There's something about brownies

I've been thinking a lot about food recently. or rather, food has been on my mind. not in the usual healthy 'mmm, what tasty treat can i eat next' way, but in the more worrying 'i really shouldn't have eaten that whole box of brownie bites' way. which probably means i'm a girl, which isn't appealing at the best of times, especially when you're a girl who looks like me.

Thing is, i'm starting to get a belly, all my life i've been on the underbuilt side of the body bullying fence thanks to a metabolism so fast that it seems to take exactly twelve minutes for any meal to go from plate to poo (a digestive tradition that is strangely still with me despite the obvious expansion of girth at naval height) and obviously now i'm pushing 30 (i am NOT pushing 30 yet, i have 14 months to go, but it has begun to amuse me to say it, probably something of a defence mechanism where by if i say it enough it will stop terrifying me so much that i want to take a plane to my outer skin in a desperate attempt to shave myself back down to reveal the 19 year old inside), i'm fully aware this is the time of life that so many men find there body finally gives up on trying to breakdown the shite they pump into it on a daily basis and screams 'fuck you, you can be fat!'.

A person who makes as many fat jokes per day as i do cannot afford to chunk up.

So what do you do. well first you dispose of the usual weekly diet of 4 chinese meals, 2 lots of fish and chips, and a plate of home cooked fajitas, with sausage butties daily for breakfast and cheese burgers (with spiral fries) for supper. you go to the supermarket and stock up.

you're lazy, so you have to buy things that will take little to no effort to prepare, otherwise shanghai house will be receiving calls again, after a few months of trial and error i settled upon this, each days meal will be based around either - a plate of leaves with french dressing on them, a pre-packed portion of mixed veg, or the right veg to put in either a stir fry or a spag bol. this will be eaten (apart from the spag bol) with some chunk of meat that can be grilled. preferably with a taste on it such as 'chinese pork chops' or 'minted lamp chops' or 'peppered kebab sticks'

so you stock up. sorted.

only it's not is it. you see, i live alone (aww, poor me etc). they don't sell interesting packages of meat in single portions. and it goes off pretty quickly. you can't freeze it because defrosting takes forward planning and you'll never eat any of it because a frozen slab of meat is simply an invitation to call china rose. so you're constantly conscious of the mass of meat that starts rotting from the minute it goes in the fridge and once you've opened a pack of 4 steaks, you have to eat them. so you have 2 with your dinner and then have two as hot sandwhiches for supper. that's 4 steaks, or 4 chops (8 if they are supposed to be served 2 to a portion) every day. before you were just having half a plate of fried rice and then 4oz of reconstituted beef. this can't be right... can it?

on top of that you have to get your 5 a day in. five more things to eat. and only one is allowed to be juice.. apparently 9 glasses of pure pineapple juice (not from concentrate) still only counts as 1 of your 5., so you're not doing yourself any favours, you're just increasing the need to pee too often. and the leaves or whatever you have with you're meat is only 1 more.... 2 if you really push it... but pushing it is what all this was supposed to stop wasn't it.

then of course there's the brownie bites...

screw it, i've got some new trainers and there's a nature reserve just been built 4minutes from my flat, i'll just think about jogging some more...

p.s. there is someone subscribed to my blogs that i've never met, i must be incredible.

Frigeworthy

now it's not usually my way to do the blog about days out and fancy holidays and such. no. i'm far more likely to jot down meandering barely-sensical ramblings about some dream i had or how i was scared by my own reflection and such idiocy. 

but i've just spent 3 days at an event that i now know i will return to every year for the rest of my life so it would seem disrespectful not to at least jot a bit down. i haven't been to everywhere in the world, but i can say as fact that edinburgh (the fringe and a bunch of other stuff) in august is the best event in all existance

i'm biased of course, as many of you i bore in person will know, if you were to for some reason drop the word Edinburgh into a conversation with me, depending on the timing, the end result would fall somewhere between me relentlessly wittering about how spellbinding the place is, and us actually being there 4 hours later. i could talk about how i feel as 'at home' on the royal mile as i do in my own flat, i could talk about how the shock of moving so swiftly between hollyrood park and princes street brings the world into focus and how beautiful it is outside the parliament building at night, and i would definatley talk about the underground vaults and the closes and i would fail miserably to describe how on the coldest nights it can be the warmest place.

first off though, having booked a hotel room late and having to find one a couple of miles outside the city centre, fate decided to do me the favour of putting arthur's seat between me and where all the fun was centered. To me this was brilliant, i got to walk through a national park on my way to town. well, i did have the option of walking round it, which if we're being honest was quicker, but if somebody sticks a massive green valley in front of you.. unless your soul as been eaten by an internal combustion engine, you're gonna fancy trecking through it, even if it does add 20minutes onto the trip.. you've got all your life haven't you.

of course, where there is a valley there is a hill, in this case it's a pretty big one and you get to thinking, bet if i wander up the side a bit there's a pretty decent view, as all you can generally see from the bottom of a valley, is the sides of a valley.. which is nice... but.. y'know. problem is once you've climbed a bit you start looking right up at the top, the peak, it's not really on your was is it.. but you've never climbed to the top before, it's something you should really do at some point

so a bit of a sigh and a deep breath and you start climbing higher and higher.. about half way up you want to sit down... fuck it, lie down, and recover, but there's a couple behind you who seem to be wandering up to the peak as part of a relaxing dinner time stroll, so you'd be embarrased to look like you were struggling. 

three quarters of the way up you are repeating to yourself the phrase 'i'm an idiot i'm an idiot i'm a massive idiot i'm going to die' as you see a man running... running towards you (at this stage you have taken to occasionally using your hands to make sure you don't trip over on the uneven floor and rolypoly back down the the valley floor) and find yourself wheezing out loud 'he's an idiot'

but you press on. you're 20rds (vertical) from the peak, the sense of achievement is going to be fantastic, and the view just as good. you're sweating, everywhere, you can hear yourself panting over your headphones, but it's ok, you're there, in a minute you can sit down and enjoy.

then this small girl (ok so she could be in her 20s, but she's 5ft high and, well, a girl) has the audacity to appear, ambling towards you, away from the peak, not a bead of sweat on her, the same facial expression that somebody would have while having a bath, not in the least bit troubled by the climb she has obviously recently made. and you have to suck it all in and pretend you're not dying from the superhuman effort that has been the last 30minutes.

it's a blow but it's ok, you've made it, you're at the top. you sit down and spend 5 minutes fighting the urge to throw yourself off, not for any medlodramatic reason, but just because it's the easiest way to get back down. then you stand up and survey the routes from where you are to where you want to be and obviously it's to go back to where you started in the first place. obviously.

100yrds down the return journey your sense of achievement, of pride, takes a bit of a hit. that girl. THAT GIRL! is walking back towards you FROM THE OTHER PEAK. it's been five, maybe ten minutes since you last saw her. that's quite a pace. 

obviously at this point all this was running round my head and i sat down to make a few nots on my mobile about how i was going to blog it, as nobody does anything these days without simultaneously thinking about how the will tell the internet about it. just like nobody thinks anything of switching from 2nd person to 1st person during a narrative. it's a post modern world and we love it.

while writing... not even giving me time to stop writing. that superhuman 5ft lump of attractively shaped muscle comes jogging past me... jogging. it's important to note here that previous to this point there was no indication that she was out exercising or training in anyway, the previous movement, the manner of dress, was all indication of a simple volcano sympathising tourist just like me she was simply not satisfied with making me look like a useless subperson with her accelarated and unflinching wanderings around the peaks and troughs of this park, she needed something extra to keep her interested, so she broke into a jog. HOW DARE SHE! my sense of achievement is squashed under her feet as they pad delicately past. i haven't acheived anything, i''ve failed, i've been beaten by a girl... and I haven't even been beaten by her at anything particularly impressive.. i've been beaten by her at CLIMBING HILLS! 

rubbish.

i got distracted there. sorry. but yeah. basically edinburgh fringe festival is amazing. i spent 3 days there and was never bored at any moment. i spent the entire daylight hours of first 1 and half days simply wander up and down the royal mile being entertained by the street performers and people trying to sell there shows. you name me one other street in the world that a person can spend close to 15 hours just walking up and down, sitting on, without getting bored. and that's before you even start to look at the shows. i watched a gothic shakespeare at midnight. i watched stuart lee AND richard herring. and yes both their routines dwelled largely on the problems of being a 40something comedian that used to be on tv. only one of them mentioned fist of fun, by using a joke from the show, nobody in the room got the allusion until it was pointed out in the nest sentence. a saw a reletively poor sketch show played out to a room of a hundred people. and i saw a young comedian try and perferm his routine to an audience of just 6 people. ok, so he didn't try and perform his routine. he sat and chatted to us for an hour. but nobody minded. because they could walk out of that room and into another at any point to find a different entertainment.

and i didn't even get involved in the 24hour party that was caused by tens of thousands of people, from every age group, from every country in the world, all decending on one small area of one scottish city.

i have to go now and book my accomadation for next year. you should come.

River of Dreams

it seems that when waking life becomes a little pedestrian, dreams take up the slack, natural defence against depression i guess, which we all know is caused by boredom, and stupidity, but mostly boredom

anyway, at first my dear old brain decided the best way to keep me happy juices running was to simply release unrequested feelings of absolute terror at various points through out the night, not even really with connected dreams, just like a command, a little thought sat there on it's squidgy cloud singing 'you are going to feel more scared then you've ever felt in your life...... now.' and hey preston i have to wrench myself awake, ignore the things i see in the dark and sit up too scared to close my eyes.

all very exciting, but not particularly good for the self esteem of a 28 year old man

so last night it has a new solution. starts of innocently enough, sat around playing those riddle/puzzle type games where you're like 'you have a 20m length of hose, some water, a potato and several old christmas cards. what do you do?' y'know, THAT game, the one we play all the time.. yeah? ...no? i didn't either, but it seemed so familiar at the time

obviously this moved on from a theoretical game to one where a bunch of us actually found a long hose in a wooden tower by a lake and a bunch of other stuff and started acting out the crazy schemes and plans we'd drawn up. oddly the first thing one guy did was take the end of the hose and rub it in the mouth of another guy, confusion rained as the victim ran around looking a bit worried until eventually found someone with a toothbrush and paste and applied them to their standard use. turns out what this wag had done is 'dirtied his teeth', oh the hilarity

this all continues for a while and i take a few steps back just in time to see a police car and ambulance rushing towards minor incident around the other side of the lake, in order to get there they had to cross a thin strip of land between the edge of the lake and some trees which was just wide enough for the vehicles, the problem was it was a hill which angles at 45degrees across it's width down towards the lake. the police car crossed without trouble but the taller ambulance, with it's higher centre of gravity struggled, tipping slowly, slowly tipping until... sploosh. everyone cheers, highlight of the dream. it was ok though folks, it was an amphibious ambulance.

it goes without saying that as the sun went down all this devoped into a party in the wooden tower (which was on stilts over the water) it was very popular and The Who were playing live onstage, but the crowd got a bit rowdy and concern spread about the safety of the wooden flooring, so The Who were asked to leave and replaced by a fairly average girl fronted glam band that sat somewhere between Paramore and Hole and bizarrely had the lead singer from a Lancaster band i've known. From outside i could see the sun coming up and the students across the water complaining to the police about the noise and so decided it was time to pull the plug and headed towards the stage. Once there, before i could ask the band to wrap it up I had to follow a tramp around who had climbed onstage and begun trying to play the unusual number of spare instruments that had been left set up and unused around the stage.

plug bulled i bothered about trying to find the organisers to tidy up the mess when the phone rang, it was my brother, he was at home and a bag had just thrown itself across the room and he was a bit scared so i had to go home

it seems also then that when our life becomes a little pedestrian our brains melt a little inside

What a fecking buzz!

you're in a car, in traffic, stifled by the heat and still air, just hoping to get to your destination as soon as possible, then a few drops start to fall from the sky

10minutes later you can barely see out of any windows, driving is almost guesswork, the roof feels like it could give up the fight at any moment, the road looks like it's melting and a quick accelaration can throw a wave out across the pavement big enough to surf on (careful not to do it as people walk past though.. that would make you a 'wanker'), the streets are suddenly deserted, as if what fell from the sky was far more deadly than common or garden raindrops, the only people left out are those who were far enough from shelter when the bomb dropped to make taking any action became quickly pointless, couples in their summer clothes just making the best of it, topless boys on push bikes with that famous 'what are you looking at!?' expression frozen on their faces and that one girl with the umbrella and a massive smile that you have to give credit to for making like a boy scout this morning

we all spend fortunes and take risks on 15minute periods of increased excitement, but that one was for free

and now the thunder has broken up the air and we can all breathe again

now we know it's gonna be a good night

Once upon a time in china town

there are some meetings in this world, that while you weren't present, you know for a fact actually happened, like the one where the channel 4 exec sat the hollyoaks writers infront of a dvd of skins and said.. 'y'know, like that', or that one where the creator of the lush shops sat infront of a board of investers going 'it's soap.. but it looks like food... see... see... ' for about 4 hours before finally sitting down exhausted and going saying 'look, just phone your wives'

then there's the one where god (whichever one you choose, it doesn't matter) turned to mrs god (who was wearing a short summer dress and and had eyes that could melt diamonds) and said... 'y'know what'd be a laugh' and then created people

so i haven't blogged in a while, i was busy doing life stuff, but now i've gone done quit my job, free time is a little more abundant (i even tidied my flat the other day, living room AND bedroom.. crazyness) not as abundant as one might think, cos dreams don't chase themselves, but still, enough that there's a bit more time to think and pause and look out of the window and amazingly attractive girls talking on their phones in the courtyard, so hopefully i will teach myself to write again now.. hopefully

i still haven't eaten that coconut yet though.. i don't think i will be doing now

Wii fitness age... 33

so i bought this coconut right, i did it in a moment of impulse.. passion... wimsy.. i saw it, lying there at 1am in asda with all it's mates not doing much and my head shot back to more innocent times of coconut shys (shy? shigh? shuy-aye?) and novelty fruit & nuts and a grabbed it.. smiled to myself and wheeled along riding the back of my trolly full of salads and stuff

this was 7 days ago and i haven't yet found the right occasion to open it.. i feel something that is that much of a challenge to eat should be given some kind of ceremony, the opening of the nut should be, at very least, a blog worthy event (is blog worthy the 21st century version of.. 'something to write home about?' i think maybe it is

anyway, that is an aside.. a teaser if you will, for future reading... it's what tv quick would write in the preview of this installment of the soap opera of my life

speaking of soap, it doesn't go well with fresh pasta.

lifes taken a slightly unusual turn of late.. what i did was, i started eating 5 portions a day.. it's had 2 effects on me... it's increased my emotions a little... you know.. like how normal people feel, they feel happy and sad.. rather than just that constant humm of slight malcontentment that has been my soundtrack since i was.. well.. 12... i've found myself sat around feeling 'chirpy' at moments.. and 'upset' at others.. i quite like this apart from the fact that the fruit hasn't yet woken my brain up.. and when you feel 'chirpy' but without anything of worth running through your mind.. you feel.. to put it bluntly.. like a simpleton.. which is a most disconcerting feeling for a person who really has never had much going for them beyond their mind

the new diet has also increased my energy.. but not my motivation... which means i want to be doing something at all times... but i don't really want to 'try' at anything.. which of course leads to frustration and feelings of pointlessness.. 

on which note i've been giving serious thought to going back into education.. hell.. i live like a student anyway... not to get any more qualifications.. i've already 'earned' two sets of letters after my name, and in combination they contribute about as much to my life as a jam sandwich on moldy bread, i see no point in furthering this trend... but more to be given something new to think about... i reckon i want to be one of the self-important tits who sat around in pubs using words like 'subversion' and 'dichotomy' as if i've just invented punk.. maybe.. or maybe i just wanna do more maths... mmmm, maths

i think i've discovered my perfect career too.. i wanna be the guy who travels the country analysing traffic lights and re-programming them to be more efficient.. it's prefect, it's traveling, it's maths, it's working with computers.. and it will genuinely improve the lives of thousands of people.

if someone could get me an application form that would be swell

i didn't close the brackets up there.. how much did that piss you off?

One Cycle of the Moon

it's been a month since i last blogged, which first goes to highlight the ridiculousness of half of what i said in january, secondly echoes what i said in february about being too brain broken for conversation, but thirdy suggests that i might have actually done something worthwhile with the last month

ok, we can all stop laughing now. of course the majority of this month away as been spent sleeping, drinking, staring at various flashing lights, pretending to work, falling at a number of hurdles and all the usual things that would force anybody watching the film of my life (directed by john waters) to vent their building frustration by screaming at the screen such this as 'for christs sake you bloody waster!', 'oh dear lord how pathetic!' and of course the old classic 'how dare you!'

though some stuff has happened, that band thing has entered some kind of whirl or record labels, downloads, music television film crews and days in the heart of radio1, which brings a sense of accomplishment and with it a day (perhaps the only day) that i can describe, without reserve, as a 'good day'. and we don't get so many of them. of course all this just creates a new land of pressure, expectation and if we're not careful, panic, but for now it's good to pretend that isn't there and try in vein to be grateful for a new area of my life where i'm being given experiences i could never have reasonably expected to have

so.. and you won't hear me say this often... life is..well.. 'good'.... for now. it goes without saying that i'm not walking round smiling and being friendly and singing about sunshine and shit, and that i am infact still sleeping as long as possible each day and then spending most my energy trying to keep my inner chemical balance above the prozac line, as it was written, as it shall be and all that.. but when the obligatory 'bigger picture' is looked at we have to plot the graph of circumstance on the sunny side of conventional judgement

the only other thing worth talking about is that old 'social interaction' thing that screenwriters are always raping to earn a living. the art of sitting in roper hall passing judgement on a room full of strangers and not talking to anyone as been rediscovered and slightly refined, which is perhaps not the news to be most proud of, but it's a step away from the internet, which is nice. more positively the hobby of talking to people beyond the safety of pre-registered and approved perspective and opinion has reintroduced the daily questioning of the self and re-examination of the important choices that is frankly the most important part of being human in the 21st century... y'know.. the constant and unending critique of every part of your being leading to a spiral of self doubt, helplessness and frustration... it's what makes the world go round.

On a serious note, complacency is to death what cleanliness is to godliness.. so a big thanks to eveyone that's made me feel a little like crap this month.

those are enough words

keep smiling

x

To The End

so i was in the taxi for close to 5 hours and my final destination ended up being about 400yrds from when i was picked up

the taxi was for a gig in blackpool, however when we got there we couldn't find the venue ['winter gardens 2' anybody?], so i let the driver keep searching and fell asleep, a couple of hours later i wake up to the driver telling me we couldn't find it and it got a bit late so we're headed for standish instead.. 'standish' i declare ' you mad food! i can't go there, i have nowhere to sleep there.. my bed is in Preston!'

he sighs and turns off onto a dirt track towards some woods.. for a moment my mind reflects on the potential personal dangers the world has taught me such a move might bring my way, but i quickly reason that i've been asleep in alond in this cab for a couple of hours so if 'that' was gonna happen it would already have

as this drive continued there were points where i found myself strpped to the grill at the front of the taxi [which now resembled the A-Team van] as it took part in a cross country motercycle race.. there were also points where i followed behind on a hover board, taking part in the race myself before we finally approached preston from a road i'd never seen before but flanked by the most beautiful houses and streets i have ever seen whilst having an argument with the driver about his declaration that the only drop off point in preston being the Holdiay inn

dreams are fun

life is less so, of course, to the point where i'm feeling increasingly tempted to do a FilBlog where i actually write down my genuine thoughts and feelings, but as any of you who have ever become close to me only to find themselves pushed away without rhyme or reason can testify to, that is not my style so i'll simply make vague references to my continual day to day disappointments and general turgid existance.. and you'll bloody well like it.. alright?

i'm done with drinking culture.. there must be a better way than organising your mistakes and regrets [which after all is what memories are comprised of] around the bars in town, than paying increasingly attractive girls to give you toxins that make you an increasingly less respectable person, than spending daytimes lacking self-respect and night-times lacking self-restraint, than visiting the most talked about cities in the country, and the world, only to organise your experiences around the bars

not very rock and roll, and certainly at odds with the way i make my living.. 

you know you can learn to fly a helicopter for £250 and hour? that's a whole lot of cash, i reckon it'd be worth it if you could also fly and land aa helicopter in ordinary car parks so it was a practical method of transport... but it's just not... that's a shame really.... then again, seeing as it's taken me now 7 days, and counting, to get round to making a simple phonecall to arrange having my car fixed... i'm perhaps not the right person at this moment in time to be allowed to be in charge of something that can fall from the sky.. so it all works out fair in the end

i irony back in fashion? i can't keep up these days

Land of Milk and Honey

a day of laying around watching the various documentary channels is a good way to spend sunday.... plus i'm quite pleased to have watched a documentary on the crusades [human beings, it turns out, have always been absolute dicks.. but i guess we already knew that] on the same day i'll be watching a couple of episodes of 24.. nice book ends to the afternoon

also, the best thing in the world to do with an afternoon of dedicated nothingness is to look at moving pictures of marine life while david attenborough talks.. it's like aa desert of relaxation only punctuated by mild explosions in your brain as it cries 'that's pretty mental'

i haven't blogged in a while, largely because i've had nothing to say.. a theme, it seems for russell in 2007, always a fan of the 'if you've nothing worth saying keep your bastard mouth shut you boring twonk' philosophy i've always been more of a 'replier' than a 'stimulator' conversationally but i'be usually managed find either one topic of mutual interest with a person or at least a phrase colourful enough to raise a titter.. but this year it seems my mind brain is less concerned with aiding my social interaction and more involved in.. well.. bugger all really, bastard lazy grey matter i'm gonna poke it with sticks

but yeah, the lack of words to say is a problem, because there's only so much time you can spend with people not saying much before they run out of things to say to you too and from their it's a fast slippery slope to spending 4 days & nights sitting around in a blackened room eating curry in soiled pants, not sleeping and planning the slaughter of a group of people you've singled out for no oher reason than the fact they've smiled in your direction recently.. y'know.. for shits and giggles.. or because god is telling you to do it, and to do it while wearing bermuda shorts and a pair of comedy glasses & nose things

anyway

i haven't blogged.. but i have done shit... well 'a' shit if you pardon the expression.. i went to 'our nations capital'.. we played a gig.. influential people came to watch.. it was ok.. fun even.. adventures were had.. food was eaten - [oh the glorious food.. 'can i have a MEAT sandwhich please sir.. and incase that isn't enough MEAT.. can you sprinkle some MEAT in my beans too?".. and i managed to grab a few hours of time with my number 1 myspace friend [i'm so 21st century].. but that's my pleasure, not yours.. then it all went a little.. mmm... i think the locals tem is 'pete tong'

due to a combination of poor planning, lack of local transport and geographical knowledge and.. well.. intelligence... at Midnight on a Friday night in London i found myself alone, whilst my two companions were many miles away, un a part of london they didn't know, 12hours drunk, with no transport and trying to find their way to me. This left me with 2 hours with very little to do but wander around central london and soho... it started ok, i found a man to sell me a waffle... it wasn't a great waffle and a made a mess of eating it.. to the point a young woman walked past me.. pointed.. laughed and shouted 'chocolate face!'.. now whilst i did find the amusing it dealt quite a blow to me self esteem and my lust for a mirror and running water overcame me.. if this meant having to buy burger and chips in burger king.. well that would be a cross i had to bear [bare?]... then i witness a strange phenomenan that i have imaginatively titled 'the arrival of the tube workers' where by dozens of such men in high visibility jackets arrived and hung around under a giant statue of freddie mercury for up to 90minutes whilst they waited to be allowed into the tunnels under london city to do.. well..whatever it is large groups of men do a mile or so under the capital of england at night. i also witnessed what i believe is 'the most polite mugging in the world'...; 'there's no point mate, i lost my wallet', 'no it's ok, it's here somewhere' *rifles through pockets'.. bless those cheeky cockneys.

other than all that.. as capital cities go.. londons pretty dissapointing.. all very big and flash.. but pretty regimented and very expensive.. and not altogether the most beautiful of cities... of course i will give it more chances.. but for now.. i'm sticking north of hadrians wall for my big city fun times.

that's all i have to say about that.

oh yeah.. for valentines.. send me white roses not red... i have mixed feelings about the red.

x

I'm trying to help you out so can you stop being a twat

right.. first up.. thanks to a small friend of mine using a partciular sentence as her msn name i've had the lyric "oh my god you must be joking me, if you think that you'll be poking me" running round and round my head for 24 hours now - which is not only annoying but largely innaccurate, because even ignoring that fact that i'm a most definately poker rather than a pokee... let's be honest, it's not a sentence i could ever really stand behind, cos all someone really has to do is ask nice, and maybe give me a cake...i'm kind like that

second up... because i know you've all missed the reports on my sleeping patterns... the nightmares are getting worse and they are getting layered, last night i 'woke up' roughly every 15minutes in fear.. though most of these were simply waking from one dream to enter another.. it was altogether a very confusing exercise which i do not hope to repeat anytime soon... any remedies greatly received.. not that i mind nightmares.. i love to be scared.. but the waking up is playing havoc with my despite to be asleep as much as humanly possible

thirdly.. and please god hopefully lastly because i'm hungry... but i've started so i'll waffle.. i've been thinking about myspace [i know, the bullet is in the gun, the barrel is in my mouth... i may eat it] and more specifically the way people use it

i'l explain.. there are 4 primary ways in which myspace can be used to communicate with your 'friends'... these being message, comment, bulletin and blog.. and they all have their individual uses, one for private messages between individuals.. one for messages to an individual that you don't mind people 'over-hearing'.. one for a message you want to send out to all your friends, and finally one where you just saying stuff and who hears it, hears it

now i've never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the box.. actually that's a complete lie, i've claimed previously to be anything from 'the oracle' to 'god' and believed it.. but that is beside the point... i'm just a simple man, but i understand the sepration between the four methods and their uses

yet it seems to be an increasing trend to use the 3rd where the 1st would have been more appropriate.. [incase you're too slow to follow... using a bulletin where it should have been a message].. i see it everyday, and everyday it bothers me.. not so much because it's a clear method of screaming 'pay me attention, do it now! wah! wah! wah!.. because hey, when i went to school it was full of 15 year old girls, so i've gotten used to that as a fact of life [also, i'm writing a myspace blog for ahabs sake, i'm not exactly averse to the culture of seeking a little attention] but more for this reason... 

the 'real life' equivelant of sending a bulletin when it should have been a message is this: you walk into a public place, say a local pub, filled with your friends and associates.. the person you wish to speak to may or may not be there... regardless.. you stand on a table and proceed to shout your message.

i can't spell bulletin or equivelant

now in real life the consequences of a person taking this action or anything from large scale pointing and laughing while a few cheeky wags make that 'loopy' gesture where you twirl your finger just above your ear.. to the more extreme 'men in white coats' scenario

this is why it bothers me.

so if you see someone on your friends list commiting this offence... help them help themselves... take a picture from their profile.. write the words 'village idiot' across it, and bulletin that

everybody is a winner!

Registered Charity No.90210

when you wake up miserable and in the certain knowledge that the thoughts running round your head will continue to keep that misery festering and jabbing at you for the next set of waking hours, the only really sensible thing is to take your glasses off and go back to sleep

if this return to oblivion means that you next wake at 2.30pm feeling groggy and confused as you wrench yourself from a dream where you were having a great msn converation with a hollywood starlett fresh from playing a side character in a remake of buffy the vampire slayer yet it was all going a bit wrong because your fingers weren't working properly and, despite her great efforts to tolerate you, she is starting to tire of the fact that you keep replying with 'rliid;ih;idh jdjpkp1 rdxsbnp [[ppihi', 'iilguewwyuguy' and 'ppoipdephi suyquywidl', and just as you're coming to an aquaintence of yours announces his intentions to 'add her'.. then so be it!

at least the misery is diminished.. i won't say gone of course because i we know the 4 noble truths of the russah are 1) life is woe, 2) the origin of woe is being awake, 3) the cessation of woe is impossible and 4) people are insufferable dicks... anyway, what was i saying? yeah, woke up feeling a little better

it's been a crazy few days in the united states of of kingdom land, it got a bit windy on thursday and, well the long and the short of it is that, everything fell over [i love commas, and the fact that when you put two of them in a sentence you can ignore the words in between and pretend there was a pause.. often reads so much better].. but yeah.. chaos, trains stopped, motorways closed, schools and businesses shutting early and sending everyone home, millions of pounds lost, people on the news screaming THE CHILDREN! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!, grown men in the street dropping to their knees in prayer and people losing faith in the construction industry left right and centre, not to mention a disappointing lack of upsurge in kite sales [does nobody watch Mary Poppins these days].. and most bizarely, the changing off all linked text on myspace to an eye burning bright red [it must be wind linked.. what else has happened?]

anyways it's over now and people can get back to pissing and moaning about our climate being slightly damp most days and them not having breakfast delivered to them each morning by a flying blue hippo with a smile that could unlock the gates to heaven itself

in other crazyness there was a conversation took place between a group of individuals who happened to be being filmed and broadcast for a reality tv show that made uncomfortable flirtings with the race line. however instead of the 'intelligent' public doing the old fashioned 'watching, listening, judging the individuals by their words and actions and then moving on with their lives' what actually happened was that hundreds of people phoned 999 to complain! "hello would you like fire, ambulance or police"... "erm, i dunno, but that girl on my tele just said a bad thing, can you come round and turn me tele off?"... "oh dear sir, i think maybe the best thing we can offer you is the sincere hope that you die in a freak accident involving a toaster and a fork".. hundreds of thousands of people complained to the tv station.. who if they had any balls at all should have issued the standard reply of "it is clear to us that you are unable to operate your remote control, or indeed have the power of free will, so allow us to give you the following instructions.. 1) lower your pants, 2) take your remote firmly in your best hand, 3) position the end of the remote at the entrance to your rectum [the smelly bit], 4) shove really hard. we hope that helps. thankyou for your feedback".... even worse than all this, there was a serious statement issued by the police that they were considering going into the house and making arrests... it's lazy to scream 1984 comparisons.. but dear lord god, do the police need the press that badly?

*breathes*

enough of this.. i must now return to the meaningless of my day to day existence... there are mind numbing tasks that i couldn't care less about to be attended to...

oh, and as people only care about blogs that reveal intimate personal details... i had sex once, it was ok

Silence is Golden

i think i was just dripped on.. which is quite worrying.. being inside my flat and all

i haven't blogged in a while.. but a friend posted a few questions for a school project type thing and i was gonna responed and figured it was far more blogworthy than my usual ramblings about sleeping/pooing patterns and how life is all part of an unavoidable spiral towards the void.. so why not do it here

the basics of the questions are.. this. the communication age.. all the new fangled forms of digital communication.. a good thing, or just tools that destroy social skills in The Youth Of Today

now people hold opinions on all kinds of stuff referencing this and that and applying this precident to this case and showing their take on their part of their available evidence to back up their theory... but in the end the only opinions really worth anything are those based on personal experience.. so that's the angle i can come from on that

up till the age of 18 i lived in a world, at least my world, in which digital communication was still nobody i knew owned a mobile phone or was hooked up to the internet, and myspace was still a piece of dust in the corner of toms wallet.. today my work and lifestyle means i'm online for anything up to 16hours in a day and my phone is permenantly switched on.. so there's a decent contrast to work on

now the argument is that face to face conversation is more expressive than digital communcation, easier, or at least more accurate, to read, ultimately more rewarding..that may be an argument, everyone is different etc.. but from my point of view, that's almost backwards.. 

i, particularly as a kid, never really 'got' face to face communication.. especially with those that you are not familiar with.. for me there was too much going on it in, too easy to misread or get confused.. too much reliance on trust and confidence that their was no hidden agenda or meaning in what was being said to you, or not said to you, or how it was being said to you.. and of course then the intense pressure to reply, instantly, with the appropriate words, nuances, intonations, expressions... eye contact!! it was a lot to deal with and 8 times out of 10 i dealt with it badly

obviously i've got better at all that since i got older and more confident.. though, whether it means anything or not it's worth noting that i started getting better around the time i also started using the internet for communication... could just be coincidence though.. i'll let the 'experts' decide

now digital communication.. from the letter writing of emails [i honestly don't see the difference between an email and a letter, except people can read when i type.. mostly] to the nearest replacement we have for physical conversation.. instant messaging.. i get... it's words and you read them.. and we have a variety of tools developed to put some mre expression into them... but there's no misleading facial expressions.. and most importantly.. no pressure.. you take what time you need to make sure that what you are saying is actually what you want to say

sure it has its failings... there will always be misunderstanding in human communication.. it's like refereeing in sports.. it's what makes it interesting.... but it's just so much easier to deal with

yes, it's more detached... but rather than feeling that it makes me more detached.. it just makes me appreciate the closeness more when physical communication takes places [not that that's an admission to liking the closeness you understand.. detached is good.. safe... beautiful]

hell.. now we have blogging.. what was the predecessor to that? standing in front of a room and telling everyone what you wanted them to know about what was going on in your head.... writing a diary in the hope that your friends would steal it and read it... nah.. this is new... and as has been demonstrated, something i'm a fan of.. but of course i am motivated purely by ego.. and the suffering of others.. so each to their own and all that

i'll probably change my mind on all that tomorrow.. it's a lot of words so i'm not reading it back now... hell.. sod itl.. argue with me... that's what communications all about isn't it? proving what you think is better than what i think? that you love me more than i love you?

or something. x

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wll

i rode my bike

now i'm blogging about riding my bike

you gotta love the 21st century

the bike ride in brief: you can't sit down on the saddle with a dvd from blockbusters stuffed in each pocket, this puts a lot of strain on your knees in the early part, and your thighs hurt a little, it's fun to annoy drivers by switching to pavement to bypass traffic lights, i can't find my iPod, this is a shame, it's easier when you sit down after dropping off the dvds.. which may or may not have been cracked by my arse, broadgate is much shorter on a bike than on foot, there are no lights in avenham park.. this makes the road by the river very very scary, but not as scary as the hill to bank parade, my head is sweaty and my legs hurt, a shower will fix all, till the shower door falls off, mid soaping, not good

this is all i have done today, the other 23hours15mins are just filler

toodles. x

Prisoner Cell Block H

some days you wake up an hour after your alarm was supposed to wake you, after a night of sleep disturbed by the recurring dreams you thout you'd got shot of a while ago and you just can't bring yourself to care about anything on your to do list that day

i say some days, we all of course know that i mean, every day, but everything is reletive so let's pretend i'm a sprightly, energetic, happy go-lucky-character that usuaally bounds out of bed and shouts 'HOWDY DOODY!' to the sun, before waving to my neighbours and jigging down the road with a whistle in my voice and a spring in my step *shudders*.. well.. if i was, today i wouldn't have been

having said that i had an almost ideal day at work, i arrived in the office, sat down, and nobody else came in the room until it was time to go home, and even then it was pretty much just to say bye.. so it was almsot as if i was sat at home in my big empty flat enjoying the silencs and the absense of human conntact.. which is all good

then i did something, a triumphant thing, a thing a should have done a long time ago, a thing that will change the world, well, my world, well ok not may world, but a part of it, a small part of it, ok so it'll give me an excuse to break into a sweat most days, make me feel a little better about the chinese takeaways [i was interrupted at the begining of this sentence to collect my chinese from the door].. having said that i've been good so far this year i think this is my 2nd, maybe even 1st of 2007... anyway... maybe sort ouot a few of the sleepless nights a little

you stopped caring what i did ages ago didn't you? me too.. i bought a bike, one that has working breaks and gears and everything [fingers crossed]

let's see if i use it now shall we.. it is pretty cold...

anyway, as i said, chinese is here.

see you all tonight. x

Swings and Roundabouts

Here's a roundabout for you:

let's start with the most important feature of these blogs.. the sleep index.. last night i was crushed by the most devastating of all curses upon the human mind... thought.. i had a train of thought that wouldn't let go, wouldn't let me sink into the pure emptyness that i look forward to each day from the minute i am wrenched back into the world

devastating it was, still - sleep eventually came and all was well for a while

today has been... average, so deeply average, so average it is pointless to blog about it, an entire non-event of a day, still.. it's been ok

and band practice was good, which always helps

righto.. i'm off to stare at a wall for a bit.

Let's go fishing my lad.

i didn't do a blog yesterday, because it turns out i have a life [read, slept till 3, ate, went out, drank - NEVER BLOG AFTER DRINKING, THE GUSHING HONESTY WILL DESTROY US ALL - and now it's sunday] - i hope nobody cried too much, i understand what it's like to have one of the few constants in life ripped out from under you [5 days is a constant, hell i've had shorter relationships]

i was about to say i honestly can't complain about any aspect of the last 48 hours.. but then i woke up, remembered who i am and what life is and laughed at myself for forgetting that even the happiest of memories will always we be tainted in someway.. and this of course is true of the vaguely pleasant memories also

so let's start with said tainting.. 4am, bed, headed for the bliss of dreamtown, and the music starts, loud, bad music, and suddenly the realisation that i do live in a block of flats has never been more real.. but it's ok i think.. it's friday night, i'm a tolerant kind of guy.. i'll use it as an excuse to do some reading.. 5am i'm getting a bit cheesed off, but i'm english, and i can hear the other people in the flats shouting towards the noise.. so actually getting out of bed is still unlikely. 6am the moment of truth has come, i re-pant and depart to the source of the noise.. i will be manly, i will be firm.. i will make this problem go away.. turns out the source of this noise is about 7ft tall and weighing in at well over 20stone, with a fresh scar on his forehead... in a moment of absolute pride howver i manage to contain my hair-trigger bowels and make the reasonable request for less volume.. the nice megaman explains he's sorry, he thought his flat was sound-proofed and he was having a party because "i was in town today and i was stabbed, so i had to put the guy in hospital, my friends have come to cheer me up... oh, by the way.. what number do you live at?"

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger

beyond that it's been a better than average weekend, an unexpected turn on friday that led me to having actual face to face conversations for.. get this.. hours.. [so proud].. i've been told i even smiled at one point, but i have no evidence to prove this and neither do you.. so i will deny it to my grave.. smiling, of course, being a sign of weakness and Rubbish Brain Syndrome. the saturday placed me with 'friends' in another city, in new bars, having conversations i have not previously had, at least in a while... entertainment.. novelty be thy name.. even better.. i managed to stop drinking at the right time, not do, say or send anything that made me a prick.. and wake up hangover free.. it's like a whole new world...

righto, the only place to go now in this blog is an honest and emotional exploration of who i am as a person at this time in my life, what my desires are and where do i go from here

so i'll stop writing.

have a great sunday.

x

I can't wait

remember when we used to dance to songs we didn't know just cos we liked the beat? instead of just the ones we know the words to.. without that there'd be no love formed of beastie boys, no nofx, no brassy, no mad caddies, no cherry poppin' daddies and no reel big fish, amogst so many others... of course i'd never have repeatedly dislocated my knee on the dancefloor causing much pain and social embarrasment.. but y'know, rough with the smooth and all that

it's been a day of 're's so far, revalations, reminiscences and rediscoveries, which i guess isn't bad for a friday, and it meant finding some great music i'd let slip to the back of my mind... i'm considering spending the evening taking a real trip down memory lane with a cd/record/cassette/dvd alphabetising session.. though that is not perhaps the most acceptable way for a young man to spend his friday night... though it will mean i'm chomping at the bit for fun on the proper night out tomorrow.. who knows.. it's a world of freedom, anything could happen between now and bedtime.. though the odds on my finding myself in timbuctoo are probably quite long.. it's the 21st century, and if i've learnt anything from my adolecent x-files obsession it's that we can't rule such things out

i wish i was a spy.. apart from the hours of course

x

You crazy kids.

so where are we now.. the optimist in me thinks i've beaten sleep by denying it's hold on me for long enough that i've spent most of this days waking hours in a semi-zombiefied state... but the realist in me understands that i'm likely to go out and indulge in a few bears this evening and with no reason to get up tomorrow i will most likely not see sunlight.. again.. returning to that oh so familiar place we all know and love by the name of 'square one', but hey, i never liked snaked and ladders much anyway

as is always the case when one shows up at work 'still' [still asleep, still drunk, still in drag] it becomes a productive day, i believe due to the fact that when you are operating on 10% mental powers you have no choice but to tunnel vision the most obvious tasks and distractions fall by the wayside, not because there aren't still time sucking face pleasing shining dancing funbeams in the corner of your eyes, but because if you turn to look at them you might fall over

as you can tell.. that 10% is diminishing

the handle to the door from my hall way to my living room has fallen off.. this means that if i at any point let that door close while i'm outside the living room the only 2 ways to access it will be to either remove the door from its frame with a slapstick style shoulder charge.. or to run up to my bedroom and abseil in.. i imagine i'll spend most of this evening out trying to make that choice by a complicated means of weighing up the mathmatics of the potential financial implications against the likely hood of broken bones and/or serious head injuries that may cause me to lie on the floor undiscovered till sunday evening... not that the idea of dying alone and uncomfortable on the kitchen floor is in itself that bad a prospect, but more it'd be a really crappy way to spend this forthcoming weeekend off

i'm gonna shower and iron a jumper

for everytime you say the word 'fat' today.. do ten sit ups before bed, tomorrow your pain will be directly proportional to your cruelness, i for one will not be able to stand up

and on the third day...

what did god actually create on the third day? i think it was rock pools.. but i imagine there's a big cover up about it all

ok.. so today it all went predicatably to the wall..[last night however was pretty good.. i even spoke to people.. which was nice] i woke up 5mins before work, instead of an hour, which means my pay cheques went in after work instead of before which pretty much puts a large spike through the more adventurous ideas i had for the coming weekend off, which is a pisser, then i lost my drive and failed to tick off any one the things on my great list of jobs, plans and ideals... wasting the free part of the evening looking at backlit screens

ho hum, ho hum indeed

yet still i will not be deflated! i have a bowl full of chocolates, a weekend off and a fire in my heart.. well ok, maybe not the last thing, but it sounded good to say [of course is say my blogs out loud as i type. often with fists raised to the sky, gritted teeth and tightly closed eyes... in the WHY HAVE THE GODS FORSAKEN ME! manner... cos i'm kinda special]

right.. 30mins before practice.. let's order badges & posters, design a t-shirt and maybe even fall in love

Day2Blog2

may as well stick to this eh?

that sleep thing gets worse before it gets better, i think it was around 6.30am when i finally fell asleep last night, then awake at 9.30am, back to sleep till 11.15am [i officially start work at 11am]... but aside from that, it's been a day of fairly pleasent moods.. a gentle introduction back into the joys of repetition and futility

and a bit of good news.. turns out i will likely have a whole weekend of work in a couple of days.. this is because i have failed at my job.. but thats an aside.. a whole weekend, january's paycheck in the bank... it would be a fools errand to waste it.. current options include UK city break, seeing if there is snow on ben nevis yet to slide downhill with 2 planks of wood strapped to my feet, or the one thats winning.. just show up at the airport friday morning and yell "what's cheap?!" - do they actually do those..super saver last second tickets? i hope they do..

the bad news of course is that all my friends are skint/married or in some other way chained to their routine... so it's either a lonesome mission, or make a new friend in the next 48hours.. mmm.. we'll see


i also did a thing, i invested in that diary that benrik do 'this diary will change your life' it's a novelty thing where they give you something to do every week, your supposed to follow it and it makes your year more interesting.. so let's have a look and i'll see if i'll be doing that

week 1: 'send your passport to benrik and we'll stamp it' - mmm, no harm in that, but i do't much like being without my passport for no reason, y'know.. just incase, but at a push, i can do this

week 2: 'knock on every door you see, if you are invited in, you must accept' - now this one, while time consuming it is, i like.. that's a world of social possibilities.. though i may end up with a reputation in my block of flats as 'that weird lad'... i'll see how brave i'm feeling next week

week 3: 'spy on your parents, find out more about them' - a worthwhile exercise, but my parents live 10miles away... so that really would be quite an effort.. unless i invest in some hi-tech gear for bugging and filming etc... which i guess could come in handy at a later date

week 4: 'paris hilton week - upload a video of you having sex [with a partner] to the internet... erm.. any volunteers? no? cos i mean, i totally would.. in for a penny and all that... really nobody? you sure?.. well thank god for that!..erm, i mean, damn... *phew*

week 5: 'join an extremist organisation and out extreme them'.. yes.. in the middle of the 'war against terror' what the hell am i supposed to do? and what are the chances it will result i me getting shot in the head on the tube... i think perhaps this experiment ends here

you never know though.. i could go mental between now and then

Where's Mavis? tonight... hope it's a good one, i'm in the right mood for once.

Happy 2nd January. x

Here we go again

what's the crack with this sleep thing! bed at 4, wake up at 8.30, realise how ridiculous it would be to get up after 270mins sleep, spend an hour of frustration trying to get back to the divine embrace of unconsciousness [made almost impossible by the constant repetition of the main riff from 99 red balloons rotating around your head - stupid music] fall back to sleep, alarm goes off at midday - snooze, snooze, snooze, snooze, snooze, re-set alarm, snooze some more, turn off alarm - wake up at 3.30pm immediately pissed off at wasting almost all of the last day off work - admittedly, what were you gonna do with it anyway? nothing.. pesky miserable life

as a great yellow man just said on tv, fate has a funny sense of humour

so a little light reading has shown that, predictably if i'd engaged brain at all, is the day that everyone blogs/bullitens and posts about how they will be improving their life in 2007, and let's face it, we all have a lot of work to do.. being by and large fools, and in worrying quantities, alcoholics.. of course most of what is declared in full belief and confident prose today is merely rhetoric designed to make the hangovers and new year blues go away [what kind of civilisation ritually starts the new year wishing it could just die as collective bodies reject the poisons embibed the night before] and all the crap about self-'improvement' will have fallen by the wayside within days if not hours.. but hell, if there's anyone who understands futile exercises it's me.. so let's join in

where to begin? well, as i spent 2006 gently, steadily, and sometimes cruelly, pushing away anyone and everyone... and quite succesfully i might add *looks around* which i guess i deserve a badge for... i should probably reverse that [variety being the spice of life and all that jazz].. i shall become the all loving gravitational centre of my social world.. mmm.... or maybe i'll just start changing my clothes before they start to smell like sumo wrestlers bum cracks.. either way.. you know i'll make more effort

on a similar token it's come to my attention i've forgotten how to have fun, developed unnecasary inhibitions and a strange aloofness that really doesn't suit... so erm.. i'll find a way of fixing that too... that seems a tougher one though.. so i might wait till march to get started, do a little background reading, maybe an instructional video or two, perhaps a course of night classes - write a dissertation entitled 'fun: the having of - a case study of 21st century lower-middle class merry making'

so maybe those are the biggies.. and quite difficult to grasp at.. like jelly [ever tried picking jelly up with your hands... or even better.. watching someone else do it.. hours of entertainment!] so there's the more practical.. and cliched stuff.. the stuff that you remember doing one time that seemed to make life slightly more tolerable.. y'know, like thinking and doing... now i can't really blame 2006 exclusively for the atrophication of my brain and body... it's been a slow deliberate process that started somewhere around 1995 when i got bored of being.. y'know, active and intelligent...and of course, my mother stopped cooking my meals and a balanced diet flew out of the window faster than a really fast thing.. but i reckon it's time that all stopped.. so we'll start with the reading and learning again.. maybe try with some langauges to get the double whammy of not feeling like an arrogant, ignorant brit.. which would be good for showing off at parties and stuff... i dunno.. there'll be a ponder... there will also be some of thet fancy exercise & outdoor stuff... by the end of february i will have been cyclinh, swimming, played badminton and gone skiing.. by the end of the summer there will have been climbing [and of course abseiling], caving and i will have jumped off, or out of, something into, or onto, something - i think those are fair ambitions

i will of course eat better and drink less... but thanks to the wonder of marks & spencer half of that has already begun.. so i'm ahead that's a winner!

well what do you know it, that blog did the job, i feel a little better and more motivated.... a i am hungry though.. now where is that chinese menu... [i'll order a meal i haven't had before.. that'll be the loophole in this fatal flaw]

thanks for reading...wanna go skiing?

x