Tell a lie. It wasn't luck. If I poke a pen in my bracelet the principal's pager goes apesh*t. A nice touch.
I'm not worried. Mom doesn't know. The principal doesn't know. The librarians don't know and the photocopier doesn't know. Sopowitz? Well, tomorrow by registered post he'll receive notice of his termination.
It was a simple hack really. Albert Sanawuse was due to be terminated. He's a
really cute old guy that cleans the toilets and grosses-out the girls by
popping out his false teeth. I like him. Slip him a fiver and he'll leave the
basement door unlocked so you can parade up and down the mainframe harddisc
all night.
Sanawuse (pronounced "sana-woo-s", but most people said
"sana-wus-ee") is a really funny name for a sanitary engineer, as he
likes to call himself. It's close enough to Sopowitz, and, well... Nobody
will know the difference.
And I get to go to school tomorrow.
Friday
Sitting here reading Woman's Own. Yeah, you guessed it. I'm at the dentist.
There is no guy in the world that scares me more - except the spooks that
even the spooks themselves won't admit too. He spends all the hour discussing
financial advice and how to make a killing on the stock market. Out of my
duty to mankind I tell him all the trade secrets that I read in National
Enquirer last week. Then the guy has the balls to hit me with full charge.
Well, well, well... It still amazes me he isn't aware that he does not
have a water meter fitted. And he must be a bad driver too. I get the PNC to
send him a fine for a randomly chosen traffic offence or parking offence
about once a month. Three days later it comes up paid.
Yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-rum. Let's call that my contribution to the
modernised poll tax.
Saturday
RoboCop and AirWolf are on today. Today is also the day that the jerk down
the road pumps Celine Dion into his 1/2KW CB set and wipes out the
electromagnetic spectrum for several miles. I lean out my window and watch as
seven police vehicles drive up. I wonder where they got the idea that that
was a drug-house. To add to the fun, Dave flew his model helicopter over the
house and dropped half a kilo of low quality cocaine down the chimney (like,
where does a person find 500g of the stuff in the first place?). Shouldn't
take the cops long to find that.
I sit back and enjoy the beginning of AirWolf when there is a loud knocking
at the door. Looking in my monitor I see it is a cop, and he looks pissed.
I wrench the door open and emit a gruff syllable that is supposed to be
"Yeah?". I've made a point of not talking nicely to the police.
They're okay people, but it's the principle of the thing. They uphold the
establishment so they are the enemy.
The cop holds out the cocaine bag.
"Sorry mate, I failed cookery", I say.
"Listen punk, the only mates I have come in packets of three.", he
replies.
At the "punk" bit I was about to slam the door in his face. But hey
- this dude has a sense of humour.
He continues, "This was found in 14. The person there alleges you placed
it there."
Oh boy.
"Firstly, packetofthree, I don't know what the hell that is. Secondly I
don't know the guy in 14. Lastly if he's in trouble bad enough to get the
entire police force here - I'm sure he'd say anything to cut some
slack."
"Would you make a statement?"
"Sure. How does police victimisation sound?"
"Huh?"
"I was watching TV. You go bust some jerk-off and bring it to me. Thanks
but no thanks. I'd rather see if String and Caitlin ever get it off."
"Huh? Who? What?"
With that, the door clicks shut.
I sit down and turn the sound on the TV back up. I glance at the monitor and see the cop is still there holding the bag. Knowing them I'll be arrested tomorrow for misappropriation of a police officer or something daft.
I lay my amended SWITCH card on the table. In front of me are about 50 bags
of Roysters and about 40 lottery scratchcards. Judging by the expression on
my face, I didn't win. About £20 pounds and 4 bags of Roysters to collect.
Not exactly the big time.
I lean over and switch the monitor to the rooftop camera. Gently I guide the
telemetry system to give me an image inside CB-jerks house. Dark. He's not
home, probably going away for a long time - about three weeks by today's
standards. I switch the infra-red and see lots of "Police Line Do Not
Cross" tape around. I also see three youths inside the house looting it.
What a nice world we live in. I deftly hit "RECORD" on the VCR.
That should get me a few blackmailed favours in the coming weeks.
The Acorn logo appears as my A5000 boots. I still pay extremely close attention in case there are any unhappy smilies. However that might have all been a nightmare. I found myself lying in bed surrounded by beer cans. I don't even like beer.
I boot Ovation and drag this month's Frobnicate into it. It's a weird kinda
magazine idea. It's got the balls to be different and proud of it. I
like that. My kinda style. After all, what can you expect from some guy that
calls his software "company" BudgieSoft and his magazine
"company" Hissing Spinach? Like I said, weird.
This month covers the disappearance of BBSs and a nice long bit on Econet.
Lucky I don't have college tomorrow. I'll be up all night absorbing this
stuff.
Sunday
I've located a source of Econet parts, and found somebody called Glenn on
Fidonet who seems to be quite knowledgeable about these things. I'd better
not mention I already have Ethernet and a 64kbps kilostream ISDN already
fitted. Hehehe...
Sunday is traditionally the day of rest. And that's exactly what I did. Pump MTV into the hi-fi for the first few hours, then pump in the satellite movie channel and try out my television projector. The image is a little fuzzy, but it fills the back wall of the bedroom. Perfection. All I need now is to whip a few tenners out of the colour LaserJet and order pizza.
On second thoughts, order a Chinese. The pizza guy looks closely at his money
after I had a party and stung him for over £75. He didn't realise. His boss
didn't realise. But the bank did.
Monday
I print out a piccy of Helen and Angela Rayner to decorate my coursebook with.
I'm a boring nerd who's hopeless with the female of the species - so maybe
having a different girl on both sides of my coursebook will make it seem like
I have something vaguely resembling a social life. I doubt it though, nobody
noticed when I stencilled the mainframe supervisor access codes onto my last
coursebook. The thing most have spent a good few days sitting in the
computing services room when I accidentally-on-purpose lost it in there. And
nobody noticed.
To think - these people are supposed to impart their so-called knowledge unto us. Je n'y crois pas.
Until next time, hasta la vista...
...baby!