contract query

> > then I'll wish you early success in getting something
> good in
> > the work line. Not always too easy these days, from what I'm hearing.
> I am not unemployed, but I have been. Like many people, I am one paycheck
> away from being homeless. So the next time you see some crusty, scummy bum,
> remember that at one time he may have been me, or Zarok, or some other
> internet pest.
>
You'd no way of knowing, but not many I should think, are as well
acquainted with grinding poverty, short but frequent spells of not
working, debt, and low wages. From age 15 to 31-ish, I'd get a pay
packet each Friday holding just enough to last me till next payday if I
was careful. Usually wasn't and was broke by Wednesday or Thursday.
Becoming fed up with this existence, I began to cast around for a way or
ways of obtaining a few bob. I got smart - or lucky, probably a bit of
both, and things took off. There's good reason for preferring not to
go into details here!
Staying single seemed a good idea (I dislike children and they cost a
small fortune for 18 or more years and not seeing anything I wanted to
stay with forever so that wasn't difficult).
Eventually I ended up here in what quite a
lot of Americans might see as a pleasant life and free of any kind of debt.
You don't have to believe any of this, mind! No proof, and I might be
making it up as I go along but I doubt if I'd get much of a kick out of
doing that.
Gotta run - the FBI has just burst in with guns drawn and faces
painted.........
--
Ian
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"Ian" <I got smart - or lucky, probably a bit of both, and things took off.
There's good reason for preferring not to go into details here!
>
Even the worst of enemies on a usenet group like this are probably mostly
decent folks. If we are feuding about books at least we are not out robbing
a freight train! Glad to hear that the hard work and luck paid off,
hopefully I can join you on the veranda of that dream at some point...!
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richards1943.RemoveThis@yahoo.com wrote:

> There's good reason for preferring not to go into details here!
> >
> Even the worst of enemies on a usenet group like this are probably mostly
> decent folks. If we are feuding about books at least we are not out robbing
> a freight train! Glad to hear that the hard work and luck paid off,

And no one loves a grass!
I don't go in much for making enemies (not intentionally anyway!) then
sitting hating them. Seems to me it's a waste of energy and time and
diverts you from more constructive doings.
I was thinking more of the slight chance of some retired CID chap over
there just might look at n/groups while waiting for his pension check,
occasionally. Or someone at the Inland
Revenue! I never paid a penny in income tax, even on the more respectable
sources like converting a big old house into flatlets for renting, etc.
Couldn't do that here: the IRS mob are like the Gestapo.

> hopefully I can join you on the veranda of that dream at some point...!
>
Your polite incredulity is of course fully justified: I might really be
living in some squalid public property apartment in Dallas, on food
stamps and waiting for the next welfare check to come in! You haven't
been offered a single scrap of evidence, after all.
But, it can happen! Not a lot, admittedly. One might point to the Jewish chap
who began as an east London barrow-boy (street trader) and built up a
hugely successful supermarket chain, Tesco's, for example. Or Richard
Branston, despite the handicap of dyslexia now owns airlines, a radio
station, etc, etc.
They both began at an earlier age of course.
And over here, the Federal Attorney chap, our beloved President's ol'
buddie, who came from an extremely poor family and somehow got himself a law
degree. It's not altogether impossible, given luck, but not by spending
one's free time sitting staring at the idiot box while wistfully musing
how nice it would be if one's lottery number came up.
I pulled the plug on my TV in '74 and dumped the thing in the cellar.
Bit drastic,I suppose, but it had begun to feed me mental baby food.
Yuk.
I still had reading, the radio and the movies.
--
Ian
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On Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:21:20 +0000 (UTC), sum1 DeleteThis @flashy.nut (Ian) wrote:

>Hey! Where you been, man?
>Didn't get a six - twelve month stretch for some unimaginably hideous
>crime involving small furry animals or something, I trust!

Who told you that? They never did prove that the fur they found was
in any way connected with Stuart Little. And its position was purely
coincidental. Hugh Laurie is currently helping with their
investigation. Steven Fry is laughing uproariously. These are
references to popular culture of which you are blissfully unaware.

>
>pennyroyalREMOVE@bellsouthUPPERCASE.netWORDS wrote:

Oh dear. I forgot to change that. I have been suffering/enjoying a
bout of what CB complains of. Someone has been sending me some
suggestive and rather strange emails, which have given my wife a laugh
or two, but, still, I dont think I want to advertise much about my
real self on usenet anymore.


>> I just re-read your quote...
>>
>> </Quote> I pulled the plug on my TV in '74 and dumped the thing in the
>> cellar. <End Quote/>
>>
>> Now where should the emphasis be in that statement?
>>
>> *and dumped the thing in the cellar*
>>
>> *...and dumped THE THING IN THE CELLAR*
>>
>> Where did you dump it? Not on the outskirts of some sleepy rural
>> village where it could mate with the local population, I hope. Now
>> that sounds more on topic!
>>
>I've a good mind (it says here) to have a bash at that, just to see if I
>can still do it, as the bishop said to the actress. I think I only
>once or twice got anything worth keeping from someone suggesting an idea
>though.

All I ask is a reference. You may keep the millions you make. Money
will only marr my soul and heighten my guilt.

May I be nosy, good sir? Are you the Ian who posted on the apfpy news
group several years ago, when Pat still posted and Yduj was still
looking for her Boot (B@@t)?
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Yes, *That* Geoffrey. Loathed by a few, indifferenced (Patents
pending - I have a fully functional indifference engine sitting in my
cellar, (which is completely imaginary since I live in a swamp and any
hole dug here quickly fills with evil smelling water)) by many, and
master of parenthesis.

On Sat, 21 Apr 2007 20:00:39 GMT, sum1.TakeThisOut@flashy.nut (Ian) wrote:

>>
>> All I ask is a reference. You may keep the millions you make. Money
>> will only mar my soul and heighten my guilt.
>>
>Sure. Here's a reference: 'peripatetic', found in most good
>dictionaries. Or I can forge a convincing-looking for any prospective
>employer (did that once for myself, using some blank sheets of paper
>bearing the a printed name and logo at the top, of some outfit).

Thats a very nice reference, but what I actually wanted and intended
to ask for was an acknowledgement. Its not much to ask for really.
Merely acknowledge my existence and I will exist for a moment more. I
will be able to get the dishes washed and my wife will be ever so
grateful.

>> May I be nosy, good sir? Are you the Ian who posted on the apfpy news
>> group several years ago, when Pat still posted and Yduj was still
>> looking for her Boot (B@@t)?
>>
>Yes that was I and he was me, and God Help Us Both!

I knew there was something eerily familar about your writing style. A
semi imaginary being from another world (from my point of view, at
least); Rather like a ghost really. Thats about as on topic as this
is going to get, I'm afraid.

>Pat, sadly, died of a heart attack some years back. I do clearly recall
>your name appearing now and again, but failed to make the connection
>somehow.

Sad indeed. The last I heard of him he was ill, but alas news of his
death was not exagerated.

>I very occasionally have a butcher's in there (it's good exercise for me
>sneer muscles!)

I have a very large indifference engine for sale which you may find
useful, since sneering can be bad for ones face. Its very noisy but
you will find that even the banging on the wall will cease after a few
hours and only people in the next town will give a damn after a day or
two.

> Latest was only 3 or 4
>months back. I d/load for a week, get my program to do a head count, and
>as I predicted a long time back, it's shrunk to a rather sad little
>dozen or so 'regulars'.
>A quick skim through the messages finds mostly the same old women of both
>genders, mumbling everyday trivialities, whining about how short of
>money they are, but It's a beautiful nice day here today so I'll just
>keep on dreaming of winning the lottery, real exciting
>stuff what. The increasingly rare newcomer dropping in to join. usually
>drifts off yawning within days.
>Pity, it was for a short time, when new, a rather jolly little place with
>some witty intelligent types who didn't believe you only had to put a
>LOL!
>after a sentence to make it screamingly funny.
>So it goes.

So it goes, indeed. I last peeked at the inhabitants of apfpy more
than a year ago. And left without a word or a backwards glance. Gone
the wit and whimsy, a trout on a three wheeled monocycle the
surrealism, and it is a shame to me because I met a few of those
people (though heaven knows what they thought of me), I formed a real
actual relationship with one of them (Judy), and married another (You
wont know her), and now its just recycled jokes and trite sentiment.
(And the news groups no better! - (That'll teach she who must be
obeyed to read over my shoulder))

Apologies for the off topicness of this but there is little else to
divert the attention, and four cats and a tree full of squirrels only
has so much entertainment value.

Geoff
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