Duh -- Lube!
I usually use KY, although Asto-glide or even Vaseline will do the trick. Spit has never really cut it for me.
(danalan Pretty good, for an amateur., Fri 16 Jan 2009, 18:45, 3 replies)

Don’t always be yourself….
A while ago I reached a point in my life where I had the choice of being myself or to play dumb, lack imagination and fit in with the rest of the world around me. I chose to buck the trend and be myself instead of some mindless drone.

I now live in near squalor wearing rags and fighting a bunch of sentient computers who have taken over the earth. If only I had chose the blue pill instead I would have happily lived in ignorance of this life.

Thanks Morpheus!
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 16:23, 1 reply)

Robert Di Niro's waiting...

...talking Italian.

Or not, as the case may be.

When my mum spat me out of her growler I think my parents took one look at me and thought: This child will be fortunate if he learns to speak English, let alone trying to teach him Italian.

So, I'm from an Italian family but can't speak a word of Italian. Not one pissing word.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago and I meet the wonderful, amazing, and quite frankly dirty Ms Hanky. My compact Welsh girlfriend whom I love so much I am trying (so far without success) to impregnate on a nightly basis.

When we first started knocking boots together, and in the heat of passion, she whispers in my ear:

'Say something in Italian, that would REALLY turn me on.'

OH FUCK ME RIDGID! Thinks I. I felt like getting on the phone to my dear old mum and dad and complaining that their inability to teach me Italian as a small child would probably affect my chances of having sex up the wrong un for the rest of my life.

Instead I made something up. I actually recreated Italian and whispered sweet nothings (quite literally) into my girlfriends ear. It was pretty easy to do, to be honest. Just pile straight ahead with it with a bit of confidence, say something as sexily as you can and put a load of 'a's and 'o's on the end. Hey presto - Italian!

And, sweet Jesus, did it work! All I had to do is start speaking this utter bollocks to Ms Hanky and she would want a ride on the pink pogo stick.

Then last year the inevitable happened.

Ms Hanky suggested we go on holiday to Italy, what with me speaking the language like a native it made perfect sense.

OH FUCKINHELL!!!

Fitting in???

You don't know the half of it. Try walking round Rome going into shops talking complete and utter gibberish to the perplexed looking locals in an attempt to get some service.

Ms Hanky thought I was fitting in perfectly.

I think the Italian authorities were probably on the verge of locking me away for being a fucking mentalist.
( SpankyHanky, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 16:19, 13 replies)

I say woo and yay to every picture on /board.
I'm casually racist and offensive on /talk and I lie on /qotw.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 16:05, 4 replies)

my workmates are cruel...
the other pilots said they wouldn't let me in their gang if i didn't crash a plane (AS A JOKE) into the hudson river...

now I'm the coolest guy at the airport!
(ganglegoose is cruisin' mos espa, in my delorean, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 15:42, Reply)

Naughty
I'm always having sex with carrots, just because the cool kids are doing it... *sigh*

Wait, what?
(angd, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 14:46, Reply)

onofftopicwhocares
This will most likely give people the idea that I have milk-bottle-bottom glasses, bad personal hygiene and a habit of catalouging my body fluids, but I shall have a quick rant at the kids I went to school with anyway:

No, I still don't like football and think it's a waste of time - fuck you, you flock following morons
No, I still don't listen to music or know one end of a genre from the other - fuck you, you NME humping twunts
No, I don't smoke or take drugs - fuck you, you hemp addicted numpties.
No, I still don't drive a flash car and neither do my parents - fuck you, you credit crunched arsewipe(s).

Obviously this only applies to the cliques that I wasn't in at school. Because I was in a clique! Honest! I had loads of friends.
Erm... That was supposed to be cathartic but I think I'll go and cry.
(tweebianmonkey Should be known as Widget, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 14:31, 8 replies)

Footballs coming home, its coming home, its coming...
Think back to 1996, as the Major government was nibbled to threads by mad cows to a soundtrack of blur and oasis. The country had gone football mad and for a brief crazy moment it appeared that England might actually win euro ’96. Now picture if you will against this backdrop, a tale of having it all and losing it all to your own hubris.

At school I was a nerdy geek who hated sport, but like every other boy and his dog I got caught up in the craze of premiership football stickers. Knowing just shy of fuck all about the sport actually is an advantage to this. As you are unprejudiced by fandom/hero worship, you can put your geek skills of OCD collecting towards building up a collection.

I took to it like a duck to water; cool kids who normally wouldn’t give me the time of day were willing to spend whole lunchtimes discussing swaps. I spent all my pocket money on those stickers. Soon I was able to trade with such skill that soon I was brokering deals and acting as an intermediary for other people’s deals with the efficiency of a banker.

What kept me collecting was the business side of swapping the cards. The bigger boys were just in it to fill their sticker albums. One Friday I was asked “where’s your album willenium? You must have filled it by now”. I had nearly every sticker and was keeping them in an old pencil tin. The album cost more than my weekly pocket money at the time, and my parents refused to lend me any (thanks for the lesson in avoiding debt dad, how were you to know that university tuition fees would be introduced 12 months later).

The following Monday I returned to face the popular kids carrying with me a ring binder.
“you know how you were asking after my sticker collection? Well I made my own album”

Over the course of the weekend I had stuck my collection to A4 paper. Not knowing anything about football teams I had organised them alphabetically. Like a file-o-fax
After four seconds of slack jawed amazement “ BWHAHAHAHA you sad tosser”
“don’t know anything about football you gayer*”
“why cant you afford the album you pikey?”

All my street cred was lost in an instant and I was shunned once more, to stand alone and reflect on loosing it all. I vowed never to get into a fad again for the sake of my individuality. But then they started putting prizes in crisps...

*not running around with other men in pursuit of a ball raises the possibility of homosexuality, not caring about when overpaid people do this confirms it –article vii of the playground code
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 13:49, 2 replies)

Im fat....
I've never fitted. Anything. But we used to go to the park and drink 20:20 or white lightening when we were 14 or so. We were usually freezing cold (and too trendy to think about wearing a coat or scarf or anything warm actually) and the drink tasted vile, I expect everyone felt the same and wanted to be at home watching Eastenders in our semi warm-non double glazed-non centrally heated council houses. But we were all too worried about missing something that the others would be talking about the next day or getting 'dissed' for being grounded and missing a 'sesh'!
Even so, I reckon I'd still turn the clock back 18 years and do it all again as whatever we got up to, we still look back on it with fondness now. Mad, eh?
( randomwomanwholikespink, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 13:47, Reply)

OS Wars
Decrying someone because they run Windows, or Linux, or use a Mac instead of a PC, or whatever they choose to see fit - you're a dick.

Even worse? Lifestyle OS users. You're _all_ dicks. Insisting with almost religous zeal on ONLY one OS for every task under the sun? Regardless of how onerous it makes that task in the long-term? You're a fucking idiot. Use the right tool for the job instead of trying to fit in with what you think is edgy or cool (or conversely, the accepted norm).
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 13:31, 4 replies)

I pretended to be northern
I was trying to meet Jarvis Cocker outside one of his gigs (seemed like a good idea at the time, I was drunk and carrying around a small clay model of my own head) - and since I was in Argentina the Brits tended to group together. Everyone else there was from Scarborough, Rotherham or Sheffield, so I said I was from Doncaster, which is true - I was born in Doncaster (we lived in the street where Open All Hours filmed exteriors, or so my parents tell me) but we moved to the Midlands when I was one year old, so I don't have a northern accent.

Didn't stop me trying, though. Makes me cringe just thinking about it, but I will note that it worked...I got to meet Jarvis and an invite back to his hotel for the afterparty :)
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 13:29, 1 reply)

Club nights
A friend trying to get his slightly chubby friend to go to the indie night with him. Said night will be full of pretentious skinny people.

"Come on"
"I don't want to"
"you'll enjoy it"
"I won't fit in"
"don't be silly, there's *loads* of room"
(teebie jeebie, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 12:54, 2 replies)

Fighting a losing battle
I've always been an outcast of sorts, all the way from my early school years right through to sixth form. I still had good friends, but I was never a part of the 'cool' section of people. I was always mixing with the apparent 'freaks' and 'misfits', not the geeks though. ;)

As a result, some miniscule part of me wanted to be seen as 'cool' as well; which resulted in me doing some insanely stupid things to gain their adjulation. I shall list two such incidents

--- If you have ever ventured into a joke shop, you will have encountered the dangerously hot sauce, which advises "Put a single drop into your friends food, and laugh!" or something like that. One of the 'cool' kids brought a bottle of the stuff into school, and various kids were putting a miniscule amount on their finger, licking it, and then go mad about how they can't feel their tongue.

With it being a very boring Biology lesson, and the last lesson of the day, I piped up and said "You wusses. I'll do more than put a crappy little bit on my finger." So I proceeded to grab the bottle, which was about the same size as a food colouring bottle, and downed the lot. I didn't let it touch my tongue to try and avoid immense pain, but it made my throat hurt more than anything. However, after a minute or two, the feeling passed and I got a cheer. Praise!

Towards the end of the lesson, I noticed an eerie rumbling in my lower regions, and the sudden urge to puke over my classmates. I tried to shrug it off, and waited until the end of the lesson to go home. By the time I left, I was doubled over in pain. A walk home that usually took me 10 minutes took me a whole hour, as I could only walk a few steps before having to stop and compose myself.

I was violently ill into the next day, and to this day, the smell of the stuff will make me feel very sick.

--- It was my birthday, and instead of staying indoors, I decided I should just invite a few people out, and generally do whatever we feel like. I invited a couple of my best friends, and I also invited a couple of cool kids who were more acquaintences to me really. We went to the arcade, played bowling, acted like idiots in the mini golf. Usual hijinks.

While wandering around the grounds (It was a business park really, just with lots of shops/arcade/etc in one area), we came across a shopping trolley at the top of an incline. I'm generally inhibited, so I was praying they wouldn't suggest "Hey, lets ride down the slope!". Of course, that was the first thing they said. A few kids went down the slope, and generally liked it. I didn't want to get in, but I was willing to give them a push.

So one of the people I didn't know as well got in, and I volunteered to 'give him a little push' to get him going. I was a big lad, so I had a lot of weight to get behind me. I proceeded to push the trolley with all my might, and the trolley (with kid) set on its way. The slope had a wooden fence either side, so you couldn't veer that much without crashing. Guess what happened then.

Due to the force of my push, it made the trolley go off course, and mid-way down the slope, all you could hear was the crash of metal and the screams of youth. Yes, he went flying over the fence and smacked into the wall. A few of us still laughed our heads off though.
(Dazzorifik is bored of b3ta, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 12:42, 2 replies)

Fitting In
Once upon a time... No.

No. They always start like that. Stories always start ‘once upon a time’ – in a desperate attempt to make the setting more magical than it actually was. The Brothers Grimm, for example, would have you believe that Little Red Riding Hood lived in a forest inhabited by murderous, talking wolves with a penchant for dressing up as old ladies. Or they would also have us believe that three little pigs (with hairy chinny-chin-chins and no opposable thumbs) were able to build houses of twigs, straw and stones – all the while being terrorised by (very probably cross-dressing) murderous, talking wolves. A recurring theme? Possibly, but definitely not based in fact.

Anyway, I digress. Not-so-very-long-ago, in the heaving streets of London, I met a girl. Her name was Fiona, she was twenty-one, and from the moment we met, we became firm friends. There was never any attraction between us, just a bond of the same sense of humour, the same views on life.

We sat together one cold night, chatting over a glass of wine and relaxing in the deep leather sofas of an East London pub. It was then she told me the most fantastical story that I had ever heard.

Five years previously, and Fiona was sixteen. By all accounts, she was tall and gangly – awkward in her own skin and desperately shy. She tried to fit in with her peers by reading the ‘right’ magazines or wearing the ‘right’ clothes. Sadly for her, though, the clothes hung off her frame like rags, and the magazines never felt comfortable in her hands. She tried smoking, but it only made her cough, and drinking just made her feel woozy. Often she would go to bed at night, the cruel laughter of her peers still ringing in her ears, praying that in the morning she would wake up in a different body.

And then, after months of teenage angst, a chance to do some good. The school she attended was organising a trip to the Middle East, to distribute aid and provide some kind of cultural exchange. She quickly signed up and, within a few short months, found herself in the dry heat of the Middle East. She was in a market town, her senses being assaulted by the sights, sounds and smells of this unfamiliar world. She became thirsty and approached a market seller for some fruit, knowing drinking the water would be idiotic.

The wizened man at the stall smiled at her. She was very obviously a Western girl in an unfamiliar environment. “Hallo, my dear,” he drawled, beckoning her further under the awning of his stall. “What can I do for you?”

“I would like to buy some fruit,” she said “how much for a piece of melon?”

“Pah!” The old man waved a dismissive hand. “Why have melon, when you can have... eternity?”

Fiona was puzzled, and found herself being bustled by the people on the busy street. She began to feel light-headed, and found herself being unable to respond when the man drew her further in to his lair.

“Respect. Riches. Immortality. Love. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I can give you all of these things, and I can do it.... For free.”

Fiona blinked. Nothing was free in this world, she knew that much.

“For free?”

“Suuurre!” The man suddenly became light and airy. “All you have to do is look in here.”

He removed the lid from a deep basket. Fiona leaned over, fearing what she may see.

“Noo...” said the old man “You must look... deeper.”

Taking a deep breath, Fiona looked right in to the basket. She felt hands on her back, hands that pushed her in to the basket in front of her. She landed in a heap, turning to see the face of the man who said “I cast you in to the service of the almighty supernatural. You shall never leave this basket without the love of your one true heart.”

There followed six months of torture. Fiona was called upon to emerge from the basket at the whim of the old man, her task to spend a week chained to one of his customers, granting them any wish he so desired. Until, as she began to tire, a new customer came to the stall. Fiona was pulled from the basket, and as she adjusted her veil she looked to the new man. He was tall, and handsome, and as she looked over him she knew immediately that she was in Love. Real Love.

The next week passed in a whirlwind. She granted his wishes, and, on their last day together, she asked him what his final wish would be.

“I wish that you could come with me.” He said, and at that moment her chains came free. Returning to her captor, he screamed a vile curse, but before he could finish he found himself shoved in to the basket by Fiona’s true love, and run through by an ancient sword. They ran together, through the market, and away in to the Arabian Night.

~~~

“Wow!” I said. “That’s an incredible story! What happened to your true love?”

“Oh, him? He was an idiot. Dumped him when we got to Heathrow.”

~~~

And that, dear friends, is the story of Fi, Teen Djinn.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 12:40, 5 replies)

I use
microsoft office.... instead of appleworks
(jordanchaos isn’t just any PeaRoast, this is a M&S PeaRoast, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 12:37, Reply)

i don't try to 'fit in'
i just lack imagination.
(Pat_Gash, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 12:35, Reply)

Yes,
you are all individuals, with your non-conformist clothes that everyone wears, and your love of bands that no one has ever heard of except all your mates, but hey, you heard of them first, and your eyeliner, yeah, that sticks it to a System which picks on people daring to be different, and no one gets your humour except 100,000 other people on the Internet, and you're, like, totally against war and commercialism and mundanity because you care, unlike everyone else, and you wear Converse because you don't need to try and fit in.

Yeah, you're truly unique.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 12:20, 24 replies)

Try to fit in.......and fail
Yesterday I had the pleasure of a day off of work to look after my kids due to the wife going to Manchester to see Britains got diabetes (or something similarly named). Part of the Thursday morning routine is to take the youngest to a parent and toddler group which is basically a place where the stay at home parent spend the morning sitting in a circle drinking tea whilst their kids (who are too young to be put in any nursery etc) run around screaming and hitting each other.

The place itself is pretty cliquey and I quickly realised that the best thing to do would be to play with the kids instead (That is the better option for me anyway as I have the mental ago of a five year old most of the time anyway). Any other time I would have happily turned around, grabbed my kid and escaped through the door, but I realised that my son loved the place so decided to stay for a while.

After a half hour of playing with the toy garage and jigsaws a number of other kids wanted to play with me too and therefore a couple of mothers started to warm towards me. Just as I was thinking that the place wasn’t so bad one of the more boisterous sods decided to ruin it for me.

Louis is a kid at the group despite being old enough for school. He had been a pain in the neck since I came through the door and had been trying to start a fight with me as he said that if I retaliated in any way ( such as pick him up by the neck and throw him into the nearest wall- a thought that did run through my mind shortly after meeting him) I would be the one in trouble and not him.

I was on my way across the room to the sticklebricks (Still love them now) when he yelled my name. I turned around to see Louis charging at me, weaving his way around groups of kids and a look of pure evil in his eye. I realised that this little sod was planning on running into me (and more specifically my groin) at full speed. Thankfully I have three kids and am well versed in a decent avoidance tactic for such a move. The trick is to leave it until the last minute and then dodge out of the way as if you move too early the approaching kid will stop, realign itself and try again. I therefore waited until the last minute and leapfrogged the little sod, Louis went arse over tit and collided with a plastic container I didn’t see and burst into tears.

At this moment I realised that a bunch of mothers had decided to look up after the whole leapfrog and seen a little boy face down in the carpet bawling his eyes out and me smirking at him. I actually felt the temperature drop just from looking at the faces that the women were giving me.

I left the group before the closing song time and told my wife on her return that I won’t be able to take another Thursday off due to “work issues”.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 12:03, 10 replies)

School
At school I tried everything to fit in with the cool kids.

I grew my hair long

I got my ear pierced

I drew cocks on the blackboard

I bunked off lessons and went smoking behind the bike sheds

I made up nicknames for the teachers

I abused the staff in the canteen

I graffitied band names and football abuse on the desks

I snuck into the girls changing rooms while they were doing PE and stole their clothes

I bullied the kid with crutches

I, basically, did everything I could to be accepted.

It came to a head one day when I got called to see the headmaster.

He said

'This is no way for a teacher to behave'








I'll be leaving now, shall I?
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 12:00, 3 replies)

Smoking.
Well, that fucking backfired, didn't it?

I'll just be off outside into the cold, then.
( Captain Wow currently being a cunt in Infamous, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 11:54, 6 replies)

I've always felt different....
waaah waaah waaah. Moan, moan, whinge.


I REALLY HAVE always felt different, unique, seperate and individual.




But that's probably because I've got a willy AND a front bum.
(TheColonel, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 11:49, 2 replies)

Think you have problems fitting in?
Try being an Amish IT expert like me! Bit of a non sequitur really.

Well, let me tell you, my career didn’t last long. I could only support one model of computer and that was Babbage’s Difference engine. Damnit! They don’t make them like they used to.

So now my brother Klaus and I are now going to train as Amish radiographers and study Amish superstring theory part time at Brown. You can probably guess what Amish superstring theory is, yes?
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 11:42, 4 replies)

I've got no problem fitting
although I do have epilepsy...
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 11:39, Reply)

Fitting in
I don't really buy this whole 'I was miserable cause I tried to fit in and now I'm just myself and I'm really happy' idea.

I don't know about you, but I was told ad nauseam from a very young age how important it is just to be yourself. People will like you if you're yourself. they said. So, not really having a clue what myself was, I set about being it the hardest I damn well could.

My point is, Surely I'm only being myself, whoever that is, cause people told me to? Cause I wanted people to like me? If they'd left be to my own devices, who would I have been? Being yourself cause people tell you to be yourself is just as bad as pretending to like indie just to fit in, in my considered opinion. If you have to be given permission to act in a certain way, it's not really yourself, is it?

I would elaborate, at length, but I've got about three hours till my stats exam and I'd like to fail with as much dignity as possible, so that's it for now.
(WarneMarsh My priority for frivolity begets quality jollity, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 11:14, 2 replies)

Mockney twat
I panic when I have to talk to anyone that doesn't work in an office, but particularly with tradespeople.

So for some reason I'll always change my normal accent (something between Boris Johnson and Oscar Wilde) for an Essex/cockney effort -
"Blaady freezin' innit? - to demonstrate that I am just like them, and could probably fit the kitchen/clean the chimney/attach a shelf myself if I wasn't so damned busy duckin and divin makin a few quid here and there.

This came undone the other day when someone came round to fix the boiler and I accidentally got the wrong voice and spoke in Australian.

"Hi, I've come to look at the boiler".
"Noice one! Cam on in, mate! Can I getcha a cap of tea?"

Even in my own ears it sounded bad, but I had to keep it up all the time he was there as it was too late to change back to my normal voice.

"Oi dunno mate, it just sorrta stopped wurkin'!"

I was almost crying with relief by the time he left. He probably was too.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 11:12, 22 replies)

uni-que
Everyone seemed so individual when I arrived at university. They had hairstyles and wore 'statement' clothes that proclaimed their interest in a particular band or social scene. I had to do something to show my own personality.

So in the second week I turned up to lectures dressed as a Victorian slaughterhouse worker, complete with long leathern apron and a belt full of antique knives. I certainly got lots of attention, and soon there was a set of groupies who'd gather round and say things like "Frank! Tell us how it was in the killing sheds of olde London town. Did the spraying blood billow steamily in the cold air, and did the animals sag to their knees with a sigh as the last dropps trickled weakly from their corpses?"

I was getting so much sex that I had to pack my cock in ice each morning, and they just kept coming back for more. "Frank! Tell me how you poleaxe a calf," they'd moan as I took them from behind. "Frank! Tell me how it was living in unspeakable poverty!" they'd yelp as I hosed them.

Not really. I was arrested and then sectioned.
(frankspencer, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 11:08, 3 replies)

Karma Karma Karma
.
Probably, like most of you, I'm a chameleon. I can change my appearance, demeanor and even my outward character to fit in with my surroundings. Take today. Early this morning I gave a presentation to about 20 surgeons and wannabe surgeons about a new database system I've written (along with another B3tard). 5 minutes after I'd finished I was having a fag and cracking jokes with one of the PAs.

I can fit in almost anywhere. From the board-rooms of the great and the good right down to the sleaziest back-street pub where anyone with more than one ear is a sissy.

I read a long time ago that the Japanese believe that everyone has three faces.

The first, the one they show to the outside world.

The second, the one they show to their family and loved ones.

And the third, their secret face, their true face, the one they don't show to anyone....

Japs have a lot of sense.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 16 Jan 2009, 11:07, 16 replies)