White xmas my arse!

White Xmas my arse!
What larks! Snow, ice, and Rage Against The Machine.
I seem to be getting sent into the freezer every shift now, hopefully just until the xmas rush is over. On Sunday it was miserable in there, I was on a bit of a downer. 2-10 on a Sunday, in the freezer. Glum was I.
Then I got home and Wendy told me that Rage had beaten Simon Cowell's karaoke clone to the xmas number 1! I was buzzing! What Yuletide frolics we shall have. Best xmas No 1EVER!
That was definitely the best 99p I've ever spent.
Bill Bailey was triumphant on Twitter that night. A success for real music, he thought. As he so rightly said "Hey Cowell, F+++ you I won't do what you tell me!"
Might be an anthem for me next year, "Killing in the name."

Then there was the snow. All very pretty until it freezes over night. Then you have the mard-arse want-to-live-for-ever types who think that a slightly damp road means you should do 6mph (literally. For about three miles through town.) I was overtaking whenever I could, holding a 40mph slide as I snaked along. That was later though, in the morning I ran Wendy to church, then on the way home thought it would be fun to have a bit of a slide. Only doing about 20-30mph, open, empty road, thought it would be a giggle to put the handbrake on.



Not so much fun. Locked up (obviously) lost all control, and started sliding towards that open roadworks you see.



Shit, shit, shit, shit!




And that will be another new bumper, please.
Wendy was so much less than pleased.

When I got home I spotted this, which has to be the most optimistic bit of clothes hanging in the history of laundry:




That amused me. It's not a brilliant quality photo', but you can see the sitting snow, and it was actually snowing at the time. Respect!

I think I have already mentioned (was it on here or on Twitter?) that after me telling one of the bosses (after he asked how my driving was going) that 'it isn't they are fucking me over' the next day a senior manager pulled me up and said that they were still on about getting me on the road with the warehouse-to-wheels scheme, but at the moment they had a desperate shortage of pickers and a surfeit of drivers. Come the new year...

Yeah, right. When they hand me the keys I'll start to believe them. Still now I've stopped pestering them over it, there was no reason for him to start me off again. There are no jobs out there, I'm trapped until well into the new year.
It's a possibility, but if I see another job I will be applying for it.

Also in the news, yesterday the neighbourhood urchins were pelting the front room windows and car with snow/ice balls. Wendy told them to stop, as did I, so they went behind a garden fence and carried on.
I lost my rag. Started feeling all that old anxiety bubbling up again. It's not the deed, it's the feeling of lost control, of being a victim. Not the porch banging through the house as it takes a hit, but the anticipation of the next one, seeing Wendy getting wound up, and being unable to do anything about it.
Not this time.
I stormed over to the offending wretch's house and banged on. The dad is bloody huge, but I am not going loony again. He would be the same size as every bugger else lay down with broken legs (4lb's pressure, applied to a not-bent knee joint).
He wasn't in so I went to the other kids' house, ready to take it as far as necessary. He however brought his brood to heel.
I know, I know, massive over-reaction.
The last time the kids got me in such a mess that I'm not going back. I was sleeping all day to avoid them, sat upstairs in my computer room with earphones in so I couldn't hear them, and happier at work than at home. It's taken me two years to get over the anxiety and state of panic. I still have a slight aversion to the front room.
I'll take a good kicking, or put people in hospital, but I'm not going back to that.

Plus side, I'm motivated to return to my martial arts just as soon as possible.

Anywho, merry non-denominational winter holiday to one and all!
Killing in the name of...
Buck.

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/Bucknihilist

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/Bucknihilist

I refute it thus...

I refer, of course to Bishop Berkely's philosophical argument that we can only be sure of the existence of matter as and when we perceive it. More commonly thought of as 'matter doesn't actually exist' and Samuel Johnson's legendary reply; kicking a rock and declaring 'I refute it thus'.
A seconds reasoning shows it doesn't actually refute it, but a clever and witty spontaneous reply, none the less.
Anyway, I'm here to refute, or at least argue.
I have started to follow Adam Baldwin (the American actor who plays Casey, a comedy fascist, in Chuck) and the links he posts are moving me to reply. Either he is keeping in character or Casey was type-casting.

Let us begin.
He posted a link to an article which had a cartoon of a stereotypical yank hick sat on the porch of his ser-then plantation house, whilst other white, suited types picked cotton in the field. The suits were labelled tax payers. The hick was saying something like ' we'll look after you, provide you with health care' etc. and it was entitled 'about slavery'. The accompanying article said that Obama was good for at least making people decide between freedom and Socialism, or freedom and slavery.

Right, where do I start? The implied, if inverted, racial dig at the cotton picking blacks? The pejorative, closed question that states if you have any form of social conscience you have no freedom? No, lets start at the beginning; the slavery jibe. If it wasn't for people with a social conscience there would still be slaves. Business is never going to say 'tell you what, why don't we enshrine your rights in law, ensure a minimum wage and your right to get a different job if this one is too shit?'
The slaves never have a voice and business will not cut it's profits. It is up to the free and empathetic, those with a conscience, to stand up for those forced to live on their knees.
Here is the proof, from 1863. Some poor yank got the shit beat out of him.

This is what business always wants, an expendable workforce bereft of rights.

Then there is the matter which seems to be causing this polemic disingenuous waffle, the matter of public health care. Thank (non-existant) god that I live in dear old Blighty, where the ideal of a national health service is at least an aspiration. To think that someone would kick up a fuss about the thought of the poor having a minimum safety net of health care! Capitalism in such a crude form, in a nation that professes to be Christian, is disgusting to me. Economic Darwinianism is a fallacy, one that invariably leads back to slavery. If all 'men' were 'created' equal, and on a level playing field, then perhaps one could ascribe lack of financial security to laziness, and promote health care nazi-ism as a form of incentive.
As neither of the above pre-conditions are close to being fulfilled, the conclusion does not follow.
A chap with learning difficulties, born into a family of under-class dole wallahs, who is expected to leave school/ jail early and scam his life on benefits and crime is in no way equal to a really clever kid born into a middle class family who expect him/her to go to university and beyond.
The fact that kid A is not likely to amount to much in financial terms doesn't mean his/her life is intrinsically worth less. Or to put it another way, as a guiltless baby do we let kid A die of an illness because his family have no money?
So, to return to the nub of the point, are we nobler creatures if we look after the less fortunate or if we exploit them for our own pitiless gain?

That's all I have to say about that.

Then he posted a link to an article which claimed that the data that suggests global warming is a fabrication.
I honestly can't think why anyone would claim that.
I found myself like Mulder when Scully makes claims based on her belief in Catholicism. He is willing to consider any possibility, however far fetched and statistically unlikely, if it is grounded in the physical universe. Yet he is dismissive of her 'faith'.
I found myself in the same boat over this. I don't know all the evidence but have a blind belief in science and the scientists.
It is just incredible to me that the overwhelming scientific consensus (except, until recently in the States) should be made up. Why? To what end? What do all these disparate scientists gain from it?
There is obviously an answer to the inverse, why do the deniers deny? To what end? What do they gain from it? Money.
There are reports from sources as diverse as holiday companies not being able to let the holiday makers off the boat at the pole (forget which one) for a walkabout because the ice had all melted, Alaskan houses subsiding because they were built on stilts onto the permafrost which has started to melt, polar bears becoming a nuisance around northern townships because they can't find enough ice upon which to hunt, etc. On which note, I don't think anyone who saw David Attenborough's documentary with that poor polar bear swimming for miles because it had no ice upon which to hunt, then in desperation attacking a walrus (or sea lion) colony and getting battered, will soon forget it.
The point being, the evidence seems to be all around us, (freak weather everywhere, melting icecaps, etc) and the only ones who stand to lose by us combating it are the big polluters. ie, big business. Back to my point about slavery, if we give the capitalists free rein everyone loses. They are never going to say, 'if we cut our profits by half we could eradicate emissions.'
Take the legendary GM electric car scandal, up and running, ahead of it's time, recalled and crushed with the patent sold to an oil consortium.
My point then is; there are massive interests in promulgating denial of global warming, there is no coherent scientific/ business gain from stating there is warming.
Go figure.

That's it, rant over, blame Adam Baldwin.
Buck.

Onward.

Time marches on, taking us all with it. Little changing, little happening, different day same ol' same ol'.
I'm seizing the moment to set to typing. Wendy's sister has just 'phoned for a rant, so I have half an hour (at least) to spare.
I don't know, I seem to be stuck in a rut at the moment, trapped in a job I don't like, knowing they are screwing me over, with no prospect of getting my driving out of it. The driving jobs outside of work are either catch 22 or really temporary. Not really an option.
Then there's the possibility of the army. Not ideal, and an option strongly opposed by Wendy and my family, but if needs must one that is a workable solution.
The bloody sax is a pain as well. Whilst I am learning I can't seem to get a sense of satisfaction, of a job well done. I'm at best approaching a level that shows some understanding of where it should be going, then it's on to the next chapters. It really is two or three chapters per lesson. I sit down and he says this next chapter (which I haven't even looked at whilst trying to get to grips with the previous two or three he set me) is a good one to warm up on! What! Then there are all the horrible things like timing, flats and sharps. I'm so focused just on trying to read the next note and make my fingers press the relevant keys I don't have the mental capacity to simultaneously beat out 6/8 time or remember that the next note had a flat sign at the beginning of the bar so you press different buttons.
When all's said and done, this is just learning. I am hoping that one day (the sooner the better) I will be able to read the music as fluently and naturally as I read a book, thus freeing myself up to think about all the other stuff I should be doing. No sign of that happening any time soon.

On the bright side it's nearly new year. A fresh start. Get back into the Kung Fu, keep looking for a driving job, keep plugging away at the sax. Probably just the time of year cheesing me off. Cold, dark, all the extra stress of the damned holiday period, the seasonal illness etc.

I feel like I've written all this before, that nothing has changed, is changing or will change.

Just got to soldier on. What are your options?

Next year it will all change. By the end you won't know the ennui-ed me you see before you.

Later,
Buck.

It is what it is

well what the hell else could it be? Redundant? A tautology? A waste of two seconds of my life listening to inane drivel?

Sorry, just carrying on the thought from the 'title' box. I am very tired and a tad cranky in case you hadn't noticed.

Just to say after spending nearly a quarter of my annual take home pay on driver training and after all the prevarication and promises, when I again asked today if there was any sign of me ever getting on to the final bit of warehouse to wheels, a manager said to me "in a word, no."
As I have long suspected.
Bunch of bastards.
Months they have been stringing me along, always with plausible plans, and finally, 'no'.

On the bright side, it's not like I have turned any work down on the off chance they would come through. I've been applying for every job that's advertised, and many that aren't, and always it comes down to experience.
Two jobs I've seen since passing my test that were OK, about not having experience, both agency. The last said he would ring me when he had something more definite, never got back to me, and one today. £7 per hour, class II driver, but only until Jan/Feb.

I'm tempted, even so. There will be no work at all at the end of January though. It would be nice to drop my works in the shit for xmas and start building up experience, even if it would be a drop in hourly pay.

Wendy's out painting the town red tomorrow with her hell-raising crew from C.A.B.. Well, going for a meal, at any rate. I think I'll do the maths then. Could we afford to take the pay cut, and how long could we last with me out of work.

The army said they have received my application to 're-enlist' (gulp) but it will take several weeks to process as I'm an ex soldier. Presumably they will have to track down my records from previous service. I will be a driver, I will, I will.

Wendy's still not happy about the thought of me being mobilised. She's got me down as dead, wounded, or loony. A dude's got to (try) to do what a dude's got to do. I have grave doubts as to whether I'll even get in. Got to keep as many irons in the fire as possible though.

Right, well tired me,
later,
Buck.

Back sliding

Hi. I've come to a decision; if I'm giving up on Taekwondo, give up on it. I'm treating myself to a month and a bit off, then my new year's resolution (and my xmas present) will be to go back to Wing Chun Kung Fu, joining with the full package. This is about £100, what with the uniform, membership and insurance. If I do it all in one hit though it will show this time (my third attempt at joining this particular club) that I am serious and committed.
My first time my life revolved around getting wasted, so it was doomed from the start. The second time Wendy was unemployed so money was tight, and I wanted to do both Kung Fu and Taekwondo (so I would have the flashy head kicks and the up-close fighting excellence) but that was just too expensive. I chose the cheapest one, Taekwondo, at less than half the price per lesson.
Now, as I have mentioned, I just want a fight-winning style. Any style is only going to be as good as the person who teaches it, and the Sifu (Chinese for the Japanese 'Sensei')of this club was taught in Hong Kong, as a kid, by the sons of the legendary Yip Man. The same chap of whom they have just made a film, and Sifu of Bruce Lee.
That's a pretty impressive lineage.

With my current sax obsession I can only fit in one fighting style and Wing Chun is nuts and bolts fight winning. So I'm slobbing out now, but I'm equally excited and nervous at the prospect of going back.

I wagged it/ had a days holiday yesterday. Find out which in a few hours when I go in to work. They are supposed to return your holiday request forms the same shift as you tender them. It was over a month since I put mine in, I asked my manager if I could have the form back (approved or denied) on about six different occasions. Nothing. So I kept quiet about it last week and just took the day off. Bollocks to 'em!

I'm in today, off tomorrow. Got to try and get the mighty Micra MOT'd tomorrow. More money.

Still no news about any driving jobs. I will have to sit down and concentrate on getting that TA application off tomorrow.

One good thing at work, when I went in on Friday the place was abuzz with gossip. It turns out the GM and his assistant (the hit-men who were brought in to shake things up, turfing de-kit out of our jobs and bringing in agency workers, trying to make the cleaners all agency etc) have both been demoted!
The Gm has been demoted to transport manager and his deputy (Ass Man -assistant manager- to borrow from Chuck)has been demoted to shift manager.
Smell the schadenfreude!
Karma really is a bastard.

Talking of which, I guess the Buddhism didn't take. I see and approve of the better way, I follow the worst. Trying to get a job killing people just so I can get on with making money. I don't have a problem with killing people, in the general sense.
But Buddha is pretty categorical in saying that it is not a good thing.
I have been rationalising why I can't follow the right path since I started to take an interest in it. This is pretty much crossing the Rubicon though. I don't believe in an after life, but Buddha seems to have it cracked as to how to live this one.
Guess I'll just have to muddle through.

Anywho, got to get on,
later,
Buck.