A Merry Trashmas Everyone!

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced today a major breakthrough in reading technology: the Virgil LR.  The Literary Technologies Team at MIT revealed that the machine had surpassed the benchmark set by the Russian built Fyodor-9000, having already read 16,000 volumes and capable of reading War and Peace in 79 minutes.

Dr. Damian Yu, the Lead Designer on the project “At the moment the machine is calibrated to read dense 19th century literature, it’s capable of understanding subtext and humanist expression with 100% accuracy, higher than any human reader; all perfectly within context.”  The team were eager to assure the public that the machine will not be a threat to human literary experts until July of next year when the Virgil LR will “have read the entire canon of human works.”

Professor Randford Dunn, Chair of Literature at Cambridge University “We’re finally getting a definitive answer on what some of the greatest books ever written were about, amazingly we’ve all been quite wrong.”  In 2008 when the Virgil LR had entered its beta testing stage it processed the classic novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville.  Scholars and fans were stunned to learn the book was actually an elaborate and often lewd anagram detailing Melville’s attraction to his neighbour’s wife.  The book was removed from teaching in many schools.

Scientists involved in the project confirmed that work on the machine is on-going to increase its efficiency and that by mid 2011 the machine’s Lit.Cog engine will reach optimum speed allowing the computer to consume all works printed in the financial year 2011/2012 “fairly close to instantly after publication.”  At which point the team will have to contend with a dip in the content feed.  Damian Yu explained “The machine wasn’t designed for the purpose but we are prepared to scan the copious bodies of internet erotic and fan-fiction until we establish the alternative source.”

That alternative source will arrive in 2016 with the activation of the companion unit the Virgil LG – the Literature Generating device.  “The LG unit will interface directly with the LR and hopefully achieve a 1:1 rate of production/consumption.”  Though this event would mark the end of all human involvement in reading and writing, Dr. Yu and the research team remain positive “This allows for more inventive use of time and the skills of human readers and writers.”

Treasury officials have begun working with the greatest and most prolific American authors assisting them in their transition into civillian life.  The ‘Pens Down Program’ aims to pair writers with their better suited careers.

Pulitzer winning author Cormac McCarthy was recently hired by General Motors to work in the customer service department “I’m having such a wonderful time!” Said Mr. McCarthy from his desk in New Jersey “the money is ok and I’m helping people which is all I ever wanted.  Everyone has been nice and welcoming and I’m getting the hang of it.  I have to go now, my lunch break is over.”  And Mr. McCarthy’s story is not alone.

“More and more I am hearing from writers who are more fulfilled now than ever” said Stacy Cotter director of the Pens Down Program “Dan Brown has been assigned a post as a back-up dancer and has toured with such acts as Bette Midler and Paula Abdul.”  Mr. Brown was unavailable to comment by time of publishing.

Now this is the Kittridge Experience™!

The video banned at first by youtube and then (inexplicably) by xtube and hated by many…I still think this is my best work.  Come friends, pull up a chair, turn up the sound and wait for the boss to be out of earshot and experience the surprising raspberry.

NB: The video you have just watched may not be safe for work.  It depends where you work though, doesn’t it?

UPDATE: 14:05 Saturday JAN24 – WTF?! The video is gone again!?  I’m going to find out what happened.

For some reason people who don’t complain are thought of as saints and we’re supposed to be more like them.  Well fuck that!  I’m a Complainer from way back and while you were out learning mathematics, social skills and marketable talents I was honing my craft in The Complaint!

Any seasoned Complainer knows that its a balancing act, after all you don’t want to complain too much, then you’re a whinger.   But what’s the difference?!  A Complainer is a story teller and to Complain is to tell a story – everything Charles Dickens ever wrote for example was a Complaint as was the Great Gatsby.  I have identified 2 fundamental differences between these 2 classes of gripe peddler.

1) PASSION

We’ve all met whingers: miserable twerps who bellyache all day long.  You can always tell a whinger by the tone of their voice, they moan like a dying thing with a slack mouth, no doubt many think there’s a ghost about when really it’s just a whingeing co-worker.  What’s interesting about whingers is that they don’t even care what they complain about, its all the same to them!  From the temperature of the air to their missing limb…it’s just another lump of coal in their ice-cream.  They don’t complain because they’re upset (in fact they are upset all the time) but because its all they know how to do, if they stopped they would cease to be.  Where the whinger drains the life from its surroundings, the Complainer burns like a fire!

Whether or not you agree with his politics, Hitler was a great complainer:

2) VOCABULARY

Y’know if these whinge-o dudes just popped an alkaseltzer, it’d probably cut down their moaning…they’d still be boring though and that’s half the problem.  It’s always the same old things with them “I was soooo bored!” “this is the most pain I’ve ever felt” “blah blah blaaaaahhhh!” Gimme a break, losers.  Its as if they assemble all their sentences from the same 25 words.  Five minutes with these guys and even Margaret Cho would seem funny, that’s why Complainers use: creative swearing!  A few inventive expletives can really spice up an evening eg: “cram it up your bradhole!” The English language is such a cluttered wonderland of expression, the way people under use it is criminal!  Complainers are always looking for exciting new words that they add like jewels to their angry crown.

So, don’t listen to these clowns who tell you complaining isn’t the way, so long as you’ve got the chops, complain your little heart out!  As for me, I’m never going to stop complaining, it’s my right as an American!  And if I’m not an American, why is my  TV full of American shows?

I know I know….sorry.

Sorry artists, you had to find out sometime.

The global financial crisis which has wiped unprecedented levels of value from the stock exchange has taken a turn for the worse with the British Seed Bank filing for bankruptcy today.  The closure comes after the Bird Council’s decision to vote against a $500 billion bailout package that has been hotly debated over the past fortnight.  The powerful Crow Lobby which cares little for seeds is believed to have influenced the rejection.  Holding a press conference near a bin this morning Leader of the Crow Lobby, Surebeak the Wise claimed “Raaa!  Raaaa! Raa!”

Analysts warn the Seed Bank’s closure will have far reaching implications on the eventual outcome of the economic downturn.  The seed market has been shrinking since February and many plants, worried about the status of the dollar and the coming Winter are choosing to not reproduce.

So its over! The course is done and after all that toil comes…well more toil but first I have to win the opportunity to toil in the strange human tradition known as job interviews.

There was an ad in the paper and I called to register my interest and the woman told me with no enthusiasm whatever that I could fax my resume, but of course its not 1990 and nobody has a fax machine, so I asked if I could email it but no, there was no email address. Right. When I said I could just drop it off as I live locally, she said I’d get a call back to arrange an interview. She’s a bit boring, but perhaps they hired a zombie receptionist, equall opportunities?

A different woman called back with the same flat voice, and I wondered if this lack of life was the result of some virus that ate away the soul. Can you come in on Saturday at 11? I could and she gave me the address. Later she calls back and says that the dentist won’t be able to stay after he sees patients on Saturday, would I be able to come in at 7.30? I paused noticeably then said o-k.

Already I don’t want the job because they sound like a real bag of smelly gas over there, who needs that?

I got there at 7.30 in the morning but…I was the only one there. The receptionist came at 8 and then we waited together for the dentist who decided to show up at quarter past 8 god bless him. There were a number of degrees on the wall of course but the only one I remember was issued from Saigon University? Huh?! Is that even real?

While we waited for this dentist with dubious qualifications (for a start, we’ll discuss the rest of his dubiosity later) I tried to make conversation with her but I felt like an annoyance, she obviously had lots of boringness to do.

So then I gave my resume and we’re having an interview. I say interview but he’s just basically reading snippets off the resume and then expecting me to say something about it, its funny you don’t consider that anyone can do a bad job interview until you’re in one.

“Collecting typewriters” he says first, reading the hobbies section “what does that mean?”
There’s only one thing that can possibly mean.
“err…y’know typewriters, I collect them” he just continued staring at the paper. Time passed. “You know…typing machines?”
“oh” he said and I realised that he was the carrier if this virus that infected his receptionists.

I was trying to be charming as is my strategy at interviews but holy hell, this man had no personality at all. Nothing. My attempts to be charming were useless, it was like pouring diamonds into a bin.

He continued to read bits off the resume and I would then elaborate, all the time he just stared at the page. He told me there was so much work there, so much work very busy. I’m so tired, he says. As if I care he’s tired! I don’t give two shits if he’s on fire!

Much was made of my history as a dental nurse…you’re fortunate Internet Reader that
1) you haven’t ever been a dental nurse and
2) that I’ve never told you the story of how I became one because its so boring! Who wants to hear that? If ever there was a book published on the subject, Gabriel would break the seventh seal and destroy the world entire. It was years ago and it doesn’t matter.

For the rest of this mockery of an interview he told me how it was very interesting, “very in-teresting” that I was a male dental nurse. I told him matter-of-factly that it’s not so unusual and he wanted to know who I worked for and why I did it for so long. Hey, here’s something fuckface, I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I’m not a robot like you, programmed by my parents into becoming a dentist, at least I made a decision and didn’t inherit it.

Some time ago in Saigon…
ROBOT VOICE: Affirmative father I will become a dentist please insert text books beep beep beep.

He did not tell me when I’d hear about the job, which fits in with the level of professionalism evident throughout the whole process. I want him to offer it to me so I can reject him, then I’ll punch him in the face and ride off into the sunset on a powerful horse, smoke and rainbows billowing from my lungs.