Look at this stupid thing I wrote that will be understood, if not liked very much, by Warcraft players:
http://fidgetstherapy.blogspot.com/
Oof, back in a sec.
Been drinking lots of water recently. Good for the skin I'm told. Not much to say at the moment really, been working some, writing some, eating some and drinking lots, and in my mind if I just keep thrashing pathetically at the keyboard something will come out of it and someone will then hand me a cheque for ten million pounds. By next year I will be riding a jetski over a sea of money, with my private island in the distance, its volcano crator firing cantaloupe sized nuggets of gold and diamonds hundreds of feet into the air. Yes.
In a desperate bid to be remotely amusing, I shall flip through my mental cue cards of lame primetime comedy topics. And go:
I have a slight complaint with regards to people who drive near me in their cars, I have found. I have never been a happy driver at the best of times, though loving my little car dearly and talking to it like it's 'people', anyone not playing by the invisible set of road rules in my head will be the subject of my futile, spittle-flecked wrath. Going too fast past me on the motorway? So what that it's a seventy limit and I'm doing fifty-eight to save fuel, and by extension, the planet* (Yes I am one of those). Didn't signal quickly enough or, God forbid, at all? Oh no, no you di'ent. You'll be punished by me making a snarky comment to myself in the safety of my car, and nearly crashing as a result of me being too busy trying to hate you to death.
I have come to the conclusion that I would like to do kung fu at you, in the right circumstances. Sure you're a little bigger than I am and you've probably at least done some exercise, but if you direct a very slow and deliberate punch at my midsection I shall deliver a series of squeals as your calloused fist bruises my ribs. I mean I will retaliate.
By calling the police on you.
*my money
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Saturday, 14 January 2012
The calls are coming from INSIDE the house.
I've had the laziest day of all time today, and tucking into a couple of crispy Magners I felt a blog coming on.
I had an excellent curry at the Hook Tandoori last night with a few good mates, where we ate and talked about past exploits and it was all rater splendid. My colleague's husband is a paramedic practitioner and had some amazing stories, especially as your knife parts pieces of tender spiced lamb. If there's an upshot to working in one of the services is that you get some hilarious things happen to you; remember that time when that man's limbs flew off? Outrageous. I thought I'd die.
As I have only six weeks left in the south east I shall have to go there again, and invite some people, I guess. There's something about the place that tickles our respective giblets, and it would be a shame to pass out of its life without waving to it from the train window, watching as it runs along the platform then coming up short at the end of the station, a spotted hanky waving in the heavy summer air as steam obscures it in the distance. I bite the knuckle of my index finger; was it a mistake to leave? I adjust the tie that completes my zoot-suit. No, it was not the good thing or the bad thing I did, I will think with a tender tear in my eye:
It was the right thing.
Fade to black, roll credits.
As I've slumped in my World of Warcrafting and and Star Warsing I had a swift browse of Steam to see what's what. Dead Space 1 and 2 was on there for a few quid, so I gave it a shot.
Modern horror means that things with spikes instead of hands will leap out of windows at you. When I'm watching horror movies, anyone who has watched one with me will attest to the fact that I am masterful at recognising a potentially scary moment and will perform either of the following:
Phew, that was close. Obviously, now the cider is exposed to the air it's only a matter of time before it reaches critical mass, so it must be doused in stomach acid to avoid catastrophic combustion. Don't think of me as a hero. Just a man, trying to make a difference.
Anyway.
On lazy Sunday afternoons when I were a lad, my folks would put on the Sunday Film From Blockbuster and being a trendy pre-teen spending time with my parents was just wrong, so they would pick the film and I would look at rental SNES games and wonder why they tried to port DOOM the SNES (I did this every week, because I was (am) quite a sad person). After this we would come home, a Sunday roast would be eaten and the meantime between bread and cheese and the Antiques Roadshow would be Film Time. I would pass through the living room and whilst deliberately not looking at my parents I would assess the situation and wonder whether or not a film would be worth watching. Explosions = definite watch, Courtroom = Potential watch, could be a precursor to someone getting shot, Anything with a gun/sword/angry man getting shot = definite watch. A woman in a huge Victorian dress looking pensive = Defin- would not watch.
If I believed what was on to be worthy of my adolescent attention I would slouch and talk like a moron throughout the rest of it, annoying the hell out of my parents. I bet they were glad. I believe it was during these times my fear of horror movies manifested, as coming in on a film where a women is walking very carefully through a silent, dark house only meant one thing for me. Getting a drink from the kitchen for fifteen minutes, peeping around the door frame.
But playing horror games, well, eh. You have control over what is happening and as with Dead Space, though being very good, just isn't frightening. Ooh, something fell out of a vent at me. Something fell out of a window at me. Something that was lying very still isn't ACTUALLY DEAD AND IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR ME. Again.
If you find me and your question is 'Hey jackass, want to watch the latest <insert horror genre film here> with me?' The answer will most likely be yes, but make sure you like drinking tea beforehand.
I had an excellent curry at the Hook Tandoori last night with a few good mates, where we ate and talked about past exploits and it was all rater splendid. My colleague's husband is a paramedic practitioner and had some amazing stories, especially as your knife parts pieces of tender spiced lamb. If there's an upshot to working in one of the services is that you get some hilarious things happen to you; remember that time when that man's limbs flew off? Outrageous. I thought I'd die.
As I have only six weeks left in the south east I shall have to go there again, and invite some people, I guess. There's something about the place that tickles our respective giblets, and it would be a shame to pass out of its life without waving to it from the train window, watching as it runs along the platform then coming up short at the end of the station, a spotted hanky waving in the heavy summer air as steam obscures it in the distance. I bite the knuckle of my index finger; was it a mistake to leave? I adjust the tie that completes my zoot-suit. No, it was not the good thing or the bad thing I did, I will think with a tender tear in my eye:
It was the right thing.
Fade to black, roll credits.
As I've slumped in my World of Warcrafting and and Star Warsing I had a swift browse of Steam to see what's what. Dead Space 1 and 2 was on there for a few quid, so I gave it a shot.
Modern horror means that things with spikes instead of hands will leap out of windows at you. When I'm watching horror movies, anyone who has watched one with me will attest to the fact that I am masterful at recognising a potentially scary moment and will perform either of the following:
- Offer anyone a cup of tea and go to the kitchen. "No, don't pause it, it's okay, I don't want you to be interrupted on my part."
- Scratch the back of my head, feigning being tired and slightly bored by what's happening, and rub my eyes theatrically for as long as needed for the scare to pass.
Phew, that was close. Obviously, now the cider is exposed to the air it's only a matter of time before it reaches critical mass, so it must be doused in stomach acid to avoid catastrophic combustion. Don't think of me as a hero. Just a man, trying to make a difference.
Anyway.
On lazy Sunday afternoons when I were a lad, my folks would put on the Sunday Film From Blockbuster and being a trendy pre-teen spending time with my parents was just wrong, so they would pick the film and I would look at rental SNES games and wonder why they tried to port DOOM the SNES (I did this every week, because I was (am) quite a sad person). After this we would come home, a Sunday roast would be eaten and the meantime between bread and cheese and the Antiques Roadshow would be Film Time. I would pass through the living room and whilst deliberately not looking at my parents I would assess the situation and wonder whether or not a film would be worth watching. Explosions = definite watch, Courtroom = Potential watch, could be a precursor to someone getting shot, Anything with a gun/sword/angry man getting shot = definite watch. A woman in a huge Victorian dress looking pensive = Defin- would not watch.
If I believed what was on to be worthy of my adolescent attention I would slouch and talk like a moron throughout the rest of it, annoying the hell out of my parents. I bet they were glad. I believe it was during these times my fear of horror movies manifested, as coming in on a film where a women is walking very carefully through a silent, dark house only meant one thing for me. Getting a drink from the kitchen for fifteen minutes, peeping around the door frame.
But playing horror games, well, eh. You have control over what is happening and as with Dead Space, though being very good, just isn't frightening. Ooh, something fell out of a vent at me. Something fell out of a window at me. Something that was lying very still isn't ACTUALLY DEAD AND IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR ME. Again.
If you find me and your question is 'Hey jackass, want to watch the latest <insert horror genre film here> with me?' The answer will most likely be yes, but make sure you like drinking tea beforehand.
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
English is awful.
Just awful. But I'll get to that in a bit.
I am more or less recovered from my rapid change to healthy things, and I've been feeling great; I have as wet-a-nose as ever and my coat is ever so glossy. I've been makin' plans; big, exciting plans and I am looking forward to this year immensly; gush gush gush.
As for work, I have seven weeks left in the leafy green walkways of Surrey, and I'll be starting in Wiltshire in around thirteen weeks. I am looking upon this with a mixture of horrified facination and horrified expectance; I'll be new again, and I'll get to sit in a big class room and learn about things. I could swagger in there, cock-o-the-walk, swank about and pretend I know everything; after all, I've been in the service for three years now, I must have a pretty good idea about how to do it, right? It's just a switch of location, not job, right?
Wrong. I know nothing about the job I'm in. I'm only there because I can talk utter trash to people and look busy. Every day is a dreadful wait for the firm hand on my shoulder directing me to the cell I will be spending the next twenty years in.
Oh yeah, English.
Like trying to play a double necked guitar with trombones attached to the ends, logic doesn't play any meaningful part in spelling words in English. One note strummed may produce a clear parp of the trombone, but strum the same string in another place and the only note issued is that of terrified screaming.
Words, being English, are spelt in English. I was having a conversation on Facebook with my school-age nephew, who, like every other schoolboy his age has not been taught how to nail down complex spelling and context. Typing to me across the interwaves, each word was spelt how logic would spell it: guess became ges, some became sum and so on. It was all easily understood, but my nephew, using the tools that we had given him, turns out somehow incorrect. It was all very crooked. Crook-edd.
Writing now, which is something I love doing and spending a huge amount of time doing day-to-day, I still get write and right mixed up, hear, here, to, too, two, they're, their, there, Geniuses? Or Genii? No wait, cactuses. No, damn - cacti.
And that's all I have. I've run out of fuel on the motorway, folks, and am going to look at some plants grow in superfast motion and have my mind blown.
I am more or less recovered from my rapid change to healthy things, and I've been feeling great; I have as wet-a-nose as ever and my coat is ever so glossy. I've been makin' plans; big, exciting plans and I am looking forward to this year immensly; gush gush gush.
As for work, I have seven weeks left in the leafy green walkways of Surrey, and I'll be starting in Wiltshire in around thirteen weeks. I am looking upon this with a mixture of horrified facination and horrified expectance; I'll be new again, and I'll get to sit in a big class room and learn about things. I could swagger in there, cock-o-the-walk, swank about and pretend I know everything; after all, I've been in the service for three years now, I must have a pretty good idea about how to do it, right? It's just a switch of location, not job, right?
Wrong. I know nothing about the job I'm in. I'm only there because I can talk utter trash to people and look busy. Every day is a dreadful wait for the firm hand on my shoulder directing me to the cell I will be spending the next twenty years in.
Oh yeah, English.
Like trying to play a double necked guitar with trombones attached to the ends, logic doesn't play any meaningful part in spelling words in English. One note strummed may produce a clear parp of the trombone, but strum the same string in another place and the only note issued is that of terrified screaming.
Words, being English, are spelt in English. I was having a conversation on Facebook with my school-age nephew, who, like every other schoolboy his age has not been taught how to nail down complex spelling and context. Typing to me across the interwaves, each word was spelt how logic would spell it: guess became ges, some became sum and so on. It was all easily understood, but my nephew, using the tools that we had given him, turns out somehow incorrect. It was all very crooked. Crook-edd.
Writing now, which is something I love doing and spending a huge amount of time doing day-to-day, I still get write and right mixed up, hear, here, to, too, two, they're, their, there, Geniuses? Or Genii? No wait, cactuses. No, damn - cacti.
And that's all I have. I've run out of fuel on the motorway, folks, and am going to look at some plants grow in superfast motion and have my mind blown.
Monday, 2 January 2012
Detox by Attrition.
Oh God. My guts are on fire. I'll get to that in a second.
It's a new year! Hurrah! As such I am filled with a sense of ambition and optimism that will carry me through the next couple of weeks, oh damn, wait a sec.
There.
Sorry about that; I am trying to eat a banana, and the skin is so thick it's like trying to peel a tank. Having ripped chunks from the outer husk whilst braying like a speared gazelle, I have only succeeded in making it resemble something that is only for adults to talk about. I now no longer wish to eat this banana. Anyway.
As most people do, I have drawn up a list of new year's resolutions that I will stick to rigidly for around 6 weeks, and as such I have taken to casting off my otherwise terrible diet habits and gone for things much more natural and wholesome: Bananas and Celery for snacking, and for meals, well, I haven't really got that far in my planning yet, but something damn healthy, that's for sure. This fab new diet has not gone so well, as having brought home said items, smiling faintly the same way a farmer gazes upon a fair harvest, I was approached by my landlady, who hit me with a spot-quiz.
"Hey Phil, just wondering if you liked Camembert?" The keys are barely out of the lock at this point.
"Well, I uh, sure-"
"Great! I've had one in the fridge for Christmas, but now I'm on a diet and I really can't; it's terrible for you!"
At this point, 1200 calories of fat and salt- I mean cheese was pressed into my terrified hands and, like a ninja, she was gone.
I, being a person who is only one half-rung above rummaging around in trash for free food, decided to take the bull by the horns and set to work removing it from its new home in my fridge as quickly as possible, so I can get healthy as soon as possible. So, two days in, a diet change from roast dinners, tagines, chocolate and deep fried things to objects which would be perfectly at home thrusting out of 6 inches of soft peat have done, as they say, a number on me.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I am currently peering through a grotesque green miasma that is making my room resemble some kind of dank hell-forest. If the constant squealing of my guts (imagine the sound of a car door dragging along a central reservation very slowly) doesn't kill me off, the fact that the oxygen levels in my room resemble that of deep space surely will.
My other resolutions are boring and uninteresting, and to read them would make you throw whatever you had in your hands at the screen in frustration, wrenching your computer from the wall, and throwing it from the nearest window. You would follow it out onto the street and set about the wreckage with a golf club, screaming and screaming. Not words, but a visceral shrieking that has not been heard since we hunted giant cats in loincloths. After several minutes of this, your modern-age body could no longer cope, and blood would spray from your ears and tear-ducts, and people would have you sent to be killed. So in a way, I'm doing you a favour by not listing them, with a good luck me!!!!!!!!!!!!! after each one.
A convenient zip, perhaps.
Another interruption, however this one is much more welcome: The youngest son of the family who's house I've invaded brought me the gift of a Toffee Crisp wrapped in gold wrapping paper. Now that is class. Managing to avoid chocolate for several days now, I gazed upon it like water in the desert. It was the perfect remedy to my two-day vegetables-dipped-in-luxury-cheese binge. God bless that apple-cheeked young scallywag.
*UPDATE* - The Toffee Crisp was marvelous. I highly recommend them. In gift form.
It's a new year! Hurrah! As such I am filled with a sense of ambition and optimism that will carry me through the next couple of weeks, oh damn, wait a sec.
There.
Sorry about that; I am trying to eat a banana, and the skin is so thick it's like trying to peel a tank. Having ripped chunks from the outer husk whilst braying like a speared gazelle, I have only succeeded in making it resemble something that is only for adults to talk about. I now no longer wish to eat this banana. Anyway.
As most people do, I have drawn up a list of new year's resolutions that I will stick to rigidly for around 6 weeks, and as such I have taken to casting off my otherwise terrible diet habits and gone for things much more natural and wholesome: Bananas and Celery for snacking, and for meals, well, I haven't really got that far in my planning yet, but something damn healthy, that's for sure. This fab new diet has not gone so well, as having brought home said items, smiling faintly the same way a farmer gazes upon a fair harvest, I was approached by my landlady, who hit me with a spot-quiz.
"Hey Phil, just wondering if you liked Camembert?" The keys are barely out of the lock at this point.
"Well, I uh, sure-"
"Great! I've had one in the fridge for Christmas, but now I'm on a diet and I really can't; it's terrible for you!"
At this point, 1200 calories of fat and salt- I mean cheese was pressed into my terrified hands and, like a ninja, she was gone.
I, being a person who is only one half-rung above rummaging around in trash for free food, decided to take the bull by the horns and set to work removing it from its new home in my fridge as quickly as possible, so I can get healthy as soon as possible. So, two days in, a diet change from roast dinners, tagines, chocolate and deep fried things to objects which would be perfectly at home thrusting out of 6 inches of soft peat have done, as they say, a number on me.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I am currently peering through a grotesque green miasma that is making my room resemble some kind of dank hell-forest. If the constant squealing of my guts (imagine the sound of a car door dragging along a central reservation very slowly) doesn't kill me off, the fact that the oxygen levels in my room resemble that of deep space surely will.
My other resolutions are boring and uninteresting, and to read them would make you throw whatever you had in your hands at the screen in frustration, wrenching your computer from the wall, and throwing it from the nearest window. You would follow it out onto the street and set about the wreckage with a golf club, screaming and screaming. Not words, but a visceral shrieking that has not been heard since we hunted giant cats in loincloths. After several minutes of this, your modern-age body could no longer cope, and blood would spray from your ears and tear-ducts, and people would have you sent to be killed. So in a way, I'm doing you a favour by not listing them, with a good luck me!!!!!!!!!!!!! after each one.
- Stop Drinking on Work Nights, afternoons and pouring Bayley's on my corn flakes.
- Do some damn writing! God damnit.
- Get fitter and go to- oh no what have I done.
A convenient zip, perhaps.
Another interruption, however this one is much more welcome: The youngest son of the family who's house I've invaded brought me the gift of a Toffee Crisp wrapped in gold wrapping paper. Now that is class. Managing to avoid chocolate for several days now, I gazed upon it like water in the desert. It was the perfect remedy to my two-day vegetables-dipped-in-luxury-cheese binge. God bless that apple-cheeked young scallywag.
*UPDATE* - The Toffee Crisp was marvelous. I highly recommend them. In gift form.
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