I’m beginning to suspect that my boss is Jabba the fucking Hutt, because my Jedi mind tricks seem to have no affect whatsoever on her.

It’s pay review time at work. This is not a performance-based review. Someone at the top works out a percentage that doesn’t cut too much into His own bonus, and everyone else gets that predetermined figure.

This year that figure turned out to be the same as the rate of inflation, which, as we all know, is effectively no pay rise at all.

So I’m sitting in that meeting room with my boss across from me.

“This is not the pay rise I was looking for,” I say. Then I move my right hand in a sideways motion, Jedi-styles, and go: “You will give me more…”

But the trusty old Jedi mind trick failed. She said “En. Oh.”

So I had no choice but to pull out my lightsaber and chop her tail off instead.

OK, so maybe the lightsaber was a little bit of an overreaction.

I do believe I’m getting crankier in my old age, in a write-a-grumpy-letter-to-the-editor-of-the-local-newspaper kind of way. And, yes – I have had one of those published in recent times.

Back in the olden days, I used to deal with bosses I didn’t like by simply pushing them into rubbish bins.

I’d forgotten about that, until someone I used to drink with reminded me of it recently.

I was an executive assistant for a guy who was the most hated man in the company.

He was a dick head.

He’d have some of the most important business leaders in the country turn up for a meeting and then make himself a coffee, but not offer them one.

His breath stunk, like he’d been dishing out blowjobs in the men’s toilet at the train station across the road on his way to work.

At the end of year Christmas dinner I ended up being stuck sitting next to him.

The rest of us had secretly planned to go to a nightclub afterwards, but he must have caught wind of it because after the dinner he joined the group in heading towards to club.
This displeased everyone, which included my boss’ own boss.

But then on the way there my boss fell face-first into a pile of smelly black plastic rubbish sacks left on the side of the footpath.

He had a puzzled look on his face, which, in hindsight, was a mix between “how did I get down here?” and “did you push me?”.

I helped him to his feet told him that he had obviously drunk too much and said it was time to go home, then pointed him in the direction of the train station.

And so he left and everyone had a good time without him.

Then in the morning I had one of those flashback thingees, which explained that weird look on my boss’ face. Yes, I did push him into the rubbish heap. Well, it was more like a bump. Or like cutting someone off in traffic, so they run into a traffic barrier and burst into flames.

Fortunately my boss had drunk too much and did not remember the event in question, and I continued to work there for another couple of stoned and drunken years.

Until I got fired for chopping his tail off with a lightsaber.

Dear HR monkeys,

First you give us a measly rate-of-inflation pay rise, which doesn’t factor in that inflation is set to rise even more over the next year, what with bills for record property rate rises about to reach our letterboxes and the price of petrol expected to hit $2 a litre by the end of the year, due to those incompetent Yankees failing to rescue our oil from Middle Eastern lands.

But now you’ve gone and raised the price of chocolate bars and energy drinks in the vending machines by 40 cents?!

That’s just fucking mean.

Yours in now-needing- to- steal- even- more- office- stationary- to- sell -at -the- black- market-to-offset- these- price- hikes- and -non-pay-rises,

D-Man.

How to feel real old:

I was referencing something in a meeting at work from 1984, and one of the secretaries gives me a puzzled look and goes “What the hell are you talking about? I wasn’t even born then!”

Bah.

Then again, I could point out that I turned 10 in 1984, which would probably make some of you feel even older…

The best thing about work at the moment is that I’m not going to be there.

I leave on holiday to Australia’s Gold Coast tomorrow and shan’t be back until August 9.

Which means I won’t be here either. Which is why I’m writing heaps of shit, so you’ll still be reading it by time I come back.

After years of abusing The System, my free internet connection has been closed down.

I’m having to pay for it now, just like a guy who used to be a pimp and used to get it free from his ho’s, but now he’s no longer a pimp and now he has to pay the ho’s cash up front if he wants some.
Or something.

Bah. I feel so … law-abiding.

About once a year, I target the house of an Inland Revenue manager and then break in and steal back the equivalent of what they've taken from me in the past 12 months.

Fuck you very much, Mr Taxman.

Whenever people say they can’t see the wood for the trees, I recommend they get a chainsaw and start hacking away at the trees, until they find the wood they’re after…

I still have my high school year books. I pull them out whenever I need to match up a face with a name in a newspaper crime story.

D-Girl has been learning to use the telephone. Today she spoke to me for a couple of minutes while I was at work and we talked about how we would be going on holiday tomorrow and how much fun it was going to be.

After that, she handed the telephone back to D-Missus and proceeded to tell her that “Daddy is inside the telephone”.

I decided to do something really gay, and waxed my chest in preparation for the beach holiday.

It’s silky smooth now, but, well, I seem to recall seeing a six pack the last time I was hairless there.

Someone has drunk two of my cans!

Goddammit.

New Year’s Resolution #14: Learn to count properly.

“Maths was never my strong point. I count using my fingers. I use them all the time to punch in keys on a calculator. But if I get arthritis or the batteries go flat, then I’m pretty much fucked.”

You know what, since I wrote that back in January, I’ve decided that my maths isn’t so bad. I’m just a bit slow.

Any you wanna know why?

A: That fucking Sesame St Count.

He taught me to count. And now whenever I do addition and stuff, I have to go:

“One, ah ha ha! Two, ah ha ha! Three, ah ha ha! Four, ah ha ha!...”

Etc.

Curse you Count!

Why couldn’t you just stick to draining the blood of virgins, like all the other vampires?

When I am finally evil and super enough to become an evil supervillain and I hold the world to ransom, I’m going to call the United Nations and demand “One million Brazilian dollars”.

I just like the sound of it.

OK, let’s slow things down a little.

Here’s yet another D-Man song:
Click here to listen.

Lyrics:

See you guys in a couple of weeks!

D-Girl is very pleased to be getting out of wet weather gear...