I am a ghost

Posted on by inkbiotic

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Do you sometimes question if you exist in the way you’re supposed to? I sometimes wonder if I’ve died already and what’s wandering around as me doesn’t look completely human anymore.

Today I was feeling faded out anyway, still ill with some bizarre virus that gives me a low level fever and makes my face feel swollen up from the inside. I haven’t been outside my room except to get water and occasional snacks, but I needed more food, so I went out to the supermarket. And on the way people were staring at me oddly. They often do stare at me oddly, it’s true, not nastily, just curiously, but today they weren’t even trying to hide it.

Then I was in the supermarket, using the self-service screen and it wouldn’t recognise my finger. I was pressing and pressing different buttons on the screen, trying to get something, but nope. So I called the supermarket guy over, I know him, he’s usually really friendly, but he barely acknowledged me. He pressed the button, it worked first time. So I think it’s me, what have I turned into? Am I just waiting to fade away?

 

Word of the day (I think this one may be a joke): Gawdelpus – helpless person

 

Nah, screw you artificial negativity brain

Posted on by inkbiotic

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I refuse to be cowed by my robot masters of the future and the message they have chosen to bestow on me. While it wouldn’t be difficult to make a case for my huuuuuuuuge loserdom, I really like my life. I like its oddness, and all the green nature-y stuff in it. I like that I get enough time to let my mind wander to wherever it feels like going. And that the people I know make me laugh a lot and seem to like me. And today, I  have given the book I’ve just written to a friend to read. Of course, when he reads it I’ll find out it’s not finished at all and I have a shit-load of work to do again, but for now, I can revel in the delusion of believing it’s great. So on the other hand, maybe that’s the point, I’m a huge loser, but it makes me happy, so that IS my style 🙂

Note to self: I think we all function by keeping ourselves somewhat deluded, delusion is essential for survival, nothing wrong with it all. However, other people don’t think this and won’t react well if I tell them they’re deluded. As I discovered a few weeks ago at a party. Don’t do that again, me.

‘Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’

Alice in Wonderland

Foxes again! But I am infected

Posted on by inkbiotic

 

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This is going to be short because I have some evil, life-force sapping virus. I think I’ve had it for a while, which probably explains why my blogs have been so crap recently (doesn’t explain their quality before that, but oh well).

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But anyway, the foxes came back, and had a sleep near their shoe, so I glad I kept it. My phone wouldn’t get a good enough picture, so this is from Hamoudi’s. Look at the little chaps!

 

Foxes’ playground

Posted on by inkbiotic

I get a lot of wildlife in my garden. South East London is greener than North London which entices nature to set up home, and then my garden is mostly left to its own devices so animals get to settle in. Parakeets swoop round in a gang every morning, drunken blackbirds sit on the lawn with their beaks in an apple, and I’ve had a family of foxes visiting for the last few years. What I like about our foxes is that so far they only visit, they don’t crap everywhere or dig holes. Aside from a few squashed plants (which might be the fault of cats) they only come to play or lounge around. Sometimes they bring toys.

This is the shoe they left in my garden last night. I don’t want to remove it in case they want to play with it later.

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And a picture from last spring, this is the baby fox who came all the way up the fire escape to sleep on the roof under the kitchen window.

 

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It’s raining it’s pouring, Inkbiotic is boring

Posted on by inkbiotic

Andrew Android 2

Andrew Android Jones

Today has been a day of rain, paranoia and headaches (I don’t fair well when I’m stuck inside). So this just going to be a hodgepodge of happy pictures, funny things and interesting words.

19C jobs

Several words of the day

Blague – humbug; pretentious nonsense

Xanthippe – ill-tempered woman

Chasmophile – lover of nooks and crannies

Wappend – tired, incontinent, unchaste

fractal37
Silverb’s The Icon of Hecate

A blog of few words…

Posted on by inkbiotic
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From underneath a weeping willow

Sorry I’ve not been around for a few days, I’ll do some catching up on my blog reading in a minute. I hope you’ve all been keeping out of mischief; or in mischief, if that’s your thing. I spent the weekend finishing a draft of the book I’m writing, oh and watching the film Us it was great.

Today our robot mower was causing trouble, although that’s not so much Momo’s fault as Mike stirring up trouble because he thinks Momo is trying to take his job. Last week Mike set up the sprinkler in the bit of lawn being mowed to get Momo to explode (didn’t work), and then today he was trying to grass up (pun!) the mower to management. I over heard this conversation between a boss and Mike:

‘Look, Momo has done a terrible job,’ said Mike. ‘It’s killed that lawn. I’d be sent home if I did that.’

‘It’s fine, it looks fine,’ said the boss.

‘And it’s always sitting around, doing nothing for hours on end,’ said Mike.

‘It’s his lunchbreak, he’s allowed a break.’

‘And it keeps vaping on the job!’

Poor old Momo.

Clickbait alert: This picture is misleading…

Posted on by inkbiotic

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We spent lunch bickering over what to call Robomo. I suggested Lionel, while management liked Rob, but Dan clinched it by coming out with Momo.

In the afternoon, Jessica and I were working in a garden on a small side street. She was crossing the road to get to the van, when a Mercedes whizzed around the corner. She jumped out the way just in time. The driver stopped, wound down the window, and said cheerily,

‘Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t run you over, you do such a good job. The garden looks lovely!’

I feel sorry for all the people crossing the road who don’t do such a good job.

All bow to our new robot masters…

Posted on by inkbiotic

 

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I quite liked turning up to work this morning and seeing the robo mower trundling about, it’s like a pet. Myself and Dan tried playing with it for a while, standing in robo-mow’s way so that it turned around. But I guess it got annoyed, because then it started charging at our feet, little blades whirring away. Mike just shouts at it like it’s a disobedient dog (‘Go on! Get back in your hutch!’) or complains about its mowing skills (‘Look! It’s cut the grass too low!’ ‘It’s wrecked those edges!’) Mateo sneers at it, (‘You fuckin’ bastard!’)

While I do like the innocent nature of the robo-mow, I’m not sure it’s going to work out as a new member of our team. It has no method to its mowing, just trundles in a straight line until it hits something, then turns at any old angle and shuffles off. Such a random method takes ages to cut all the grass. That’s fine on a small, fairly regular patch of grass, but we need it to cut one of the huge, oddly shaped lawns that continue across paths. I’m not sure it would ever finish.

My plan is to see if I can retrain it as a robot dog. I’d enjoy the company while I’m working, and if any of the residents start to give me trouble, little pooch can scare them off. Not sure how to do this though, any ideas?

The rise of the robots

Posted on by inkbiotic

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‘It’s the beginning of the end!’ wailed Mike. ‘You see, we’ll all be gone by Christmas. Unemployed!’

We all perked up at the thought.

Anyway, you’re wondering what’s happened to distress the usually calm and collected Mike. Our benevolent rulers have bought a robotic lawnmower. (Why the designers chose that name and not robomo, I can’t imagine.) Since Mike is our main mower, and as the oldest, gets a bit paranoid about losing his job (he has no need to, everyone loves him and our place of work would decay to a soulless husk within weeks without him) he sees the robomo as a direct threat.

‘Look at him, evil, lurking,’ said Mike as the happy little robot trundled along. The rest of us started making plans for googly eyes or deely boppers to decorate our new robot colleague, while Mike made plans for a terrible accident to occur. Our boss kindly informed Mike that this robot is not seen as a replacement, but as a way to free up our time for other gardening, but Mike isn’t convinced.

‘This is how it starts!’ he whispered to me.

Have any of you had to worry about automation taking your job?

When computers first started to get clever enough to do our jobs, they promised us a life filled with leisure instead of work. I don’t why that suddenly became Humans, you are obsolete! Keep out the way and starve quietly!

The Trouble with Meeting Any Old Tom, Dick or Harry

Posted on by inkbiotic

This story is from one of my favourite bloggers, Colin McQueen and his site, Getting On. It made me chuckle!

via The Trouble with Meeting Any Old Tom, Dick or Harry

Note: this is just the first bit, cos the reblog didn’t provide an excerpt…

The Trouble with Meeting Any Old Tom, Dick or Harry

SpeedDating
There is, apparently, an epidemic of loneliness amongst the middle-aged and elderly. Opportunities to meet other single people in an ‘organic’ manner are vastly reduced as we get older and for some people, many of whom may have been in a stable relationship for many years, the whole business of meeting new people can be a bridge too far. It is with some surprise, therefore, that I learn that Speed Dating, the most synthetic and pressurised mode of social intercourse that humankind has yet devised, has, for an increasing proportion of ageing singletons, become the preferred manner of meeting people and, perhaps, finding a partner. I tried to imagine how this might work…

DING!
Mary: …Are you alright?
Tom: Yes, it’s these chairs. What’s the point of the arm rests? It’s a bugger of a job to get into them without popping the front of your shirt out of your trousers – not ideal when you’re trying to make an impression; especially when you’ve not really had time to change your vest since last Sunday’s gravy incident – also, could put your hip out; twist too far trying to get your knees under these tables…
Mary: Right… well… I see. Yes. Well, I’m told that the best thing to do, because we’re obviously time-limited, is to get the personal details out of the way first, so, I’m Mary, I’m a retired teacher. I like walking on the beach in the early morning. I love music and books – clichéd I know, but true – and I’m allergic to cats. You?
Tom: I’m… ooh, excuse me. I had beans for lunch. Always do that to me, beans, still, better out than in eh?
Mary: Well… I suppose…
Tom: Tom. I spend my time in the pub mainly. Don’t have many friends, that’s why I’m here: thought that I might be able to get a bit of… well, you know, woman of the world and all that. Teacher. Don’t just learn about such things, if you catch my drift, eh…
Mary: Er… well, I don’t really… Oh, there’s the bell.
Tom: Bell?
Mary: Yes, the bell. Time to move on I think.
Tom: I didn’t hear a bell.
Mary: Really. I definitely heard the bell.
Tom: Nobody’s moving.
Mary: I am…

DING!

To read on>>>>

via The Trouble with Meeting Any Old Tom, Dick or Harry