Too good

I've spent a bit of time calling the number 100 recently. And not in the hope that some chic with a lovely husky voice will answer and indulge my fantasies.

My first impression was how good the training must be for these folks. Brilliant. I went for a course once where we were taught how to answer the phone. Like most training courses I attended though, as soon as I was back in the office, it was back to business as usual. To be fair, the amount of stuff they required you to say when you picked up the phone, before the third ring, was too much. You'd be out of breath before the conversation even started. Not these folks. Some default text rolls out their tongues as easy as pie. Default text that I never listen to.

Then there's the politeness in the voice. It's not human to be that nice. That training again. Either that of they work with a row of huge axes above their workstations. They want to help with any and all problems I may have? Who are these people. When I was working, I hated receiving phone calls. A phone call meant some guy wanted something. And if he was calling it was either to ask for something quick, urgently, or to complain about something urgent not being done yet. So every time you answered a call, the times that you did actually answer and not stare at the phone, waiting for it to stop ringing, you were on the defensive. Yes? What do you want? Growling behind every response. When a guy has a tonne of work he tends to growl. Or maybe it's just me.

The guys who earn their living talking on the phone are mighty different, thankfully. I tried using slang but all that came back was polished webster's kind of stuff. That must have been a big No-No at training camp, being informal. Tried to ask her plans for the weekend but engaging the customer in small talk is definitely not in the manual. Hey, I was just trying to loosen things up. Don't like talking to robots much. But the discipline these guys have is incredible. I always said it's a good thing people are different. I wouldn't last one day at that job. I'll stick with easier things. If I'm not getting too old for that too.

Boiler Bull

Ever been in those places where people are expressing honest views ablout sh!t. Just talk, nothing else.
Then after one guy expressing his honest ( frequently harsh truth-not the socially correct dimensions), one self appointed prefect bores the whole crew trying to atone for that honest and yes interesting confession. Its pure abuse of freedom of information.
It's a good thing such people have no place on the cyberspace. or are they?

Locked in

It's quite a popular tactic among businesses. Big businesses especially.

It would be lots of fun being locked in, if I was "in" by choice. My choice. But that's not how these guys work. More often than not you find yourself in a situation where you use a product or service because you don't have viable options. Because you are, for all intents and purposes, forced to. This rather than because you want to. Because in spite of other existing products you chose that one for the value it provides for you.

I used to think that the latter was the better business model. But it's already been established that I'm clueless about business. Need to do a stint at Strathmore Business School or something. Used to believe that if you have a good product, some people will use it. And that that was enough. I suppose though if you are a business owner you want all people to use it, not some. Make more money. More money is always better. I guess everyone looks out for themselves. Consumers and businesses both. All's fair in love and war and all that.

PG TV

I stopped watching TV some time ago. For all intents and purposes anyway. What I do now is that incidental use thing.

Initially it was due to a general disinterest and irritation at the content. Heard all the jokes, seen all the plots and that kind of thing. Then came work. After a while all I wanted to do when I got home was sleep. All I wanted to do with any free time that came my way. Then there was the other motivator. The fact that increasingly, there would be situations where either me or my mum would have to walk out of the sitting room.

There was a time when that kind of thing was predictable. Depending on how the weekend movie started you could make a calculated judgment on whether to stay on with the rest of the folks, or feign tiredness and get yourself out of a potentially squirmy situation. And that was pretty much it. Nowadays, you have no way of telling what'll show up on the tube. You're sitting there watching some innocent sounding or looking something or other and all of a sudden the conversation starts to go south. Or the pictures. You have to reach for a newspaper or something, only we don't buy newspapers so there's none lying about. The only option is to get up, head for a drink of water and out of there. Once that kind of thing happens a couple of times, you learn to avoid that whole scene and just listen to the radio instead.

Of triangles and elephants

Every so often you bump into one of those situations. Those awkward ones. I seem to be recalling a lot of them lately. Perhaps a sign that I should be making new memories.

It can get interesting though. When you know she's having something or other with a guy you happen to know. A guy who happens to be married. He knows that you know. You know that she knows that you know. The doctor knows that everyone knows. In fact, the wife probably also knows. But no one says a thing. If it wasn't so tragic it would be absolutely hilarious.

At every opportunity you make a point of not mentioning the obvious. Now I'm not one to judge, even when I have an opinion. If you want to have a thing with a married man... well... Do you have to, really. There are sufficient numbers of single guys for you not to. So Kamikaze was all but written off this list, and aJamaa may or may not be on a slippery slope leading down a hill or something like that. Still plenty of guys out there. I tell it to any chic who'll listen. There's one who actually enquired about these [good] friends I kept mentioning and wondered if I could hook her up. She needed to get laid. Her words. One for another post.

Anyway. As I was saying. I see no need to have a thing with a married someone. There are tonnes of people you can have a thing with, casual or otherwise. Perhaps it's that thing called love [which I know nothing about]. No amount of rational, unisex logic can help you out with that. There surely are no good outcomes. You either oust the wife and become the step-mom, or go your way 7 years later when the thing finally ends and the guy sticks with the wife. Turn into one of those G10 folks. Even if you convince yourself that there are no "good" men, you could still do perfectly fine on your own. Bury yourself in work. It's amazing how effective fatigue can be at inducing apathy. Or you could do the partying thing. There'll be no shortage of guys there. And you don't even have to marry them.

But. People like what they like. That's just how it is. So until there's some kind of seismic event, you just do like the elephant isn't sitting in the room.

Cost cutting shock

i woke up to a rude shock in the office.
they are cutting costs. First there's a memo about tea consumed in the organization- Circulated to all staff, and expected cuts.
Even if i don't indulge so much in the brown milky liquid, it bothered me they were bring this up as if it's the new expansion strategy.
Then the bomb. There's not internet for normal staff. I have never said as many words which end with a 3 letter pattern starting with U. This HNIC is more wasteful than all our internet times combined. Ati i have to move to a machine next to him when i need to communicate with our consultants. It's called close supervision.
Where is this going? Systemic abuse of power. and that "mta-do?" culture. I could bring my own modem or pay a leased line to my comp. But i hear we will be closely monitored to administer emotional torture effectively. Just may be someone will resign and he achieves his cost cutting goals. What's next? No soap in the bathroom? we have to sit on wooden chairs? The photocopier machine is being auctioned?

This madness has to stop

Gots To Get Sharp

The easy days are now over. A mountain of work is here. And as always worse than before. Am in 2 projects whose conclusion is that they should merge!
Buckle up 0.5.

Grindhouse

Your number is up. Imagine a big roulette wheel and the dice gets spinned. It rolls not into the 'spectacular' section, to use my not very original vocabulary, since I never played roulette in my life. You land in 'work'. And life begins. Reminds me of aJamaa's brilliant post 'The Model Is Wrong'. You squirm through school, waking up at un-earthly hours to cram the incomprehensible 'Theory of Classification and Nomenclature' till you can sing it in your sleep. It works,...somehow. You ace the two Biology papers and can label internals from the picture of a fuzzy, mangled, red dissected rabbit. More abuse follows in the form of 'Integral Calculus'. There is a technique, Sam used to call it 'Photographing'. Amazing stuff. You look at a page and map out the location of all printed characters on a mental coordinate system. Then you pull the images during exams. Any disturbance in the stacking order and your mind goes blank. Great times.

School is over and the even more annoying business of living is at hand. You imagined your teachers were mean, until a boss rolls along. I don't have a grudge against my boss, he is a great guy; I am talking in the general vein. You work and work and work. Get a car. A sports car perhaps. You move around, gulping beer, having plenty of sex (I wish). Life is good. Nothing can go wrong. I heard somewhere that when you are young, if you make a bad turn, no worries, you can call it all part of research. Then fate calls your time on the fun scene and points in the direction of the exit door.

Marriage is here!

That can happen in any number of ways. To name one, buns are put into the oven to bake while you are looking the other way. I wonder how many men are nailed this way. I would like it if some mad social scientist did some study on it, with statistics, charts and all. Lets say that once a guy learns that breakfast is on its way, may be some rational part of the brain takes over. 'I guess I was going to have to do it sometime, why not now?' A bitter rationalisation of blokes who have been canned. Wily, that is nature for you. If this bizarre reasoning was not wired into people's brains, we would naturally run our course and go extinct, like the dinosaurs. It brings to mind something Matejivu said; - why do guys with great prospects end up with plain looking and ordinary women? - and that beautiful women sort of hold back to play the field, sample all the goods. The plain women take the men in their lives very seriously, knowing that men are very fickle and it is a minefield out there. They plan meticulously - then the rationalization kicks in - I digress. #2. May be a guy genuinely falls in love, closes his eyes and takes the steep skid road down the hill.

Whatever the case, living is no longer for just today. You look at the beloved gas guzzling car full of memories of trysts in the Bandari Plaza basement (that actually happens, not to me sadly but I can point at three guys I know). You pick out a van-ish sort of car, family mobile (Toyota Noah - chilling), as sweetie is expecting and well you will need space for all the bags of nappies - and bananas when you go to the country to see the parents and they insist that life is indeed hard in the city of bright lights and they need to ease the load by packing half the farm. Are you depressed yet? No? Let me drone on. You take the 'Noah' to the mechanic to choke the fuel system so that petrol consumption is reduced, at least during the traffic jam idling. You start shopping around for a house; That comes as a mortgage. Seven figure commitments for tiny accomodations in estates that are way removed from the up-market places you rented your apartment. The payment plan is a depressing spreadsheet that probably takes more than half your net pay and it runs to several pages cause you will be making those payments for close to quarter of a century. Stability and security are a bitch. Or are they security and stability? Because your freedom to experiment, change jobs, up and move at a moments notice are gone. You cannot stick it to the man anymore. Infact you have to kiss ass harder and act like you love it. Education is next. Have to setup funds for college, high school, primary school even. Public schools are shit these days, and they will only get worse.

Then your wife has you where she wants you and then there is no sex anymore. She lets go. She piles on the pounds. No more fuzzy make up. Or dinners with candles. No thongs. Just enormous underwear, or boxers even (are there boxers for women?). No doggy style, just missionary...and even then its obligatory, sort of like she knows if she doesn't allow you probably once say every four months, you will start looking elsewhere. Even then, she lies there, like a lump of clay.
'Are you done?' She starts wearing socks on her head when going to bed. May be some needy in-laws enter the picture. Your stretched resources get wiped out cause the sister's son,....has been chased from school. You cannot refuse. May be you cheat. Or she cheats. They usually do with the struggling, worse-off-than-you, pained artist types. I know, I have a relation who has screwed desperate, married types till their eyes go starry. You with a whore or some confused young girl who you have convinced that you can arrange a promotion for her. Trying to arrest a fast slipping youth. It all comes out eventually cause all stuff comes to light, eventually. You are staring at possible divorce. The rationalizing thing kicks in again and you figure that things would be better if you loathed and distrusted each other for the rest of your lives. Or you get divorced and the judge hands her the house, half of the remaining half of your salary and you start sleeping in trenches, trying to start from somewhere. Kids grow into irritating teenagers, sucking even more life out of you. Nature again. Programmed tons of resilience into your normal run-of-the mill folk, or the number of murdered teenagers would be unbelievable.

It is the script of life for people who fall under the normal distribution of the curve. I have a bleak outlook. I mostly see darkness and rain. Chin up. May be life is a series of bright spots and we all have those. Some guy whose name I forget (could have been on TV) was asked - what is your goal in life? And he said : - To be a lazy lay-about. That Adam guy really screwed things up. Plus its Sunday. The most depressing day of the week.

When you can't 'Step'

As sometimes happens when your target runtime is Unix.
You see that 'else;'? Nary a blip from the compiler. Almost jumped out the window in frustration. Took me 5 hours before I spotted it, after reading the program line by line endless times. Just wasn't seeing it and the f**king was there all the time staring back, taunting me. I think am getting too old for this

You know it's over when...

Both of you have yu lines and she doesn't text anymore.

Nikiwa ndani

Heard the song some time back. Amazed how fast songs get tossed into the "old school" pile these days. At least that's how I classified it in my mind. Anything that you haven't heard in years, right? Kidali Po and some Dully Sykes tune I can't quite remember now. Oh, wait. It's just popped into my head. Hi. Those were the days.

Anyway. On this particular occasion, it reminded me of how a guy can't win. Where the ladies are concerned that is. If you're nice, you're a sissy [which they don't like]. If you're bad, you're a pig [which they don't like]. If you argue you're point of view, you're always disagreeing. If you try to avoid all that by not saying anything or agreeing to everything, you're too easy. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't. A guy just can't win.

Merry-go-round

I can't quite remember the last time I saw one, let alone rode on one. When's the last time I was at the show.

Anyway. Life is an interesting thing. Cruel even. Boy likes gal. Gal likes other boy, who likes other gal, and so on and so forth. Tragic. But such, it seems, is the nature of things. Starts almost from the time boys and gals stop making war. And once the heartbreak starts it never stops. Is it some subliminal desire for something one can't have. That forbidden fruit. Or does cupid just like having a bit of a laugh. A lot of laughs actually.

Maybe that's why they refer to it as chemistry that situation when you like someone and they seem to like you back. Magic. It's certainly not very common. And one would want to hold onto it when they're lucky enough to experience it for like a train, if you miss one, you may have to wait a long time for another ride. Perhaps people should walk around with signs on their foreheads. Like those lonely hearts bits. So if you have a galfriend for instance you can have one that says exactly that. Not the most realistic example but something along those lines. Something everyone else can see and make their minds up before they start with this merry-go-round business. Before they start chasing after things they can never get. Something that will allow people to shop as it were without having to kiss too many frogs, or buy too many drinks. Save everyone a lot of heartache.

Top ranking

I was googling myself the other day. Nothing vanity or ego related. More of boredom. Anyway. Nothing remarkable came up. So I thought to myself. There's this gal I know, and went on to google her. First page that comes up is a facebook profile. I don't have an account so I don't bother to middle-click the link. Let's see. There's this other gal I know. Same thing. Top result is a facebook page.

I was a bit surprised I suppose at the trend. Most everyone's first and main reference on the web is facebook. 2 of the 2 people I tried anyway. I suppose if I was part of the phenomenon I wouldn't be as surprised. This one chic looked at me like I was a leper circa 25 AD when I pointed out that I wasn't on there. Like I had the swine flu. My small sis threatened to create a profile for me. And she could do it. Has all my personal information. I don't get out much or do terribly exciting things so she could pass off as me. Apparently that kind of thing does happen. With celebrities at least. I got a bit curious about the kind of things people put up. Was tempted to create a dummy account just so that I can be peeping at people's profiles. But I'm too lazy to be bothered.

The proliferation of internet use has made me a bit [more] paranoid though. You meet a chic in a bar and the next day she's on the web looking you up. Asking if a link to such and such is you you. You feign ignorance and repudiate everything she says. But now she knows more about you than you may have been ready for her to know necessarily. Hopefully she doesn't read blogs.

Kiss me

0.5 asked when the last time a guy had fun was. I only have two words. Wild waters.

Fun aside. It was my second night during the trip to coastarica. I'd realised when I checked in the first night why people go places with their galfriends. Hotel rooms are not healthy to be alone in. Really. So I got out and about next chance I had. And next. Thursday night I think it was. A bit slow, but I wasn't too disappointed. Better to be bored in a different town than in the same old joint. And you can take a walk and watch the ocean.

Anyway. At some point, I met this gal. Can't remember the circumstances. Can't remember much actually before she was sitting opposite me going, "Kiss me". It was one of those things they call out of the blue. One of those times you turn to look behind you and around you because she's definitely not talking to you. Because you had been chatting about some random thing. How it's raining outside. Then bam!

Anyway. I guess the last time a guy had fun was a year and a half ago.

Buying a chair

I thought it would be an easy thing. Actually I thought the only people who do that kind of thing are those who draw up balance sheets and things. Companies. But like most things, a guy has to do what a guy has to do.

I kind of pictured it to be like buying T-shirts. You check in, and as long as you like how it looks, and it has a tag somewhere on it reading XL, you just take it with you. No need to try it on or anything. Chairs, apparently, are a whole different story. You can't just look at one, and go "I like that one. I'll take it". Or you'll end up with a broken back. You actually have to try it. Try all of them. It's so hard to choose. This one looks nice, but doesn't feel as comfortable. This other one isn't so bad but doesn't quite feel right. And so on, going around trying everything in sight. Feels a bit wrong actually. But in the end you have to choose one. So you just bite your lip and tell them to wrap it or roll it out or whatever.

More money, more weight

I bumped into this guy the other day. Hadn't seen him in a while, but first thing I noticed was his cheeks. Chubby. I happened to know that he had recently got a new gig so I wasn't too alarmed. Had seen this kind of thing before. Happened almost to a man when guys got out of college and into work.

It's still interesting to see. There's this one guy who was a year ahead in campus. That crew that used to be seen on campus only when exams were on. EPMD squad? Anyway. This one guy. Is completely unrecognizable now. Huge. What happens. Does success have to do that to you though.

Malta

I clearly don't understand how businesses work. Because I don't understand how you can [still] be spending money advertising Malta. The last I remember seeing anyone drinking it was like 2005. And it was me drinking.

It was during one of those ill-fated thingies. I'd arrived early as usual and sat myself at the counter. Might as well have a friendly chat with the bar man. Even then, what to drink in a bar was a headache. What do you have that I can take. No. No. What else. Ah. I'll try this Malta thing. Why not. One sip. And that's all I could take. I can't quite remember the taste right now but since then I associate that experience with weetabix without sugar and being instantly full.

If the target market is guys like me, and I couldn't get a single bottle down, who drinks the stuff. And there's nothing I'd fancy more than an alternative. After plenty of fillings and innumerable sore throats, I'm stuck with plain water. It's why I don't really enjoy sitting in bars for extended periods of time. I have my 6-8 glass ration at home. Anything more is just torture.

But there must be some marketing guy somewhere getting paid because of Malta. Somebody who writes proposals and product campaigns. Some guy who prepares monthly reports. It must be making a profit. Some people somewhere must be drinking it.

Made in China

Those things tend to leave me with a sense of mild irritation. With bemusement. And amusement.

How, I've always wondered, do you make something that functions a couple of times and then dies. I understand the economic how. But the engineering how. Do you use thinner than normal wires. Do you stick parts together with saliva. What do you do. To make the thing work just long enough to pass through the suppliers and the end user test. Then you buy the thing and go home with it only for it to stop working after a month. Guaranteed. It's irritating having to take something to a fundi when it's new. Or having to get a replacement. Or giving up and going without. But apparently the bottom line for most things is price, so within no time the market only has these and you can't buy more reliable stuff even if you wanted to. Quite irritating.

Lethal Support

An arsenal fanatic committed suicide yesterday near city cabanas after the match. Last year some guy killed a student fan after a match with the same 2 teams. it's the high time such matches are considered a national disaster.

Over to you Mr. President.

On a separate note, the sex boycott ends exactly now. Hope marriages survived . Watch out for global warming. Somehow makes even those who were active to go crazy on the mlungula. I think it was the intention- To synchronize national irrational sex moment. A national prayer day should follow.

Again Mr. President declare this thing. Wacha kuregarega!

Woe unto motorists

Not only do they have to deal with mathrees, but also with pedestrians who want to jump onto the road at every opportunity. Who don't stop when the lights are working and the red man says to. Who form a never ending stream at zebra crossings. Woe.

Chic magnet

Friday. I'm in the club. This is obviously several months back, seeing as I rarely leave the house these days. I get a call. It's like 2am. Why would she be calling at this hour. I pick up. Quite a foolish thing to do actually. Because I can't hear a thing over the music. Apparently, when I was a kid, folks at home would call out my name and I wouldn't hear them. And we were in the same room. I used to think they were just messing with my head and stuff. Because they'd claim that they had been shouting my name just now but I seemed completely oblivious to it. Later on I came to learn that I had even been taken to a doc who had recommended some kind of ear surgery. Thankfully my mum declined and everything turned out fine. My hearing is just about as good as my sight.

Anyway. I quickly realised my folly and walked to a less noisy place to call her back. First thing I heard from the other end took me by some surprise. Some muffled sounds, like crying. Ala. I was speechless. What was I meant to say. I tried to think about what would cause her to be in such a state but most scenarios were rather nasty so I stopped guessing and asked her. She can't tell me, she says. OK. What now. She'll call me tomorrow. And she hangs up, leaving me looking at the phone. Completely baffled. What just went on there.

Saturday. I'm home. More recently. Around 11pm. I get call. I look at the number and wonder why she would be calling at this hour. I pick up, and give out an apprehensive "Hello?". The response is all out sobbing from the other end. The only thing more weird than being struck by lightning, is being struck twice. How is this even possible. Same scene, different chic. And this particular one is really letting it out. I really have no idea what to do with someone who's crying, other than let them be. This time I don't prod quite as much. I learnt the futility of that first time round. As it is she didn't tell why she was upset, or what she wanted from me, or anything, and before I know it, she's hang up. Is it me, I start to wonder. Must be. People call, and cry and hang up.

I get that sometimes people are in the wars and some kind of human contact helps to relieve negative emotions. What I don't get is why you would start dialling while you're still crying. It is why SMS was invented isn't it. If it were me, I'd want to do that kind of thing in complete isolation. But I suppose that's just my man-logic talking. And if you aren't going to share what you're upset about, which is acceptable, perhaps you could help a guy out and give him an idea of what you'd like him to do, rather than hang up on him. And. Why me.

I'd much prefer to be a different type of chic magnet, but there are only two [non-relative] chics in my phonebook right now so that isn't even a remote possibility.

If I were a girl

Some time back 0.5 pointed out that I was using man-logic when trying to understand stuff to do with women. I kind of accepted the hypothesis but still had a problem with the details. Surely, logic is logic. 2 plus 2 is always 4? But apparently that venerable trait that aJamaa calls reasonableness is somewhat subjective, and if I know what's good for me, I'll learn to put on a different hat when dealing with the fairer sex.

Which isn't an easy thing. I have trouble understanding myself so how would I possibly figure out what makes somebody else tick. Right now, the only coping mechanism I have is not to try and understand stuff that chics do. Not to argue or not to use my kind of thinking to argue, when she insists that I have to put up a fight. It would be neat though if I could have an extra brain compartment that thinks like a girl. The way women have evolved something similar to do what guys do. I'd probably start walking with swaying hips as a side effect, because hormones are the likely source of the difference in thinking. McDreamy would open me up and go "Blimey! What's this doing here". Of course if I was on House, I'd also have acute paralysis, and boils and stop breathing every now and then for no apparent reason.

I think it's the good doctor who said that what a guy really wants for a galfriend/wife/whatever is someone who thinks like a guy but looks like a gal. Something that apparently doesn't exist.

Mr and Mrs

Two more people got married last weekend. At least. It's like an epidemic all over again. When it's people you know, people you were in the same class with, you can't help but wonder what's going on. Was some proclamation made that you aren't aware of. Or are people just getting on with their lives, as you should.

Marriage is one of those things. There is the drama that foregoes the day itself. I don't know the going rate for bride price, but if the chic you fancy is earning a lot of money, you'd better start saving. I don't like bargaining, so I've always said if I was on the spot, I would walk away from the shenanigans that go on with relatives and councils of elders and stuff. Their daughter can always marry someone else.

Then immediately after the magic words are said, you are presented as Mr and Mrs <insert guy's name here>. From that day, the chic becomes Mrs. Nani. I suppose if two are going to become one, somebody has to lose their identity. Too bad it has to be the chic. Change IDs and documents and stuff. That hyphenation thing is worse actually. I'm not sure what it's meant to accomplish, besides make people go out of breath when saying your name. If you want to retain your identify, keep your name as is. Must you be identified as being attached to some guy. Those who matter know who you're married to, and those who don't know don't care. Are there guys who take their wives names? Or hyphenate their wives names into theirs. There should be a lobby like that.

And what's with married people and going everywhere together. Must you really. I don't like shopping, but now I'll be expected to do the supermarket run with you. What is the use of having an extra person there. I can do the shopping, or you can, but go together? What's the point of that. And if the point is that you don't often do things together and this is for bonding and stuff then things are really thick. Must she take an interest in my hobbies? Does she now have to come along if you're off to catch El Clasico.

With all the issues I have, I'll probably never get hitched anyway. And getting hitched isn't a bad thing. You get to be happier and more fulfilled and live longer and stuff. I suppose at some point people just say, what the hell...and get on with it.

Home alone

People have gone off to different places. So I'm home alone. Till tomorrow anyway. Seeing as I'm in some state or other of sleep on weekends, it's not been that noticeably different. Some use such opportunities to hold bashes or have women over and generally wild out. The only thing that I'd fancy doing actually is walking around naked. Discovered how good a feeling that can be on the trip to coastarica. Yeah. Try not to make mental pictures. But I now get where nudists come from. Being alone for a prolonged period of time must be difficult though.