managed to pursuade HA to pretend to be Carl Cox for an evening so we could fake blag our way into seeing DJ Shadow for free.

We got in with a little bit of pursading at the door. Had a great night and managed to keep the fact that Carl Cox is a raging homo from HA for 2 years. By the time HA found out it was too late to beat the crap out of us for making him pretend he was gay.

So yeah. 1 great night out for free and 1 beat down avoided due to the power of the blag.
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 10:13, 3 replies)

Im an I.T Support techy...
And I think one of the female users is starting to fake I.T problems in order to see me :) I work for a medium sized company and theres only me and another guy who does IT. But sure enough she will email me, and call me multiple times a day with various problems. Most of which I know she can figure out herself, shes not stupid. I think she just likes me going there as we get on and have a bit of a laugh and stuff.
Is this the start of a beautiful relationship?
Or does she just want my body?

Or perhaps I have it wrong, and as im supposed to be a professional Im not supposed to fratinise with the staff.

Its difficult, when a girl likes a guy they dont come out with it. its always subtle hints that I will always miss. doh!
(Miggyman, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 10:12, 5 replies)

I am a robotics genius (or so the Japanese think)
A few years ago as a fresh faced graduate I a got my first “proper” job in a secondary school. The school was run by a power hungry bastard who got a bonus for keeping staff wages down, hence my starting wage of £11,100 per year for an IT Tech with a degree. Oh well I thought, I needed the experience and as it turns out having the three years there did help me get my current B3ta friendly job on much more cash. However my faking story changed my life for the better.

One of our senior management people had witnessed an Australian school build a cheap and cheerful robot that could be controlled over the Internet. He stated getting ideas. In October 2005 he came to me and said “Phil (for that is my name) I started a collaboration project with a Japanese university promising them that our school had built a robot that could be controlled over the Internet” “Oh” I said “Why would you tell them something like that” “well” He replied “I saw the Australians make one and thought our students could do it too.

Now I digress here to explain why this was a stupid thing to say. The town I live in has one of the the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. The school I worked at was in the bottom three schools in the county. It was a school of thieving little shitbags. Robot building was never going to happen.

Sooooo back on track. He tells me that it needs to be controlled over the web and that a replica Mars landscape will be created and the Japanese will attach a drill to the robot and drill around.

“So Phil you know IT right? Build it for me”

“Ummmmm I don’t really know much about robots how long do you have”

“It needs to be done in about 4 weeks so I can fly to Japan for two weeks and show it off to them”

Coals to Newcastle I thought. “Four weeks, sorry it’s just not enough time”

“I’ll take you with me!”

“Four weeks it is then, but I’ll need an open ended budget”

“Done”

Of course I really know nothing about robots so I type “WiFi enabled robot” in to Google and come up with a company in Canada run by Chinese people who build robots with WiFi. I ordered one for about £2000 and had it sent over. I took off all the labels and used the schools laser cutter to make vinyl logos of both the schools and stuck them on instead. A quick mess about with the control program in VB removed the company’s logo and put in the schools logo. Set up a web vpn, called the Japanese and they were soon remote controlling our computer that in turn controlled the robot “that I built”

So three weeks later I am on a plane to Japan. I have an 11 hours flight to explain to the students “how they built the robot” so when they gave their speeches they would sound genuine. At this point they had never even seen the thing.

It was so high tech that there was no way that we had built it. It had sensors for everything, auto patrol made, returned to its charger if it went flat, it could detect human presence and tell you how many people were in a room. It looked fantastic. They were NEVER going to believe we built it.

So we landed in Kyoto and were driven off to our accommodation. We were there for two weeks and were treated like kings and queens. Everything was amazing and it truly changed me as a person (but that’s another story) When I went shopping with the Yen I’d scraped together they wouldn’t let me pay for anything, I was followed around by three guys who just kept buying me stuff.
Then it came to it, a half day of sharing projects.

The bloody thing didn’t even work properly.

BUT they were impressed, VERY impressed. They started rethinking their drill to make it better because of how well we had built this thing.

After the two weeks of sightseeing and half a day of work were over we flew back, later that year the Japanese flew over to get some more details on it so they could make their drill. Then a year after our original trip we were invited back for another two weeks. So we did it all again. Took it over and pretended we had built it. They paid for everything. I got yet another “Once in a lifetime” trip and two weeks off work paid in full that didn’t come out of my holiday because I was technically at work. This time it went over even better because I got it working.

When we got back we were in the newspapers over there and over here. I was pictured with the robot and hailed as “The schools own Robotics Expert” Yeh right on 11 grand pah. It opened doors for me and now I have a much better job on much higher pay.

So there you go, I spent someone else’s money and faked my way to 4 weeks in Japan on full pay, everything I tried to buy paid for, food and accommodation paid for (expensive restaurants every night) and had some amazing stuff to put on my CV and a great reference and newspaper clippings to back it up.
The robot now gathers dust as no-one can use it, it never got a drill attached.

I still know fuck all about robots.

No Apologies for length it was the best time of my life.
( Peej, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 9:55, 10 replies)

Where would you rather be..?
"Huh? Yeah, it looks really nice honey"

"I did look, it really suits you"

"What do you mean specifically?"

"Well, then I guess the colour. It goes really well with your eyes or something"

"No, baby, I'm not just reading the paper. I looked at all five of them"

"Sorry, all six of them, and they were all nice"

"Um, I don't know. The blue one. The blue one was was definitely my favourite"

"I know you paid attention when I bought my jeans, sweety. the one pair that I tried on"

"What? I said you always pay attention, baby"

"No I wouldn't rather be in the pub, really"

"Look, if you'd rather I went to the pub then I'll go, but I said I wanted to spend the day with you earlier, so..."

"No, I don't know if anyone is even at the pub"

"I don't know that either baby. Probably, there's normally some footy on telly on a Saturday"

"Look, if you'd rather I went then I will, but I'm happy to stay here"

"Ok honey, I'll go, but only because it's what you want"

"Yep, see you later baby, love you too"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hello mate, I've escaped, where are you?"

"I'll be there in 5 minutes, get a pint in for me"

"Yeah, who's winning...?"
( Moey, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 9:52, 2 replies)

Yet another tale of Manchester derring-do.
There I was, another skint student, on the bus going home from the Tesco Didsbury with my shopping bagged up around me. Sitting in front of me were two general mid-to-late-teen lowlives, who were boasting loudly to each other about how many drugs they'd taken.
I leaned forward, and put on my best scally accent.
"Ey, lads", I said.
"Wot?"
"Couldn't 'elp but over'ear ya an' I wos thinkin' ya might be interested in summa these".
I help up a couple of small rectangular pieces of yellow card.
"Wot are they, like?" said one.
I looked at him. "D'ya need to me tell ya?"
He looked slightly abashed. "Nah, man. How much?"
"Fiver each."

And that's how I sold the little rip-out cardboard tabs from a box of Swan Vesta matches for a tenner without ever even claiming they were drugs.
(davywavy, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 9:44, 3 replies)

frankspencer
?
(Sco smokes crack often., Fri 11 Jul 2008, 9:32, 4 replies)

Middle Management
A collection of the biggest fakers that I'll ever work with. My immediate management who work close with our teams are ok; they do actively help us do our jobs and are actually quite competent. The people they report to however are a shower of NVQ fakers who have "Virtual Meetings" about the business.

These meetings are not really called that, but they may as well be named that as they come up with some ideas which can only be best described as "imaginative".

My current job is to fix people's internet issues etc, but I don't get rated on whether I fix the actual issue at all. Due to the delights of Middle Management, my job performance is mainly rated on saying sorry and thank you at the right time. I could fix every issue under the sun, but if I've not apologised at some point I will not get that bonus, allowing for other fuckwit fakers to fly through the recruitment system being the Apple of the Management's Eye.

We've spoken to them at length to sort this out but they hit us with the NVQ phrases, the newest of which is "Sky Blue Thinking". If anyone says that to me again I'll headbutt the fucker.

How there are jobs like this is beyond me, plus the fact that they get paid double the average worker to do a fake job is even more of a kick in the bollocks. They ought to be rounded up in a farm and culled.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 9:24, 5 replies)

I have just
had a discussion with one of our postgrad students. I've been helping her a bit with some of the chemistry behind what she's been doing, but the actual experiments she's been performing are not in my field of science, and as such I've little idea what she's going on about.

Thing is, now she's asking me for advice. So far, I've got through OK by coming out with some related things which are sort of relevant, and not in her range of knowledge, but I need now to either:

1 - swot up on it, as it's quite an interesting area, thus becoming knowledgeable and genuinely helpful, or
2 - keep faking it and hope she gives up trying to understand what I'm talking about, or
3 - admit I actually know bugger all about the subject.

I should do no. 1, and I would like to do so. But that takes effort, and I can see no. 2 becoming an appealing prospect...

But I'll get found out. I just know it. I can't bring myself to admit to no. 3 though.

Dilemmas, dilemmas.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 9:14, 5 replies)

I am leaving my job of five and a half years at the end of the month
And moving to pastures new. The parting is on good terms- my boss is extremely supportive and the like but I'm faking one key thing.

That I remotely still care about the day to day responsibilities of this job.

My post rate on various fora have increased by several hundred percent, I've been dicking around with Google Earth add ons and my gameplay at "Desktop Tower Assault" is really coming on. I go through the motions of caring- I'll generally reply to emails and if you need technical support on our stuff, it will likely be me that provides it but honestly I couldn't give a shit.

My manager (as distinct from my boss) is soiling himself over the fact that I'm not putting enough down in writing and leaving "gaps in his knowledge" (translated as he has suddenly realised all the undesirable stuff he's been palming off to me is going to bite him hard on the arse come August) but the information is all there, I just cannot be arsed to spoonfeed him it. Given the choice between writing out yet another sheet of stock support answers and reading through the QOTW archives, I'll be studying the collective works of Mr Spencer thank you very much.

Even more amusing is that my last European training trip for this organisation is still going ahead next week as my manager isn't yet confident enough to do it solo. I'm not so much of a twat that I'll do anything unsuitable whilst training but next Thursday evening I'm going to be in Berlin, on expenses with two of my best buddies. I'm going to get wrecked and not justify why numerous payments to unsuitable establishments turn up on my company card.

On a different note, has anybody "faked" their CV to supress rather than add qualifications? I've removed all trace of my IB German qualification as I've grown weary of often being the only person in an office with any understanding of it and forever being pestered with translation snippets.

Length?- here 'til July 31st baby.
(Leonard Hatred briefly did some work on, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 9:09, 4 replies)

It's been mentioned before...
When people approach me in the streets I tend to mutter in Hungarian and then stare pointedly at them shouting "Keyser Söze, Keyser Söze!"

They usually suspect me of faking it though.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 8:54, 1 reply)

Standard Operating Procedure...
As some of you long suffering B3tards are aware, my posts can go on a bit…

*Waits for unified cry of ‘Oh nooo Pooflake, we don’t mind. The excessive length is a necessary evil due to your particular IDIOM’*

*Hears cock all*

*Keeps waiting*

*Gives up*

Anyhoo, like many of you, I type my rambling crapness onto Word first before pasting it onto B3ta.

The main reason for this is that before I start I can say something to my boss like:

“Today I am going to attempt to rewrite the Standard Operating Procedure for [Insert shoddy activity here]. If we are to be a pro-active company then we must consistently review policy. In order to achieve global standardisation I will do also some web research…blah blah mc-fuck-a blah.”

I then type ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ on the top of my word document before bashing away at my keyboard as it were with my post…stopping every now and again to check B3ta.

I look as if I am working really hard all day. Also, because nobody actually reads or gives a flying pint of hippo spunk about the Standard Operating procedures, all I have to do at the end of the day is dig up a really old one and change the name of the Author before handing it in. Alternatively, I can blag: “After intensive review and only minor editing, I have concluded that the S.O.P was fine the way it was”.

My boss thinks that I am a conscientious, hard working go-getter. They’re lucky to have me aren’t they?

It’s the perfect crime...nearly

Now all I’ve got to do is stop myself from bursting out laughing when I read B3ta and I’ll have it sorted.

Any suggestions??
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 11 Jul 2008, 8:44, 7 replies)

Faking It.
.
At one company I worked at there was a huge, high-profile, project that involved employing dozens of programmers from an out-sourcing company. Well, I say programmers but I actually mean people-pulled-off-the-street-and-poured-into-suits. To my jaundiced eye these "programmers" seemed to have very little programming skills and a breath-taking lack of knowledge of IT in general. So it was up to me to educate them.

"Hey Legless" squeaked one of the masses "What does TCP/IP actually stand for?"

Bear in mind that this was a web project they were working on. A web programmer didn't know what the very bones of the Internet stood for.

"That'll be Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Pixies" I lied smoothly.

He looked suspicious.

"Internet Pixies" he asked looking puzzeled

"Yup. You see the fathers of the Internet were a bunch of hippies so would name things out of Tolkien or from Dungeons And Dragons. I mean, you've heard of Unix Daemons? - Systems processes on Unix boxes? Well the Pixies carry the messages to the Daemons. It all makes a kind of weird sense when you think about it"

I was warming to my theme now.

"Then there's a bunch of other Pixies on the internet. Your dial up modem uses PPP doesn't it?"

He nodded.

"Well that's Pixie to Pixie Protocol. Then there's your mail - POP3. That's Post Office Pixie. I could go on but that's the meat of it. Pixies run the Internet."


He was nodding now and smiling.

"You know, it does all make sense. Can't wait to tell the other guys about this. We've been wondering about it for a while." says Mr Gullible.

And off he trotted.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 7:44, 9 replies)

So may times...
The idea, when you're a journalist about to interview someone, is that you've done the research on them, their work and anything else relevant so you can ask incisive questions and write a fact-filled, interesting article.
And then there are those times when the phone rings and it's some international switchboard operator announcing your interview is now, hold the line please *click* and some nameless voice pops up saying hello and expecting questions.
What follows, I can assure you, is a long process of starting in a very general manner "Thank you for your time... I hope this isn't too inconvenient for you?" No, it's just early evening here now. (Right, that means they're not in this country) "Well thank you anyway, I know you have a pretty busy schedule" Yes, we're just on a break at the moment, we're shooting more this afternoon (Brilliant, they work on a film or TV show) "Really? Can you tell me what you were shooting today?" Well today my character finally discovered... (Ah ha! you are *that* actor on *that* show. And away you go.
Fake it? No problems. After years of this happening because publicists are generally about as useful as a chocolate teapot I'm pretty sure you could drop me in a room full of total strangers and within half an hour I'd have their life stories and every one of them would be convinced I was an old mate.
( difficultchild, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 6:31, Reply)

Roswell Rods
Remember 'Rods'? Super bugs, supposedly able to fly faster than the human eye can notice, but are now being "captured on videos".

Discovered (invented, I say) by some bloke called Jose Escamilla. His site is here:
roswellrods.com/

Years back, I submitted a highly convincing photo of one of these 'rods' taken by myself in London. The picture was on the his site for years.

Of course the image was a potatoslop job, but he didn't notice or care, and used it as supporting evidence for his ongoing quest to blag money out of the terminally stupid.

Fakes..frauds..crap..
( mikenco, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 3:09, 1 reply)

No problem
You want what done? Sure, no problem - did 5 last week. Leave it with me.

Panic (to varing degrees). Google. Sorted.

Faking it? This is why I was hired!

Da daaa - you too can be a senior IT bod.
(TheMole, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 2:36, 2 replies)

Every day
I fake being interested in my job.

And my boss fakes being interested in keeping me on the payroll.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 2:07, Reply)

I faked your mother
You ponce cum-gobbling cockfaced fat monk.
(sorry., Fri 11 Jul 2008, 2:05, 1 reply)

Okay, I know this is a massively OT shameless plug...
but my band and I have just mastered off our latest song, the title of which is exactly the same as the QOTW! In fact, I have it playing right now...

Faking It
(keyboardman, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 1:49, 4 replies)

I'm faking it right now II
... In fact thinking about it even more, i fancy my deputy boss, im sure she feels something, and i know i do but every time someone brings something up about it i act all nonchalent and pretend theres nothing rattling round in my skull...
You coupled up love birds might have forgotten it but this shows how confusing it is having frontal lobes when your single!
(SteroidPigOhurugu, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 1:32, Reply)

I think im faking it right now!!
I'm only early twenties and look that way too... but it seems because i've lived a lot, travelled, been here and there and everywhere that a lot of ppl think im older.
So anyway i work in social care and look after ppl who need looking after. Im looking after one guy; he's great (but has his little fucker moments) and whilst meeting ppl he has to meet, attending various meetings i met someone who works somewhere on the other side of the same field to me and we get on well.
So i'm playing it cool every time we meet, she's giggling, laughing etc (clearly early thirties but i love older women) but this is just it, i know the moment she finds out im a youngling she'll lose all interest... always the fucking way... shame cos i'd like to make sex with her girl bits... but it's more than that; i like her but i know for her age will be insurmountable (...plus my bank balance aint great at the mo! :-s lol)
(SteroidPigOhurugu, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 1:29, 3 replies)

I once faked...
pretending that I hadn't noticed that the QOTW had changed, so I could post the tale of ghostlyness that just happened to me.

I'm a PhD student at leeds uni, and the university discounts my rent by a couple of grand a year for being a sub-warden, essentially I hang around during the semester and help the students out with their studenty problems (it's more twunts who lock themselves out of their room than anything interesting but meh.)

Now that the students have gone I have moved myself from my little flat on site into a great big old house (also part of the site) which the students have moved out of. It’s a nice old building which usually houses 16 students, so it’s pretty spacious for me on my own.

Just A few minutes ago I started to hear a gurgling noise coming from behind me as I was sitting at my computer watching downloaded House episodes. So I turned round and I saw a dark figure standing behind me looking down at me, my brain, not working properly, assumed it was one of my friends playing a joke or something so turned round further to tell them to grab a seat. Then I realised, I was not only alone in my room, I was the only person in the building, I had locked the whole place up earlier when I finished washing up. Then I noticed that their proportions were all weird, somehow wrong.

I shouted, I can't remember what, doubt it would have been something my nan would have a proved of, and spun round in my chair to address the grim specter. As I spun round I started laughing, turns out it was made of a combination of my jacket over the back of my sofa, and my new glasses with a much thicker arm bit than my old ones. Nearly gave me a heart attack.

The gurgling was a tap left on from when I washed an apple a few minutes ago.

Apologies for length, and for lack of cuddling afterwards, I'd had a shock...
(Lord of Marzipan Fact: Clouds are worse than Hitler, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 1:14, 3 replies)

Faking it with family
Back in the late 90s I got engaged to someone - let's call her M.

We'd grown up in the same area, I went to school - miles away - with her brother and, partly because we were the only boys from our area to go to that particular school, our parents became friends. Years later, when I met M for the first time as an adult, we clicked straight away.

Our families couldn't have been happier when we got engaged, then a few months later my dad died, and everything went tits up.

The evening before the funeral, at my mum's house, everyone was stressed out and tempers got a bit frayed. M arrived with unfortunate timing just as my older sister was saying some pretty nasty shit about me behind my back. And as my fiancee, she came to my defence.

It kicked off again following the funeral, and after M's father unsuccessfully tried to mediate, I, idiot that I am, wrote my family a letter, trying to put our side of things, which ended up causing a huge rift with my family.

Within a few months I'd lost my job (a blessing, as it turns out), I was on anti-depressants, and slowly but surely my relationship with M became affected too (there were other issues at work there of course but I won't bore you with them). This led to us splitting up in 2000.

After that, surprise, surprise, my family was much warmer to me. I'd still been talking to my mum through all this, but now my siblings seemed happy to have me back in the fold.

My mum passed away last year after a very long illness and made us swear that what happened after my dad's death wouldn't be repeated once she'd gone, and it wasn't.

Now, I know there are things that I could have done differently when my dad died, and I know that looking back, the likelihood is that my relationship with M would have ended anyway.

But what I can't do is forgive my siblings for the way they wrongly vilified M as the person at fault for the rift after my dad died, the way they treated her at the time and the way that one or other of them will now and again (a decade later) still make snide remarks about her or her family and expect me to laugh along (which I never do).

Likewise I refuse to get drawn in to the bitchy comments one of my siblings may make about another one - I just try to keep myself very neutral.

What I do, to respect my mum's wishes, and to avoid WWIII breaking out in the family, is just bite my tongue and pretend that I'm cool with everything, that it doesn't matter.

But it does matter so very much to me. And I am faking my feelings so well with my family on the rare, unavoidable occasions I see them that they do not have the slightest inkling that any of this matters to me, or that I will never forgive them.

It's not anything I could ever raise with them without everything kicking of again, so I keep it bottled up and stick on my fake happy face.

As a PS, a year after splitting up with M, I met a wonderful woman who is now my wife, who (apart from my mum, who she adored), isn't much into my family either, even before she found out about all this. And she does a good job of helping keep the family at arm's length plus helping with excuses for why we can't accept this or that invitation.
(Capo, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 1:10, 1 reply)

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah almost there!
Oh I fake it all the time if it's not gonna happen in bed.

You do the foreplay, you are required to ensure they're ready for penetration.

You get the condom on, and there's a whole NFSW'ing different post there. 'Oh no, off course I don't mind wearing a condom! It's not as if I wanted to **feel** anything while shaggin you anyway.'

You get the bitty bit off plastic on, get back too full mast with some more foreplay.

Then realise that for the last 30 minutes you've been warming up for the big event and now? Now, you're bloody bored of this farce and want to go play Warcraft or something else not so time consuming or emotionally draining having to reassure your;

- Partner
- Random person occupying your bed
- Regular person occupying your bed
- Assorted persons in your bed

'Yes dear, you are good. The world is shaking for me.'

So you fake it, just get rid off the condom before they notice it's pretty empty, pretend to be "ohsoOMGSENSITIVE" afterwards and go watch some TV or something.

Sex, why do we do it again if it's so much trouble to get it, once you have got it then it's more trouble and finally when you have it you get bored?

Sometimes all you wanna do is just have a hard fuck and walk away >_<
(Helo, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 0:49, 16 replies)

Voice Of God
I crashed over at my best friend's flat after a night of heavy drinking and discussing whether or not he should do something immoral with a young lady given the chance.

He got up and went to work.

I called his ansaphone using my mobile phone very, very close to the speaker of the ansaphone.

Feedback a-go-go as I put on a Brian Blessed voice and said "hello, this is God. Now. Don't do it. You'll go to hell."

A day later I got a worried phone call.

"Mate, that WAS you... wasn't it?"

If only I could crash out at the Vatican.
(Error 404 - Username Unknown, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 0:33, Reply)

Show of Power
So, I was there, our near neighbors (who we hate, and wish to get rid of) thought they where better than us in everyday. So the other day, we decided to show our might by launching some missiles, but as we couldn't afford too many we had to photo shop in a fourth.

The bastards all took it like it was real to. I wasn't good at photoshop either.. but they published it as well as there friends..

Got away with it for a good day, until some geeks spotted it.
(RobbJ, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 0:20, 1 reply)