They see me trollin', they hatin'

The other day, I'm at the pedestrian crossing outside work, waiting for that awesome little green man to light up and allow me to cross the road without risk of death. I'm leaning against the traffic post, quite obviously waiting for the lights and humming to myself when a lady walks up and presses the button.
"Oh, thank God you came along!" I exclaimed with a perfect dead pan. "I've been standing here for five hours! All I had to do was press this button here?!" She gives me this confused look, and presses the button a couple more times.

"You should press it one more time," I explain to her, "I hear it goes faster if you do that."
She finally caught on to the fact that I was being a smart-arse and shot me a dirty look. Lucky for both of us, the light turned green just then, otherwise it could have been an uncomfortable two minutes.

True story.

Bachelor Chow: Budget Eats

Due to popular demand, I will enrich you, Internet, with my secrets of culinary frugality.

And, by popular demand, I mean of course that while nobody has specifically asked me about this I have pre-empted your needs and will deliver to you a list of ways to eat on a shoestring budget.

As the name suggests, this is not a healthy lifestyle; It is a bachelor lifestyle. Attempting to live on this list alone may in fact kill you if adhered to long enough.

Clock Rage

Why the hell do we use a 12-hour clock? 

The idea of a 12-hour clock is both antiquated and stupid, and I seriously don't understand why we use it.

Okay, so I don't live in Alaska but other people do. Probably.

Originally created by the.... blah blah blah. I'm not going to try and explain the origins of who created it and why it was implemented in the first place namely because Wikipedia does it so much better than I could right here.

Allow me to briefly summarise it for those of you who are lazy: We no longer use it for the reason that it was first implemented, so it is pretty much just legacy at this point. Not everyone's legacy, though: Only a handful of countries actually still use the 12-hour clock, as most of the countries in the world either phased it out as it no longer made sense or simply never adopted it to begin with.

Under-graduate: Bachelor of Life

Recently, I've pondering a great deal about some major life decisions.

The decisions I will have to make in the coming months will commence a chain reaction of events that will shape me into the person I will become in 5, 10, 20 years and beyond.

So, it obviously is something that I am treating with the appropriate care it needs; I will have to tommy-research all of my options and decide which course of action to take. As always in the case with a great deal of inward thinking, reflection on past crossroad decisions I've made and how they've affected me come to the forefront of my mind.

Some people say that they "wouldn't change any of it for the world", and I say those people are full of crap.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is another meaningless platitude that is bantered around often, and again I call "Bull." There are a few things I have done in my life that I would erase or rewrite if given the chance, but I don't waste too much time dwelling as it's not constructive; I simply try to accept them, and move on.

If you don't get the reference, you should Know Your Meme.

Cloaker Josh's Glossary of Terms

Internet, I have some great news for you. You know how recently, you were lying awake in your bed, staring at the ceiling and praying that I, Cloaker Josh, would bestow upon you the secret to my awesome?

Well, your prayers have been answered little one, as today I will share with you a couple of words and phrases that I use on a regular basis to keep my levels of awesome topped up and in check.

Try not to think too hard about the shadowy figure outside of your bedroom window watching you that night, it's probably just a coincidence.

You're welcome, is what you are.
Here are a couple of phrases that I will allow you to employ, on my behalf, as they act similarly to a pyramid scheme; As you use them and gain more levels of awesome, I too will reap a little bit more of awesome.

Okay, so I'm really not being serious, but I hope you find these phrases interesting in some way.

Paving the way to a cashless society

We're well on our way to a cashless society, and I for one can't wait.

Paying for stuff with my phone? Hell yeah, sign me up.

The antiquated idea of carrying around physical tokens of wealth now seems barbaric. A study by Eftpos Australia released in July 2011 reveals that at the time of the whitepaper, 31% of Australians do not carry more than $20 on their person.

Sydney Buses: They flex my fury muscle

I do not use the term "hate" lightly. 

I bloody hate the public transport in my suburb.

This guy. I hate this guy. Click to embiggen.

There's an infinite list of things that I absolutely despise about taking the bus to work, but I know you've got short attention spans so I'll try to break it down into a couple of the key reasons I either turn up to work or home after a day's work enraged at the public transport system.

The fictional notion of "free time"

To me, there's no such thing as "free time", only "me time". My life is divided up into a couple of different segments, let me show you what I'm talking about.

* Percentages are approximate only

These pie charts are a very rough estimate of my time distribution, it varies (especially on weekends), but this is approximately how it works. I'm not complaining, I'm happy enough with this structure, but I'm using it to highlight how my time is currently spent.

The ancient secret of Carborama

My girlfriend celebrated her birthday today. The downside for me, of course, was that I had to promise not to troll her all day. I succeeded mostly in this task (there were a couple of slip-ups, but I think I did pretty well overall).

I promised her that it was her day, and that she could have anything she wanted (I make a point of doing this on this day of all days, so I can get away with murder for the other 364.25 days a year). She asked me if I could cook her my not-but-should-be famous dish, The Carborama.

Real food doesn't look perfect and plastic like McDonalds advertising.

Idioms that make no sense to me

Ever come across a saying that you've kind of scratched your head over? Maybe I'm too much of a literal creature, but some of the phrases that I hear in day to day life simply confuse the hell out of me.

All hail Invertewich! Cloaker Chronicles I

Many people have asked me, "Cloaker Josh, who are you, and why are you spamming my Facebook wall?"

Today I will endeavour to answer that question, as many of you no doubt are itching to see the man behind the mask. Please, hold all further questions until then end, when you will know more than you wish to.

Born on the 1st of January, 1900; to a chimney sweep and who would later become the first woman to give birth to one of the Cloakers, I struggled to find feet immediately due to the lack of hamstring strength and ability to walk.

A layman's guide to Internet Privacy

Okay, so as part of my crusade to expose internet frauds, I wrote an article about a spellcaster I found online. As part of my research on the subject, I utilised Google as my main source of information (obviously, who doesn't?)

As part of it, I'm entering terms into Google like "spells" and "spell casting". For those of you who are not familiar with how Google plugs into and utilises payload data, I'm about to give you an important demonstration. A lot of people consider these tactics insidious in some way, however I personally disagree; It's the age we live in. In any case, form your own opinion about what I'm about to show you.

Being Dexter Morgan

I feel like Dexter Morgan.

Are you familiar with "Dexter Morgan"? He's the main character in Jeff Lindsay's series of novels, and most notably now the famous main character in the Showtime runaway hit, Dexter. 

For the uninitiated, Dexter was scarred so deeply by the childhood event of witnessing his own mother's gruesome murder that is caused him to forever have this insatiable blood lust; He must strategically murder people (whom he deems to deserve it) at frequent intervals to stave off the increasing risk that he'll lose his sanity and go on a killing rampage.

Let me just step back and clarify my first statement. I want to point out that it's not his deadly nocturnal expeditions that I relate to in any way shape or form. Although, if I was ever close it'd be when dealing with Customer Service. 

Again, let me reiterate; I do not have homicidal tenancies.

Internet Charlatans Volume I: The Spellcaster

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen.

Hi Internet!

As a blogger, it is my duty to impart to you, my adoring public, some of the knowledge I obtain whilst skirting the web for interesting facts. Today is no exception, people! I have a big one to share with you today, oh yes. Let us begin.

So here I am, minding my own business and gettin' my surf on, when I come across this incredible website. It's titled "Cast Free Love, Magic, Money & Job Spells, Super Spell Caster."

F7U12: Sometimes I really hate the internet

Okay, so I have a question for you, internet:

Since when was it okay to start streaming video and audio at me without my consent?! Who started this trend?

To provide you with a little bit of background, my internet connection is currently shaped. For those of you are not familiar with the term "shaped", let me paint you a picture. Imagine you are tasked with transporting a bowling ball through a hosepipe using only the suction power of your lungs. That's what browsing on shaped internet is like. Remember how fast 56k modems were? It's actually slower than that, and I'm willing to bet money, precious money that most of you only think you remember how slow it was... but it is, in fact, slower than that.

The absence of happiness in Coca-Cola

u mad, Coke?

On the theme of digging up old complaint letters, I have a shorter one for you.

Here's a spoof letter I sent to Coca-Cola Amatil, and with similar results to the previous post I had no response.

What is it about my letters that cause the companies in question to never respond to me? Suggest it's because they're "too damn long" and I'll strike you in the throat.

This one is a lot more lighter-hearted than the Telstra letter. Even so, I hope you find it amusing.

The longest and funniest Telstra complaint letter you'll ever read

Okay, now when I say this is a long letter, I truly mean it's a long letter. I mean, like, really long. Seriously, don't even bother starting to read it if you haven't got a spare 30 minutes.

However, if you do have a spare 30 minutes, I encourage you to plough on; It's worth it. I promise, it is.

I have changed my name, phone number, address and email to protect the innocent (being me). I have also removed references to Telstra staff numbers and fault/complaint references 'cause that's just the kind of guy I am.

Sit back, relax with a tasty beverage and hear my saga.

P.s. If you don't have time to read it, scroll to the bottom for a summary in the form of an infographic.

Bacon Adventure: Too much bacon

I can here your cries of protest through the intertubes, "There's no such thing as too much bacon!!". Well, fictional person making this statement, maybe not for you... but I found my limit.

A couple Saturdays back, I strolled on down to the supermarket to grab some supplies for the pending Easter Sunday. My girlfriend was staying over, and assuming that our favourite cafe would be closed for breakfast (as the usual leisurely time of 1:00PM in the afternoon, normally), I wanted to get breakfasty ingredients to cook for the 'morrow.

Way of the n00b: The decline of video game difficulty

Video games are now mainstream.

Even your mum knows this; A multi-billion dollar industry that deals in revenue that rivals Hollywood. 

Think the biggest release ever was James Cameron's Avatar? It took in $1bn in its first 19 days. This number is ridiculous, you realise. A billion. 1,000,000,000 dollars. You could be forgiven for assuming that, but guess again: Modern Warfare 3 took in $1bn in 16 days.

How has this happened? Is it the incredible advances in graphical computing power, delivering realism like never before? It is the expansion of video game marketing? Is it because they now hire A-list actors and Hollywood producers to create games with a cinematic quality? 

Mass Effect 3 Ending was crap... apparently.

So, everyone's been getting all upset about the ending to Mass Effect 3. I obviously jumped on the bandwagon and created the graphic below, but is it really that bad?

U mad at the ending, bro?

I have a confession: I haven't actually played the game. "But, Cloaker Josh... how can you make fun of a game you haven't even played?! That's not only unfair, but completely unjust!" I hear you scream at this revelation... and I guess I don't really have an answer for that. I'm a bit of a dick sometimes.

Honestly though, I think this raises a question: What right to people have to take to the streets and break windows of small businesses just because they didn't like the way a story ended? I hear that Bioware have actually caved to fan pressure and will be releasing an expanded version of the ending.... what the hell? Do you always get your way, children?

Who thought 'core gamers were so fraking emo?