Well, that's one way to do things I guess.
Got in on Friday, went straight to bed without eating anything and slept hard for 12:30 hours. Woke up, ate a fuck ton of bacon and tomato pasta, showered, half shaved, ate another fuck ton of tomato and bacon pasta, flirted some with crush who's just started to report her physically and mentally abusive ex to the police [...I'm a hot smart guy and the sanest nicest girl I've had an ongoing conversation and flirtation with in almost 30 years of existence is attractive, online, and has some sort of kidney syndrome and has been tortured by her exs... *pauses and reflects on life for a bit*...that sounds like my life alright...], crashed back into bed for another 12 hours and found my iPhone had been unplugged about five minuets after I passed out because someone else just OH SO NEEDED to use my fucking charger and didn't have the fucking manners to plug mine back in after they collected their device some 11 hours ago, so charged it and went to finish off my hygienic routine.
Now showered, shaved, brushed, dressed, looking forward to tomorrow when I'll have another handful of coin to buy food with, and sitting in McDonalds, slightly paranoid about the staff either a] freaking that I'm downloading audiobook torrents [I bought my library 2 PC's ago, and I refuse to pay for that shit again, even if I had the fucking money] or b] kicking me out for not ordering food because firstly I lack funds and secondly the library is shut today so I can't go there and use the wifi.
And yes, you can download torrents on public networks which block torrent websites and proxy websites. All you need is a phone with an internet browser that can access the torrent websites [they don't block them on phones as you can't download a torrent client like uTorrent so there's no point], then you copy the magnet link off the page and email it to yourself, access your email on your laptop, copy the magnet link, go into uTorrent, click on menu, insert torrent from magnet link, paste, enter, and then wait as you get 1mb per second speed per torrent on their network, hahaha. :P
Like I said, I've no issue with torrents. Mostly because I use them, as now, to rebuild my library of media that I paid for and downloaded years ago. But also because the fact is that people who subscribe to TV services [Sky, Netflix, whatever] and are stupid enough or morale enough to pay for copies of the media have already paid for the TV I download, AND the people who produce copies of the media itself overcharge for it in a rather greedy manner [go check out the prices of Star Trek episodes, long since paid off for production costs, and you'll see that they're priced like brand new modern TV shows].
I hate most computer games [despite being something of an expert in their design, or should I say BECAUSE I'm an expert in their design] so I don't rip those off, and the last music I bought was Linkin Park's newest, which I paid for, simply because I'm not a big music fan. And movies I see in a cinema for about £5.00 each, not including snax, and never watch them more than once.
That only leaves software, which, let's face it, is only actually cost effective if you're a business. MS Office should be included in Windows like Firefox and Windows Media Player [efficient effective software that gets the job done], Photoshop ain't fucking worth £1000.00, ditto for MS Visual Studio, and beyond those I don't usually use much else to write games thesis info [back when I had time to busy myself with such things] and keep my online ID portfolio reasonable [the ID which isn't connected to this blog].
In my book it isn't media piracy if you can't afford to pay for the product or those selling it over charge for it or, as is the case with TV, if you had a TV and a widely available HDD-TV-Rec device you could pay 30 a month and record several entire series onto the box for about £5.00 each or less.
Call it a crass rationalization if ya like, but I'm happy with it and no one complains to me about it, probably because a] I'm not a torrent website, and b] I'm not even a drop in the sea of people who do it.
Given my shitty existence, this is the least the world owes me in my opinion.
Anyway, back to reality; I feels a lot better than I did, I'm going to go do some college work next, more tomorrow and possibly some on Tuesday depending on when this recruitment company call me to meet an employer. Unlike the end of Friday I'm much better set up physically and mentally to deal with that shit now so that's OK. Just got to try to get my college work done ASAP and hope the Police still have some room to take me by the time I get the work done.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still fucking livid, I still find this bullshit unfair, and if anyone asks me anything I let them know all about it because usually the person asking has fucking contributed to this shitstorm [looking at you Lambeth fucking College], but like I said over the last couple of days, no one gives a flying fuck, they just tell me to do things and I try to do em.
All I can do is try to make progress and hope my efforts go some ways to moving me out from under this flying crap.
Think I'm about done here, or at least I've run out of stuff to type. Going to go play a little Hearthstone, murder two black women who're laughing LOUDLY two seats over, and do college work till around 10 tonight, get up and pay rent, do laundry, and then go the library and do more college work until I get a phone call.
On and on and on...
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
05/10/2014
10/07/2014
On Kakky...
...*long sigh*...
Currently Im up to my nostrils in deep, thick, brown kak.
Can't remember what I posted last about 3 days ago, and Im not going to go check cus its annoying to do so on an iPhone, but this is where I am now:
I've arranged accommodation in a hostel. And except for a slight issue with this weekend I've been able to book it so I can stay here for the whole week concurrently so long as I book a week in advance. I would've booked this with the management, but the assholes who run this reasonably priced place said that they're always fully booked and only do bookings online. Hail the age of automation, where no one can think for themselves and no one cares so long as the money keeps coming in. Trading your humanity for efficiency and the precious, precious coin.
The price of acom changes from week to week, next week being 97 and the following week being 101 for example, and its more than I was paying, and my diet is suffering accordingly, but Ive got enough money to not be hungry.
That's a bed to sleep in and food to eat, the basics anyone needs from day to day.
Now for the shit storm...
My PC broke after I updated my media on my mobile devices on Monday, so I've got only the first 3 Iron Druid Chronicles audiobooks and first 3 Dresden Files until...well some point in the future when I can get a new PC.
I've seen cheap laptops running Windows XP on Gumtree and that would do to let me download my audiobooks and that from places like Audible, I just need to find 50-75 quid from somewhere to make everything a lot more bearable.
Asides from this, I obviously can't do any college work in the hostel, only at the college itself. I should be there right now but I exhausted myself running across central London yesterday to check in with the job centre and don't feel like moving, much less running for an hour south to the college campus.
(My music player ran out of battery shortly before I went out the door, so Im writing this and charging it.)
And due to one of those stupid protocol before sense situations, again, again, I could find that the money I'm using to sleep indoors and eat with could vanish, and the first I would hear about it would be the same day I need to spend it. It just depends on how much attention people are paying to me.
This is fucking hilarious because the only time people ever pay me any attention is to fuck my shit up. When I really need help they ignore me, but when I need them to ignore me to help me they might as well be The Demon with 10,000 eyes.
If I'm ignored for 8-10 weeks, and I do my college work, then at best I'll be hired by the police, job done. And the training pay, which is greater than full time, will allow me to get proper accommodation and a life.
If not then I may, at worst, end up homeless and unable to finish my certification and therefore unemployed and on the street.
The phrase 'Dangerous Game' comes to mind. The one bright spot is that there's only a slim chance that the shit will hit the fan, but given that this is my life I'm expecting it to go to shit in about 3 and a half days.
I'm doing nothing illegal you understand, its just the nature of the government aid that at one and the same time is propping up my pathetic excuse for an existence and may snuff it out in passing if I'm not careful.
My aim currently is to get my college work done and maintain my acom, and that's it.
8-10 weeks of learning policing, being bored out of my skull, and worrying about my position collapsing and then Ill be employed with the money to take care of everything.
Just have to make it that far. The finish line. The boss battle. The last mile. It's a bitch. But at least it'll be the end, one way or the other.
Because if this shit falls apart I'm walking into fucking traffic the day after.
22/06/2014
On Renting...
Sup.
Still Sunday [two in a day, but I missed Saturday due to flagellation...look that shit up bitches] and sometime around mid-afternoon I found enough of me to shower and go to the hypermarket for foods, of which I've not yet eaten cus my flatmates are camping in the kitchen, as usual.
In the meantime I've been looking over the next few days, which are probably going to annoy the ever loving shit out of me.
---
My landlady is expecting £165 tomorrow plus £90 for the next week, or £255.
What I owe is actually £30 less than that as she's charging me £10 more than I care to pay for the room at a rate of £100 a week, when it's worth only £80 according to the council, and I'm paying £90 out of choice because I like living here. It's a cheek anyway because she was charging me £70 when I moved in and we increased it by mutual consent until I dropped it to £90 from £100 once I learned what it was actually worth.
I will only have about £210 available so she's not getting £255. Plus I need to eat this week so £180 is more accurate a figure of what she's getting. Although frankly I'm entertaining thoughts of paying £0.00 and moving everything into storage and paying for a hostel bed until I can move into this £55 a week place [assuming they're fully booked as of now].
---
On the one hand, she's been better than any other landlady or lord I've ever had so I don't want to do that. On the other hand, over charging me for one and half years means she owes me more than that. I'm honest and fair, and if you're not then I make you pay for it.
That's how I deal with people who mess me about. My parents never cared about me, so I stopped caring about them; I just disowned them and left them confused as to why I vanished.
It's so much easier and cleaner to be passive-aggressive than outright aggressive, especially as it's much harder to counter effectively once performed. Sneaky sneaky is always a winner.
---
Besides anything else though my landlady can't do anything to me by law in the time remaining except complain.
To evict me she'd need a court order, which she'd have to pay for and acquire which would take more than 2 weeks. If she blocks my access to the property then I could have her and anyone who assists arrested for theft [taking of my property unlawfully] or assault and battery [prevention of lawful access and physical force to prevent access to the property].
She might not know her rights, evidenced by believing that she's responsible for repairing the kitchen window for example because that is actually the property owner's responsibility, but I know mine.
I don't want to go through all this you understand, but I'm trying to ensure my application to the police goes through, and I need money to do it, and that means my rent is late.
My life sucks ass and in trying to make it suck less, and in so doing someone has to suffer to pay for it. I'm trying to spread that suffering around a bit so no one get's too much. It's just how life works.
---
That said, she gave me this big speech on being hard-done-by, oh we've got a baby, oh we've got bills to pay, my husband has to cover it all cus I'm on holiday [ye gods, what's one of them?], oh our rent is going to be unpaid and we won't have a good reference, WAAA, well...
Is that a wide screen TV I see in your living room? The kid has waaay more toys than I did as a child, even though this was 25 years ago. He has £10 dolls, £50 plastic rideable cars, and a £100 playhouse in the garden. I had trees. You have a fish tank too. I don't have more than 2 sets of shoes. BBQ tonight is it? That's nice. How nice for you that is. I'll be lucky to eat egg for protein this week. That mobile you're using to send me bitchy texts, that a newest model iPhone is it? FUCK.
I hate it when people try to lie to me.
I can tell when people are lying based on the tone of their fucking voice for crying out loud. I'm a fucking epic liar and know all about 'just enough truth to rot the claim to the core whilst keeping it believable' method of lying, and you stand there and give me the hard-up spiel!?
...Good grief...I've learned, oh hells bells have I ever learned. I've learned about assholes and how to play the game of bugger the other bloke, and although she's smarter than I gave her credit for she's got no cards in her hand.
I've not paid my rent on time in the last few weeks because I'm damn used to landlords and landladies trying their best to fuck me over on my way out the door.
She's not got a deposit from me, she's got rent owed from me, and she's got no legal recourse against me to stop me going or claim the money. This keeps her honest. She doesn't dare try to throw me out because she'll get nothing if she does. She doesn't piss me off either in case I go and don't pay up. If I paid her that would let her do whatever she wants. I'm using debt as a power, weakness for control.
No. All she's got is my honesty. Now, that will get her the money for the time I spent here, eventually, but I'm not going to starve or be homeless to do it. Granted for that piece of bull about being hard-up I'm tempted to screw her over as poetic justice, but there's no real need to as she can't boot me out using force by the law so.
Human empathy. Consideration. Care.
It's amazing how these qualities are so lacking in so many so called people, and how the effect bounces around. The property owner doesn't care so my flatmates pay for it, who then bitch at and annoy me but find resistance, who then annoy the property owner by not paying, and around and around we go.
Besides that, it's amazing how people rent property and then lose all interest in it. It's just money. Don't worry who is living there and why, don't worry about building maintenance, don't worry about circumstances or show human consideration to the people living there, it's just money. If it's coming in, gravy, if not, evict em and find someone else who'll pay consistently.
That's landlords in my experience, and I expect most people would say the same. I wouldn't think like that if I had property. I've been on the ass end of that attitude for way too long.
---
What I wanted was to leave her cleanly, all debts settled, all my things in a taxi and moved to my new like-for-like accommodation.
What I have instead is almost the opposite of that.
If I don't kill myself trying to get into the police [this weekend being a near-miss] then maybe my next acom will be like that. I get training pay, I can do the work, I just need this lung issue resolved and about 3 months...and maybe remain calm at my Day 2 appeal because of that bloody fitness instructor's complaint. FUCKING ASSHOLES MAN, that gods dam fitness instructor.
---
Going to go make noodles and pizza and do some cleaning and maybe do a little college work before getting a good nights sleep.
Tomorrow doctors, pay some rent, cancel tribunal, book room at the inn [£55 a week place], maybe move stuff into storage that I don't need ready access to, and write up revision materials for Week 6 exams.
Two exams, writing up the revision materials ASAP so I can spend an hour a day drumming them into my skull for 2 weeks. Then just spend the remainder of the time doing the coursework. My major catch up last week whilst ill got me through most of the work itself but not the quizzes, but those are comparatively short, it's the reading and that which takes up most of the time.
But that's it; move and course/work revise...WELL, except for a couple of bits of information that I was lacking from the Day 2, like the doctors sign health sigh-off signature but that's just errand work.
Once I've been to the doctors and gotten some anti-bios or something for this persistent lung issue I can do college work and exercise no worries. And the extra money from lower rent costs can be used to buy new clothes and things.
---
Was considering if the vent that I've sealed up with duck tape caused my persistent cough. My flatmates have told me about mold in their room and things which has given their kid health issues, so I wonder if the same has impacted my lungs and will only clear up once I've left.
If that's true, and I can find a law which stages that vents are the property owners responsibility than I could sue her for making me sick in a civil suit.
Bit tenuous though that. I'd need to prove that whatever is in my lungs got there from exposure to whatever is living in the flat. This would probably cost more to check than I could get from winning, and might not even have been what is causing it.
I think it's strep personally. Cold air running fed lactic acid to strep bacteria and that's why it flares up when I exert myself and makes it hard to breath due to pneumonia. I need anti-bios to kill it which is why it's not gone and why I got flu recently by trying to power through it.
Probably not the mold here that caused it, even if it's not helping in getting rid of it. I just suspect it since it got bad about 2-3 months ago when the whether changed from winter to summer.
Move and doctors for anti-bios and I should be OK. It was just a bugger with the fitness test, but I got through it anyway.
Watevs...
---
Just give me three months and I should be in fine condition to start training as a copper.
Gonna try anyway.
FOOD. :O <<<
Still Sunday [two in a day, but I missed Saturday due to flagellation...look that shit up bitches] and sometime around mid-afternoon I found enough of me to shower and go to the hypermarket for foods, of which I've not yet eaten cus my flatmates are camping in the kitchen, as usual.
In the meantime I've been looking over the next few days, which are probably going to annoy the ever loving shit out of me.
---
My landlady is expecting £165 tomorrow plus £90 for the next week, or £255.
What I owe is actually £30 less than that as she's charging me £10 more than I care to pay for the room at a rate of £100 a week, when it's worth only £80 according to the council, and I'm paying £90 out of choice because I like living here. It's a cheek anyway because she was charging me £70 when I moved in and we increased it by mutual consent until I dropped it to £90 from £100 once I learned what it was actually worth.
I will only have about £210 available so she's not getting £255. Plus I need to eat this week so £180 is more accurate a figure of what she's getting. Although frankly I'm entertaining thoughts of paying £0.00 and moving everything into storage and paying for a hostel bed until I can move into this £55 a week place [assuming they're fully booked as of now].
---
On the one hand, she's been better than any other landlady or lord I've ever had so I don't want to do that. On the other hand, over charging me for one and half years means she owes me more than that. I'm honest and fair, and if you're not then I make you pay for it.
That's how I deal with people who mess me about. My parents never cared about me, so I stopped caring about them; I just disowned them and left them confused as to why I vanished.
It's so much easier and cleaner to be passive-aggressive than outright aggressive, especially as it's much harder to counter effectively once performed. Sneaky sneaky is always a winner.
---
Besides anything else though my landlady can't do anything to me by law in the time remaining except complain.
To evict me she'd need a court order, which she'd have to pay for and acquire which would take more than 2 weeks. If she blocks my access to the property then I could have her and anyone who assists arrested for theft [taking of my property unlawfully] or assault and battery [prevention of lawful access and physical force to prevent access to the property].
She might not know her rights, evidenced by believing that she's responsible for repairing the kitchen window for example because that is actually the property owner's responsibility, but I know mine.
I don't want to go through all this you understand, but I'm trying to ensure my application to the police goes through, and I need money to do it, and that means my rent is late.
My life sucks ass and in trying to make it suck less, and in so doing someone has to suffer to pay for it. I'm trying to spread that suffering around a bit so no one get's too much. It's just how life works.
---
That said, she gave me this big speech on being hard-done-by, oh we've got a baby, oh we've got bills to pay, my husband has to cover it all cus I'm on holiday [ye gods, what's one of them?], oh our rent is going to be unpaid and we won't have a good reference, WAAA, well...
Is that a wide screen TV I see in your living room? The kid has waaay more toys than I did as a child, even though this was 25 years ago. He has £10 dolls, £50 plastic rideable cars, and a £100 playhouse in the garden. I had trees. You have a fish tank too. I don't have more than 2 sets of shoes. BBQ tonight is it? That's nice. How nice for you that is. I'll be lucky to eat egg for protein this week. That mobile you're using to send me bitchy texts, that a newest model iPhone is it? FUCK.
I hate it when people try to lie to me.
I can tell when people are lying based on the tone of their fucking voice for crying out loud. I'm a fucking epic liar and know all about 'just enough truth to rot the claim to the core whilst keeping it believable' method of lying, and you stand there and give me the hard-up spiel!?
...Good grief...I've learned, oh hells bells have I ever learned. I've learned about assholes and how to play the game of bugger the other bloke, and although she's smarter than I gave her credit for she's got no cards in her hand.
UPDATE: 00:33, 23/06/14: Ya know, I thought about it some and realized that they probably have savings. I mean, how stupid would you need to be to go around buying things like widescreen TV's and not keep a few hundred aside for emergencies.---
I don't cus I live week to week, but these guys have their own apartment so surely they've got enough to cover it. And she gives me the hard-up speech? Pff.
Tomorrow when I go to the bank I'm just going to pay a reasonable amount, probably 2 weeks at £90, and use the rest to arrange the new acom and that.
If she asks me why I've not paid in full, start with 'Because I didn't get it all back from the buggers who took it out last week', then onto 'It's in your own interests to wait for the rest next week' and finally 'Look, according to UK law you can't evict me without a court order, and you won't get one in 7 days, and if you try it's technical theft and you can be arrested'.
Precise run down of the situation from my perspective; either she buys my extended technically true lie, the fact that if she evicts me she'll get nothing more, or the abject fact that she literally can't evict me without being arrested for trying.
I've not paid my rent on time in the last few weeks because I'm damn used to landlords and landladies trying their best to fuck me over on my way out the door.
She's not got a deposit from me, she's got rent owed from me, and she's got no legal recourse against me to stop me going or claim the money. This keeps her honest. She doesn't dare try to throw me out because she'll get nothing if she does. She doesn't piss me off either in case I go and don't pay up. If I paid her that would let her do whatever she wants. I'm using debt as a power, weakness for control.
No. All she's got is my honesty. Now, that will get her the money for the time I spent here, eventually, but I'm not going to starve or be homeless to do it. Granted for that piece of bull about being hard-up I'm tempted to screw her over as poetic justice, but there's no real need to as she can't boot me out using force by the law so.
Human empathy. Consideration. Care.
It's amazing how these qualities are so lacking in so many so called people, and how the effect bounces around. The property owner doesn't care so my flatmates pay for it, who then bitch at and annoy me but find resistance, who then annoy the property owner by not paying, and around and around we go.
Besides that, it's amazing how people rent property and then lose all interest in it. It's just money. Don't worry who is living there and why, don't worry about building maintenance, don't worry about circumstances or show human consideration to the people living there, it's just money. If it's coming in, gravy, if not, evict em and find someone else who'll pay consistently.
That's landlords in my experience, and I expect most people would say the same. I wouldn't think like that if I had property. I've been on the ass end of that attitude for way too long.
---
What I wanted was to leave her cleanly, all debts settled, all my things in a taxi and moved to my new like-for-like accommodation.
What I have instead is almost the opposite of that.
If I don't kill myself trying to get into the police [this weekend being a near-miss] then maybe my next acom will be like that. I get training pay, I can do the work, I just need this lung issue resolved and about 3 months...and maybe remain calm at my Day 2 appeal because of that bloody fitness instructor's complaint. FUCKING ASSHOLES MAN, that gods dam fitness instructor.
---
Going to go make noodles and pizza and do some cleaning and maybe do a little college work before getting a good nights sleep.
Tomorrow doctors, pay some rent, cancel tribunal, book room at the inn [£55 a week place], maybe move stuff into storage that I don't need ready access to, and write up revision materials for Week 6 exams.
Two exams, writing up the revision materials ASAP so I can spend an hour a day drumming them into my skull for 2 weeks. Then just spend the remainder of the time doing the coursework. My major catch up last week whilst ill got me through most of the work itself but not the quizzes, but those are comparatively short, it's the reading and that which takes up most of the time.
But that's it; move and course/work revise...WELL, except for a couple of bits of information that I was lacking from the Day 2, like the doctors sign health sigh-off signature but that's just errand work.
Once I've been to the doctors and gotten some anti-bios or something for this persistent lung issue I can do college work and exercise no worries. And the extra money from lower rent costs can be used to buy new clothes and things.
---
Was considering if the vent that I've sealed up with duck tape caused my persistent cough. My flatmates have told me about mold in their room and things which has given their kid health issues, so I wonder if the same has impacted my lungs and will only clear up once I've left.
If that's true, and I can find a law which stages that vents are the property owners responsibility than I could sue her for making me sick in a civil suit.
Bit tenuous though that. I'd need to prove that whatever is in my lungs got there from exposure to whatever is living in the flat. This would probably cost more to check than I could get from winning, and might not even have been what is causing it.
I think it's strep personally. Cold air running fed lactic acid to strep bacteria and that's why it flares up when I exert myself and makes it hard to breath due to pneumonia. I need anti-bios to kill it which is why it's not gone and why I got flu recently by trying to power through it.
Probably not the mold here that caused it, even if it's not helping in getting rid of it. I just suspect it since it got bad about 2-3 months ago when the whether changed from winter to summer.
Move and doctors for anti-bios and I should be OK. It was just a bugger with the fitness test, but I got through it anyway.
Watevs...
---
Just give me three months and I should be in fine condition to start training as a copper.
Gonna try anyway.
FOOD. :O <<<
13/06/2014
On ELO Hell...
Hai. Not a happy temporary resident of a tent at the moment. >:|
Went running last night, did one lap of stage one of my two hour running route, of which contains three stages, and then spent half an hour barely able to breath.
Once I could walk I went to the hypermarket and got some liquid mucus cough meds and drank about half bottle [so against the label but I'm built like a jungle ape and have a slow metabolism so taking more than recommend dose is recommend for me] by sipping every time I needed to cough or couldn't breath normally.
This resulted in it clearly enough for me to do two more laps of the course. Go in, showered, slept, and now my sinuses have thick [sorry] yellow mucus in them, which I'm assuming is the corpse of the growing strep that suddenly found itself bathed in poison last night.
Woke up, decided to give running a miss tonight, and played some Hearthstone to wake up.
---
I just don't understand that game. You build a deck, you find it works, win four or five matches, and then it stops working and you drop to the bottom of the table again. So you try another champion, Druid instead of Rogue, and the same thing happens again.
Mostly I lose because either I have a bad hand [sheer luck factor] or someone pulls out cards which are a] expensive/rare [like the dragon edged boss cards] and b] have this OP ability [the freaking priest champion, in 3 moves in the late game, can make a minion with 15/15 in 3 cards, including summoning the fucking minion, I mean how do you fucking fight that?].
---
I don't know...
You play League of Legends, and you encounter ELO Hell whereby the system puts you with idiot allies who can't possibly fight your opposition. You score 10-15/0-5/whatever assists every match outside ranked, but go into ranked and you lose because of your allies feeding the enemy and dragging you down.
So despite your skill and knowledge of that game, you leave because it's rigged and biased so you lose and can't possibly reach the higher ranked leagues. You could if the game, most sensibly, took YOUR own performance into account when ranking, so regardless of your allies you yourself would still be marked on your own ability, but it doesn't.
I mean, imagine taking an exam where the nearest four people to you in the hall's marks were added to yours and you were given the average of that. You know the material and they don't, so you end up in the 'special' class and can't leave because you're surrounded by idiots. That's how I feel playing League of Legends.
So you go to play Hearthstone on the basis that it's single player so there's only your own ability taken into consideration in ranked. But here you encounter a randomized system with a edge of power-for-pounds, the UK version [the two P's make for eloquent pronunciation] of 'spend cash to be more powerful than other equally or greater skilled enemies'.
Personally I'm of the point of view that both games are rigged, only Hearthstone is a tad more obvious about it's biased game maniacs as if you spend money you can afford more powerful cards.
---
Consider this:
Both LoL and Hearthstone are free-to-play computer games. This means that they don't ask players to spend money to gain access to the gameplay. Instead they give you access to the game's content, for free, but you have the option to pay for customization or unlock devices which expand the content gained by playing the game itself.
In LoL's case customization comes in the form of champion skins so you can make your favorite champions your own. Unlock is then provided in the form of Riot Points which allows access to other champions not on the free roster [the free set consists of two handfuls of weekly rotating champions, and then you can pay either money or RP to unlock new ones quickly or slowly respectively]
And in Hearthstone additional cards can be acquired at a faster rate than what you can gain by playing the game itself and earning gold to buy packs if you spend money. This is indicative of power-for-pounds because those who spend money have a stronger deck than those who don't.
Now, you own the studios behind these games and you want people to pay money for the game and you can achieve this in two ways.
The first and public way is 'Optionally'. This is where you tell people the precise mechanics of the system. Play the game to unlock content. You can unlock content faster and customize your version of the game by spending money. People play the game, become invested, and then spend money of their own free will.
The second and secret way is 'ELO Hell' or 'Rank Bias Failure'. This is where the unranked modes are fare and set up so people of equal skill fight on even footing. However, the ranked modes are designed so that anyone who has not spent money on the game is allied with noobs so despite their own ability, they cannot win matches.
But surely your playerbase would notice this? You'd have a lot of players who play the game for the game for ages and don't care about customization or quick unlocks, or can't afford them, who find that no matter what they score outside of ranked, they can't rank up because their allies all feed 0/10 in minuets and drag them down.
Well this is precisely what Riot Game's have. A large quantity of their playerbase complaining about ELO Hell.
So what do you do about this so the facts of the matter don't make your company seem like a right bunch of assholes?
Well two things:
Firstly, you swear blind, black and blue that ELO Hell is a physiological perception issue, negativity bias, that the players only think it's their allies and is in fact they themselves who are not as good at the game as they believe themselves to be.
And secondly, and concurrently, you play on the fact that this is a partial truth. There are plenty of players who, because of their own personality flaws, will either confirm Riot's statement on the matter [surely it's other people's ineptitude because Riot Game's is the god-king of the universe and other people are garbage] or will play badly and then blame others for their own personal failure [because if there's one thing the average human hates, it's taking responsibility for failure, it's a survival reflex].
Personally, as usual, I discount anything anyone says and just test to see what happens.
I can't be asked right now to go rummaging through my image folders, though I will post this in 'On Games...' at some point, but I've played matches in non-ranked and then played ranked, and found that whilst non-ranked is with fairly good allies, ranked is almost terminally with abject noobs.
Additionally there's this:
On LoLKing they have access to feeds from player accounts which show ranked histories, what champions you were playing, your current rune pages, etc.
And what I noticed there was that when I first started playing the ranked mode of LoL, having a really good go to get to Challenger mode, I discovered that my progression through ranked went diagonally up. OK, I lost a few matches, no one's perfect, but on the whole I was rising steadily. Then my score dropped like a stone as ELO Hell took effect and booted me down two or three divisions.
This happened a couple more times before I gave up.
---
In my own mind I know ELO Hell exists. It might be speculative to suggest that it's tied to how much money you've dropped on the game, but there's a definite biased to ensure that certain highly skilled players are not placed with equally skilled allies and against equally skilled enemies.
Riot Game's denies it, the majority of their playerbase is with them, and no one gives a flying fuck to anything about it. Developers still takes home profits, players still enjoy the game, and who cares if a minority are ignored and treated unfairly. It doesn't concern those who rigged the game in the first place.
---
Hearthstone may have sometime similar in it's design, although it's easier, as I've said, to spot. There's no way you can break out of the lowest ranked division [lv20-21] without dropping some serious cash on higher tier cards. The Dragon/Boss cards are just way too powerful [and can't realistically be earned by playing], and the lower level higher utility cards [which I admit you can gain fairly easily by simply playing and earning gold to pay for packs] in abundance can smash any lower tier deck.
---
In my professional opinion, both games are at least definitely 'Probably' rigged so those who spend money on them are 'Permitted' to rank up.
These games might be free-to-play, but skill is no where near enough to be crowned monarch of the playerbase. As with most things in this world, quality of character isn't enough to jack unless society has decided to give you great riches to go with it.
---
Alright, I've not had breakfast or anything to eat since yesterday afternoon and it's not gone 3pm so shower...Lunner [Lunch/Dinner, lol], and then college work until snooze.
---
Got two and a half days to get through one and half weeks because I need to switch to exam revision on Monday - Thursday for an exam Saturday [got my Day 2 interview on teh Friday at the police recruitment center so].
That's not as impossible as it sounds, doing a weeks worth of work in a day or two.
Each college 'Week' takes place every two weeks in an eight hour session with eight hours of homework, and is easily doable in a day or two.
Although really what my tutor does, because he's a bloody pillock, in 'Class' is simply repeat what the homework states in text. I don't know why I go to them to be honest. Spending eight hours reading and answering online quizzes would be a better use of my time.
When I mentioned this to him he said that 'you wouldn't be able to have the homework set in a proper context'...I have an IQ of a couple of hundred points, more or less, I probably understand and could document this content in greater context than you have you fucking asshat, was my mental reply.
I think the guy has the intellectual capacity of a turnip, and got his rank based on rigid observation of protocol. He sure as hell didn't get there by intellectually adaptive, imaginative and naturally curious like me.
Dam silly nonsense, the lot of it.
---
Anyway, I's need's food's. :O <---
Bai.
Went running last night, did one lap of stage one of my two hour running route, of which contains three stages, and then spent half an hour barely able to breath.
Once I could walk I went to the hypermarket and got some liquid mucus cough meds and drank about half bottle [so against the label but I'm built like a jungle ape and have a slow metabolism so taking more than recommend dose is recommend for me] by sipping every time I needed to cough or couldn't breath normally.
This resulted in it clearly enough for me to do two more laps of the course. Go in, showered, slept, and now my sinuses have thick [sorry] yellow mucus in them, which I'm assuming is the corpse of the growing strep that suddenly found itself bathed in poison last night.
Woke up, decided to give running a miss tonight, and played some Hearthstone to wake up.
---
I just don't understand that game. You build a deck, you find it works, win four or five matches, and then it stops working and you drop to the bottom of the table again. So you try another champion, Druid instead of Rogue, and the same thing happens again.
Mostly I lose because either I have a bad hand [sheer luck factor] or someone pulls out cards which are a] expensive/rare [like the dragon edged boss cards] and b] have this OP ability [the freaking priest champion, in 3 moves in the late game, can make a minion with 15/15 in 3 cards, including summoning the fucking minion, I mean how do you fucking fight that?].
---
I don't know...
You play League of Legends, and you encounter ELO Hell whereby the system puts you with idiot allies who can't possibly fight your opposition. You score 10-15/0-5/whatever assists every match outside ranked, but go into ranked and you lose because of your allies feeding the enemy and dragging you down.
So despite your skill and knowledge of that game, you leave because it's rigged and biased so you lose and can't possibly reach the higher ranked leagues. You could if the game, most sensibly, took YOUR own performance into account when ranking, so regardless of your allies you yourself would still be marked on your own ability, but it doesn't.
I mean, imagine taking an exam where the nearest four people to you in the hall's marks were added to yours and you were given the average of that. You know the material and they don't, so you end up in the 'special' class and can't leave because you're surrounded by idiots. That's how I feel playing League of Legends.
So you go to play Hearthstone on the basis that it's single player so there's only your own ability taken into consideration in ranked. But here you encounter a randomized system with a edge of power-for-pounds, the UK version [the two P's make for eloquent pronunciation] of 'spend cash to be more powerful than other equally or greater skilled enemies'.
Personally I'm of the point of view that both games are rigged, only Hearthstone is a tad more obvious about it's biased game maniacs as if you spend money you can afford more powerful cards.
---
Consider this:
Both LoL and Hearthstone are free-to-play computer games. This means that they don't ask players to spend money to gain access to the gameplay. Instead they give you access to the game's content, for free, but you have the option to pay for customization or unlock devices which expand the content gained by playing the game itself.
In LoL's case customization comes in the form of champion skins so you can make your favorite champions your own. Unlock is then provided in the form of Riot Points which allows access to other champions not on the free roster [the free set consists of two handfuls of weekly rotating champions, and then you can pay either money or RP to unlock new ones quickly or slowly respectively]
And in Hearthstone additional cards can be acquired at a faster rate than what you can gain by playing the game itself and earning gold to buy packs if you spend money. This is indicative of power-for-pounds because those who spend money have a stronger deck than those who don't.
Now, you own the studios behind these games and you want people to pay money for the game and you can achieve this in two ways.
The first and public way is 'Optionally'. This is where you tell people the precise mechanics of the system. Play the game to unlock content. You can unlock content faster and customize your version of the game by spending money. People play the game, become invested, and then spend money of their own free will.
The second and secret way is 'ELO Hell' or 'Rank Bias Failure'. This is where the unranked modes are fare and set up so people of equal skill fight on even footing. However, the ranked modes are designed so that anyone who has not spent money on the game is allied with noobs so despite their own ability, they cannot win matches.
But surely your playerbase would notice this? You'd have a lot of players who play the game for the game for ages and don't care about customization or quick unlocks, or can't afford them, who find that no matter what they score outside of ranked, they can't rank up because their allies all feed 0/10 in minuets and drag them down.
Well this is precisely what Riot Game's have. A large quantity of their playerbase complaining about ELO Hell.
So what do you do about this so the facts of the matter don't make your company seem like a right bunch of assholes?
Well two things:
Firstly, you swear blind, black and blue that ELO Hell is a physiological perception issue, negativity bias, that the players only think it's their allies and is in fact they themselves who are not as good at the game as they believe themselves to be.
And secondly, and concurrently, you play on the fact that this is a partial truth. There are plenty of players who, because of their own personality flaws, will either confirm Riot's statement on the matter [surely it's other people's ineptitude because Riot Game's is the god-king of the universe and other people are garbage] or will play badly and then blame others for their own personal failure [because if there's one thing the average human hates, it's taking responsibility for failure, it's a survival reflex].
Personally, as usual, I discount anything anyone says and just test to see what happens.
I can't be asked right now to go rummaging through my image folders, though I will post this in 'On Games...' at some point, but I've played matches in non-ranked and then played ranked, and found that whilst non-ranked is with fairly good allies, ranked is almost terminally with abject noobs.
Additionally there's this:
On LoLKing they have access to feeds from player accounts which show ranked histories, what champions you were playing, your current rune pages, etc.
And what I noticed there was that when I first started playing the ranked mode of LoL, having a really good go to get to Challenger mode, I discovered that my progression through ranked went diagonally up. OK, I lost a few matches, no one's perfect, but on the whole I was rising steadily. Then my score dropped like a stone as ELO Hell took effect and booted me down two or three divisions.
This happened a couple more times before I gave up.
---
In my own mind I know ELO Hell exists. It might be speculative to suggest that it's tied to how much money you've dropped on the game, but there's a definite biased to ensure that certain highly skilled players are not placed with equally skilled allies and against equally skilled enemies.
Riot Game's denies it, the majority of their playerbase is with them, and no one gives a flying fuck to anything about it. Developers still takes home profits, players still enjoy the game, and who cares if a minority are ignored and treated unfairly. It doesn't concern those who rigged the game in the first place.
---
Hearthstone may have sometime similar in it's design, although it's easier, as I've said, to spot. There's no way you can break out of the lowest ranked division [lv20-21] without dropping some serious cash on higher tier cards. The Dragon/Boss cards are just way too powerful [and can't realistically be earned by playing], and the lower level higher utility cards [which I admit you can gain fairly easily by simply playing and earning gold to pay for packs] in abundance can smash any lower tier deck.
---
In my professional opinion, both games are at least definitely 'Probably' rigged so those who spend money on them are 'Permitted' to rank up.
These games might be free-to-play, but skill is no where near enough to be crowned monarch of the playerbase. As with most things in this world, quality of character isn't enough to jack unless society has decided to give you great riches to go with it.
---
Alright, I've not had breakfast or anything to eat since yesterday afternoon and it's not gone 3pm so shower...Lunner [Lunch/Dinner, lol], and then college work until snooze.
---
Got two and a half days to get through one and half weeks because I need to switch to exam revision on Monday - Thursday for an exam Saturday [got my Day 2 interview on teh Friday at the police recruitment center so].
That's not as impossible as it sounds, doing a weeks worth of work in a day or two.
Each college 'Week' takes place every two weeks in an eight hour session with eight hours of homework, and is easily doable in a day or two.
Although really what my tutor does, because he's a bloody pillock, in 'Class' is simply repeat what the homework states in text. I don't know why I go to them to be honest. Spending eight hours reading and answering online quizzes would be a better use of my time.
When I mentioned this to him he said that 'you wouldn't be able to have the homework set in a proper context'...I have an IQ of a couple of hundred points, more or less, I probably understand and could document this content in greater context than you have you fucking asshat, was my mental reply.
I think the guy has the intellectual capacity of a turnip, and got his rank based on rigid observation of protocol. He sure as hell didn't get there by intellectually adaptive, imaginative and naturally curious like me.
I have this thing with people, like a mental perception memory link where I link people with animals. It's one of the issues, if it is an issue, with being a genius who makes connections between packets of data whether or not they want to.
Sometimes I think of someone and instead of their face I get another image, like you look up someone in a computer database and you get the name and information but you get this picture as their avatar and it's an animal or object instead of them. They are in there, but so is this 'Thing' as well. I mean, I know the thing isn't them, it's just related to them in some way, shape or form.
This one guy from YouTube strikes me as bear like for example. It's like metaphor only it's my perceptions doing it automatically.
And my course tutor for my policing certification course, he's a pig. It's not an insult, it's not a descriptive phrase, it's just my brain looks at him and a couple of neurons are saying 'this chap, in another life, could've been a pig with a curly tail and trotters, and he's the mental image to go with it'.
My personal universe is a very strange place, or would be if I had any other to compare it with, but I hardly think that's bloody normally, anyway...Can't skip the college class sessions though because otherwise I'd miss the written exams, in themselves a load of fucking nonsense as the 'Exams' consist of a test of half a dozen questions, which you're given access to from Week 1. Essentially all you need do is formulate your answer before hand from your notes, online handouts and text book, memorize it, and then write it down during the one hour 'Exam'.
Dam silly nonsense, the lot of it.
---
Anyway, I's need's food's. :O <---
Bai.
05/06/2014
On Bureaucracy...
For all my intelligence I'm amazingly stupid at times.
Sensible would've been to, on Tuesday, do college work after tidying up my room and getting some exercise.
Stupid is what I went with, which was to play Hearthstone for two days almost straight, noticing how the skin just under my ribcage is tightening up against what little muscle I have there because I haven't been eating. Not, not eating right. Just, not eating at all.
My budding anorexia is surprising though seeing as I have one of those metabolisms where I could eat a cracker or two and live for like a week. 6.1ft, built like a jungle ape [including body hair], and yet I could live on airborne plankton, if such a thing were floating through the ether.
I just forced myself to consume two platefuls of beef curry, but didn't really want it. It's not that I haven't been hungry, it's just I haven't eaten because I've been playing bloody Hearthstone.
Idiot.
Currently been awake since 11am yesterday. It's not 7am the following morning, I'm seeing blotches of color on my vision, missing keys, and still behind on my college coursework.
Plus my landlady said something about the property owner [I'm subletting from my flatmates] coming by today to check that the place is ready for viewing or is in one peace or something, and she needs to see everything, including my room, and I haven't cleaned in over a week.
So stupid. I need to do my college work and I need to get sleep at night like a normal person. Why don't I do what I'm meant to. Why does a little voice in my head keep saying 'One more' and 'Last one' every time I go to shut Hearthstone down? Stupid...
Anyway, after my shitty Tuesday I did finally get some good news.
---
Somehow, and even I can't believe I managed it, I passed my in-person aptitude interview with the Met Police Service where they graded my intellect, communication, and observational skills.
I did it on 4 hours of sleep, no food since 6pm the night previously, and more or less dehydrated, plus wearing street casual [blue jeans and a tee] instead of business casual like everyone else. Why was I not prepared to take an important interview I can only take every six months? Because if you weren't paying attention above, I'm an idiot. Oy vey.
Somehow I still passed their tests, which either goes to show I'm just that dam good, or their standards for judging the aptitude of police offers is really not that high. Worryingly so really given that they're hiring budding law enforcement personnel who are future peace officers, detectives, and wielders of firearms.
Need to start prepping for the Day 2 now. This is much easier as it's only medical and fitness testing and a boat load of paperwork to fill out in the next two weeks.
Granted, in the way of my life, my lungs are currently painted with vile tasting mucus from a bout of bronchitis I had two months ago, gained by running the frigid night air in early spring, which is really worrying me. No illness I've ever had lasted more than two weeks. It doesn't hurt or anything, it's just an occasional wheezy cough with bad tasting mucus I can't quite clear out of my throat and into the sink.
The issue with this lingering side-effect is that in two weeks I need to take a bleep test, which is basically running. If I can't breath heavily without coughing my lungs up then there's no way I can run now and get ready or on the day.
At the moment I'm taking mucus cough meds made by Sudafed, after trying Beachems and some other brand. This one seems to be working. I was coughing hard last night but I'm two doses in and seem to be OK. Maybe this one has a different drug in it which works focuses on the lungs instead of the sinuses and it's clearing it. Hope so cus I really don't want to fail the Day 2 since winning the Day 1 by a hair.
If it's not sorted by Monday I'll find a doctors and see if they can give me something industrial strength or the precisely correct drug to clear it and then hit the track. I mean, the bleep test isn't long, I don't need to run for two hours like I normally do, and it'll be indoors in a hall at the recruitment offices in central London, but I need to do SOME running before hand.
---
In other news, SEGA turned me down for a games testing position I was interviewed for last week.
Their reasoning was that the candidate pool they were screening had a lot of good people in it and I just didn't make the cut.
Well, fair enough, games industry position, lots of people want in, it's understandable that...wait...let's just evaluate this for a second...
I go to the Met Police service, those fine ladies and gents who patrol London, who are responsible for keeping the peace and catching criminals, take their communication, observation, and intellect test and pass it, GG.
Once I finish my training I'll earn 1.5-2x minimum wage, with excellent job security and promotion prospects plus a benefits package and access to career training programs.
Then I go to a computer games developer, SEGA. This company badly damaged one of the best games franchises of the Megadrive/Super Nintendo era of computer games from a rival for premier gaming icon to an internet joke. I take an easier test than the one I did for the police [in more or less the same physiological condition btw cus I'm just that stupid], and fail it.
If I had passed I could've looked forward to a zero hours minimum wage contract, with no job security, no chance for real career progression, no benefits, and if I wanted more training I'd have to pay for it myself.
Hm. Dodged a bullet there maybe?
I planned on doing it whilst at college for the next few months to make some extra money, and my vocation is that of games developer so if that had worked out I might just dropped my application to the police all together for real entry level experience at doing something related to what I love; games.
I'm fit to be a policeman, an officer of the law who needs to cooperate with people and protect them from crime, but not fit to be a games tester, a bug hunter who just needs to be able to play games which I've been doing since I was five.
This is the world we live in apparently.
---
My 24+ Advanced Learning Loan, which I applied for and have now received to pay for my Certificate in Basic Policing course, went through yesterday.
Only took a speedy three months, the course had already started, the college had asked me to cough up or they'd boot me, and I had to lodge a complaint with customer services in writing before they'd finalize it. Wasn't bloody annoying or anything.
What was the hold up?
Apparently when I sent in my application form I hadn't ticked two boxes regarding prior loans. I didn't tick them because I didn't know if I was in arrears on my prior 3 years plus maintenance loans that I received to attend the University of Portsmouth for the Computer Games Technology course [don't even ask about that, bloody morons]. I assumed that they would email or phone me, I could ask them to check it out [they have it on record anyway], and that'd be that, job done.
In a sane world, yes, it would've been that easy.
It doesn't go through and my college blocks my access card which is scanned in at their gates for access to the campus. Phoned them up and they said what information they were missing, after I confirmed who I was via a security check and told them what the answer to the information was, but they had better check their systems to make sure.
They did and confirmed I was right, but asked me to send a letter which I had signed to confirm it anyway. I agreed on the basis that it was nonsense but nonsense that would take all of ten minuets in the library and post office. Same information - not in arrears, check your systems - and no reply.
They get the letter but then sit on it for nearly a month. Eventually I get annoyed and file a complaint with their internal complaints department who look into it. They phone me up [waking me up twice in the process and costing me about 4 hours of sleep total by the way] and tell me to send them another letter, but this time to make it the form from their website with the correct boxes ticked.
I say 'OK, just to be clear, I've phoned you, confirmed my identity, told you the answer, then send you a printed and signed letter with the correct information, and you've checked your systems twice now and confirmed it, but to finalize my loan you need me to print off a form you've already received to tick two boxes?'.
I felt sorry for the women on the line who started quite literally to splutter at me as she tried to justify the reason I should do as she asked.
After I got up and ate me wheeties my college then emailed me and told me it's gone through, they've received the money and that my place on the course is secure, at last.
---
Can't work in the games industry for minimum wage, but I can work in law enforcement for a pension.
Can't get an adult learning loan because I need to feed information into the human machine with the right hole punched as they don't hire people who can color outside of the lines.
That, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is bureaucracy at it's very finest; retarded actions done because it's protocol with a complete absence of good judgement, common sense, and intelligent thought.
But that's OK though, because if I don't go do my college work I'll never pass the CKP course, and be able to take the training which will lead to employment, and then be able to pay the loan back once I'm earning, so it'll work out alright in the end heh...heh...oooh...
Bai.
Sensible would've been to, on Tuesday, do college work after tidying up my room and getting some exercise.
Stupid is what I went with, which was to play Hearthstone for two days almost straight, noticing how the skin just under my ribcage is tightening up against what little muscle I have there because I haven't been eating. Not, not eating right. Just, not eating at all.
My budding anorexia is surprising though seeing as I have one of those metabolisms where I could eat a cracker or two and live for like a week. 6.1ft, built like a jungle ape [including body hair], and yet I could live on airborne plankton, if such a thing were floating through the ether.
I just forced myself to consume two platefuls of beef curry, but didn't really want it. It's not that I haven't been hungry, it's just I haven't eaten because I've been playing bloody Hearthstone.
Idiot.
Currently been awake since 11am yesterday. It's not 7am the following morning, I'm seeing blotches of color on my vision, missing keys, and still behind on my college coursework.
Plus my landlady said something about the property owner [I'm subletting from my flatmates] coming by today to check that the place is ready for viewing or is in one peace or something, and she needs to see everything, including my room, and I haven't cleaned in over a week.
So stupid. I need to do my college work and I need to get sleep at night like a normal person. Why don't I do what I'm meant to. Why does a little voice in my head keep saying 'One more' and 'Last one' every time I go to shut Hearthstone down? Stupid...
Anyway, after my shitty Tuesday I did finally get some good news.
---
Somehow, and even I can't believe I managed it, I passed my in-person aptitude interview with the Met Police Service where they graded my intellect, communication, and observational skills.
I did it on 4 hours of sleep, no food since 6pm the night previously, and more or less dehydrated, plus wearing street casual [blue jeans and a tee] instead of business casual like everyone else. Why was I not prepared to take an important interview I can only take every six months? Because if you weren't paying attention above, I'm an idiot. Oy vey.
Somehow I still passed their tests, which either goes to show I'm just that dam good, or their standards for judging the aptitude of police offers is really not that high. Worryingly so really given that they're hiring budding law enforcement personnel who are future peace officers, detectives, and wielders of firearms.
Need to start prepping for the Day 2 now. This is much easier as it's only medical and fitness testing and a boat load of paperwork to fill out in the next two weeks.
Granted, in the way of my life, my lungs are currently painted with vile tasting mucus from a bout of bronchitis I had two months ago, gained by running the frigid night air in early spring, which is really worrying me. No illness I've ever had lasted more than two weeks. It doesn't hurt or anything, it's just an occasional wheezy cough with bad tasting mucus I can't quite clear out of my throat and into the sink.
The issue with this lingering side-effect is that in two weeks I need to take a bleep test, which is basically running. If I can't breath heavily without coughing my lungs up then there's no way I can run now and get ready or on the day.
At the moment I'm taking mucus cough meds made by Sudafed, after trying Beachems and some other brand. This one seems to be working. I was coughing hard last night but I'm two doses in and seem to be OK. Maybe this one has a different drug in it which works focuses on the lungs instead of the sinuses and it's clearing it. Hope so cus I really don't want to fail the Day 2 since winning the Day 1 by a hair.
If it's not sorted by Monday I'll find a doctors and see if they can give me something industrial strength or the precisely correct drug to clear it and then hit the track. I mean, the bleep test isn't long, I don't need to run for two hours like I normally do, and it'll be indoors in a hall at the recruitment offices in central London, but I need to do SOME running before hand.
---
In other news, SEGA turned me down for a games testing position I was interviewed for last week.
Their reasoning was that the candidate pool they were screening had a lot of good people in it and I just didn't make the cut.
Well, fair enough, games industry position, lots of people want in, it's understandable that...wait...let's just evaluate this for a second...
I go to the Met Police service, those fine ladies and gents who patrol London, who are responsible for keeping the peace and catching criminals, take their communication, observation, and intellect test and pass it, GG.
Once I finish my training I'll earn 1.5-2x minimum wage, with excellent job security and promotion prospects plus a benefits package and access to career training programs.
Then I go to a computer games developer, SEGA. This company badly damaged one of the best games franchises of the Megadrive/Super Nintendo era of computer games from a rival for premier gaming icon to an internet joke. I take an easier test than the one I did for the police [in more or less the same physiological condition btw cus I'm just that stupid], and fail it.
If I had passed I could've looked forward to a zero hours minimum wage contract, with no job security, no chance for real career progression, no benefits, and if I wanted more training I'd have to pay for it myself.
Hm. Dodged a bullet there maybe?
I planned on doing it whilst at college for the next few months to make some extra money, and my vocation is that of games developer so if that had worked out I might just dropped my application to the police all together for real entry level experience at doing something related to what I love; games.
I'm fit to be a policeman, an officer of the law who needs to cooperate with people and protect them from crime, but not fit to be a games tester, a bug hunter who just needs to be able to play games which I've been doing since I was five.
This is the world we live in apparently.
---
My 24+ Advanced Learning Loan, which I applied for and have now received to pay for my Certificate in Basic Policing course, went through yesterday.
Only took a speedy three months, the course had already started, the college had asked me to cough up or they'd boot me, and I had to lodge a complaint with customer services in writing before they'd finalize it. Wasn't bloody annoying or anything.
What was the hold up?
Apparently when I sent in my application form I hadn't ticked two boxes regarding prior loans. I didn't tick them because I didn't know if I was in arrears on my prior 3 years plus maintenance loans that I received to attend the University of Portsmouth for the Computer Games Technology course [don't even ask about that, bloody morons]. I assumed that they would email or phone me, I could ask them to check it out [they have it on record anyway], and that'd be that, job done.
In a sane world, yes, it would've been that easy.
It doesn't go through and my college blocks my access card which is scanned in at their gates for access to the campus. Phoned them up and they said what information they were missing, after I confirmed who I was via a security check and told them what the answer to the information was, but they had better check their systems to make sure.
They did and confirmed I was right, but asked me to send a letter which I had signed to confirm it anyway. I agreed on the basis that it was nonsense but nonsense that would take all of ten minuets in the library and post office. Same information - not in arrears, check your systems - and no reply.
They get the letter but then sit on it for nearly a month. Eventually I get annoyed and file a complaint with their internal complaints department who look into it. They phone me up [waking me up twice in the process and costing me about 4 hours of sleep total by the way] and tell me to send them another letter, but this time to make it the form from their website with the correct boxes ticked.
I say 'OK, just to be clear, I've phoned you, confirmed my identity, told you the answer, then send you a printed and signed letter with the correct information, and you've checked your systems twice now and confirmed it, but to finalize my loan you need me to print off a form you've already received to tick two boxes?'.
I felt sorry for the women on the line who started quite literally to splutter at me as she tried to justify the reason I should do as she asked.
After I got up and ate me wheeties my college then emailed me and told me it's gone through, they've received the money and that my place on the course is secure, at last.
---
Can't work in the games industry for minimum wage, but I can work in law enforcement for a pension.
Can't get an adult learning loan because I need to feed information into the human machine with the right hole punched as they don't hire people who can color outside of the lines.
That, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is bureaucracy at it's very finest; retarded actions done because it's protocol with a complete absence of good judgement, common sense, and intelligent thought.
But that's OK though, because if I don't go do my college work I'll never pass the CKP course, and be able to take the training which will lead to employment, and then be able to pay the loan back once I'm earning, so it'll work out alright in the end heh...heh...oooh...
Bai.
04/06/2014
On Accommodation...
Mornink.
Did a lot of spade work yesterday and decided that being a bastard is sometimes required when the world tries to fuck you in the ass.
Basically I've stopped paying my rent here so in two weeks I can use the erstwhile rent money to pay for a deposit and rent up front on a new room.
The bonus is that firstly I'll have plenty of time to find somewhere new to stay and can move out easily before the deadline of early next month.
The bastard part is that once I've left, there's no way for my former landlady to reclaim said money so I don't intend to pay rent for this entire month.
I don't like being an asshole but both my landlady and her husband are employed, whereas I can't get hired to pack boxes in a factory ['bloody foreigners, coming over here, taking our jobs', racist meme or evidential truth as they're both Lithuanian], and besides, they can wait to be paid back rent [even though I have no intention of doing so] whereas my new landlord or lady will need paying upfront.
I loved staying where I am present. They were good enough people [except for their screaming little demon of a child] and the best leasers I've met since moving into London several years ago.
---
My first three years, I think it was [I've never been good at keeping track of my own history, being more concerned with the present than the past, after all, the present is what is currently biting my ass], were spent in hostels, living alongside teenage travelers, who had zero respect for other people, and horrible human beings more like animals like sapient creatures.
Got offered sex by naked women several times [though I didn't accept because I wasn't attracted to them mentally, although physically the word 'supermodel' was tossed around quite easily], and bullied once or twice, which I dealt with easily as I've been bullied a lot in my life anyway.
Biggest issue there was bed availability. They don't let you just book a bed and it's yours. You to book almost daily, and if they're fully booked, you're boned, so for three years or so, sometimes I didn't have a bed to sleep in at night.
---
After that I stayed with a Puerto Rican...maybe...who was a giant asshole with no kidneys that kept nagging me about nothing and trying to evict me for bullshit reasons as a kind of hobby.
Eventually got evicted from the room in a large house I was renting after he invited a bunch of new housemates in and then went on holiday without leaving anyone to mind the property, despite having a daughter who could and eventually did do it.
I complained after a week of the mess and the noise from the brand new teenage tenants who were traveling from America, and how the boiler had broken and we were I was cleaning and everyone was showering in frigid water.
He ignored my texts and calls for more than a month until I managed to get hold of his daughter's email address and she managed to arrange for repairs.
After he returned he evicted me.
I cleaned the house up after the other residents. I got the boiler repaired. I made sure it was still standing and in reasonable condition for the time he was absent. And he booted me out for giving a shit about the place.
Some time later I got into an argument with the council over receiving housing benefit I wasn't entitled to even though I was. They contacted him as it was regarding my time spent living in his house. He lied to them about me actually being employed whilst living there and cheating the fucking government out of charity.
One court tribunal later, which he didn't attend, just gave them a written statement of his testimony after the tribunal was advised by a claim inspector to trust his assertions [you've no idea how badly I wanted to find the cretin who claimed that and break them in half], and I was able to prove that his allegations were a load of crap. He could've got me a criminal record and a jail time if they had believed him though.
There's a reason his kidney's failed people; the universe was trying to prevent him from blighting other people's lives. At least that's my theory.
[I said when I started writing this blog that I wasn't going to write about my horrible history. I just realized my actions are calling me a liar, but for crying out loud, when will the punishment stop?]
---
Then I stayed in an illegal sublet in a room in a two bed roomed flat, which was a] freezing cold [it was winter, snow on the pavement, and I didn't need to store things in the freezer], and b] had a gas heater in it which could've killed me in my sleep. Plus the rent was like fifty pounds over priced for the property.
It was illegal and overpriced because it was a council property rented to a tenant who sublet it, via her son, to my landlady who was also my flatmate. They would've been so epically boned if anyone found out. I've reported it since I left, because it's not right that someone should be making money off a council property like that, but I don't know if anyone has done anything about it.
Eventually I left that hellhole after three or four months because of a blow up argument with my sole flatmate over nothing very much, whereupon she turned into a psychotic bitch.
It's quite possible that I will never forget the argument we had over rent:
Whatever really, in the past, but that kind of bullshit gets on my nerves.
---
Then there was this place. My current landlady is nice and doesn't bother me at all. They're all Lithuanian like I said so they don't go out of their way to talk to me because they can hardly understand me [AND YET EMPLOYERS HIRE THEM...].
The room is a good size, the wifi is more or less always on, it's never cold, I pay a flat rate per week in rent which can be past due for a bit if required, the kitchen is spacious, I can use my flatmates knives and things, and never have to clean overmuch because there's four of them and they do it themselves.
Well, more or less. The kitchen is usually left in a clutter so I have to move things, but I do the same sometimes so that's OK. And their son never stops bloody screaming his dam head off, which is grossly annoying sometimes. But on the whole, this place was ideal.
But now I have to leave.
---
I can be a bit picky over my next place as I've got just over a month to inspect and interview and consider, whilst also having the budget [see above regarding not paying this months rent] to pay for a large deposit which really opens up the options when you're looking for accommodation that'll accept those on housing benefit.
Some people lament the effort it takes to get onto the housing ladder due to property prices.
Personally I'm just looking for four walls, a floor, a ceiling, a bed, wifi, a fridge, and a toilet, plus housemates that I don't fantasize about justifiably killing.
Alright, so there are also those who don't even have the money to live indoors, but I do so using perfectly available social security funds so I don't understand why people do live rough really.
---
My final thought for today is that I learned yesterday definitively that my mother is indeed dead because there was an ad about it in the town where she lived with my farther, brother and sister.
She was insane. Illogical. A hater of intelligence. A downer. Someone who would drag another person's moral and sense of self-worth down to her own level on instinct. A liar. Abusive. Chronically bloody ill. And probably responsible for how fucked up I am.
As a creator, not what I would've hoped for, in a mother.
Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld fantasy series of books, wrote his deceased characters as being very clear minded. Dead, spirits, no longer able to interact with the living world, and soon transitioned into their afterlife, which is whatever they think will happen.
For my sake I hope that the former happened and she saw the damage she caused and could regret it, and feel remorse for it.
For hers, because I am a fundamentally good man, I hope that if there is a next world that she isn't driven anymore by whatever it was that caused her to act the way she did to me.
Never loved her, never even liked her, or respected her, or wished her anything but vengeance for what she did to me, which I got, and I'm not sorry.
But I can still hope for peace now I've settled the score.
Did a lot of spade work yesterday and decided that being a bastard is sometimes required when the world tries to fuck you in the ass.
Basically I've stopped paying my rent here so in two weeks I can use the erstwhile rent money to pay for a deposit and rent up front on a new room.
The bonus is that firstly I'll have plenty of time to find somewhere new to stay and can move out easily before the deadline of early next month.
The bastard part is that once I've left, there's no way for my former landlady to reclaim said money so I don't intend to pay rent for this entire month.
I don't like being an asshole but both my landlady and her husband are employed, whereas I can't get hired to pack boxes in a factory ['bloody foreigners, coming over here, taking our jobs', racist meme or evidential truth as they're both Lithuanian], and besides, they can wait to be paid back rent [even though I have no intention of doing so] whereas my new landlord or lady will need paying upfront.
I loved staying where I am present. They were good enough people [except for their screaming little demon of a child] and the best leasers I've met since moving into London several years ago.
---
My first three years, I think it was [I've never been good at keeping track of my own history, being more concerned with the present than the past, after all, the present is what is currently biting my ass], were spent in hostels, living alongside teenage travelers, who had zero respect for other people, and horrible human beings more like animals like sapient creatures.
Got offered sex by naked women several times [though I didn't accept because I wasn't attracted to them mentally, although physically the word 'supermodel' was tossed around quite easily], and bullied once or twice, which I dealt with easily as I've been bullied a lot in my life anyway.
Biggest issue there was bed availability. They don't let you just book a bed and it's yours. You to book almost daily, and if they're fully booked, you're boned, so for three years or so, sometimes I didn't have a bed to sleep in at night.
---
After that I stayed with a Puerto Rican...maybe...who was a giant asshole with no kidneys that kept nagging me about nothing and trying to evict me for bullshit reasons as a kind of hobby.
Eventually got evicted from the room in a large house I was renting after he invited a bunch of new housemates in and then went on holiday without leaving anyone to mind the property, despite having a daughter who could and eventually did do it.
I complained after a week of the mess and the noise from the brand new teenage tenants who were traveling from America, and how the boiler had broken and we were I was cleaning and everyone was showering in frigid water.
He ignored my texts and calls for more than a month until I managed to get hold of his daughter's email address and she managed to arrange for repairs.
After he returned he evicted me.
I cleaned the house up after the other residents. I got the boiler repaired. I made sure it was still standing and in reasonable condition for the time he was absent. And he booted me out for giving a shit about the place.
Some time later I got into an argument with the council over receiving housing benefit I wasn't entitled to even though I was. They contacted him as it was regarding my time spent living in his house. He lied to them about me actually being employed whilst living there and cheating the fucking government out of charity.
One court tribunal later, which he didn't attend, just gave them a written statement of his testimony after the tribunal was advised by a claim inspector to trust his assertions [you've no idea how badly I wanted to find the cretin who claimed that and break them in half], and I was able to prove that his allegations were a load of crap. He could've got me a criminal record and a jail time if they had believed him though.
There's a reason his kidney's failed people; the universe was trying to prevent him from blighting other people's lives. At least that's my theory.
[I said when I started writing this blog that I wasn't going to write about my horrible history. I just realized my actions are calling me a liar, but for crying out loud, when will the punishment stop?]
---
Then I stayed in an illegal sublet in a room in a two bed roomed flat, which was a] freezing cold [it was winter, snow on the pavement, and I didn't need to store things in the freezer], and b] had a gas heater in it which could've killed me in my sleep. Plus the rent was like fifty pounds over priced for the property.
It was illegal and overpriced because it was a council property rented to a tenant who sublet it, via her son, to my landlady who was also my flatmate. They would've been so epically boned if anyone found out. I've reported it since I left, because it's not right that someone should be making money off a council property like that, but I don't know if anyone has done anything about it.
Eventually I left that hellhole after three or four months because of a blow up argument with my sole flatmate over nothing very much, whereupon she turned into a psychotic bitch.
It's quite possible that I will never forget the argument we had over rent:
52 weeks per year, 12 months per year, 52 / 12 = 4.33 recurring, so £350.00, for example divided by 4.33 is 80.83, not 87.5, which is 350 / 4. And to work out daily rent at 350 per month, you times it by 12 months and then divide by 364 days to get 11.54.This I remember because I was trying to work out how much I owed down to the day in rent so I could leave with all debts paid and my deposit back. Settle up, because I am honest and I expect the same. However, she insisted that I was wrong regardless of how I explained it. Either she was just trying to be evil or she didn't understand and said I was wrong regardless to save face.
Whatever really, in the past, but that kind of bullshit gets on my nerves.
---
Then there was this place. My current landlady is nice and doesn't bother me at all. They're all Lithuanian like I said so they don't go out of their way to talk to me because they can hardly understand me [AND YET EMPLOYERS HIRE THEM...].
The room is a good size, the wifi is more or less always on, it's never cold, I pay a flat rate per week in rent which can be past due for a bit if required, the kitchen is spacious, I can use my flatmates knives and things, and never have to clean overmuch because there's four of them and they do it themselves.
Well, more or less. The kitchen is usually left in a clutter so I have to move things, but I do the same sometimes so that's OK. And their son never stops bloody screaming his dam head off, which is grossly annoying sometimes. But on the whole, this place was ideal.
But now I have to leave.
---
I can be a bit picky over my next place as I've got just over a month to inspect and interview and consider, whilst also having the budget [see above regarding not paying this months rent] to pay for a large deposit which really opens up the options when you're looking for accommodation that'll accept those on housing benefit.
Some people lament the effort it takes to get onto the housing ladder due to property prices.
Personally I'm just looking for four walls, a floor, a ceiling, a bed, wifi, a fridge, and a toilet, plus housemates that I don't fantasize about justifiably killing.
Alright, so there are also those who don't even have the money to live indoors, but I do so using perfectly available social security funds so I don't understand why people do live rough really.
---
My final thought for today is that I learned yesterday definitively that my mother is indeed dead because there was an ad about it in the town where she lived with my farther, brother and sister.
She was insane. Illogical. A hater of intelligence. A downer. Someone who would drag another person's moral and sense of self-worth down to her own level on instinct. A liar. Abusive. Chronically bloody ill. And probably responsible for how fucked up I am.
As a creator, not what I would've hoped for, in a mother.
Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld fantasy series of books, wrote his deceased characters as being very clear minded. Dead, spirits, no longer able to interact with the living world, and soon transitioned into their afterlife, which is whatever they think will happen.
For my sake I hope that the former happened and she saw the damage she caused and could regret it, and feel remorse for it.
For hers, because I am a fundamentally good man, I hope that if there is a next world that she isn't driven anymore by whatever it was that caused her to act the way she did to me.
Never loved her, never even liked her, or respected her, or wished her anything but vengeance for what she did to me, which I got, and I'm not sorry.
But I can still hope for peace now I've settled the score.
03/06/2014
On Bad Days...
...Fuck me...
Woke up.
Got evicted because I'm subletting and my landlady has decided not to renew her lease after the rent was increased.
Had wheeties.
Got rejected for a minimum wage job at SEGA which I was screened for on the basis, if you can believe it, 'the calibre of applicants has been very high during this process'.
Played some Hearthstone to relax a bit from these two blows before trying to find somewhere new to live, apply for another job, and do my college work which I paid for using yet another Student Loan.
Lost every one of the ten matches I played.
...OK...bad day...
My student loan is currently on hold because they require some more information from me. This information I've given to them twice already; once over the phone, once in writing. Currently dealing with their complaints department about it.
Said complaints department, for fun, decided yesterday afternoon to ring me up as a curtsy call to tell me that they were aware of my complaint.
Not that they had or were going to do anything about it. Not that they needed me to do anything about it. Just that were aware of it.
This would've been fine, except for the fact that at the time I was dead asleep because my sleep pattern is currently fucked and I'm sleeping during the day, and then couldn't get back to sleep afterwards.
Bastards.
That phone call was yesterday.
So right now it's around 6pm.
I was struggling to deal yesterday with the prospect of doing my college work. Now...
---
I did have one crazy idea on how to resolve this; rent a storage container.
They cost, on a weekly basis, for the same size room, about half what I pay in rent.
Gain 24 hour access, somewhere close a gym for the shower and toilet, do my college work at the college where I'm studying, buy a cooler and few bags of ice each week that cost a pound each for food storage, and construct a nest inside the container.
I've seen pictures of people who've built actual honest to gods mansions out of storage containers, water proofed, wired with electrics and piped with plumbing. After all, a storage container is just a metal box and a house is just a concrete box.
The issue is with this is twofold.
I've tried living in a hostel [instant access, pay by the day accommodation] and it's not something I ever want to repeat, which is why I was looking into this to begin with.
Finding another room to rent might be easier.
---
A few days ago my biggest issue was taking care of my college work before the weekend, with a side of chasing up results from interviews and my student loan.
Now I'm virtually homeless and starving is the only way to fix it.
Fucking hate my life, but hating it isn't going to fix anything, so I had best go get on with it.
Woke up.
Got evicted because I'm subletting and my landlady has decided not to renew her lease after the rent was increased.
Had wheeties.
Got rejected for a minimum wage job at SEGA which I was screened for on the basis, if you can believe it, 'the calibre of applicants has been very high during this process'.
Played some Hearthstone to relax a bit from these two blows before trying to find somewhere new to live, apply for another job, and do my college work which I paid for using yet another Student Loan.
Lost every one of the ten matches I played.
...OK...bad day...
My student loan is currently on hold because they require some more information from me. This information I've given to them twice already; once over the phone, once in writing. Currently dealing with their complaints department about it.
Said complaints department, for fun, decided yesterday afternoon to ring me up as a curtsy call to tell me that they were aware of my complaint.
Not that they had or were going to do anything about it. Not that they needed me to do anything about it. Just that were aware of it.
This would've been fine, except for the fact that at the time I was dead asleep because my sleep pattern is currently fucked and I'm sleeping during the day, and then couldn't get back to sleep afterwards.
Bastards.
That phone call was yesterday.
So right now it's around 6pm.
- In a month I'll have no where to live and to find new accommodation I need to find one of the few leasers who will rent to someone on housing benefit.
- In a week I'll have next to no food budget as I use what little money I have to pay for a deposit on new accommodation [I never did actually have one where I'm currently living].
I was struggling to deal yesterday with the prospect of doing my college work. Now...
---
I did have one crazy idea on how to resolve this; rent a storage container.
They cost, on a weekly basis, for the same size room, about half what I pay in rent.
Gain 24 hour access, somewhere close a gym for the shower and toilet, do my college work at the college where I'm studying, buy a cooler and few bags of ice each week that cost a pound each for food storage, and construct a nest inside the container.
I've seen pictures of people who've built actual honest to gods mansions out of storage containers, water proofed, wired with electrics and piped with plumbing. After all, a storage container is just a metal box and a house is just a concrete box.
The issue is with this is twofold.
- Firstly, most places don't have 24 hour access to the compounds they're built on. The best place I found does [and is sammitched between a 24 hour gym and an Iceland store], but would need me to be a customer for eight weeks before they'd give it to me. Doable maybe, but still...
- Secondly, my housing benefits are paid for a property. My job seekers isn't, so one hundred and forty every two weeks, forty on rent every week, works out at sixty every two weeks which is slightly less than what I have now with free access to amenities [bathroom, water, kitchen, etc.].
- Plus there's the obvious issue of what you're allowed to store there and the owners might take issue with a person living in one of their boxes.
I've tried living in a hostel [instant access, pay by the day accommodation] and it's not something I ever want to repeat, which is why I was looking into this to begin with.
Finding another room to rent might be easier.
---
A few days ago my biggest issue was taking care of my college work before the weekend, with a side of chasing up results from interviews and my student loan.
Now I'm virtually homeless and starving is the only way to fix it.
Fucking hate my life, but hating it isn't going to fix anything, so I had best go get on with it.