Mother?

In the classicl SciFi movie Alien starring the always equally lovely Sigourney Weaver the space ships main computer is called Mother.

When everything goes to hell in a handbasket and Ripley has to shut down the main cooling units, the ship informs her that it’s about to blow in that friendly, servile and pleasant tone of voice that runs completely contrary to Ripley’s desperation and screaming frantic pleading.

“I’ve turned the cooling units back on Mother!” she yells as she runs down the steam-heavy corridors.

It doesn’t help, of course. Mother doesn’t care.

Neither does our fire alarm.

It was all installed yesterday came on-line during the night. This morning it didin’t work. And the way in which it didn’t work was quite spectacular. Bells a-ringing, lights a-blinking. The tech shows up after lunch of course and on a Friday and everything. So whatever is wrong is going to stay wrong for at least the duration of the weekend.

After pushing all the shiny, shiny buttons and checking the installation with fun tools and gadgets the Tech looks at me.

“Mother’s broken”, he says.

Well. Of course she is. I knew that. And here I’ve been thinking we needed an exorcism. No, that’s not it at all. Mother is broken. I’m guessing he means the Motherboard.

My way is funnier, though.

ROL

Get a Helmet

I was talking to my brother the other day.

He’s not happy with his job. Well, now.

The conversation goes something like “I don’t think this is what I want to be doing”. So I ask him what he wants to do instead and he talks about getting some cushy office job, something he’s trained for, something nice and steady.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but come on… we all want things we can’t have and isn’t that a bitch? We have similar CVs and I know for a fact that everything he’s trained for and everything he’s actually worked as don’t match up. I have the same problem.

We’re the most similar siblings of the litter. High IQ, lots of education, lots of book learning and a lot of menial physical jobs.

I point blank him.

I don’t mean to be rough on the guy, but come on… we both know that you hit a certain point where you have to be honest with yourself. I ask him what kind of job he really wants. Does he want a nine to five that he can do and then go home and forget all about or does he want a life style? ‘Cause if he just wants to show up, do the job and then go home to live a rich and fulfilling life that’s actually a pretty easy fix. It’s just a matter of finding something that you can get up and do without wanting to hit your head against the wall every morning.

If, on the other hand, you’d rather do something that might in the end turn out to be a lifestyle you could start your own business. He’s worked as a cook so he could start a restaurant, a café, a bar… you know, something like that. No, no he doesn’t want that. Too much work. Long hours. Not enough pay and it would never work anyway and he’d hate it and he’d fail and so on and so forth.

He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want what he has. He doesn’t want the things he could have. He doesn’t want to try for anything else.

I am a great believer in the theory that if you’re not happy where you are you should move on. Hate your job? Find another job. Don’t like your apartment? Move. Fallen out of love with your significant other? Break up.

Travel light, move fast. Life’s too fucking short.

But don’t bring the bitching to me. I’ve been through this too many times. I will play the pity party fiddle or any other instrument either.

I get on the computer and find a couple of jobs he could apply and give them to the guy with a “here apply for these” which is short for “get your shit together”.

I told a friend about it and she laughed. She said that’s the thing about me. I do that to people.

Huh? I do?

Yes, obviously. And being on the receiving end is no fun, but good for you none the less, she said.

There are some days when you have to just look people dead in the eye and say “life sucks, get a helmet”. I’ll be there for my own all the way – whatever I can do, really. But for this kind of uncategorized and general feeling of “I am not where I want to be” I just can’t.

ROL

What the hell are they building in there?

I got home yesterday, dumped my stuff, kicked off my boots and powered up my computer.
As I sat down there came a high pitched mechanical whine from the wall directly in front of my desk.

Bloody hell.

Sounded like someone was trying to come through the wall with something huge and Black & Decker-ish.

And I go … “oh, no, not again”.

See, this is what I do not understand. Why do people do that? On a Saturday afternoon? What the hell are they builing in there? For seven hours straight this goes on. And on. And on. And … you get the picture.

It is enough to give you a headache. Actually it is more like an aneurysm come to think of it, silently ticking away like a time bomb behind your eyes. And I was seriously considdering knocking on their door and actually asking them “What the hell are you building in there?”

You see, this is not the first time this has happened. And that’s when your imagination starts running away with you. There is no particular reason why they should need to take a power saw to their walls, our landlord takes care of all maintenance – so they do it for the fun of the thing – pretty dismal fun to my mind – and that means they must be constructing some kind of… I don’t know cage for their children? Spacerocket? Kitchen island style bar in the middle of the room? Greenhouse for their illegal plants and vegetables?

The possibilities are endless.

My patience is not.

At least they didn’t carry on late into the night, which is always something I guess. I can’t believe you have to be grateful for that kind of thing, but there you go.

ROL

I Think I Killed It

I actually had a day off today.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t set my alarm, because I am a good little worker bee and always get up early in the morning.

Okay, so that was obviously a blatant lie, but still.

I set my alarm. The thing went off. Now, I hate that sound with a passion, like we all do, but when I know I can ignore it I can more or less tolerate the damned thing.

Still I must’ve rolled over this morning and decided that snooze was in order.

When next I woke up it said 13:15… that can’t be good. So I slouch off into the bathroom, blink blearily at myself in the mirror and just… try to get my bearings. The weather has been dark, wet and misty all day, so there’s no real daylight and nothing to indicate what time of day it is in the least.

I make my breakfast and turn on the TV.

I obviously killed my alarm clock this morning. I must have aimed for the snooze button, but hit the time reset button instead. It’s only twenty past ten.

I guess I started the day off in the wrong trouser leg of time this morning which just goes to show that time is indeed a relative thing. It’s like – five minutes are nothing if not put in relation to say if you’re waiting for a buss on a rainy day or if you’re waiting for you best friend in a bar.

Getting up in the morning is still a bitch, but you have to try and be a little philosophical about it I guess. And try not to kill the messenger – though technically I don’t think I did. I just fucked with it. I’m good like that.

ROL

At oh-fuck-oh-three in the morning

My brother called me at 01:03 in the morning.

Now, let’s get the back-story clear here. Whenever anyone calls you at that hour you know it can’t be good. So force of habit takes over. I have one leg in my jeans and am getting my wallet, keys and boots as I put the phone to my ear.

Unless you have the kinds of friends who drunk dial you to talk of their feelings… but I don’t as far as I know.

Generally I will be awake at that time in the morning anyway, so it’s okay, but the pure adrenaline reaction – I can’t do anything about that. I just get ready. That’s all. I mean, whatever the people closest to you need, right?

Now, my brother, he’s a pretty competent guy – he can take care of himself. So that means if he’s in the kind of trouble that makes him call me in the middle of the night things might be about to get bloody. Bonus points for that.

So what happens? Big, fat load of nothing, actually. I knew from earlier that his cell was on the blink, which might explain why it has taken to randomly dialling in the middle of the night just for fun.

I talked to him today and he explained that there had been something wrong with his cell for a couple of days. Symptoms included sluggish response to buttons being pushed, no connection and partial amnesia… You know, it forgets what it was supposed to be doing and then does the other thing instead.

Wait…What? I mean – my brother’s cell just drunk dialled me?

When you read dystopian fiction one of the things that seems to pop up a lot is how advanced technology takes on a life of it’s own and starts making decisions for us – not a good thing. Well, wake up and smell the coffee – we’re already there.

Still – at least my brother was okay and not stuck in an alley somewhere bleeding into his shoes from a knife wound to the stomach. That’s the kind of thing that flashed in you head when you phone rings at one a.m.

I can deal with the drunk dialling cell – and when I talked to him today he had already bought a new one. Currently he’s trying to get his computer to talk to it. I wish him luck. I just hope that doesn’t mean somehow his computer will start drunk dialling me too…

ROL