iCash

Steve Jobs is halfway through an Apple keynote conference.

“Well, we have shown you the new iPod touch, the new iPhone and the new iPad. “What else is there?” I hear you ask. Well, that’s right, I am now going to show you the completely revamped and redesigned Apple iTunes store. “In what ways has it changed?” I hear you ask. Well aside from the obvious aesthetic change which you see before you, you may also have noticed a different constant throughout the page. If you can’t see it then look a little closer at the price of the products. It’s not a dollar symbol or a pound sign if you are within the United Kingdom. No, this is a completely new currency which Apple has developed. I give you iCash.

iCash is the currency which will now be using at the Apple iTunes store. It is safer, more secure and easier to understand than any other currency on the market. What’s more, it is a virtual currency, so any fraud that takes place online, stays online. We at Apple value your custom and as such make sure that real money stays in the real world. Think about it. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If you crashed a plane in the virtual world on a Flight Simulator and a number of lives were lost, you wouldn’t want that to also apply in the real world, would you? No. Well Apple are doing the same thing with money. We are keeping the real world and virtual world separate with iCash.

“So how exactly does iCash work?” I’m sensing a few of you have that question in your minds right now, so I shall answer it. It’s all very straightforward. You sign up to Apple with your real life bank account, like any other store. You then purchase iCash in the form of credits. One dollar will give you 10 iCash credits. These can then be used to purchase any item in the Apple iTunes store. Prices start at 10 credits for a popular song or application, like Angry Birds for example, right through to whatever is the most expensive application at the moment. You choose the amount of real life money to change into iCash and the store will calculate the rest. After you spend 100 credits, you get 1 credit back, to use again on the store. Simply, we are rewarding the loyal Apple customers with iCashback and this revolutionary new secure form of payment. iCash. It’s the future.

It will of course soon be possible to use iCash in any real life Apple store as well. For a small fee of 10 iCash credits, we will allow you to transfer your iCash from the store to any Apple product such as the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. This can then be scanned at the Apple store as payment for your new Apple purchase be it an iMac or an Apple TV. Once iCash becomes the main form of payment within just one Apple store, we will support what the customers clearly want and change every store to only accept iCash at the stores.

iCash will help us progress as a company and hopefully you can see the benefits of this new system. It is our intention that as iCash is used more and more often, we will build not just Apple stores but an Apple bank, the iBank, which it will soon be necessary to have an account with, in order to continue to buy anything from Apple, be it a song or a Macbook. We then hope to create an iVillage showcasing all the latest uses of Apple technology. iCash will then help to expand this iVillage into an iTown and then a city. We have already entered into an agreement with a country from the third world to bring it into the first world and amongst the Apple family. This is my next big announcement today ladies and gentlemen, Apple are now the proud owners of the capital city of Turkey. We call it iStanbul and Apple iCash will be the only form of currency accepted in the city once we witness a need from the customers. This loyal fan base will again benefit from our company’s promise to listen to their views and when just one iStanbul resident requests the change, we will make it happen.

Over time, we hope that iStanbul will prosper and it is our belief that the benefits of iCash will help the rest of Turkey join the scheme. We will then look at other cities around the globe to join the Apple family and make it a truly wonderful place which the whole world can enjoy. After iStanbul, we hope that next year we will be able to announce that iCash is now accepted not just in Turkey but also in iOwa City in the US, iBiza in Spain, iWo Jima in Japan and hopefully Manchester in England will agree to be renamed MacChester, but we do not currently have confirmation of that just yet. Following perceived successes in the areas, iCash will spread out into these countries, thus becoming the primary currency in five different countries.

At this point we will move the iCity regime as we have called it, from beta testing into full working order and change not just a single city’s currency, but switch a whole country to iCash with the start of the iCountry scheme. iRaq, iRan, iVory Coast and iTaly in Europe are all within our sights. With iRan and iRaq in particular, we hope that the use of iCash will help solve any current disputes that happen to be ongoing as of this moment in time. It is Apple’s belief that iCash can do this as long as all countries agree to get involved and hopefully iCash will then take over from the unstable dollar, pound and euro as the world’s premier currency. We will of course discuss iCash further at the next Apple keynote but to put it in a nutshell for everyone, iCash is simply Apple’s way of thanking the loyal fan base that have supported us for so many years, by offering them a faster and more user friendly experience in this post-recession world.

So that’s iCash. An apple thank-you. Your money. Our way.”

TK Maxx

When I was in year 10 I think it was, we had to fill out a form on some computer programme which told us what job would be perfect for us when we left school. This computer programme, which I seem to remember was called Kudos, decided that the perfect job for me was Sign Maker. That's right, someone that had just decided in his options to give up anything DT related, and had also given up Art, would be right at home in a job which, if I rose far up the sign making ladder, could eventually land me a massive £19,000 a year. Naturally, I still salivate at the thought of this career. Second place if you were wondering, went to me becoming a Stage/Floor Manager at a Theatre or Television Studio. That was a pretty good call by Kudos, to be fair. I'm at least interested in that kind of industry.

Anyway, back to the point. What I am wondering dear reader, is what the hell did the guy who has the easiest job in the world get? I don't really care obviously, it just links in nicely for me to tell you what the easiest job in the world must be. If you are wondering what the easiest job in the world is, it is quite simply Head Buyer for TK Maxx. Or maybe Chief of Sales. I don't know what the exact job title would be but he or she undoubtedly has the easiest job in the world.

If you are unfamiliar with TK Maxx, it is a shop which for the most part, has the highest turnover of complete crap you have ever seen. My Auntie thinks it is brilliant for its cheap clothes. but 99.9% of clothes in TK Maxx are horrendous. The reason they are there and selling below RRP is because nobody else wanted them. The thing is with TK Maxx, and its supporters, is that they only ever mention the clothes, forgetting that at least a quarter of the store is made up of other completely useless shit.

Whenever I go in there, I generally flick through a couple of T-Shirts, note they are all still completely defunct of any redeeming features, and then I head to Africa. Before visiting the garden. And then the library. And then Toys 'R' Us. All within one aisle of each other. The last time I was there I looked at some funky African style tribal mask (made in Spain!), a stone snail for the garden, a book by Chantelle from Celebrity Big Brother a few years ago and then some Wizard gaming figures which comprised of 3 characters in robes which all looked suspiciously like another far more famous wizard franchise. Still...only £5.99!

My question is ... who buys this crap? I mean, really? Really? REALLY?! The fact it was in the store means that people do clearly buy this stuff and although it has no redeeming value whatsoever, does sell. Thus, I can only assume the Head Buyer for TK Maxx has the easiest job of all time. I assume he buys stuff on a simple question and answer survey:

1. Would they buy it for themselves?

Yes - Pass.
No - Proceed to question two.

2. Does it have any redeeming qualities?

Yes - Pass.
No - Buy it for TK Maxx.

I assume that is how items are bought in bulk for TK Maxx. I could be wrong, he may just ask the seller to describe it and if they start with, "Well, it's a bit shit really..." Then it gets added to the company credit card.

So there you go. Head Buyer of TK Maxx. They sell crap. As a result, it's the easiest job in the world.

Joke - Opening Line

Here is an opening line I think might work in order to get the audience on your side instantly.

"Hello, I just want to start by saying that you are all very good looking people. You are probably sitting there thinking that i say this to every audience and , well, you would be right. But I want to go on to say that I actually think you are better looking than God. Some think this is a controversial thing for me to say but we all know that God made man in his own image and all I am going to say is evolution happens for a reason."

Not sure if my last line though should be:

"God made man in his own image and we all know what our ancestors looked like." (Optional "Horrendous" after a long pause.)

So that is that.

New Joke - Opera

Okay, this is a joke I came up with earlier when basically talking to myself. It isn't good but is meant as some kind of opening joke for standup (if I could ever get the nerve to do it.)

'Hello, hello hello, HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (opera style singing) - yes I sometimes break into opera when on stage. Actually, I also once broke into an opera when I was younger and a bit of a jack the lad type. My friend and I, we broke into the Bournemouth Opera House, which is a beautiful building if you have never been. Anyway we found the safe, cracked it and were escaping with armfuls of cash. As we were making our getaway though, the police entered and my friend had foolishly brought a BB gun with him. Now, the officers saw this and understandably took it to be a real gun and they fired a shot at us. Now they missed thankfully but we were so taken aback we thrust the money into the air, and a cloud of cash enveloped us. The officers, thinking this was still a high security breach fired for us once more, and luckily only managed to hit the high notes.'

For some reason I like it. A beautiful crappy joke to start a set.