I spent Sunday at home, in my pants, doing nothing
...well, up until around 11pm. My phone rang, which is weird since nobody EVER calls me. It came up number witheld, and I normally don't answer those because it's either a) a survey or b) some credit card company telling me I owe them a king's ransom. But since it was a Sunday evening I figured it couldn't be either and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"...hi....[my name]?"

"Yes? who is this?"

"It's Sarah"

Now Sarah was my first girlfriend who I haven't spoken to in exactly 1 year. While we parted on good terms, her choice to go and sleep with a married cocaine dealer shortly after we split meant I didn't really want anything to do with her. Given the fact that she lives in Birmingham and I live in Dover meant I didn't have to worry about bumping into her. Anyway, it was kinda weird getting a call from her out of the blue. As soon as she confirmed it was me she burst into tears.

"I've fucked up, I've fucked up so much. I don't know what to do any more."

"What's happened?"

"I've just fucked it all up! I'm scared. I'm frightened. I'm frightened. Come and see me. Now."

"What the hell are you on about? I'm in Dover."

"So am I."

Now by this point my stomach had sunk. I cannot put into words how much I've grown to loathe this girl in the year since we last spoke. I watched her go from being my first love to a bullying, lying, cheating, attention seeking slut and I actually shed a genuine tear of happiness the day we split because it felt like I was actually free at last. And now here she was, back out of the blue, 250 miles away from her home, demanding to see me. She'd had a habit of pulling the old damsel in distress routine when we were together, but that normally involved me going up to Birmingham to go and "rescue" her.

"What the hell? Where are you?"

"I'm on the seafront in my car. Can you get down here?"

And so, at half 11 last night I find myself walking the 40 minute trip from my house down to the beach. I'm absolutely frozen, half asleep and very anxious as to what's going on. I have to take the long way down to the beach, since being in Dover at night is only a good idea if you consider puncture wounds a fashion accessory.

So I make my way onto the promenade. Sarah had said she had the same car, which was a horribly garish shade of blue, so I was pretty sure I'd find it quickly. The promenade is about a mile from one end to the other, so I started to walk along, burying my head in my collar and pulling my hat down as much as I could to keep the cold sea air out. I was pissed off. Why couldn't she have just left me alone? Why did she have to drop her fat arse into my life again like a celulite nuclear bomb, and destroy the frankly wonderful life I'd made for myself since she left?

I made it to the end. Her car wasn't there. I checked all the side roads that branch off the promenade - nothing there. Now Dover only has one seafront - where the hell was she?

I keep calling her mobile but nobody answers. Was it a wind up? It was definitely her - I know her husky, whiney West Midlands drawl, and I could hear the horns of the ferries in the background when she called me.

Then, in an otherwise totally empty carpark, I see her car in the far corner. I walk up to it, my stomach feeling heavier with each footstep I took towards it. I approached from the rear, expecting to see the silhouette of her cheap nasty perm against the repeating glare of the lighthouse. No silhouette. She must have gotten a haircut. I went down the passenger side of the car - I walked all the way down here, the least the bitch could do is give me a passenger seat in the car with the heaters on. I bend down and look into the window. The driver's seat is empty. I look up and do a 360 turn of the empty carpark to try and spot her. Nothing. So I shout rather a loud expletive and head back to the beach.

So I try and find a shelter that wasn't filled with drunk, masturbating hobos, scootch up into a corner with my knees up into a foetal position to protect myself from the cold, and ring her phone again, and again, and again.

Finally, on my 23rd attempt, I hear a click and a hello. but it wasn't her; it was her mum, sounding rather pissed as I had apparently woken her up.

"Sarah called me. She said she was in Dover and asked me to come meet her at the beach, and she's not here! Do you know where she is? If this is some kind of joke it's not fucking funny."

"Who on earth is this?"

"It's [me]!"

"You awful, awful man!" She then burst into tears. I wasn't expecting that.

"Sarah died 4 months ago you bastard!" She slammed the phone down.

My head started spinning. My heart was pounding. Dead? I mean I hated her, but not that much. How did it hap...hang on.

Who the fuck called me? And why did they have Sarah's car?

I don't know why, but I felt the need to run as fast as I could back to the car park and check the car again. This was madness. Was it a dream? The stench of alcohol, weed and piss, the relentless November sea spray and driving wind slapping my face confirmed it wasn't.

I sprinted across the carpark and looked in the window again. She couldn't be dead. I spoke to her an hour ago. Her car was in front of me - it was all real.

Then, a hand on my shoulder. I feel nails digging into my skin.

I turn around and see a





Well, that killed half an hour. I should probably get back to work now.
(GONEism, Mon 17 Nov 2008, 9:45, 26 replies)

Procrastination Timetable
For the benefit of any other b3tan's who have assignments due, this is probably how it'll all pan out even if you do everything in your power to make sure it doesn't. I give you my 75 point procrastination timetable.

1. Get given an assignment. Due in 6 weeks? Pfft, easy.

2. One week goes by. No worries.

3. Two weeks go by. All under control. It'll be done.

4. Three weeks go by. Three weeks 'til hand in date? Plenty of time.

5. Four weeks go by. Okay, two weeks to go.

6. Think about starting assignment. Ooh...Loose Women is on.

7. Five weeks go by. Seven days to go, God managed to make the whole universe in six days. Consider this my day of rest. I'll start tomorrow.

8. Right, let's get this done. Then five days of freedom when everyone else is stressing.

9. Open word. Search the internet for a while.

10. Is that the time? Three hours have gone by and all I have written is a title? Must be a sign. Quit word. Roll on tomorrow.

11. Repeat 9 and 10 for the next four days.

12. Two days to go. Shiiiiit.

13. Change facebook status to prove you are 'gonna nail this essay'.

14. Open word.

15. Open msn and set status to 'online'. Alternatively, xbox live.

16. Chat about how screwed you are.

17. Why is it so silent? Ah, music...hmm, what to choose.

18. Back to word. Stare aimlessly at the screen for five minutes. Write the title.

19. Back to facebook. Anyone said anything new? No? Damn.

20. Emails...

21. Underline the title on word. Write a poor introduction.

22. Ah, a coffee will keep me focused.

23. Text a few mates. Another friend from school signs onto msn. Haven't spoken in awhile - some things are more important than assignments.

24. Do i fancy going out tonight? This is due in in 48 hours...

25. You're right! I do have a whole other day to do it.

26. Exit word. Save? Nah, I have only written an introduction, and it's crap.

27. £4 for a pint? Just because it's after 12? Eugh...good night though, wahey!

28. Wake up at 4pm. Assignment time.

29. May as well watch this made for tv film on Five.

30. Seriously though, I need to do an assignment. No distractions.

31. Sign onto msn. This time as 'appear offline'.

32. Who's online? Oh okay, I suppose I could chat to them. Change status to 'busy' or 'away'. That'll stop everyone from talking.

33. Could do with a drink.

34. Music please!

35. Open word. Focusing is key. Write title and underline in one go. Write a not-half-bad introduction. 1893 words to go.

36. Relax. The first 100 or so weren't so bad. How hard can the last 1900 be? Why worry?

37. Change facebook status to something optimistic.

38. Check email.

39. Back to word.

40. Stare blankly at the screen for ten minutes in between chatting to a mate on msn.

41. End of break. Just need another coffee.

42. Proper end of break now.

43. Do a page of solid writing in a ten mintue time slot. You bullshit well! Nice work.

44. Give yourself a break.

45. Okay, any new notifications or emails?

46. New b3ta qotw. Read the best of the old qotw. Submit a reply to the new qotw.

47. Back to the essay. Write nothing over the next few hours. To make yourself feel better though, rearrange some paragraphs and add or delete words as appropriate.

48. Complain to various friends on msn that you won't get this damned essay done.

49. Compile amusing excuses to get out of doing it.

50. Okay 1am. Wikipedia...whatever happened to Nerds?

51. No way! They're still made?...Okay proper article to help me now.

52. Can't do it! They'll know. Meh, copy...paste...remove hyperlinks.

53. Edit well.

54. Moan to other friends on msn and facebook.

55. You're all done? Good work! I'll be up a while yet.

56. Sleep.

57. Two hours until hand in.

58. Gain a conscience. Delete all wikipedia stuff.

59. Write the essay with no references. Make a few names and books up. Would they really check every reference?

60. Done!

61. Print now? Nope, still an hour to go.

62. Check tv guide. What was missed last night? No worries, it'll be on iplayer/4od. Watch missed prgramme.

63. Print.

64. Is that the time?

65. Change facebook status lamenting the fact you are so screwed because of the time.

66. Quick check of emails...

67. Quick drink.

68. Leg it to the hand in room.

69. Why is it on the third floor?

70. Success! Handed in. Time for a drink.

71. Get home and change facebook status to state that you 'rock'

72. Receive result. It's a pass. Never in doubt.

73. Celebrate.

74. Roll on a new assignment!

75. Repeat from step 1.








Apologies for length but in my experience at least, this is how it is...
(Foz, Thu 13 Nov 2008, 20:59, 17 replies)

Sperm
My girlfriend wants to have my baby. Yay!!!

She's had a few problems with her lovely lady bits and as par for the course I have to have a few test carried out too to make sure I'm firing on all cylinders. General health assessment - check. Blood tests - check. Semen count - err, well, I actually kept putting that off. Not because I have a problem about wanking in public places, its more because the doctors gave me a number of a clinic on Euston Road to phone and sort out my own appointment. This was back in early September. I only got round to ringing them last week. I was supposed to go down there today armed with a fresh batch of my man juice for them to count, quaff, whatever they do with it.

I slept in. Got up late. Quickly knocked one out. (Your not allowed to cum for three days before giving them your best dairy produce, so that didnt take too long), and then legged it down to the tube with my man juice in a little container under my arm so I wouldnt miss my appointment.

I made the appointment - just, at ten thirty... Only my specimin didnt...

If you happen to be on the Northern Line, High Barnet branch today and see a small container containing what looks like spunk, well, yes, it is actually spunk...

Shit...
( SpankyHanky, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 11:31, 14 replies)

Flat
We had a great Flat in Watford in the nineties. Above a corner shop that let us run up a tab, a chippy 3 doors down, a launderette that did service washes for a quid on top of the normal stand-there-and-feed-coins-in-for-hours-wash. Oh and we lived opposite to 2, maybe 3, of the Spice Girls (true story, I also slept in Geri's bed but thankfully, she wasnt in it).

Anyway, we, being 20 something lads, didnt cook. In fact the kitchen was strictly for storage of bikes. The fridge was upstairs in the lounge (it was an odd layout) and exclusively for beer and milk for tea/coffee. The kettle and tea making facilities were on top of the fridge of course. Disposable cups stolen from the top of the vending machine were invaluable.

We lived on Pizza from Pizza Hut and of course got it delivered.

However, that became a bit of a drag. Firstly, we'd have to call them, and relay the order, that was tiresome. Then we'd have to wait. Then some kid would turn up on a moped, and one of us would have to go downstairs after collecting cash off everyone, pay, and walk all the way back down the corridor, past two whole rooms to get back to the lounge.

Over the years, we refined the process as follows:

1. Standing order with Pizza Hut. Dont wait for the call, assume that on a week day evening, we require 3 large meat feasts, 3 garlic breads, 2 bottles of coke.

2. Costs to be added to account. Billed weekly, and debited between our debit cards evenly.

3. Delivery boy to beep horn on arrival. The flatmate nearest the window to lower down cash on string to delivery boy. On reciept, lower down large basket for pizza loading, and change.

However, this wasnt good enough.

We got a spare key cut and gave it to the delivery boy. So we refined the procedure:

1. Unchanged.
2. Unchanged.
3. Delivery boy to let himself in, and deliver pizza's direct to customers armchairs.

If we were really lucky, the system was refined by calling a girlfriend or 2 at the right time. They'd come upstairs, see the mess of pizza boxes and clear up whilst tutting.

(Yes we had girlfriends! ... mostly)
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 14 Nov 2008, 10:46, 5 replies)

First
.
( Sonic the Hedgetrimmer doesn't care what you think, Wed 19 Nov 2008, 14:34, 5 replies)

Eloped
Several decades ago, I got married. Since we were living far away from family, and couldn't afford a big deal wedding, we simply visited the local Judge one day. We were going to call the folks that night, and tell everyone what we'd done, but it slipped our minds.

The next day she thought I would call, I thought she would call, so neither of us called. We decided that it was not appropriate to say "We got married day before yesterday" via a phone call. So, we planned a trip home the next weekend, when we would tell everyone.

Things came up, and we couldn't make the trip. Before we knew it, we were a month married, and nobody except our local friends knew. We went home at Christmas with great resolve, but both families were so unkind to 'that person you're living with', that we chickened out.

Next we decided to actually have the big deal wedding, on or about our anniversary. Unfortunately, neither of us spent much time planning or arranging the event -- so it simply didn't happen.

We finally told them on our first anniversary:

"Mom, Dad -- we're married."

"Oh, no!" "This in a -- surprise." "-----!" "What? When did that happen?"

"Um, we got married last year. Today is our first anniversary."

I don't recommend eloping for a full year. It doesn't ingratiate you with anyone, really. Plus, no wedding gifts. Still, it's been 30 years, so we must have done something right.
(danalan Pretty good, for an amateur., Sat 15 Nov 2008, 18:14, 3 replies)

Lost "Carry On" film
Recently, a group of researchers at Pinewood studios have uncovered a long rumored script for an unmade Carry On film. You must have heard of it, it's called Carry On Procrastinating.

HM Government is led by Bernard Bresslaw, who hilariously blunders from one cock up to the next, with predictably mirth some results. You'll giggle sides when he tells poor people to get their homes insulated, you'll laugh as he tells a bunch of rich Saudi Sheiks to pump more oil out of the ground instead of reducing taxes on fuels.

Meanwhile, the bubbly Culture Secretary played by Barbara Windsor gets herself into all kinds of comic japes. Watch the hilarity unfold as hapless Babs loses yet another laptop containing the names and bank account numbers of everyone in Britain!

Kenneth Williams plays Bresslaw's crooked arch-nemesis, who's called back into government to help them in the next election. Williams is seen scrounging for money from a Russian billionaire and cleverly he arranges for a passing public schoolboy toff take the rap instead.

Charles Hawtrey plays the ex-Prime Minister, who is amusingly afflicted with Munchausen's Syndrome and as such is utterly unable to separate fact from fiction. Fortunately for Bresslaw, he's touring the Holy Land pretending to be Jesus.

Hattie Jacques plays the harridan deputy PM who despises men, in particular her flatulent predecessor; Terry Scott who loves pies, Jaguars and risque moments with his secretary.

Finally, we have Frankie Howerd as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, caught with his pants down he decides to spend his way out of a wee spot of financial difficulty and hopes that no-one notices!

This would have been a classic Carry On had anyone gotten around to making it. They don't write 'em like they used to.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 20 Nov 2008, 14:32, 5 replies)

membership issues
i bet those procrastinating about joining the BNP are breathing a sigh of relief..
(imallamallama looking forward to llamageddon on, Wed 19 Nov 2008, 21:20, 14 replies)

M'gonna
I had this great idea in about 2003 to do a website called "mgonna.com" . It would have a little google like box after the words 'MGONNA' that you would fill in. Like 'MGONNA give up smoking' or 'MGONNA join a gym'. Or whatever. Then using the search engines, custom written content and paid ads it would serve up info for what you were 'gonna' do. The business plan also had functionality to tell your friends what project you had embarked on so they could support/humiliate you.

I wrote the business plan, registered the url and then did fuck all with it.

The irony KILLS me.
(prescottsflu infected you at, Sun 16 Nov 2008, 14:42, 5 replies)

Dear Wife
Dear Women

When you asked me to do it, I said I would. Your non response I took as implied agreement.

At no stage were timescales discussed. If I havent done it, it's because I havent done it yet.

Regards

Men.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 14 Nov 2008, 16:46, 10 replies)

I came upstairs because I needed a shit.
It was 7.30pm.

I noticed Mrs Norris had left the PC on in the spare room.

I thought "ooh, I haven't read qotw on b3ta for ages, I'll have a quick look."

It's 11.20pm.

I still need a shit.
(Ali Bongo 9000 Ali Bongo 9000, Thu 13 Nov 2008, 23:21, 3 replies)

I'm writing this...
...from my Blackberry, as I've just washed up on a desert island after a shipwreck.

I need to build shelter, start a fire, find food.

Oh well, I'll get it done by Friday.

Yours

R. Crusoe
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 17 Nov 2008, 14:24, 2 replies)

Science *is* fun...
It’s 3.22am and I’m on my 4th consecutive graveyard shift at the European Synchotron Radiation Facility. I’ve racked up about 10 hours sleep since we arrived on Monday and I’m close to hallucinating. In order to alleviate the unmitigated boredom of our experiment, my 2 colleagues and I have so far;

Eaten 2 wheels of camembert, a kilo of emmental, 4 giant Milka bars, 3 bags of brioche and 4 bags of Haribo.
Watched 17 episodes of House and 12 of Nip/Tuck.
Had an hour long discussion about shaving one’s arse crack.
Ranked everyone we work with in order of how filthy we think they’d be in bed.
Discussed how much money we would need to be paid to have sex with one of our relatives.
Read every single ‘Best of’ page on the QOTW. Again.
Festooned the whiteboard in the office with a gallery of cock pictures
And broken the toilet.

I have failed to;

Write the paper I have been bleating on about for 18 months.
Edit the review article I had promised to submit next Friday.
Write any of my tutorial questions.
Analyse any of my data.

If you wonder why people think that the Large Hadron Collider may one day fall over and catapult us all into oblivion, clearly it’s because there’s muppets like me allowed to work with multi million pound equipment in the dead of night whilst hyped up on caffeine and sugar.

I have another 36 hours of this before mercifully, I will be taken round the back of the lab and shot.

EDIT: it's now 6.54am and I've just had a conversation with a vending machine. In French. I think it may be time for a little sleepy now...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Sun 16 Nov 2008, 3:32, 13 replies)

You wanna know what I've done this morning, you salads!?
I've been talking about BOAT.

Not working, just talking about BOAT, voting BOAT, writing BOAT on my head...the list goes on.

And it's not just me - the absolute best b3tans are all doing it.

Paperwork is for people who want to remain in employment - for the rest of us, there's BOAT.
(GONEism, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 10:58, 17 replies)

my guilty pleasure
is posting 35 weeks late.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 13 Nov 2008, 22:22, 2 replies)

Maths Coursework
In order to delay having to actually do my A level maths coursework, I constructed a series of lies that eventually required far more effort to maintain than just doing the twunting thing would've.

When questioned on the first day of a new academic year why I had not handed in said coursework on the last day of the previous term, my brain ( dulled by a slovenly summer) came up with the following response:

"Oh, I posted it to you over the summer. It was recorded delivery, so if you were out when it arrived they would have taken it to the depot"

This was a less than perfect response for several reasons, the most obvious of those being that my teacher had never given me his address. Clearly he wanted to watch me squirm, as he then asked me to bring in the proof of recorded delivery bit of paper. The next day.

Right, time to construct an alibi.

1) Go to reception and request teacher's home address. Fairly easy
2) Run to post office at lunch time, obtain a blank recorded delivery form. Not too hard, since you only have to pay for them if you actually intend to send them
3) Go to Starbucks, tip extortionately for already overpriced coffee. Then ask coffee serving man (Barista? I Don't think so) if I can borrow date stamp. Fiddle with stamp to show a date sometime in the middle of previous summer.
4)Take now addressed, date stamped proof of recorded delivery back to teacher as triumphant proof that you did indeed post coursework.

To which teacher replies "Okay, print off another copy and bring it in tomorrow" Fucksocks

6) spend all night up to the eyeballs in f(x) graphs actually doing the sodding work, having wasted all day creating a pointlessly elaborate alibi

I think the moral of the story is think of better lies.

Oh, and 4 years of lurking probably counts as procrastinating too.
(wordsworthless is outnumbered but never outpunned, Tue 18 Nov 2008, 14:16, 8 replies)

The best thing I've found
The irony of this has been killing me for days.

I'd been reading last week's QOTW until it hit me what I could write about, what I really wanted to tell everyone about, yet couldn't quite work it into a story.

Must have been around the end of last weekend I started getting The Bug to do something with it, even if was to be buried under a pile of posts.

Trouble was, I had no time; either working, out, knackered or simply running low on inspiration. Then Thursday came and I found myself on a train on the way to site, with both the time to think and the will to act. T'was now or never. All the way there I plotted, and all the way back I wrote, my laptop finally charged up after a hectic day in a dark server room.

I got in, made a cup of tea, waited for B3ta to load, and there she was: Closed.

My preparation in tatters, I scanned up the page, opening the latest challenge and sat, po faced, tea dribbling down my chin and on to my creased shirt, as Chthonic's QOTW opening taunted me:

Procrastination.

And so, you lucky, lucky people, almost two weeks late, my entry for the last comp:

---
We'd walked for miles on legs made of jelly.

From the wilderness we'd traveled, sighting the lights of town and trudging through it, we'd shared many adventures, the warming thought of tea keeping us going as we swam through a thick mist inside and out.

We shared stories which stretched back many years to the night before, trading tales of half remembered conversations with our new, temporary best friends, cursing the DJ we were still deeply in love with for our broken legs.

Just one more corner, then it would be the last few corners, then tea, perchance to smoke and welcome the dawn from a more relaxed and sleepful perspective.

Then I saw it. Whether it had been lost, carelessly discarded, or had placed itself there deliberately to be found, I did not know, I did not want to know.

I circled it several times, barely daring to believe. I picked it up, holding it with both hands to make it real.

"What have you found?", my friend asked me

"It's a tin of cheese.", I breathed

His eyes widened: "It comes in tins?"

"It comes in tins."

"May I see?", he asked. "Sure", and gently handed it over.

"I wonder what it tastes like, out of a tin?", he mused. I quickly took it back.

It lives on the top shelf of my cupboard now, my tin of cheese. Sometimes it catches me by surprise, and I gaze at it, wondering if its contents are a lie.

I can't decide if I'll be buried with it, my tin, my Tin of Cheese. Maybe I wont be, maybe it will be opened at my wake, served, as it should be, on small sticks, possibly with some pineapple.

---

(Length? Less than a half my bitterness.)
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Sun 16 Nov 2008, 16:39, 3 replies)

Cuba.
It's a pro-Castro nation
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Sun 16 Nov 2008, 14:16, 5 replies)

Miggymans guide to slacking off in the Office.
Procrastinating. Isn't that what we spend most of our lives doing? Just filling the time. Avoiding having to get knee deep in some boring work, hoping it will go away at 5pm?

Slacking off in the office is something that is done by many. Those that are known slackers, are simply stupid and are yet to realise that slacking is a skill and an artform.

As a self pronounced professional office procrastinator, I will share with you just some of my many secrets:

Look busy! If anyone ever asks if youre busy, the answer is Yes! It makes you less approachable and people will always assume that youre always busy. If you have the sort of Office job that I do, where you can get away from not being at your desk for a while. Then that is to be taken advantage of to the fullest. But not too much, otherwise you will become someone whos "Never at their desk" which makes people wonder where you actually are. Its all about balance. You can slack off when youre at your desk as much as when youre not.

If you are sat browsing the net. Always have a standby window ready to switch onto which looks like some report, a database etc. Always have in mind something to say if you get the illucid question of "What are you working on at the moment?" The last thing to do is to stutter at this point, otherwise its damn obvious to the boss that you weren't working.

If issues come up, save them up. Even if you have resolved them. Remember them. Because during team talks you can bring them up. "Oh so and so has a problem with this" Then after the meeting, bugger off for a while and come back saying you sorted it. Even if you sorted it the day before. Everyone then thinks that the issue just arose and you just did it. Ie, you have been working, and youre busy! Of course over exagerate the issue, to make out it was a bigger problem and a bigger fix than what it was really.

If you fancy dissapearing from your desk, but have nothing to do. Then get up and head out whilst sighing and muttering to yourself "Urgh, this will be a laugh a minute." As if you just got an email with something really bad to sort out. Bugger off for a coffee. Then come back sighing again that youre glad its sorted. You can then put the icing on the cake, by offering anyone if they fancy a coffee as you now really need a break. (Just dont go to the same coffee shop!) The last thing you need is some over friendly staff coming out with quips like "Wow you need more coffee already?"

Arrive 2 - 3 minutes late for work every day. The odd minute is barely noticed. But it sure adds up. 3 minutes a day is 15 minutes a working week. Thats 13 hours a year! Congratulations you just earned 2 extra days off work a year, and no one will even notice.

Sickies, yes pull them every now and again. If youre lucky enough to never really fall ill. Then you can get away with 2 instances of 2 days off in one year. Try and do these mid week, as you might get accused of extending a weekend! Of course for extra authenticity complain youre feeling rubbish a day or even two days before.

If someone asks you to do something, say youre busy and their task will take time. Tell them you'll do it within a couple of days then do the easy 10 minute job later on that day. They'll be really happy with you. Remember, Under Promise, and Over Deliver! If you jump onto something right away, they will expect it all the time.

Be creative, be different each time. Don't overly take the piss, otherwise you'll get caught slacking off. Once a slacker always a slacker they say. Never get that reputation! You can do all this and expect bonuses and pay rises!



Finally, if youre sat in an office bored on your own, and dont have people looking over your screen and just need to pass boring office time. Then Office PCs can provide you with plenty of fun. Even if particularly locked down by the evil sysadmins. Try the following things to do:

The Word Theasaurus game: Think of two words unrelated to each other, then search the first word in the theasaurus. Click through all the suggestions and try and get to your second word.

Flight sim in Office 97: If you have old systems and still running Excel 97, theres a little hidden flight sim that'll amuse for 10 minutes. Go Google Excel 97 easter egg and you'll find it. Dunno if theres any in new versions, Google is your friend.

Free Internet: Some anonymiser proxies might get through company firewall so you can facebook all day long without being noticed. Also if Remote Desktop port is open. Set up remote desktop on your home PC and remote into it from work. You can browse and MSN totally undetected. If youre running a laptop, have a look for any open wireless networks nearby. If none open, grab hold of Backtrack 3 and crack a wepped one. You can browse the net then without it being traced.

Extra Solitaire Fun: Improove the excitement of solitaire by trying to beat it before an event happens. Ie before the next person goes to the water cooler. Or something else that frequently randomly happens in your eye shot. Also works with minesweeper etc.

Stress Test the PC: Try your hardest to crash your PC. Run as many apps as you possibly can and watch the baby grind to a halt. 200 copies of word later and im still going woo hoo :)


There any many more, reply to the thread with more office slacking and PC Procrastination threads.

P.S Couldnt be bothered to spell check it, sorry for mis speelings.
(Miggyman, Sat 15 Nov 2008, 14:37, 3 replies)

I feel I wasnt honest enough last time
in my earlier post so here goes again.

Dear Women

The reason we havent done what you asked is that you noticed it needed doing, not us. We dont give a shit. When you go away, we live in our undercrackers, and tidy up in the 3 minutes before you arrive back, and fake it.

Thanks

Men.


Dear Men. Some tips.

Spraying a little Mr Sheen in the lounge implies we have been polishing. Of course we havent, we've just sprayed a little Mr Sheen in the air. Found some dust? We missed a bit. But women forgive us because we tried.

The hoover leaves little tracks on the carpet like a well groomed lawn. This can be replicated fairly easily by running a book along the carpet a bit, against the grain. A well placed 'hoover line' in a womans line of sight as they come in the house implies we've hoovered the whole house. Shifting a few key items of furniture a few millimetres implies we not only hoovered round, we moved them and to hoover properly. She found some dirt? We missed a bit. But at least we tried.

Squirting some bleach down the bog, again implies further cleaning. In reality, we squirted some bleach down the bog.

Whilst youre in the bathroom - dont jif the bath/sink/other enamel. Jif the taps. They come up beautifully after about 5 seconds. They go very shiny, and distract from the rest of the room. Believe me, shiny taps pretty much override any bits you dont do.

Fluffing up the cushions on the sofa - is a quick and easy technique that fools the observer into thinking more must have been done. The genius of this trick, is that its a finishing touch. Finishing touches - by very definition - are done at the end. They imply many hours of previous work.

Kitchen floors can be cleaned thus; throw a tea towel on the floor, and then stand on it. Shuffle around in the dirtiest bits. Job done.

Washing up. I dont have a good one for this if you dont have a dishwasher. Other than leaving everything in the sink to soak for a day or two and then rinsing off under the tap. Obviously everything in the world pretty much dries on its own, this is a timing issue. What is however the icing on the cake - is putting everything away, and wiping down the sink and kitchen tops. This, I have found, pretty much guarantees that you are really thoughtful and thus, she wont leave you when youre 48 and bald. You'll at least get to 50 when so you wont feel as bad when you fall back on Plan B for your life - which is essentially to live in a cool flat, and pay high class escorts to fuck you until you die happy.

All of the cleaing tips above can be completed - and I mean all of them - in 3 minutes or less.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Mon 17 Nov 2008, 10:20, 6 replies)

eeew
Im picking my nose. There are lots of nuggets up there today.
Im too lazy to get up and get some kitchen roll.
Instead, I am feeding the bogeys to my cat.
(dave likes cheese, Mon 17 Nov 2008, 19:51, 5 replies)

Placeholder.

( Digeridude Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze, Thu 13 Nov 2008, 21:28, 3 replies)

I think the worst record ever
is 'Take my breath away' by Berlin.

Just the sound of those opening bars makes my blood boil. Totally irrational I know, but I just hate it!
( NinjaBadger hides in the bushes and gives you TB., Thu 13 Nov 2008, 18:48, 2 replies)

Not exactly on topic, but...
back in the days when computer magazines used to print program listings for you to type in, I remember being mightily impressed by the wit of one BBC Basic author who defined a time delay procedure thusly:

DEF PROC Rastinate(T)
( chthonic, Thu 13 Nov 2008, 18:27, 5 replies)

v. Procrasturbate
The art of wasting time by masturbating.
(Merrep, Tue 18 Nov 2008, 9:35, 2 replies)

I really wish I'd put off telling my family I was gay.
Turns out I wasn't.




Hey! it's an easy mistake to make.
( girlinthehole, Mon 17 Nov 2008, 15:22, 8 replies)

Geeky fun with Procrastination
Anagrams... So shoot me.

For some reason I've managed to work out that it's an anagram of "Ocarina tits-porn" out of it.

Or even, "Stair-action Porn"

But - thinking on a Daily Mail theme you get "Crap Nation Riots" or "Pro-Nation Racist"

Hmm... come to think about it, you can also get "Onanistic Parrot" which in it's own way makes up for the others being a bit shite.
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Mon 17 Nov 2008, 9:10, 7 replies)

Someone I know made a website...
and got everyone else to fill it with content. Including me it seems.
(catbrain likes the hairy scratchings bestest, Sun 16 Nov 2008, 13:00, 1 reply)

The Midnight Club…

When I was about 18 years old I was part of a very close circle of friends. There were only a few of us, basically just the band I was in and a couple of others, but we were tight.

Not tight as in ‘stingy’, or ‘cock-gripping’, or even ‘playing music in time’ tight…in fact, just replace the word ‘tight’ with the words ‘bosoms buddies’. Not in a gay, ‘boobie’ way, or even a….oh, you get the idea.

Anyway, with us, every moment was an adventure. Hard drinkin’, fun lovin’, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and knee-trembling quantities of magnificently moist sex was the order of the day (not with each other…I mean…well there was that one time…anyway, moving on…)

Suffice to say, we hugely enjoyed our impetuous youth (as in the ‘age’ genre – not an actual youth…as in ‘we enjoyed having boinging uglybumping with a possible underage person’…oh dear)…we never wanted it to end.

But we weren’t cretins…we knew we wouldn’t be young for long, and after one particularly momentous night we decided to make a pact…to ensure that our rebellious streak, close friendship and lust for life would last forever.

Thusly, ‘The Midnight Club’ was born.

There was one rule, and it was nad-twistingly easy. Every day, you must do at least one thing…One single, simple thing...just to prove to yourself that not only is life worth living, but that you are worthy of this miracle…that you are truly alive.

This one thing must be something out-of-the-ordinary…not run-of-the-mill, monotonous, boring and mundane.

Something properly fun…just for the cunting hell of it. Something to make your heart beat a bit faster, or even skip a beat. A minimum of one, solitary, self-indulgent thrill a day.

And as every day came to an end…if you reached midnight and had not done something to make you value your existence, and make you want to drop to your knees, pound the floor and thank sweet, hovering fuck that you were alive…then you were to end it all. Kill yourself. Dead

The only policing of the rule was your own conscience.

I’ve gotta say…The early years were easy…with new experiences aplenty. Music, laughter, parties, pranks and popularity. Making friends, making love, making a difference. Inventing new words, trends and catchphrases; then enjoying watching them slowly integrate into widespread public use.

But time went on…and it got more and more difficult. I began to put things off. I’d convince myself that I’d make it up to myself the next day, and that ever more dull events were actually worthwhile.

…

Yesterday, the best I could think of was to mix Tartare sauce and tomato relish at teatime to create a new pink condiment called ‘Tartish’.

Today, I’m looking forward to watching the new Q.I. on Children In Need night.

I think I’ll be dead by Sunday.
(Mr Twisty Cheeky The worst kept secret in B3ta..., Fri 14 Nov 2008, 11:18, 9 replies)

Don't write your own wedding vows....
Planning a wedding is a very girl orientated thing.... everything seems to have hidden significance, hidden repurcussions & hidden costs.

So among the many other things going on, in the interests of making things as pain free as possible, I went along with the idea of writing our own wedding vows.

Now if like me you were the person who spent the night before the assignment deadline writing that essay then I recommend you avoid this idea at all costs!

As there we were in the hotel, night before my wedding day, and I've still not written the vows.... Except you can't apply student assignment logic to this situation for a number of reasons;

1 - There are exactly 6,147 tasks outstanding to be done by morning; including (but by no means limited to) decorating the room, chair layout, table decorations, placecards etc etc etc

2 - EVERYONE of your/her relatives that arrives at the hotel immediately wants to stop and chat to you for 20 mins about some obscure relative who couldn't make it (who?!?) or a wedding which took place before you were born (it was so lovely they said).

3 - Your so called "mates" are dying to get you drunk by topping up your drink or toasting anything they can.

4 - You're shitting a brick and CANNOT focus at all.


So readers, that is how I came to be sat attempting to write my wedding vows just hours before my wedding. Stressed is not the word.

Some might say that 2 years in the planning could have given me ample warning and preparation time, but somehow this is a task which requires a certain mood and it just hadn't been there.... for 2 years.

Perhaps the 7 years of engagement before hand may have been ample time you ask? Nope, there is a reason I was engaged for 7 years and this fateful day was it seems not it.

So you may be happy to hear that my literary skills turned out speech to be proud of. Even the hotel receptionist girl (who was uncomfortably dishy for my wedding day) went starry eyed and shed a tear as she typed it up for me.

The ceremony went off without a hitch and by lunchtime I was married.

So you might not be surprised to learn that after just under a year of me being walked all over the ex did me a favour and went off shagging some other bloke she pulled on a night out. It wasn't for lack of trying to make it work on my part though. After a few months of utter depression I've now met a new girlfriend who thinks the world of me.

Lesson learnt: If you're putting something off for that long, chances are you don't want it!
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 14 Nov 2008, 9:44, 4 replies)