If we workers take a notion
we can stop all speeding trains
every ship upon the ocean
we can tie with mighty chains
every wheel in the creation
every mine and every mill
fleets and armies of all nations
will at our command stand still.

(by Joe Hill)
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 7:04, 3 replies)

Children .. the gullible fools
When i was a young chap my mother thought it would be a good idea to put me and my brother in charge of the party games at my little sisters birthday party.

We then proceeded to con them into following a series of arrow post it notes around the garden through the house , out of the bathroom window back to the garden , into the shed and then starting all over again claiming they'd missed something on the way.

Meanwhilst we scoffed a shedload of party food and watched telly whilst the gullible fools completed at least 8 full circuits.
(shake'n'bake Tally Ho, Biatch!, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 4:00, 2 replies)

I work as Assistant Manager in a Nightclub....
... which means during the shifts I am left on my own (ie. all of them) I have absolute power over everyone mwuaahahahahahaa!!!! Barstaff, Glass Collectors, Doormen, PR Staff, DJ's - I outrank them all!

I do absolutely love the power (puntastic!) but I still like to stick to one simple rule.... never ask someone to do something you wouldnt be prepared to do yourself.

You dont realise the respect and loyalty that rule commands until you see your Manager mopping up bodily fluids, or standing toe to toe with some brute because the doormen are slow getting upstairs, or jumping on the bar when its 3-deep on a Saturday night just to help out when he could easily be sitting in the office pretending to watch the camera's whilst on B3ta.com.....



(aherm)






......well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad!
( Mister B is eating an icanhazcheezburger with lmaonaise, Sun 11 Jul 2010, 1:02, Reply)

I own my friend's soul
As part of the contract I don't have any sort of dominion over him in the earthly plane of existence, come the afterlife I have a slave for all eternity.

Sure there probably isn't an afterlife like that, but even if there is an infinitesimal chance of having a slave for infinity, you have to take it. That's basic science.
(ste_mc_efc, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 22:49, 7 replies)

Mwahahahahaaaa
I was in charge of a birthday party for 8-year-olds today. The power! The attention! The kids being mildly insolent while discovering treasure hunt items out of order!

OK, so it's not absolute power, but it's as close as I get.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 22:24, Reply)

Significant Names
Pretty much every presentation I have ever done has featured the real names of purplegod junior and Pink Goddess. No-one's noticed.
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 22:12, 1 reply)

Taunt the PFY
I used to be a computer consultant. This meant that I had no power, a £10 sign off authority, and a borrowed laptop. But sometimes, I'd end up being followed about by the IT Department's PFY (pimply-faced youth for those not in the know).

One day on-site, me and the PFY were working on an Exchange Server machine. Time came to reboot it. Now, this would crash everyone's Outlook, so I told him to send out a global email, to tell everyone to sign out of email by shutting down Outlook. Off he went, proud to be trusted with an important mission. When he got back, we did whatever we needed to do, then brought the machine back up. Once we were happy, I told him to go back and email all the users that the server was up again. Once more, he went off, strutting proudly at the importance of his mission. He got back to his workstation and started typing. Then, a colleague of his asked what he was up to, and he told them he was emailing to say that the email server was back. They, not unnaturally, fell about laughing and suggested that he page people through the telephone system.

Back he came to me, miffed that I'd sent him on a fool's errand. I told him to think on next time, and to consider this a learning experience. He grudgingly accepted my advice.

They don't let me have any power.
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 22:07, 3 replies)

The power over life and death!
I have arachnophobia and I have it bad. I don't really mind other wee beasties, but spiders not only can not fly away but have webs! You can jump and throw them off you, but by god if they've webbed you they'll come right back! They'll swing about attached to your arm and you never know if they're truly gone. I dislike them so much I even have what I call "spider attacks". This is where I half wake up at night and see them crawling over my room or my pillow. Sometimes they look like giant prawns. This causes much amusement to my sister who often sees me jumping across the room, swearing and running in circles.

The other month, what with it being summer and the horrid things coming indoors to keep cool, I spotted IT. IT being a HUGE ENORMOUS MASSIVELY GIANT spider on the wall. There was no way I was leaving that thing in the house. Who knows where it would end up? With the possibility of that being on or anywhere near me I had to act.

The problem is I'm one of those people that some would call "too nice" and others "a big pussy". I can't kill things. It's too mean. It didn't do anything to deserve to die, except for being very big and incredibly scary but I guess to spiders I'm very big and incredibly scary too. I'm not smooshed so why should it be? Damn damn damn.

So a plastic air freshener lid is fetched, along with a piece of card. The regular "spider catching kit". My sister placed the lid over the top of it (at this point I was hopping in circles and squealing near by) and together we take our time getting the card between the lid and the wall.

A problem arises. When we try to move the lid with the card, the card bends and leaves an escapable gap. However, together we are an intelligent pair and I run off to fetch our saviour- the spatula! Sneaking it behind the card I flip the lid and card over and we're off! She's got the door, I've got the beast! The night is fresh and oh my god what if it lands on me when I put it outside?!

As she throws the door wide open in the night any passers by would have been privy to the sight of two squealing girls in their nighties, one holding the door like an over-enthusiastic actor and the other throwing lid, card, spider and spatula out into the night, loudly declaring, "FUCK!"

Scary as that bloody thing was I held the power to its very life, but the beast was gone and once again the Vix0r and her sister had saved the day!
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 19:02, 5 replies)

This year was my first time teaching Year 1
For those who are not familiar with primary school year 1 are 5 year olds. This was their first year of formal school.

I had a lower ability group which meant that all the children in my class were unable to read and write last September.

We are a week off the end of the school year, they can now all read and write. Yes some are better than others but all can read and write to some degree.

I have given the gift of literacy to 25 people.

That is absolute power.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sat 10 Jul 2010, 17:16, 16 replies)

No one has any power, unless they run an Indian takeaway.
It is inevitable that, some time in the next few decades, there will be developed a form of naan bread so powerful that it will utterly change every aspect of our lives. So if you have power, treasure it, for it will be swept away after the Singhularity.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 13:43, 5 replies)

I wield the highest power on this planet.
One that is often imitated, but never truly bettered. This power raises cities, fells mountains, tames wild beasts, makes fire and steel and stone and light obey to shape the world how I wish it to be. In its spare time, I put this power to work to make my world beautiful as well as comfortable, filling it with art and philosophy and literature and cinema and florid prose on internet forums.

It's my brain. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Without my brain, I am nothing. Without me, my brain is nothing.

Every creature visible to the naked eye on this planet has a brain, but the human version stands apart from all the rest in the sheer overwhelming force with which it makes the world do what it wants.

Okay, this cuts both ways; I'd hardly argue that all human effect on the Earth is beneficial, but the point is it happens. On top of that, there's a lot of failure to actually engage the higher functions, but again, there's also a lot of the other.

I'm proud to own a brain like the one I do. I have a reasonably high IQ, better self confidence than some but more humility than I sound like I do right now. I don't have any major psychological or neurological issues - wait, actually, I'm epileptic, but some other nice brains working away in the heads of doctors have come up with drugs that mean I don't suffer for it, which is why it slipped my mind there. I'm an atheist (because I think about it), I hate advertising (because I think about it), and I love words and wordplay, but not maths and numbers. I'm also an irredeemable gamer, computer and otherwise, but not a big fan of sports.
I like being me.

Obviously, as I said already, our brains cut both ways. I, like all other humans, have appalling short term memory, compared to what it could be. My brain uses up more of the body's resources than it needs to, because of overdesign. My pattern recognition wiring ruins other aspects of my eyesight; my risk analysis is badly flawed in favour of short term gains over long term. I'm innately selfish the same way everyone is, because that was evolutionarily favourable. Arguably, I'm genetically hardwired against monogamy, but culturally programmed towards.

I'm subject to epilepsy; others have schizophrenia, neuroses, nerve damage, brain damage, anger management issues, psychosis, paralysis, an irrepressible desire to take the piss out of people - the list of potential defects is as long as your central nervous system; precisely because it needs to be so complicated in order to do what it does, there's so much more that can go wrong (hello engineers!).

What cuts both ways the hardest in my opinion is also the thing that most distinguishes us from anything else that can scrape together more than three nerve cells. I would argue that the greatest definition of consciousness is 'awareness of awareness'. Certain people I have "discussed" this with, _{hello StapMyVitals}, disagree and claim that everything which reacts to its environment is sentient. Balls.

We are uniquely conscious of what is in our own heads.
We perceive things not just as they are, but as they might or will be.
We have a unique view of time.
We therefore have a sense of our own mortality.

We know we are going to die.

This has caused more problems on the planet than any other aspect of human existence. There can be no greater fear, once one has realised the power available at ones fingertips (or nerve tips rather) than having to acknowledge that it will all, someday, be taken away.
Or can there? I think there is, because death doesn't terrify me.

Senility, on the other hand, does. I can't imagine anthing worse than watching myself as I know me cease to exist, until I'm no longer conscious of doing so. Except maybe watching someone I know doing the same. My father's mother died ten years ago, but went to her grave last year. It's far more harrowing than merely losing someone, because you've lost them but they're still there, helpless as a child, scared of the world, but looking like somebody you loved and relied on, somebody who now simply is not there. I fear my mum or dad could go the same way, and it breaks my heart to even contemplate.

So there we go. Absolute power, as close as we can come, and the limits thereof. Apologies for lack of humour, but I'm in a deep and serious mood today. It's longer than I intended too, but my brain got carried away.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 13:15, 25 replies)

I'm sorry, but none of you can compare to the classic;
Are you ready to get pumped?
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 12:10, 2 replies)

Fuck You Corporate Fascists.
It's not so much authority but more like I had the power to fuck up the company and lose them a big contract with a well known company. At my old job I was the only one who could do a job for the exec (boring reports, flowcharts and such) because the dude who usually did such things was on his honeymoon. This was not at all part of my job, I was on £13.5k compared to £30-odd that the other guy did.

I took all I could get. I demanded a pay increase, an extra day off and a parking spot otherwise I refused to do it since it would fall outside my job description. Got them! Then shut down the exchange server when I left last week. Muahaha.

I hated my job with a passion - contemplated arson, suicide and going on a murderous rampage.
(52486 office lolled on, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 11:17, 6 replies)

Things I have absolute power over.
1) Buying a wind-up radio and not winding it up.
2) Going out in the garden and pretending to mow my lawn but not actually plugging it in & making lawn-mower sound effects with my mouth so the next door neighbours think its turned on. After 4 hours of "mowing" and the grass still as long as it was at the start. Why would I do this? I haven't.
3) Painting a windowsill red, then putting my cat's food dish up there. Ooohh, unlucky red paws.
4) Laughing at people with AIDS. (I have chosen not to do this.)
5) Making a Powerpoint presentation about the levels of discomfort I would feel throughout the day if I had a massive shit at 7am and decided not to wipe my arse at all.
6) Fucking a Penguin biscuit. Impossible.
7) Not reading 'Dubliners' by James Joyce but telling people I have and it's shit, then telling them it's actually brilliant, then telling them I haven't read it at all.
8) Legally changing my name to Virginity Ballbag.
9) Going to visit my Nana in her residential care home and convincing her that the staff ARE stealing from her. Fun.
10) Farting.
11) Not farting.
12) Discussing nominations with other housemates. Naughty.
13) Bluetoothing photos of all the shelves in my house to complete strangers.
14) Making sex noises at a vicar.
15) In new company talking in a slightly more pronounced northern accent than my actual northern accent, then suddenly dropping it and talking in my actual accent. Omid Djalili is so funny. And fat.
17) Missing out number 16.
16) Putting in number 16 after all but after number 17.
4) Numberwang.
(Andrew Avetoom, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 10:52, 3 replies)

I am terrified
that one day I may have to discipline/tell off the only member of staff I have. Luckily he starts each conversation we have with 'Yo boss, it's yo bitch' otherwise I'd be in trouble.
( bland is bland, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 8:46, 1 reply)

Left in charge at the store.
Sometimes if a manager needs to take a lunch or a break and there's nobody to cover it, they leave me in charge of running the front end. For the most part, I'm not too evil, but I do play the odd joke on some of the other kids I work with. My current favourite is sending new employees to find a left-handed turkey baster for a customer.
( Ithyphallophobia, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 6:49, 4 replies)

November 25 of last year
...I had my second bone marrow transplant due to a tenacious strain of lymphoma. Being that my immune system was non-existent at the time I also contracted H1N1, sinusitis, a blood infection, pneumonia and a fungal infection in the catheter that ran from outside of my chest into my heart. Apart from the obligatory host-vs-graft disease, which, in essence , could kill me outright, I was in what you would call an awful state.
I couldn't breath on my own, the inside of my mouth, trachea and esophagus were filled with festering blisters, I hadn't eaten anything in over a week and was on a constant morphine drip for over a month due to the pain.
I remember sitting in bed one night ( as I wasn't able to lay down as I would suffocate - kinda like the elephant man), hadn't slept in days and the clock was telling me it was 3:00. A.M or P.M, i had no idea, but i remember feeling so weary and thinking to myself that perhaps the jig was up and I should lie down for the most blissful sleep and never wake up from it. To sleep, to dream, to be at peace.
I obviously never chose that route; I couldn't do that to my family, i knew in my heart this was not my "time", but by god (euphemism) I, at that moment, had never wanted anything as much in my life than to lay down and go to sleep, most likely forever.
Glad I didn't. My brother had a beautiful baby girl last Sunday, my sister is expecting in November, and although my balls are officially fried it certainly doesn't hurt to try!
My absolute power was the life or death of myself. I sometimes wish ( albeit wistfully) that many others in positions of "power" could have the same experience. Perhaps the world would be a very different place. Then again, perhaps not.
Apologies for lack of funnies, but I felt compelled.


Length = longer every day!

Edit - I did have the foresight to freeze my man gravy, so if you happen to see a handsome man waving a turkey baster around don't be frightened - it's what they told me to do.
(goorf, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 4:34, 5 replies)

I had absolute power
But it was just for a short spell.

Some stupid street rat trapped me in a magic lamp.

Phenomenal cosmic powers, itty bitty living space.

- Jafar.
( glasnt is playing herself off., Sat 10 Jul 2010, 4:13, Reply)

The one time I had power
was about 6 years ago.

~Wavy lines to a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away~

Back then, me and a few mates, five of us in total, having given up all pretenses of trying to acquire girls (granted, one of them had been bummed the year before and was still in the closet), at the tender age of 16, we thought "fuck it, lets be ultimate geeks", and each got a copy of Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (a PC game) and threw ourselves with some abandon into it.

If you know about the online bit of JKA, and understand when I say we formed a clan and got our own server, skip ahead to the bold bit. Otherwise, read on if you don't know.

Now, for those of you who are A) still around and B) don't know what the fuck I'm on about, Jedi Academy was an alright game. I didn't bother much with the singleplayer, choosing instead to play the multiplayer a lot. This usually involved scores of Luke Skywalkers kicking the shit out of each other and capturing the enemy flags and suchlike. There were many, many mods for the game, user-made content, and some of it was interesting (original characters and original maps and suchlike), and some of it was downright hilarious (I'm fairly certain that at one point I saw Cloud Strife of FF7 fame dive into the middle of the arena, only to get simultaneously flamethrowered and receive a lightsaber to the head and goolies at pretty much the same time), whilst the vast majority of user-made stuff was shit, to be honest.

After a year or so of bumming around on various servers, one of our crusty greebos thought "We'll get a server!" - thus allowing us to both waste money, AND essentially have an online treehouse-type area, where we could restrict our guests. Because we'd been playing for so long, we started our own clan (group) and started allying with other clans, and generally being muppets. We were 17, and in my case, were drinking and getting high almost every night so I was pretty fucked up.

Here's where the Absolute Power of sorts kicks in. Because we had complete control over our server, we ended up being a bit power-mad, to say the least. We had all adopted different styles of lightsaber fighting, and as we were the leaders of the clan, we were forced to teach newbies all the tricks and how to fight well with each weapon (or, as nobody used guns and every man and his monkey wielded various lightsabers, how to fight well with them). Every time one of the new recruits fucked up, the teacher went mental. We used to use a three strike system, first strike being a warning, second strike being publicly humiliated before a quick session offline, and the third strike being banned for however long we decided. And because we were drunk on power, we usually kept throwing out warnings for the most minor of infractions.

The strange thing was, we did actually have power of a kind. Despite the fact that any sensible person would have thrown their hands up in disgust and either switched servers or the game off and gone for a kick-about, people would still clamour to come back to our server. Fuck knows how we did it, but despite being batshit insane and mental with the banhammer, we prospered.

At least, we prospered online. Offline however, the original five were slowly disintegrating. It started off small, name-calling and angry phone-calls and the like. Things came to a head when A, having gotten drunk with me one night, went over to N's house, calling him a traitor and trying and successfully piledriving him into a bed, all because of something that N had said the night before on JKA. I can't remember the offending statement, but I do remember thinking to myself "Whoa, the fuck?" when N rang me up a while telling me what had happened.

After the piledriver incident, things quickly deteriorated, with us trying to ban each other and lock the server to prevent anyone else coming in, forgetting that we all had access to the server and could unban ourselves remotely. After another real-life punch-up the original five of us met, and having decided that we couldn't actually handle any positions of power on a game, let alone in real life, that we weren't to have any more positions of power together until we were mature enough to not try to kill each other.

Apologies for length and lack of unfunniness, but we were batshit insane. How else would you explain us getting so worked up over a crappy game?
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 1:51, 2 replies)

Online gamers
Please........doing well, or not, at your chosen "game", does not constitute "absolute power", unless you're driving a massively armed UAV (for real). So, like the last QOTW, failing or doing well, it's not for real and does not count one bit for real life, and the sort of person you really are. Same goes for those twats on youtube, who post gaming or simulator footage with flash titles.
(M61A1 CUPID- STUNTS, Sat 10 Jul 2010, 1:05, 6 replies)

Educating the minds of the future
We're getting two honours students in our lab when Uni goes back.

Mwahahahah.
(dna_girl, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 22:38, 2 replies)

The Alterac Valley "300"
There we were. 15 of us, all hailing from different lands. Different backgrounds. Different PCs. Looking at the spawn list. Looking at what we had to face.

One of the more nervous in our ranks, a lowly geared druid from what could've been Bristol was heard to have said "'nother fucking hiding, damn n00b PVPers all going Horde!". For the umpteenth time, I was inclined to agree.

As of late, the Alliance population was surely outnumbered to the more cool looking Horde enemies, and as per usual we were outnumbered an impossible 15 to 40. But this time we had nerve. And determination. And a damn fine trick up our sleeve.

One of our numbers, a healer from the days of glorious yesteryear had studied the valley well, and knew of it's forgotten bounties. Very quickly he determined that we had one chance.

"Hold fast this line men!" he shouted, while indicating a northern path which the enemy had yet to storm through. With that, he whispered a colleague and together they climbed upon their mounts and run west through an adjacent valley which has long since been left abandoned. Myself and a few other heavily equipped men stood strong, our shields in front and our healers behind, and the enemy knew not of our mercy.

Alas, it was not without losses. Their numbers flew at our shields and blades, falling almost as quick as ourselves, yet they had further to travel back to the fight than us, so there was an unsteady equilibrium of blood and pixels filling our feet and screen. Our men were tired but unmoved, our enemies still strong and desperate to pass us for the ultimate goal....yet we would not give our ground. They could not pass.

Our resources were dangerously getting low by now; we were but 10 men defending against 40; 3 others had left to join the other 2, much to the bemusement of our struggling line, yet somehow we still survived, further filling the gaps with the corpses of our enemies.

All of a sudden, Alterac Valley receive a public shoutout...."Fucking hell guys, they are NOT GOING TO KNOW WHAT'S HIT THEM." Reprieve? Damn right it was. The priest of yesteryear was brought up playing this the first time it was released, when battles in Alterac Valley were usually a 6 hour ordeal involving fighting massive creatures who followed our every bidding and each fight for a strategic point could last for about an hour before falling into the enemy hands. The power of the summon was, and is still there, yet the eagerness of the newbies showed and they ignored this power.

The priest, along with the help of a few others, finished his incantation. In the centre of the valley, a massive creature grew out of the ground, the likes of which had not been witnessed for millennia (or possibly 3 years) and it screamed for blood. This giant moving tree creature saw his first victim; some poor n00b bastard warlock who was skipping across the Field of Strife thinking he was "King Dot Ganker the First". He run towards us on his summoned steed all happy, then suddenly noticed a giant and very fucking angry tree looking at him. He stopped, spun around and started running like fuck, but it was too late. Captain Redwood flattened him with a giant log arm with one sweep, then run off to find some more to swat about.

He helped wipe out the entire enemy. Bodies were strewn everywhere, and when the war was finally over my shield was lowered, and behold, it felt fucking awesome.

Then after signing out, I realized I only earned about 1,100 honour points for a good hour's fucking grind; that pissed me right off.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 22:16, 1 reply)

In September
My employer will be giving me an apprentice to train for a year. Therefore I will be in charge of staff for the first time in my life. Any tips?
(MadBouncyDog Barking at the moon since, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 20:38, 13 replies)

This QOTW couldn't have arrived at a more appropriate time.
* Cracks knuckles*

Well to cut a long story short, a few weeks ago i'd recently wangled a temporary job that included accomodation for free plus reasonable hours, which was a blessing considering i've been skint for two weeks and going slightly insane at the fact i was stranded away from home in empty halls of residence.
The job was pretty grim - a cleaning job at the student digs, basically throwing away spunky bed sheets, shovelling out the rotten food that had firmly glued itself to the back of the fridge, deep cleaning every visible (and not so visible) surface and basically running up and down hundreds of flights of stairs with dozens upon dozens of bin bags filled with crap.

I'm no stranger to hard work though, i just grit my teeth, hold my breath and get on with it, no matter how dirty or mundane, i was grateful for the chance to get some cash together and sort my driving lessons out, save some money up to treat a lovely lady in my life to a small holiday and get myself financially stable for the next university term. Groovy.

No... It wasn't groovy. I hasten to add that the last few days have been a fucking nightmare mainly due to the actions of the most obnoxious little Hitler i've ever had the misfortune to meet, namely my boss.

Let's call him Ian (because that's his name). Ian is a control freak, a stressed, red faced, humourless twat who has all the charisma of a sewer rat half crushed under the wheels of skoda. He doesn't listen to anyone, he's constantly on a power trip and always over-reacting, the slightest little problem will set him off.

So i thought it was in the best interest not to mention the fact that i had hurt my knee a few days before starting my job. My doctor tells me it's a strained ligament and it hurts. But i didn't mention it to him because i know he wouldn't have let me work and being honest i needed the money and the house. So those hundreds of flights of stairs began to take their toil on my knackered knee, but i got on with it, not complaining even once.... despite the fact that at one point I wasn't paired up and was given one of the dirtiest flats to clean completely on my own (possibly against company policy). But again, i just got on with it, up and down stairs in the summer heat, cleaning out fridges, emptying cupboards, dragging matresses from bedroom to skip and repeat 30 times. One particular day i filled about forty bin bags (3 skips worth) completely on my own and i'm quite proud to say i've done a good job.

Yesterday i was taken into the office for a 'word'(as were a few other crew members) and it was announced that i hadn't 'been pulling my weight' and that i would lose half my hours and that i was lucky to have not been sacked..... I was god smacked. What?

I asked him why, and he told me 'not to start talking back if you know what's good for you', but i wanted a reason. He mumbled something about
not being up to the same rate of work as the others, as i had only done X amount of rooms whilst the others had done XX amount of rooms. But i was completely on my own, i argued. Again he refused to listen to any sense of reason, ignored the fact that i had worked alone and was scolded for 'missing a bin'. I shit you not. Then i was told to get out of his sight.

So i went outside for a smoke with the other crew and we all talked about how we had all received a bollocking and I mentioned that it was shit how we had lost half our hours. I got blank looks.... I told them that I'd been cut by 50% and then I realised it was just me.

I couldn't believe it. So i spoke to my Dad on the phone and asked him for some advice, and he told me to get it in writing. So I returned to Ian and asked him if i could have a quiet word in private, which he refused. Instead he stood amongst the reception staff - shouting over me, making me feel like a piece of shit. I asked him for a document to explain why I had been the only member of staff to have received cuts, despite the fact that others had been told off too.

'Who do you think you are?' He said, staring at me.

I again politely asked for something to document this, surely it was within my right to have a reason why. This was a step too far. He started shouting and ranting at me and told me that I had three days to move my stuff out and don't bother coming in work tomorrow because I was sacked. On the fucking spot.... For nothing.

Gutted. I was sacked. Bye bye new house mates, bye bye new house, bye bye any hopes of getting my driving license or treating my lady friend to anything nice. Bye bye wages... Bye bye dignity.

I couldn't believe it. So I asked him for a copy of the complaints procedure and was refused. I was told I had no rights as i was only temporary staff and had worked for him for less than a month. I was speechless, not only had he crushed me, he denied me the chance of even complaining about it.

I then thought 'fuck this' and went straight to his boss and explained what had happened.

Ian's Boss: 'Well if Ian says you haven't been pulling your weight then i'm afraid he is right to let you go'

Me: 'But i've worked twice as hard as anyone else, i shouldn't have even been on my own, i've not stopped'

Ian's Boss: 'yes but you were warned once weren't you and you shouldn't wind Ian up, you know what he's like'

Me: 'But i've not had a warning, not once... as far as i was concerned i was doing a great job, i've not said anything to Ian'

Ian's Boss 'yes but apparently you've not been pulling your weight'

Me: 'But what does that even mean? That doesn't explain anything?'

and so on...

And before i could do ANYTHING about the undocumented sacking and the abuse of power and the way i'd been treated. I woke up this morning and collected my mail and found a letter saying:

'Dear Mr Lizard,

Because you have failed to turn up for work today, I have no other option but to terminate your employment'

But... I'd been sacked YESTERDAY and was told not to come in. The sly little fucker had tricked me into getting sacked (twice).

So today i've been to the student union, the council, i've spoken to the citizens advice, i've spoken to the housing agency and they've all come to the conclusion that because i am temporary staff and because of the type of contract i had signed, i have next to NO rights regarding this case. I have no rights regarding my housing and I have no rights regarding Ian speaking to me like a piece of shit.

I am gutted.

I'm sorry for the unfunny, but that little Prick has ruined my summer. My only option now is to complain to his company about his bullying, ruthless attitude and hopefully get the fucker in trouble - but deep down i know that guy has had twenty years or so to surround himself in a legal bubble.

The next time i sign a contract, i'm definately going to look at all the details and not get shafted.

The sad thing is, the house mates i've just met are lovely, friendly funny people, the house is lovely and I was so looking forward to spending the summer with the girl i like.

But now it's all fucked. Just because of the attitude of that little Hitler.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 20:34, 18 replies)

Fucking with your players, or LIONS LIONS FUCKING LIONS AAAH
I run an online game that some people take far, far too seriously. When you run a game like this, changing a single number in a database can have some pretty massive repercussions for those who play the game all day.

One day I decided that my game didn't have nearly enough lions in it.

So, a new level one monster was conceived:
You hear a low growling behind you, and spin around.
It's a lion. An honest-to-God seven-foot-long, four-foot-high monster - a 250-kilo beast with three-inch teeth, and it clearly wants you for dinner. It must have crept up slowly while you were killing that last monster. Everyone knows, after all, that lions are sneaky bastards.
Suppressing for the moment your natural reaction - that is, to rapidly and thoroughly empty your bowels while squealing "LION LION AAAARGH IT'S A FUCKING LION" and flailing your arms around as it gobbles you up starting with your feet so you can watch - you ready your weapon, hands trembling, and see about giving it what for!

Pretty simple. Fairly mundane. Just a lion. Level two:
You wander through the Jungle idly looking for some action. Within moments you spy a little green man, no higher than your knees. He's wearing scruffy gardening clothes and wellington boots - some sort of goblin, perhaps? Either way, you ready your weapon and creep up towards the creature as it delicately sniffs a nearby flower.
Just as you get close enough to deliver a killing blow, the foliage next to the little man bursts outwards with a rustly crash. An enormous lion leaps through, snapping the goblin out of the air in one quick bite and leaving only boots behind. It swallows, turns to you, and grins. The sneaky bastard just stole your kill! Are you going to stand for that?

The Lion Obfuscation Project starts at level three:
Something catches your eye, and you put your senseless rampage on hold for a moment. Something flickers and dances, peeking from behind a tree - perhaps a snake, or a tentacle, or a... is that a tail?
Is that a lion's tail?
Your knees knock together as you whimper-whisper a pitiful mantra familiar to the noble lion: "oh no it's a lion oh no oh bloody hell it's hiding behind that tree but the tree is so small maybe it's only a little lion but they're such sneaky bastards oh shit oh shit oh shit" The lion understands this mantra the way a fighter pilot understands the beeping of a locked-on target, and seven feet of grinning, snarly beast leaps from behind the two-foot-wide tree. Lions really are sneaky bastards like that.

The eventual goal is to make the player paranoid about anything and everything. A lion could be lurking around any corner, behind any tree, inside any seemingly-awesome box of treasure. Level Four:
Not really paying attention to where you're walking, you stumble into an enormous web! You struggle to free yourself while visions of enormous spiders run through your mind and down your legs!
After several terrifying, sweaty moments you disentangle yourself and realise that this isn't a spider's web at all - it's made out of yarn. Yarn with a familiar, musky smell - yarn spun out of some sort of fur, perhaps even...
The lion cannons into your back, knocking you to the ground. Sneaky bastard!

At level five, we begin to sow those seeds of paranoia. By now, we've set up some rules, that the player expects us to follow.
A very tall man approaches you, wearing a leather trenchcoat and a large hat that casts his face into shadow.
"Excuse me, do you have the time?" he asks, in a rather nervous and timid voice.
"Sorry, pal," you reply. "Watches are hard to come by, 'round here."
"Is that all you wanted me to say?" responds the tall man. "Can I go now? Please? Oh God, no! Don't eat me! DON'T EAT ME!" The tall man pulls the homemade tape recorder out of his jacket and bats ineffectually at the "STOP" button with his huge, unweildy paws. "AAAAAGH!" he continues, shaking the tape recorder. "AAAAAAH FUCK AAAAH MY FEET!" As you ready your weapon the tall man hurls the tape recorder to the ground, his hat coming loose and exposing his long, luxurious mane. He stamps on the tape recorder until the screaming and crunching noises stop, then turns to you, growls, and pounces.
Sneaky bastard.

To fuck with your players, you have to start off slow. Build up expectations. Lions will never hide in plain sight; the player knows this, now. Any lion that appears before them, and doesn't bother trying to hide itself - well, it might be harmless, right? Level six:
You come across a clearing in which a small gathering of woodland creatures sit in rapt attention - they focus on a raised pedestal, atop which sits a throne, atop which sits a lion, atop which sits a crown.
Could it be...? Has the Improbability Drive seen fit to manifest the brave monarch of an imaginary world? Could the dreams of millions of children become flesh and blood, in this place?
The lion watches you with an air of loving benevolence as you timidly approach. He nods, bidding you to kneel.
One heavy paw whips around and impacts against your head, throwing you ten feet to your right. Through the dancing purple spots, you have an excellent view of the stitching in a nearby rabbit. They're not rapt, they're stuffed. And that's not the lion you think it is - it's just a fucking lion. A sneaky bastard of a lion.

Level Seven was kind of a gimme:
There's something wooly and white, grazing innocently just behind those ferns. Excellent - a meal you won't have to fight for! You ready your weapon, and sneak up behind the sheep.
A branch cracks beneath your feet and your prey spins around, the sheepskin flying off to reveal the lion underneath. It pounces. Sneaky bastard.

On level eight, we begin to break the rules we've previously set up. Like the underground sections in Silent Hill during which your radio doesn't work, any change to the status quo, any change to the rules, offers prime fucking-with-your-players fodder. Sometimes it's good to remind your victimsplayers that the rules are for them to follow, not you:
You come across a lion, stood seven feet high on its hind legs, utterly still, with a lampshade on its head.
You lower your weapon in disgust. "Oh, come on! That's not even -" the air is knocked out of you with one mighty swipe of its paw. Hell, it worked. Sneaky bastard.

You can break the rules and then start following them again in the same breath; often this is more effective than breaking the rules and continuing to break them. On level nine we go back to following the rules again:
"Shh!" You stop in your tracks, looking at the bespectacled man crouched on the ground just in front of you. "You'll frighten it."
"Frighten what, exactly?" you whisper.
He turns his attention back to the ground. "See this, here?"
You look where he's pointing. "No."
"Aah," he taps the side of his nose knowingly. "Precisely. My friend, what you do not see is called a trapdoor spider, and it's really very clever. If you look closely at this little patch right here, you'll notice that it's not truly a part of the jungle floor - it's a hinged section made out of dirt, moss and a spider's silk. The spider in question is hiding just behind it. These little strands of webbing, here, let it know when something's approaching, and then whoosh - out it jumps, grabs its dinner, and back in faster than you can say LION-" and he's gone.
For a heartbeat it's hard to say what just happened. It was as though the ground erupted beneath him, there was a flash of sandy fur, claws dug into his skin and pulled, and then he disappeared. It all happened so fast you're not sure you didn't imagine the whole thing.
A muffled voice from underneath the soil screams "LIONS LIONS FUCKING LIONS AAARGH NO NOT MY FEET AAH FUCK AAAHHH!"
The scream cuts off as the lion realises there's still more prey above the soil, and bursts out of its trapdoor to grab you!
Sneaky bastard!

Until now, we've played by the rule that we don't fuck with the player outside of the fourth wall. That is, we don't use the mechanics of the game itself as fucking-with-the-player material.
At level two, the player encounters a professional romance writer, and ends up fighting her. At level ten, the encounter begins the same way, and until the lion shows up, the player thinks they're fighting a much weaker foe:
You come across a clearing in the jungle. Soft sunlight filters through the canopy of leaves, casting little spots of radiance upon a peaceful-looking, bespectacled woman who sits on a log and writes in a tattered notebook.
You decide to head over and sit down beside her. "Hello," you say.
She looks up, glasses sparkling in the sun. "Oh, hello! I'm a professional romance writer!"
The paw seems to come from nowhere, swatting her around the back of the head and knocking her glasses to the ground. Her head drooping on a broken neck, she collapses forward with a tiny sigh. You give the sneaky bastard lion a nod, and draw your weapon.

At level eleven, we use the special events hook to present something that at first looks like the player is getting some awesome loot. We use the same formatting as the "real" crate-finding message, so the player is blissfully unaware that... well, this:
You found something!
You come across a wooden crate, with a small parachute attached. You spend a few minutes prying it open.
You found:
0 Medkits
0 Ration Packs
1 lion! Sneaky bastard!

At level twelve, the double-bluffing begins in earnest:
Something suspiciously leonine is stalking around the jungle just behind those trees there. Readying your weapon, you decide that this is one lion that isn't going to get the drop on you.
You leap out from behind the tree, and attack!
Or rather, you stop mid-thrust. That's not a lion at all - it's some wanker who thinks he's funny, pratting around in an unconvincing pantomime lion suit. There are patches coarsely sewn on here and there, some suspicious stains, and one glass eye is hanging off on a thread.
You snarl. "You daft sod, I nearly hit you! Don't you know that's a good way to get yourself killed?"
The pantomime lion stands up on its hind feet, and clutches its zipper. Slowly, wordlessly, it pulls it down. The lion unfolds itself from the lion suit and stands smiling down at you, seven feet of muscle, fur, and teeth.
You crane your neck back to look it in the eye. "You sneaky bastard."
The lion nods once, slowly, and raises an immense paw.

These lions are tucked away in about three hundred other monsters. It was tempting to make more, but then that'd take away the surprise. Level twelve:
Jungle fighting is hungry work. You'd kill for a sandwich right now.
Fortunately - perhaps Improbably - there's one sat on the log next to you. A six-inch baguette with some fresh-looking lettuce crisping the edges.
With no small amount of caution - you remember vividly the episode with the curry - you pick up the sandwich and look inside. When nothing springs out to maim or embarrass, you take a suspicious bite.
Hmm. Not bad. Not bad at all. Except for this hair that's now stuck between your teeth. It's long, and blonde, and extends right back into the sandwich.
Who do I know with hair like that?
You pull on the hair, and a tail flops out of the bitten end of the sandwich.
Oh no.
A long, sandy-coloured tail with a tuft on the end.
Oh, no no no no no.
You turn the sandwich around, and peer underneath the top layer of bread.
A muzzle bearing dusty fur and three-inch teeth lets out the briefest of growls before you let the bread fall back into place.
You sneaky bastard.
You have precisely two seconds in which to wonder what you'll do with a lion sandwich before the lion in question gives up its disguise, seven feet of muscle springing out and snapping at you.

At level fourteen, we admonish the player for believing in the rules we've set up:
There's a ceramic flower pot in front of you. About six inches across, seven inches tall.
There's a pair of distinctly leonine ears poking out of the top.
Really, it isn't all that unlikely. Lions, as everyone knows, are sneaky bastards.
"You're going to have to do better than that, mate," you say to the flower pot. "I can see your ears, you know."
Two heavy paws thump against your back, knocking you onto your belly. You hit your forehead, hard, on the ground. With ears ringing, you see the lion through a curtain of fuzzy red dots as it stalks over to the flower pot and lifts out the pair of artificial ears before sitting the pot atop its head like a hat. It looks at you with a certain amused expression, as if to say "Fool! Lions are very large and can not fit in flower pots!"
Of course they can't. How silly of you.

And on level fifteen, we set up those rules again:
It's not a bad life, this Jungle Fighting lark. Plenty of fresh air, exercise, birds singing, leaves rustling in the wind, lovely sun and that bloody annoying itching sensation in your underwear. It's been bothering you all day, and now it's getting worse - it feels as though there's something writhing around down there. Perhaps something you picked up in Squat Hole.
You cast a quick glance around for other contestants, before thrusting one hand down the front of your pants to have a furtive scratch.
The lion bursts out of your underwear, spins around on the spot and pounces.


Lions are fucking ace.

EDIT: Yes, this is a real game; Linky for those requesting it!
(CavemanJoe lives on improbableisland.com, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 20:11, 4 replies)

I can never give a snap answer to a question.
I always have to consider it carefully for at least a couple of days before I commit myself to an answer. Been that way all my life.
(Paolo Nutini's Bikini Better than Frederick Fleet's optometrist, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 18:17, Reply)

'nother school IT Techy here who likes
disabling the keyboard and mouse when the mouth breathers are on ebuddy and webmessenger and telling their significant other that they are fucking their sibling/best friend/mom etc.. then blocking the site and watching them sweat as they wait for the bell to ring to signal hometime so they can go and kiss copius amounts of arse. I am a god.
(Boiled_Tater is not the messiah, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 17:57, 1 reply)

Walking briskly home...
...late at night, when I suddenly notice a lone woman up ahead. The only sounds are the click-clacking of her heels and the rhythmic swish of my jacket against my hips.

Suddenly I am dreadlocked Predator with shoulder-mounted canon and infra-red vision. I lock on to target. My penis stiffens. A sensation of absolute power courses through me.

Actually no, it doesn't. I hate this situation, especially when the woman happens to be going the same way as me. I'm inevitably walking faster than they are and I know that at some point must come THE OVERTAKING. That hideous moment causes the fear I know they are feeling to infect me like a contagion, flooding my system with unwelcome, sobering adrenalin.

So many times I've been tempted to shout, "Don't worry, love! I'm not a rapist!" But they might think it's a double-bluff. Equally, crossing the road just makes it look like I'm seeking a better vantage point to assess her before closing in for the kill.

Does anyone know what the etiquette is for such situations?
(Happybara The jungle came alive and took him, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 17:21, 22 replies)