Keyboard Feet Bandits on the Run

How do keyboards lose their feet? No, this is not a joke, or trick, but a genuine question. Most people have probably heard the expression 'to find your feet' or some variation, meaning to find your bearings etc but the flip side is losing one's feet. For people that work in an office I'm sure at one time or another they have experienced this crazy keyboard foot fetish.

It's rather disconcerting to find that someone has stolen the feet from your keyboard. I'm sure all keyboards are born with feet yet somehow as they mature and begin their working life in a call centre, their feet magically disappear. The rather deflated keyboards land flat on their backs, unable to provide the ergonomically-rich experience for which they were purposely hired. It's an outrage!

I find it oddly sadistic severing limbs from inanimate objects but it must be done. I like my keyboards to be just like me, reasonably long and with all limbs attached. After resisting the temptation of printing wanted or lost posters for the keyboard feet, I resigned myself to a more practical option, stealing. I decided that after someone had kindly deprived me of having an ergonomic typing instrument, I was now adamant I would inflict the same punishment to some other unsuspecting victim. This is the effect such an event has on you; it turns you into a thief. This morning I was an honest, law-abiding citizen. Since arriving at work however I've now become a fully fledged foot thief. If anyone finds out I'll have to run and hope no-one catches me because I feel my defence in the name of ergonomics probably wouldn't stand up in court. As this is a daily occurrence I can't help but wonder just how many of us there are. There must be countless keyboard feet stealing bandits out there that are secretly in hiding or on the run, or worse, walking among us! Maybe there's a secret covenant, who knows.

Where I work it's quite a big problem. You can actually go to lunch, leaving a full-limbed keyboard and return to find that its feet have gone walkabouts. How on Earth can they up sticks and leave within 30 minutes, they surely can’t be that restless. If people can steal such a simple thing, it makes me wonder what else they can pilfer. Mind you, I do work in a place where people have no qualms about stealing your sandwich out of the fridge but that's a different story. Imagine walking into a fridge, not literally, and suddenly being struck by amnesia. Amidst this panic of no longer being able to find your lunch you pick one randomly and walk away, calmly shaking. I wonder if that's what happens to the keyboards. People must misplace pieces of their keyboard and forget where they are so when they 'think' they're reclaiming their own equipment; they are in fact just stealing someone else's.

While it may all be fun and games until someone's keyboard loses a foot or a leg, it's not very nice or indeed helpful to steal them from another place. So next time you're faced with the dilemma of a footless keyboard, stop and think about your actions. Do you really want to turn into a keyboard foot thief? Stop, put the keyboard down and walk away! Keep your dignity in tact and replace the entire keyboard.

Disabled Car

This is just a short piece I wrote a week or so back. I thought I'd best publish something as it's been over a week since the last one. I'll get round to publishing more often very soon. Enjoy and thanks for reading.

Disabled Car

As I embark on my pursuing my dreams as a comedy writer I don't really do much stand-up or in fact any at all. I'm quite shy and retired so I like sitting down. But I do love writing though. I write a lot. Well I write in a lot at least. Parking lots mostly. I do the ticketing you see. Love writing those tickets I do. I can write 'em all day and I do as well. That reminds me, who out there is driving that Reliant Robin? Did you really think you were going to get away with it? They should have been confined to go kart tracks years ago. Just because it's only got three wheels doesn't mean you can park in a disabled bay you know. So who's is it? As the tumbleweed blew past me I came to the conclusion maybe it doesn't belong to anyone. It belongs to no-one. 'Hm...oh dear' I think aloud. I think I might have been in the wrong car park. Come to think of it, it was a rather small car park, only consisting of 2 cars. Ah well too late now, it's past the point of no return. If I go back now to remove the ticket from the car it'll look well dodgy, people will think I'm trying to steal it. So I best leave it there. The owner of that deprived little motor vehicle will get quite a surprise when he opens his front door in the morning I'm quite sure. I think it's the dementia setting in. Bad times.

Public Transport Fuels Turmoil

A deranged public transport vehicle may have left me scarred for life after a bizarre string of events occurred yesterday. I found myself surrounded by complete madness on what should have been a routine bus journey. There I was sitting on the bus, travelling along happily on my way to buy a new computer chair without a care in the world. It didn't take long for things to start going horribly wrong.

After seeing a few more people board the already quite packed bus I decided to move along the window seat to begrudgingly make space in case someone else needed to sit down. Let's face it, no-one likes people sitting beside them. If you look down a bus when you first set foot on it, there appears to be no empty seats at all. Once you've paid your fare and embark on the hunt to find a spare seat you see that every window seat is already long gone. They were taken about a dozen stops ago. Panic sets in. You MUST sit beside someone, and NOT in a window seat.

So I'd moved along to the window seat and bloody hell, talk about sitting in the hot seat. The sun was on the other side of the bus and yet it felt like it was actually embedded into the seat cushion. I could not believe how hot it was. Something wasn't right. The heat seemed to be coming from below the seat, rising, as it does, up my leg and tickling my sweat glands. The heating was on. Oh my god! It's a sunny spring day and the bus is already being indulged by the warmth of the greenhouse sun and yet the driver has put the heating on. It must be a joke. It felt like it was 500 degrees inside the bus.

Of course my choice of clothing didn't help at that point. My black t-shirt created the perfect interior lining in what felt like a furnace encased in a portable greenhouse. When I walked down for the bus I wasn't expecting one of those new pre-summer greenhouse buses.

On the same bus I saw an NHS poster / board thingy. It was at a slightly skewed angle so I couldn't see the actual point it was making though I suspect it was some kind of counselling or advice service. From the angle at which I was sitting, all I could read of the poster was four questions each on a separate line.

Unwell?
Unsure?
Confused?
Need help?

Immediately I became ALL of the above. After reading the first word I began thinking how I'd been sneezing all afternoon but I hardly felt it qualified me as unwell. So I placed a mental cross next to that question. That was easy enough I thought and moved onto the next one. Unsure? Um…well I had thought I was in reasonable health but now that I'm being probed by a random snot-coloured advertising board I'm just not sure any more. Apprehensive about that question, I quickly skipped to the following ones. Confused? Well by this point I was very confused and began wondering who would design such a thought provoking, intimidating and confusing poster. And finally the last question of the interrogation. Need help? YES! I screamed in my head. Oh my god all I wanted to do was take a bus up the road to buy a computer chair and now I don't even know who or what I am any more. I'm a lost soul, a wandering traveller on board a drifting incarnation of public confusion. From that moment on I kept my eyes forward to avoid any further tricks and pitfalls. I kept my fingers crossed. I needed to exit this wandering mayhem as soon as possible.

Ultimately after the culmination of heatstroke meltdown and a silent interrogation at the hands of the Board of Cunning Advertising, the relief I felt just to taste fresh air again was immense. When I say fresh air, I mean, it was as fresh as the air gets in Sunderland. I stepped off the bus and onto foreign soil and tried not to think about what the return journey was going to be like. I just wanted to grab my chair and get back home to safety as soon as I could.

Incidentally while on the same number bus heading back home, someone threatened to hit me for squashing his hand against a bar despite the bus being a heavily packed sardine tin on wheels. It was during the school run time. I didn't make anything of it and the rest of the ride was mostly smooth but honestly with experiences like this, is it any wonder people don't like taking public transport?

The Incontinent Angel Layer Cake

Yesterday I was tucking into one of my favourite types of cake, angel layer cake. I love angel layer cake. What a perfectly sweet name it has. This sugary goodness is so angelic and good, you could even call it divine. It makes you feel like eating the full cake because it contains layers of actual angels. If you consume angels into your digestive system maybe they will spread throughout your body and turn you into some magnificent beaming light. You'd be a beacon of goodness, everything you ever wanted would come true. You would get into heaven. It's pure gold, a cake made of win.

There's a cheesy chat-up line that some people may have heard, about angels. You know the one about heaven must be short an angel since you've fallen to earth, some kind of rubbish like that. The truth is, they didn't fall out of the sky. The reason that girl looks like an angel is that she's stuffed her face with so much angel layer cake that she's been forever transformed into one.

What sets the cake apart from the rest are the colours. I love the colours of the layers. Bright pink layer at the top, that must be the angel's face. White layer at the bottom that must be either the angel's feet or the bottom of its robes. But I can't help feeling a little dubious about the middle layer. It's yellow. Now in my mind that is the middle area of the angel, which means it would be the angel's genitals. It would appear the middle layer of the cake is where the angels have wet themselves. This is somewhat distressing when you have this thought mid-cake. I'm eating angel piss. The cake makers have tried to hide the fact these angels are incontinent by inserting a layer of icing in a feeble attempt to stop the wee from running down to the bottom of the cake. This is a disaster. It's like making teapots out of chocolate. However, not one to be easily put off my food, I curiously kept eating. It actually tasted quite nice. They've done well adding the flavourings, you can hardly even taste the urine. It's quite amazing, and also rather worrying what can be done these days to disguise such mysterious and disgusting 'secret' ingredients used to create that perfectly scrumptious flavour.

Some foods you just have to avoid at all costs no matter how diverse you think they are. Delicacies such as yellow snow and chocolate snow must always be avoided like the plague. Don't even be tempted by chocolate snow, it will only end badly. Other delights are more plausible like angel layer cake. But a word to the wise, if you're happily chomping on your favourite food, don't jeopardise your enjoyment of it by stopping halfway through and start actually thinking about what you're eating. Just eat it if you know what's good for you or you might end up with the dilemma in which I found myself and you may not be able to stomach your ideas no matter how crazy and far fetched they are.

A New Beginning

Here's something a little different to my usual writing, a poem I wrote recently. Enjoy :)

A New Beginning

Darkness has once again awoken
As words of woe have been sorely spoken
Love is forlorn, it has no place here,
Close, far, or anywhere near
Bolt the locks and deprive the light
My eyes and soul grow black as night
Loneliness creeps from his dormant den
Sorrow flows from a bleeding pen
Oh heavy heart stop keeping time
You keep only to the beat of foolish rhyme

Alas another tomorrow draws near
One I neither wish to see nor hear
Displace this feeling, set me free
Beat me round the head with a Christmas tree
Tie my tongue and my shoe laces together
So I trip over my own words forever
Torture me with anything but guilt
Until your final tears have been spilt
If it means your closure is due
I'll endure whatever you need to do

You'll soon realise that nothing's lost
For a new beginning, it's worth the cost
For endless is life, eternal is love
Our friendship strong, like a turtle dove
Though we part for now in some ways
Closer we may grow in later days
However time must for now be paused
To find a remedy for the damage caused
Although more sand than you wish, may escape
It's work cannot be measured by any mortal tape

Keep smiling my dear, keep your eyes open wide
I know it's hard when time's a pain in your side
But time holds phoenix tears to soothe your pain
Allow them to shower you like a light rain
As the phoenix dies, it's reborn fresh and new
To start a new life that's long overdue
That day the world will appear a whole new vision
Clarity will strike you with fine precision
Your sense of purpose will rest no more
Inspiration beckons to finish that half written score

Alas keep your heart open and your eyes bright
So you can embrace the incredible new light
Chase your dreams, make them real
Lose no time to this mere ordeal
Brush aside the cobwebs of doubt
Bury them in a suitcase and throw them out
Leave your fears shipwrecked with nowhere to go
Paving the way for happiness to grow
Begin a journey in tune with your own sound
For that's where your new beginning can be found

A J Mallen

Chocolate Brownie Adventure

Is there any better desert than home-made chocolate brownie? I'm not sure there is. I had such a brownie the other day. This chocolate brownie was going to suffer its demise on the return journey from Scotland. How it survived the first leg of the adventure is still a mystery. Being preoccupied with other things helped I guess, and the cake was playing hide from the hazard, trying to avoid anyone or anything that may be a potential predator and cut short its life.

So the first leg of the trip came and went with great success for the chocolate goodness. It was soon time for the return leg where thoughts turned to all things edible and the inevitable, the chocolate brownie. Instead of devouring it however, I forgot about it. At least, I forgot about eating it. Temporarily that is. Instead I took pity on it and gave it my Swiss army knife and a torch. That was until I realised I was confusing the Brownies with Boy Scouts. I don't think Brownies go camping and find themselves wrestling wild bears with only their trusted Swiss army knives with which to defend themselves. Then I thought the idea of a chocolate brownie may sound a bit racist in today's society. I'm not racist, not the least bit, but it's maybe more politically correct to call them ethnic cocoa compositions. Though that just sounds like a collection of songs about chocolate so that probably wouldn't work either.

So anyway, after realising my mistake I promptly took back my Swiss army knife and torch and left the chocolate goodness in the car to find it's own way home. With any luck it can find a way of operating the sat nav and make it home in time to be eaten for supper. That is once it's recovered from the shock of surviving a two-legged car journey, a petrol station and travelling in a car filled with cake-eating human-shaped beings and making it through it all in one piece. Or well, maybe with most of its limbs still attached, though I'm sure the brownie has crumbled in some places, like the petrol station. In reality however, it's probably still trapped in the car door now. Screaming helplessly as its nuts drop out and its hair grows grey with mould age. I just hope it's discovered before it's too late...

Crazed Messenger Pen on Drugs?

Today's gripe is about a feature used in chat programs like MSN and Skype that annoys me beyond belief. This feature rears its ugly head when you're not using the program for actual talking. It's the messaging part, Skype in particular, that drives me insane. You can see when the other person is typing a message because this little yellow pen starts scribbling down what they're saying. It starts working away as soon as the first letter is typed.

The other night I was chatting to a friend on there and I thought to myself my god she's been writing that message for about half an hour now. I wonder if she's fallen asleep on the keyboard or something. I know I was about falling asleep myself just watching the mesmerizing yellow pen scribble for its life. So I thought she's either fallen asleep or she's frantically writing a novella or something. Finally the pen stops dead. My eyes spring open in anticipation for the message. Nothing appears! 'Are you kidding me?' That pen has been scribbling away for an age and there's no message? Did it get lost in translation or something? So I begin typing a reply to this invisible verse when out of the blue a few words appear as though by magic. There are nowhere near as many words as I'd expected mind you. I'm beginning to think this predictive pen or whatever his job title is, is skimming some off the side because he's not being paid enough for the job. One job it does very well however, is to lure you into a false sense of security, because you expect the person on the other computer to be typing as quickly as the pen. In reality though, the pen has rewritten 'War and Peace' in the time it takes the actual person to type 'hello'. In my opinion they should have a feature that automatically detects the speed at which a person is typing and then changes the icon accordingly. So in this case instead of a pen on acid, maybe a slug on sleeping pills would be more appropriate.

I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe the pen writes in a different language and that English is not it's native tongue. Maybe it actually first types the message in Aboriginal Mandarin or something, then has to translate the message into English, that would explain why it seems to be scribbling away so furiously all the time. I find it funny when the pen goes into hyper drive and you're waiting for those wonderful words to appear and nothing shows up. Nothing at all. The pen was clearly writing something so complicated that it couldn't translate it into English. Either that or it couldn't read it's own handwriting so it abandoned the attempt halfway through in a blind panic. Then the pen sits quietly back down and takes a drink of water to settle its nerves in the hope that nobody has noticed the screw up. Once he's composed himself he takes to the screen again and types the three letters that always serve as the default lifesaver, 'lol'. 'Phew', the panic is over for now. Back to work it goes, ready to confuse another fool. Oh how a fool and his anticipation are so easily duped by these evil animated pens. One day they will pay...