My girlfriend is a bit younger than me, and all her friends are very into music.
So I read a bit of the music press so I could keep up in conversation.

But they seemed very offended when I paraphrased an article I'd read about how Eminem had proven that you don't have to be black to rape.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 13:34, 1 reply)

Hotels
Why do hotels seem to take so many steps to confuse their paying guests? Checking in to a lot of places nowadays seems to involve a 20 minute lecture on parking, how the keys work, security, etc. I've been on Army bases that have shorter procedures before they let you loose.

In particular, I have a thing about showers. The last thing I need when waking up first thing in the morning on some godawful conference, is to have to decode a shower control that looks like something you'd get if Ikea designed submarine steering wheels.

The procedure is always the same: I call reception and sure enough, smartly attired bloke turns up and smugly demonstrates his ability to operate the shower, which I had so miserably failed at:

'Oh, I see, you have to remove the catch, press the dial in, then out, and rotate exactly 63 degrees, before shifting the second dial to moderate temperature- can't see why I didn't work that out, in hindsight!'

I have mentioned this before in hotels (because I'm a miserable moaning twat), and the response you get from staff most often is:

'Yeah, a lot of people say that'

Which just makes me want to bang my head on the Reception until their lovely walnut desk is stained with blood as a mark of my utter and everlasting frustration.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 12:14, 2 replies)

Why can't people differentiate between your and you're?
It's 'Your doing it wrong' FFS!
( The Helpful Bear, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 12:09, 14 replies)

I once did something differently to my mate.
imagine my surprise when he told me how he did it.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 11:29, 10 replies)

Parental cooking
When I first left home there were plenty of foods I didn't like, steak and curry spring to mind as the immediate examples. This seems very odd to me now, as I love them both, but there was a good reason.

Picture this, we have a steak at home, what comes through from the kitchen is a grey lump of meat with a huge chunk of fat hanging off it, smothered in gravy. And I mean grey all the way through. I have no clue what my dearest parents did to it to make it grey rather than brownish, but it was. So that's what I thought steak was like.

Then I discovered that steak can be cooked to different levels, and the more well done ones were generally the worst and the rarer ones were the nice juicy succulent ones. Did this change my opinion? Did it fuck, whenever my parents ordered steak in a restaurant they ordered it medium rare, so I naturally assumed that was what they were cooking for themselves at home.

When I was 19 I was in a restaurant in france and ordered a blue steak and that was the end of that misguided folly.
( Ungersven would support SpankyHanky's patreon, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 10:43, 5 replies)

Sputnik 1 it wasn't.
Ian's an amateur rocketeer. It takes his small group about three years to plan, design, build and get approval for a liquid fuelled launch.

So after years of work on their latest effort, they loaded it all up on a fleet of vehicles and headed out into western New South Wales. Came the glorious day, in the morning calm, just right for a launch. Cameras and recording gear rolling, gave the countdown and Fire!

The rocket took off smoothly but after a few seconds it started to wobble. It only got worse. Blokes scatterered around the scrub vainly looking for trees to hide behind as the thing roared over their "safety barrier" like a demented shuttlecock with extreme indigestion. Luckily the wobble pointed it up again and finally it ran out of fuel, just a few hundred metres up.

The parachute popped as it was supposed to and the missile came back to earth.

The post flight analysis? There were no baffles in the fuel tanks, the sloshing fuel had overwhelmed their guidance system.

"Who built the fuel tanks?" I asked

"Errr - - me" said Ian.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 9:33, 1 reply)

John?
Years ago I worked in a pottery factory and I met a delightful bloke called John. Every day John and I would bump into each other and I'd say, "Hi, John how's things?" and he'd reply, "Not bad Simon," or words to that effect. Quite often we'd have lunch together in the canteen. If we'd been gay, we'd have probably ended up shagging. It was that kind of man/bloke thing. Anyhow eight years went by and me and John saw each other every day, had lunch, never quite had sex until the day the axe man cometh and made us all redundant. The factory closed down and John and I parted company. "See you, John," says I. "See you, Sime," says John. "Good luck, John" says I. "Good luck, Sime," says John.

A couple of years later I'm talking to my sister and John pops up into conversation. My sister had worked for the same factory as me and John and knew us both...so I thought.

"You know, John, slightly balding, got a big nose and big teeth. Looked a bit like Freddie Mercury on an off day?"
"You mean, Richard?" sayeth the sibling.
"No, John." After all, had I not been his bestest buddy, his man mate, his "almost if only"?
"His name's Richard, Sime," my sister assured me. "We'd always wondered why you insisted on calling him John all those years."

A couple of months ago I saw "John" again. "Hello, Richard," I said. "Hi, Sime," came his reply, with not a blink. "Doing all right?"
(grubbymitts, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 8:06, 18 replies)

Parallel Parking
Tom wasn't bad at parallel parking. He was the worst in my short years that I'd ever witnessed. If he wasn't grinding the plastic hubcaps of his Fiat Panda 4x4 against the kerbstone of the local high street, we'd end up parked so far away from it that I'd need to call a taxi to safely arrive at the pavement without being squashed by an under-taking bus.

Every day it was the same - he'd glance to the left hand side of the car as he reversed into a space the size of Wales, exclaim "Oh for fuck's sake!", and give up, all the while insisting he could do much better, but it was the car's fault.

Parking in any normal space was never a problem... if we went forwards, it was always perfect, and done with ease. But the moment the reverse gear crunched into action, there was swearing, frustration, and a constant insistence that it was the car's fault, not his.

I began to question his ability, his driving instructor's aptitude, and his driving examiner's sanity for granting him the gift of thundering along the road with such an apparent lack of spacial awareness.

Until one day, when we both jumped into his car, on a very everyday voyage to not losing our virginities due to cruising the streets in a diarrhea-brown clapped out death wagon. I sat in the passenger seat, and as I always did, toyed with the passenger side wing mirror until it was in the correct position. Except, this was the first time Tom had ever noticed me do it.

"It's YOU!" he screamed, accusingly. "You're the one who's doing it!"

I was shocked at his tone.

"Why are you messing up the mirror? I thought it was loose or something!"

Completely oblivious to the problems I was causing, aged 16 and knowing the sum total of fuck all about operating a motor vehicle, I replied matter of factly:

"It's the passenger side wing mirror, Tom. I'm the passenger. I'm adjusting it so that I can see what's behind us too. Duh!"

Oh. His parking improved after he pointed out my error, firstly with a lot of swearing, followed by weeks of piss-taking.

No apologies for length, but apologies to passing motorists for width.
(Sloppy Giuseppe, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 2:16, 2 replies)

I'm Doing It Wrong
Let me take you back to last week's Question Of The Week.

www.b3ta.com/questions/power/post784483

Isn't that lovely? All the nasty shit that's been bandied about on these boards about teachers; it takes a genuinely uplifting teacher to remind us what arseholes we've been on this board in the past.

Well, arseholes, bring it on, because frankly I don't give a fucking shite. By my reckoning, in the carrying out of my job in the past three academic years, I have been called a cunt three times, a motherfucker twice and been referred to - within earshot - using various derivatives of the f-word more times than I care to count. I have been smacked around the back of the head, punched in the stomach and had a pupil attempt to ride his bike straight over the top of me (not least while calling me a 'fucking tramp' after knocking me to the ground). Two of my colleagues have retired because of injuries caused by pupils.

I work but a forty-hour week, but am expected to account for thirty of those hours in precise intervals of five minutes on demand. Can I just put this godawful fucking proposal in front of anyone else with a job, please? Would you be able to produce a detailed schedule of what you did between 10:05 and 10:55 yesterday morning and detail what it actually achieved? This is becoming the fucking norm for teachers.

I am expected to teach elementary chemistry to pupils who cannot read and write; detailed chemistry to pupils who cannot reason abstractly; and advanced chemistry to pupils who cannot even perform simple fucking mathematical calculations such as division (actually - much of this is not true. I spend so much time instructed to teach pupils to behave, write, add up, exercise social skills and answer exam questions, that I don't actually get round to teaching much Chemistry at all). The former two-thirds will happily admit that they do not give a shite about learning a compulsory subject because they are going to work for their father for the rest of their foreseeable lives. They will thereafter perform their best impressions of howler monkeys in all lessons, thereby rendering any able pupils in their class unable to progress. If they tire of that, they will throw things at me, steal anything they can lay their hands on, or just sit and ignore me while listening to music on their iPhones. Electronic appliances which I am no longer allowed to confiscate under some fucking namby-pamby 'Every Child Matters' ruling. If you think I'm being blithe about ECM, let me tell you that some of the nicest, most genuine and mature children I've taught have come from families that quite frankly do not give a holy shite. And that fucking breaks my heart.

Additionally, over the last few months I have been planning a colleague's lessons (on top of my own) because she is long-term ill; determining set lists because my departmental leader can't cope with it; and demonstrating practicals for another 'science' teacher who is not qualified to do so because the department is chronically under-staffed and we are having to draft in members of the PE and Geography departments to teach our lessons. Putting it into some sort of perspective, we currently have five full-time science teachers in a school of 1100 pupils. The average class size is nearly thirty. I have one set of thirty-five, which causes a bit of a problem given that there are only thirty-two chairs in my teaching room.

I'd like to point out that any of the above occurs before any of the Public Sector cuts that have just been announced. I have already been told that I will need to buy the majority of my own pens, crayons, whiteboard markers and so on for the next school year. This with classes who aren't capable of keeping hold of a fucking book for more than twenty hours without reducing it to pulp or sawdust.

On the point of dealing with troublesome pupils, I will quite happily demonstrate that during the course of routine phone calls home I have been called a 'twat', 'fucking incompetent', and - most entertainingly - been told 'Sir, your attitude is crap'. All of this from the progenitors of the aforementioned monkey-howlers that I am expected to educate.

It might be worth, at this point, illustrating that I feel that after six years teaching at the school I have acquired a degree of respect from the pupils. This is merely because I have acquired the skills to make a class sit in quiet, not call me a cunt in the corridors, and take my threats to phone their parents seriously.

Whtat really fucking pisses me off is that the school I allege to be my employers will bend over backwards for some of the fucking kids who are spoiled rotten by their parents. They don't get the cane any more, they don't get lines, they don't get to clean dirty desks. What do they get now? They sit in the fucking sports hall and read a fucking book for an hour in the name of detention. This might be bloody great for the fucking nationwide literacy strategy, but even the stupidest of our fucking kids have worked out that this ain't too bad a punishment in the middle of winter when all you've got to go back to is a house crammed with siblings and barely a one-bar fire to keep you all warm.

Why do we mollycoddle like this? Well, about 10% is because of the deprived children above. Totally legit; no problem with that; they're better off with us than they are at home, sadly.

Unfortunately the other nine-tenths are pupils whom we cannot afford to expel because they would be too fucking expensive for the school, and because they have been tested for intelligence and are therefore capable of gaining a certain number of GCSE grades. No question of whether the kids actually want to fucking achieve for themselves - no, all that matters is that we produce the grades to keep the Government happy.

To this extent, we are asked to break exam-board guidelines: make pupils produce coursework time after time until it is good enough, perhaps even writing segments of it for them, with the onus placed on us - the teachers - if it's not up to their target grade.

I am living in an entirely results-driven society, and have produced the best average improvement scores at all Key Stages for all my pupils for the last three years of my teaching.

Of course, I am deemed to be failing at my job. Why?

Firstly, while I had a class of pupils sitting silently and completing a test, I logged onto a website for ten minutes to check the status of my local sports team. I was therefore deemed not to be in control of the class.

Secondly, when confronted with a class of 30 pupils, 28 of whom flat-out refused to work for a full hour, I put the latter 28 into detention. I was accused of refusing (yes, me - not them - refusing) to teach them.

Because the latter class were GCSE critical (ie. might be getting C-grades if we wrote their coursework for them), I have been placed on a final warning. Because results are the important thing, you see? Not the fucking staff who are expected to deliver those results.

Now, I'm by no means claiming that the above two instances were correct courses of action, but would anyone else here think it was a case of putting one's job on the line?

Apparently I'm doing it wrong. And - frankly - I say screw anyone who attempts to glamorise the teaching profession.
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 2:07, 33 replies)

Last one tonight:
One of my friends and I were chatting on FB for a while, and she started talking about cooking. A lot. Asking me what recipes I liked, how much I baked, and so on. I couldn't work out why, since I'd never really said I bake (I'm a cookie person at best.)

Turns out that she saw my homepage and read it as Devian Tart. She thought it was like some kind of danish. **facepalm**
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 0:45, 4 replies)

Remembering Names
I've always been awful at this. Like, really bad. I had a friend in middle school whose name I didn't catch when I first got introduced, and it was a few months before I worked out what her name was. Unfortunately, this isn't a trick I've grown out of. And unfortunately, I'm now in charge of an orchestra.

This means meeting the new people, making them feel comfortable, sending them emails, making sure they have music and so on. Strangely enough, my memory for names isn't reflected in anything else. Last year we had 40 new people and I could remember their instruments, their desks and even most of their emails and phone numbers. But not their feckin' names.

This is fine in a practice environment, because you can call someone by their instrument. (as in, "Oi, second violins, you're playing flat!") It gets horribly, horribly embarrassing when you're at the pub afterwards and you're trying to thank Third Desk Cello for buying you a pint.

Anyone got any tips for remembering names? I generally just apologise in advance now.

EDIT: I really need to stop talking about musicians in all my QOTW answers, it's getting monotonous. I should get a kitten.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 0:33, 25 replies)

Showers
Staying at my friends' house for New Year, I decided to have a shower the next morning.
No problem; go into the bathroom, cue internal monologue:
Oh it's a shower-over-the-bath arrangement, that's fine, I can deal with this! I have a degree! Gosh, this must be a little inconvenient for aforementioned friends in a morning, only one shower and one loo and they're both in the same room...Not the greatest of all showers either, but oh well.
A few hours later I found the *actual* shower room whilst doing some cleaning. Proper shower cublicle, tiled walls etc. Spoon.
I must have been to that house more than a dozen times before I realised it had a separate shower.
( Peapod Has returned to the fold on, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 0:05, 5 replies)

Parking fail
Tonight, the only parking space near my house was a rather small one. Not a problem for me and my tiny car. The only problem was that I was forced right next to a tree so I had to scramble to get out of the passenger door. I texted my boyfriend to tell him about this inconvenience. His reply? "Why didn't you turn the car round and park the other way?"

*Facepalm*
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 23:44, 10 replies)

Parenting... Not me personally...
On the train to work the other day I began to eavesdrop on a conversation between a particularly robust mouth breather and his equally well upholstered brood of jr asbos; it went something like this:

Son: "dad, there's a helicopter up there"
Dad: "yeah it's probably the filth"
Son: "might it not be doing google maps?"
Dad: "no son, google maps is done from planes"
Son: "are you sure daddy, they must fly in awfully straight lines"
Dad: "what's with all the fucking questions, who are you? A fucking brain surgeon?"
Son: "sorry daddy"
Dad: "I should fucking hope so you noisy little shit, now get back on your DS; I didn't buy you that fucking thing for you to sit there asking questions all day!"
Son: (silently puts headphones on and ccontinues to play)
Dad: (shakes head incredulously)

One day IQ tests for parents will be mandatory. Roll on the distopian future of breeding permits that scifi always promised me...

X
( fatbouy you can't spell 'analytics' without 'anal', Fri 16 Jul 2010, 22:18, 10 replies)

washing up
Staying over at a mate's house last year, I offered to do the washing up. His kitchen is somewhat swankier than mine, and as I went to fill the sink I realised that there wasn't a typical plug on a chain. Nor was there one of those little levers behind the tap that sealed the waste with a little plug that pops up and down. No, it was this 3 inch wide thing that looked like a food trap to stop pasta blocking the pipes.

I couldn't see how it worked. I turned the tap on and the sink carried on not being filled up. I gave up in the end and resigned to washing the pots under a running tap.

I washed the small plates and then began to stack the large plates in the sink when all of a sudden the sink began to fill. It took me a good few minutes to realise that the pasta-trap is the plug and just works like a stopper and the weight of the plates pushed it shut.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 21:59, 2 replies)

Mechanical muppetry
The wife's old Fiesta had, as usual, failed it's MOT. On this occasion it was the brakes.
Since it was only taking up room in our garage because she was too sentimental to scrap it* I decided
that it wasn't worth the expense of getting it properly fixed. I would do it.

I trotted out to the garage with thoughts of a happy afternoon's spannering in mind.
Every hour or so I'd call in and demand a cup of tea, which my beloved would grudgingly
supply, while I got dirtier and dirtier. The brakes weren't quite as easy to sort as
the Haynes manual had suggested, but I got there in the end. Eventually it was time to put
everything back together again (in Haynes lie-speak, "refitting is a reversal of the removal process")
which took another solid hour of swearing and beating at the hub with a mallet. Anyway, I wrestled the wheels
back on, dropped the jack and drained my tea in satisfaction.

The next day, Mrs. S took the car back for a re-test while I went to work. I got a phone call a bit later on:

"Hey babe, she passed!"
"Woo! Great news, now it's legal for another year's hard rotting in the garage."
"Don't be mean. There's one thing though: the men wanted to know where I got the brakes fixed."
(Hmm) "Why? They worked, obviously."
"The brakes were fine, but they said some idiot put one of the wheels on the wrong way round. They couldn't
actually fail it on that, but they've turned it back around for me so I don't get pulled over."

Oops.

*This is a woman who cried when I threw out a broken TV because we were casting it
out of our nice warm home to shiver, unloved, on a scrap heap in Deptford, as if it
were an abandoned puppy.
( Scrumper, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 21:36, 3 replies)

Finding a partner.
I quite obviously am doing something wrong in life when it comes to finding my better half.. Finding The One.

Its been nearly 2 years now since any sort of romantic liason. And the last one really wasn't the girl for me. It lasted like 2 months before totally falling apart because we were just totally different and not compatible. Even my friends were like.. hmm you two just dont look right for each other. It was true.

Anyway since then, nothing at all has come my way.
People say, get out more. Go to the bars. You'll meet someone! Well I've done that, I've been out pubbing, clubbing. Chatted to a few girls. Lead to nothing. No connection there.

People say, well the in thing is really the online dating sites especially around here (I'm living abroad). Tried that - even the paid ones. Sent a few messages to people who seemed slightly interesting..
There really wasn't many. The odd one who actually replied are either loved up now because their profile is so old. Or just had nothing to say and once again. Nothing came out of it.

So people say, stop trying too hard. It'll happen.

People say, ah you'll meet someone, you're a nice guy.

Even single girls say, Ah you'll meet someone, you're a nice guy!

I've even took up a new hobby, so have something else to talk about.
I'm even about to take on a huge personal challenge for charity that has had interest and features in the local media.
Still, nothing is coming this way what so ever.

I'm a nice guy. Don't do drugs, don't gamble, don't cheat. Live in a nice place, have a nice car, a career that's going well. I earn decent enough money. Yet, for the last 2 years i've had to endure coming home alone every single day plodding on through life with no purpose or reason what so ever.

The most frustrating part is, I see those around me going in and out of relationships, meeting new people, getting together with them with no problems what so ever. Yet that doesn't seem to happen for me.

Trust me, I don't act desperate. I play it cool. Im not particularly picky about girls. I always see the best, and the cute in people others generally don't. Its not like i'm turning hundreds down. Yeah I turned a couple of proper monsters down. But I aint settling for some fat self confessed schizo with 3 kids and missing teeth.

I am obviously doing something wrong, but I have no idea what it is. There is something in life I am obviously oblivious too when it comes to finding someone. Hitting into the 30s now. If I'm ever going to get married and be a dad I need to find out what it is. Otherwise I'm going to die an old lonely man with no legacy to continue on. My life is pointless.
(Miggyman, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 21:19, 37 replies)

How To Take A Shower
A repost, but relevant. I once stayed overnight at the old Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, before they erased the place with explosives for even grander pleasure palaces.

Water control for each room's shower was governed not by faucets, but by a big dial: rotate left for hot and right for cold. But how to turn the shower on? No levers, no buttons, no clue. I had to call for help. A hotel maintenance man came up many flights of stairs to explain: you PULL the dial away from the wall.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 20:38, 1 reply)

Apparently "gotta catch 'em all" is from a TV show
and nothing to do with STDs.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 20:10, 2 replies)

whilst losing our virginity
Ah yes, 16 years old and we had finally got to the point where Lynne and I had decided that we would lose our collective virginity after many months of fumbling and frottage.
We had just finished our exams and we arranged for me to come round to hers while her Ma, Pa and siblings were out.
9am on the dot I turn up and at 9.03 we were hastily disrobing and with hands a shaking I unwrapped the durex I had stolen from my older brothers drawer in preparation. I had been walking around with a grandly tumescent cock for the past day since she had agreed to doing 'it' with me.
After some frankly minimal foreplay, I climbed on top and basked in what would be the crowning moment of my adolescence. My brother had advised me to make sure her legs were as wide apart as they could be so I could access the gateway to my adulthood, so I pulled her knees up and aimed and put it in.
And was it tight, Jesus Christ it was a real strain but I had been half expecting it to be that way, and as I tried to thrust and power my way in she was crying out ‘not like that’ but in it went with a rush and while she said ‘no no’ too late as I unloaded with huge smile.
As I looked down I realised then that she was trying to tell me that my aim was wrong and I had just stuck it up her arse, she had lost her anal virginity and I was a mixture of amused and hugely satisfied embarrassment.
Luckily she was still up for it and the powers of recovery are swift at that age and armed with a condom she had prepared we concluded the mornings business.
Unfortunately she didn’t agree to me riding the Hershey highway again but when you are at it like a rabbits you don’t really care at that age.
(nimrodihnio making gravy for one., Fri 16 Jul 2010, 19:37, 8 replies)

the M stands for Mong...
When I first got an iPod, quite a long time after everybody else as I was foolishly attached to Minidisc, I was rooting through the functions, not quite understanding how it worked (how does the music get on ?? It's witchcraft!!) and found the games...

Now parachutes is shit, so is the brick one, so I thought hang about I'll play the music quiz.

took me a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time to realise there was a very good reason that I knew an awful lot of the songs in the quiz. I thought I was just a fucking musical encyclopaedia....
( Sallyrsm, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 19:37, 2 replies)

Falling asleep during sex is never good
But uttering the words 'Cleric' and 'halfway house' whilst sleeping / having sex just leads to confusion and no more sex with that person ever again.

True story.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 19:35, 1 reply)

Doing Facebook Wrong
OK, so it's another failbook story. But it's quite a monumental cock-up, so I thought I'd share:

My cousin, C, is just out of his teens and spends most of his time getting wasted with various chemicals and then picking fights. This isn't entertaining in itself, the icing on the cake is the fact that after each fight, he posts the whole thing on facebook and all his mates comment on it, bigging him up for being such a manly man, or something.

The latest jewel in the crown was when he spent several posts telling a story about a fight he got into with some underage kids. This story of bravado and machismo was cut short by "and then their big brothers arrived so I fucked off." Even his mates were telling him off for writing it badly- doesn't sound too 'ard, does it, beating up a bunch of kids?- when his dad saw it. Rather than chew him out in private, he posted a huge response starting with the phrase, "YOU ABSOLUTE TIT". C's mates found this hilarious and waded in. C disappears from FB for a few weeks, and the next thing we know he's been arrested and put in jail for a few months based on certain online evidence...

The last time I checked his page, there were loads of posts congratulating him for getting put in the nick. I doubt he'll be posting much when he gets out.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 19:29, 2 replies)

Smash Monkey's microwave hi-jinx reminded me of this...
A few years back I upped and moved Dick Whittington style, with a holdall of possessions, except I was moving North and much farther away from London. I had managed to wangle kipping at an internet friend's house while I got myself sorted. Long story short I rent dodged for a month or two and then all the students were going home for Summer. They still had a month left on the tenancy but the bossiest of the girls told me I had to go "since they'd put their deposits down and they didn't want me to burn the house down or something and them lose their money". I was somewhat annoyed as I was 25 years old and had lived away from home for 7 years by this point. I hadn't managed to burn a house down yet I thought to myself.

Sneakily I borrowed the keys from the girl I'd initially been allowed to stay there with, made a copy at Timpsons and even helped them all pack up their cars to say thanks for letting me stay.

Then when night fell I let myself back into the house and carried on living there for a few weeks til my credit checks were done on my new digs!

On the last day I walked home via KFC, bought a Zinger Tower Meal and a Mini-Fillet. When I got in it was a little cold so I decided to heat it up. I put the entire brown bag in the microwave and hit start. A few seconds later I heard a fizzing sound and saw the edges of the bag glowing a phosphorous green colour.

I panicked and swung open the door, causing the oxygen to rush in and set the entire bag alight. I threw it into the sink and dowsed it with water. Crisis averted. I cleaned up a bit and sat down to a tasty dinner of soggy chicken in singed rolls.

Lesson learned.
( JebediahSpringfield, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 18:58, 2 replies)

Final day of school
Being the teacher with the most gadgets, I take my PS3 into school to play on the last day, using a red/yellow/white adapter. At home I play using HDMI. I get to school and rig it into the data projector. \select video source and nothing.

Scan all frequency on the projector: Nothing. Blue screen with no signal all across it. No matter what we do.

Down to the IT geeks, they come up, spend 20 mins and nothing. Just about every male teacher has put their opinion in, loads of students and we are just about to quit when in walks S, yr 12 girl, no ICT skills and biggest interest getting drunk and boys.

"You just hold down the "on" key on the PS3 and it automatically sense the output used and resets the signal".

60 men, defeated on technologcal knowledge by a girly girl. We collectively looked at each other then walked away, slighlty ashamed..
(Strump striving for imperfection since, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 18:49, 4 replies)

There's already been a few similar to this I think...
But oh how I wish I hadn't been such a numpty.

Whilst talking on the phone with someone I was trying to impress and sound vaguely intelligent and interesting to, he asked how big the new memory stick/radio/MP3 gizmo thingamy I'd just got and been raving about was.

To his credit he kept quiet for all of approximately ten seconds whilst I uttered the immortal line,

"erm, I think around 10cm. I'll just get a ruler..."

Shame he didn't stay quiet about it afterwards though.
(Picotee, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 18:41, Reply)

golddust just reminded me
of a very embarrassing microwave incident involving cider, underwear and a sleeping bag.

whilst babysitting one night, many years ago, a friend of mine called to keep me company. she'd also brought a large bottle of scrumpy to keep us company, too. now, being a responsible(yeah, right) babysitter, i'd set myself a 2-drink limit. being a teenager, however, these drinks were served in pint glasses. it was a warm night, so the first pint was downed very quickly and hit my bladder just as quickly. as i stood up to go and relieve myself, my friend michelle said "what do you think of my new perfume?" and sprayed me in the face with the damn stuff.
i sneezed, hard.
my bladder, already on a hair-trigger, couldn't hold on any longer and i proceded to piss my pants.
after she'd stopped laughing, michelle offered to run round to my house and pick me up some clean underwear and leggings. unfortunately, it being a saturday night, nobody was home. i didn't have a key, either, so we decided the best thing to do would be to wash my knickers and leggings in the sink, then dry them in the microwave.
oh, how i wish the woman i was babysitting for had had a drier.
within about 30 seconds of putting my clothes in the microwave, the house was filled with an horrendous burning smell. rushing to the kitchen, i was just in time to rescue the legs of my leggings, as the gusset and top part melted, along with my knickers.
it was at this point that michelle decided it was time for her to go home, the bitch.
when diane, who i was babysitting for, finally arrived home, it was to find me sitting in a sleeping bag and feeling very sorry for myself. as she was much thinner than me back then and had no clothes to lend me that would fit, i had to hop home in that fucking sleeping bag. when my mum opened the door, she took one look at me and said "i don't even want to know."

length? right down my fucking leg.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 18:32, Reply)

Hot and floppy fail.
My dad, who has recently at last figured out how to set the time on a betamax video recorder, is not really up to speed on gadgets. I had seen the advert for JML halogen ovens on the TV and I thought they looked good, but never suggested one as I knew it would be like suggesting he buy a laser cannon to cook food with. He surprised me however, and one day I returned home to find a mass of packing materials with my dad sitting in the middle, admiring his new gadget.

I retired upstairs as he grappled with the instructions, returning after an hour to find him packing it away. "It's going back" he grumbled. "Bloody thing's useless."

He had tested the machine (an oven, remember) by attempting to "cook" something simple. He'd tried to bake himself some toast. Three slices of hot floppy bread had convinced him the oven was useless.

After a gentle reminder that making toast in an oven often turns out a failure, he now hails the halogen oven as the greatest invention in the history of cooking. It is quite nifty, actually.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 18:29, Reply)

Your microwave isn't very good!
My lovely girlfriend has a microwave with a twisty dial on the front for setting the cooking time.

I have a digital type one, but a fairly minimal looking one so it doesn't have numbers etc just up and down arrows hidden in the door recess and a start & stop button on the front.

However if you press the start button it "quick cooks" for 30 seconds.

Last week the GF was microwaving something that required several minutes cooking time. I became vaguely aware of an audible pattern;
Beep beep beep beep, muffled swearing, click of door opening, slam of door closing, beep of button and then 30 seconds of microwave whirring.

After about the 10th cycle of this I went to investigate to discover her using the quick cook button and then having to open, close and restart the microwave every 30 seconds.

I then demonstrated that not only does the up arrow let you choose how long to cook for but pressing the quick cook button more than once adds 30 seconds repeatedly so a few presses would quickly set the oven to cook for a few minutes.

Apparently my microwave is crap for that not being obvious.

I also had to get my own dinner.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 17:53, 4 replies)