September | 2012 | Guy Portman's Blog

Garbage Pail Kids

Sep 28 2012

Last Tuesday – My childhood home is in the process of being sold and this was to be my last visit to the property. I made my way upstairs to my old bedroom to take a final look around. My attentions fell on the large bookcase at the far end of the room, covered in Garbage Pail Kid cards (see picture below of top of book case). For those who are too young to remember their eighties heyday, Garbage Pail Kids were cards that could be peeled at the back to become stickers. Each card depicted a character with its name below. The cards came in packs of two to four, along with a stick of chewing gum. Deciding to remove some of the stickers for nostalgic value, I attempted to peel them off the bookcase. This proved impossible, as the aged stickers came off in strips. As I continued with this futile activity my mind wandered back to a Garbage Pail Kids related memory from school when I was about nine years old.

Garbage Pail Kids frenzy spread through schools faster than the nits and mine was no exception. My classmates and I spent most of our waking hours swapping, inspecting, discussing and lusting after the Garbage Pail Kids we did not yet possess; our young capitalist hearts yearning for material gain. We had become the yuppies our glorious leader Thatcher demanded us to be.

Our only prospect of salvation was to acquire the whole Garbage Pail Kids collection. The problem however was that some cards were so rare, as to be almost extinct. The most rare being Adam Bomb (see picture). A card so in demand that today examples have been priced as high as $4,250 on eBay.

Several of my classmates had the whole collection minus Adam Bomb, but only one of us had the complete set; in fact he had two sets. His name was Abu-Ghazaleh, a Kuwaiti, who in the first year at the school had wielded a particularly meagre collection of an earlier series of Garbage Pail Kids. The discovery of new oil fields in his homeland some months earlier however had led to a meteoric rise.

Every day, after lunch, Abu-Ghazaleh would unlock a security box in his desk and take out Adam Bomb, before parading him around the class room as if the card were a religious artefact. Consumed by a combination of awe and greed we would stare wide eyed at the card and even reach and touch the object of our desires.

One of our classmates, a diminutive boy by the name of Edgar craved this card even more than the rest of us and his piteous pining would continue throughout every day, as he followed Abu-Ghazaleh continuously, as if he were a hound.

Several months had passed when Abu-Ghazaleh finally relented and agreed to part with his spare Adam Bomb. But there was one condition. Edgar would be required to re-enact the poses of four Garbage Pail Kids of Abu-Ghazaleh’s choice and this was to take place in the busy central London street outside the school, one afternoon.

Several days later – we assembled outside in a large circle on the pavement, Edgar waiting apprehensively in the middle. Abu-Ghazaleh strode imperiously into the centre holding a Garbage Pail Kid card aloft. It was Amazin Grace (see picture).

Without further ado Edgar removed his clothes down to his underpants, scrambled up to the roof of a parked car and did the required body builder pose. Passersby stopped and stared at the spectacle. Some seconds later Abu-Ghazaleh, wiping tears of mirth from his cheeks ordered Edgar down, before reaching into his pocket and holding a second card aloft. It was Low Life Lola (see below).

Edgar immediately took a prone position on the edge of the curb, his tongue lolling out onto the pavement. Abu-Ghazaleh was laughing so hysterically that he was quite unable to display the remaining two cards.

Looking around I saw the head teacher pushing his way through the crowd of onlookers and grabbing the partially clothed Edgar by the neck and dragging him away. Edgar did not appear again for several days, as his concerned parents had sent him away to be evaluated by mental health services.

The following Monday in a ceremony after lunch Abu-Ghazaleh true to his word presented Edgar with Adam Bomb, tears welling in his eyes, as the class applauded.

Below is a selection of particularly unpleasant Garbage Pail Kids:

Thank you to all those who bought my book, Charles Middleworth. Click on the link below to read the first two chapters for free:

CharlesMiddleworth(ch 1-2)

Twitter Viruses (Part 2)

Sep 21 2012

Last week’s post was dedicated to my experiences with Twitter viruses, which come in the form of DMs’ (Direct Messages). If you read it, you might remember that two of these messages had caused me to react in a wholly irrational manner. The messages were: lol ur famous now (link). And You even see them taping u (link) that’s nasty Over the course of the last week I have received yet more of these malignant messages. In addition to the aforementioned examples, I have received instances of: Rumour about you (link) And Somebody is posting nasty updates on their twitter about you (link)

Towards the end of last week, I had become familiar with these messages and in an effort to assist my Twitter friends; I was contacting them to warn them that their accounts had been hacked. These efforts were met with appreciation, which encouraged me to continue with this course of action. Saturday morning – A beeping signifies the arrival of a Twitter message. Leaning forward in my chair I pick up the iPhone. The message is a DM from a Twitter follower; I have never previously had the pleasure of communicating with. The message reads: I know I can count on u, my lovely Twitter friend to review my new book with 5 ★s on Amazon (book name) +(link)

Assuming that no one would have the audacity to ask someone they have never even communicated with, to review a book that they have never even heard of, let alone read, I assume it is a virus and fire off a quick tweet warning this unfortunate that their account has been hacked. Moments later a response arrives:

His response: Hey Guy, I’M not a VIRUS. (Link)　 LOL

My response: I disagree! I then promptly block the person and report them as spam. Reclining back in the chair once more, I am disappointed that I am still failing to recognise DM viruses and also somewhat shocked by the request. A request that if granted could potentially result in the book in question getting an improved rank on Amazon, in addition to innocent prospective buyers being provided with false information. If this peculiar Twitter etiquette were mirrored in everyday life, it might be the equivalent of nodding to acknowledge a stranger and then taking this as an invitation to ask them to hide contraband for you, or provide a false alibi to the police. The first two chapters of my book, Charles Middleworth, a humorous tale of the unexpected are available for free. Click on the link below to view: CharlesMiddleworth(ch 1-2)

Twitter Viruses

Sep 14 2012

Waking early one morning, I looked across at my iPhone, as is generally my habit, to read any messages received over the course of the night. On opening my Echofon Twitter account I was greeted by a DM (direct message). The familiar radiant smile of one of my American Twitter friends beamed up at me from the screen. The accompanying message read.

lol ur famous now (link).

Assuming that this instant fame could only be the result of a sudden surge in sales of my book, Charles Middleworth, I dropped the iPhone and ran jubilantly downstairs to check the sales figures on my Amazon.kdp account. The report stated there had been zero sales over night. Coming to the realisation that I had been somewhat gullible in my assumption; I typed the message I had received into the Google search engine and discovered that it was a virus masquerading as a tantalising message, tempting one to click on the link. Had I clicked on the link it is likely my account would have been hacked. I trudged back upstairs disconsolately, though with a modicum of relief that I hadn’t clicked it.

Over the forthcoming days there were further sporadic suspicious DM’s. Including:

Rumour about you (with a link)

And

Somebody is posting nasty updates on their Twitter about you.

These were evidently attempts to hack my account and I ignored them, adamant that I would never be deceived by a malignant DM again. Several days later I awoke abruptly shortly after dawn, my breathing harried and brow damp with sweat. The night had been punctuated with unexplainable nightmares that left me confused and alarmed. Some moments later I reached for the iPhone. There was a DM in my Twitter account from a childhood friend. The message said something to the affect of:

You even see them taping u (link) that’s nasty

I stare transfixed in horror at the screen, convinced that the nightmares were a premonition of this devastating news. The horrendous video had come back yet again to haunt me. A horrible debacle I thought I had left behind me years before. Momentarily I wondered why I had spent all that money on lawyer fees. I then hastily phoned the friend from which the message had come. After several rings a sleepy voice answered the phone. Immediately I demanded to know who had sent him the video and who else had been sent it, the words coming out as a torrent, devoid of any pauses. The friend now fully awake, denied all knowledge of sending me the link and insisted it must be a virus. I terminated the conversation abruptly just as he begun to make enquiries about what video I was referring to. Overwhelmed with relief that it was merely paranoia on my part, I returned upstairs, relieved that I had not clicked on the link. Within minutes I had been engulfed by a contented lethargy.

The first two chapters of my book, Charles Middleworth, a humorous tale of the unexpected are available for free. Click on the link below to read.

CharlesMiddleworth.pdf

Reincarnation News

Sep 07 2012

Over the course of this week, I have come across three very different ‘Reincarnation’ related news items.

Monday Afternoon – I was killing some time perusing the internet when I stumbled upon the headline ‘Snoop Dogg reincarnated as Snoop Lion.’ Having clicked on the link, I was somewhat disappointed to discover that the world famous rapper has not been reborn as an animal with a higher position in the food chain. In fact Snoop Dogg has not been reincarnated at all, merely renamed by a Rastafarian priest on a recent trip to Jamaica. The ‘reborn’ Snoop Lion is abandoning the gangsta rapp that made him famous and will instead embrace reggae. His new eagerly anticipated album Reincarnated will be out later this autumn.

Wednesday Morning – I am reading an interesting reincarnation related article about how Tibetan Buddhists believe that the Dalai Lama can consciously influence how he is reborn. This is the method by which the Dalai Lama chooses the successor that he will literally be reincarnated within. However the Chinese authorities, seemingly not content with interfering with the internet (remember GoogleMail last year) are continuing to insist that there are to be no reincarnations without prior approval from the authorities and these are only to occur within a pre-selected location within China. One might conclude that submitting application forms for approval by the state rather takes the mystique out of the whole natural reincarnation process. Not surprisingly Tibetan Buddhists are unwilling to accept this meddling in their religious traditions.

(Courtesy of www.iphone5craft.com)

On another subject Steve Jobs (Apple Founder) has been reincarnated. That’s according to the Dhammakaya group, an obscure sect, whose teachings have been denounced by mainstream Buddhist groups. Apparently Jobs is residing in a ‘mid-sized celestial castle’ above Apple’s California headquarters. The world eagerly awaits Jobs announcing a launch date for the iPhone 5. There has even been a claim by a man named Snakehealer that if you take a bite out of an apple and place it on an iPad screen showing a picture of Steve Jobs, the image pulsates with cosmic energy (see video). One wonders what sequence of events led to Snakehealer discovering this ‘fact’.

Reincarnation is also a theme in my book, Charles Middleworth, which is available from Amazon in paperback and on Kindle (£1.96/$3.11). Click on the link below to read the first two chapters for free.

PDF – CharlesMiddleworth.pdf