'So this is the New Year'
I am becoming increasingly annoyed with the text messages I am recieving that, in addition to wishing me a Happy New Year, also pertain to hope 'your dreams come true' or 'everything you want for this year takes place'.
This is ridiculous. What type of pathetic society are we that the ticking over of a single second on a clock suddenly indicates that everything has become different, and we've been given the chance of a blank slate. Suddenly life can be different because our numerical labeling system for time has increased by one sodding digit?
Things are exactly the same for me today as they were yesterday, except I'm wearing different clothes and I'm a little hungrier. Just because it's a "New Year" doesn't mean some massive monumental shift has taken place!
In other news, all entries from december(that's two, count 'em, two , folks) have been moved to the 'archive' section of the site. That isn't because I think 2007 is a different beast from 2006, or because that those two entries represent an 'old me' that I feel this new year has made redundant. The reason those entries have been moved is because I have to organise everything somehow, and sorting things by months seems an established and perfectly fine way of doing so.
I would rather have a system that put an even number of days inside the month, mind you. It always feels like February is somehow 'inferior' to January for having less days. All things should be equal, damnit. Still, if I were to make my own date system and use that for organising the archives, no one would know what anything meant, and would make this site hard to use(although thinking about it, I do like the idea of months and days having names that were palindromes. Right. You can probably expect to log on someday and see I've entirely mixed up the 'archives' with weird words. Fantastic.)
'Dead men tell no tales'
The video footage of Saddam Hussein's final moments is appearing in the expected places and I, for some reason, felt obliged to watch it.
I don't know if it's the comics I read, or the films and tv shows I watch, but for whatever reason, I was really expecting some dramatic last minute event to happen- like Hussein throwing off his coat and launching through the roof on a jet pack or throwing down a smoke capsule and dissapearing in the confusion. Of course, that didn't happen, and he died.
I know that he did a lot of terrible things as (unjust)ruler of Iraq. I know that he is responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not millions. But I still feel... freaked out by him dying.
It's like when Princess Diana died. I'd never cared for her, and couldn't give two hoots whether she was around or not, usually. For some reason, though, after she died, I'd catch myself suddenly remembering every few months and being shocked. "Oh yeah... she's dead."
This, I guess, is a really long winded way for me to say that life sucks. And death sucks. It's just ... it's really crap that people have to die. I know that that seems such a childish thing to say, but I think sometimes I need to remind myself that death happens.
I promise not such a morbid post tomorrow. Maybe something about rent troubles?
'3.141596535....'
I've been trying to learn the first sixty digits of pi recently, along with all sixty-six books of the Bible. Did you know there were sixty-six books of the bible?
Now, don't get me wrong, I am in no way a Christian, or any kind of theist. I believe that the idea of God is illogical and cowardly. If that offends you, then good, because it means you're not so far gone that a small part of you can't see the truth in that statement. It's the fundamentalists who say 'Well, God believes in you!' and then smile stupidly that are really scary, because they've shut themselves down to thought.
So why, you ask, am I learning all the books of the Bible if I don't believe in it? Well, it's mainly so that I can argue better with Christians, whilst trying to convince them that they've made the wrong choice. It's really difficult to make a convincing argument if you don't know the facts.
Some would ask me if it's really my place to go around offering Christians 'red pills'. But if I see someone living their life by a set of arbritrary rules laid down thousands of years ago by archaic patriarchal societies and fooling themselves that there's a 'better life' ahead when they should be making the most of this one, is it not my responsibility to do what I can to shake them out of their madness?
That last question is rhetorical, because the answer is 'yes'.
'There are a lot of parentheses in this post.'
I've spent the past two days worrying about this stupid displaying of my blog entries problem. If you haven't been to the archive then you won't know that, until recently, the newest posts I made were being displayed last, while the oldest posts I made started up top.
For me, this is not a problem since I have always been infuriated by sites such as (the appropriately named)Blogger.com always displaying the most recent post first, even when browsing through the archives, which becomes annoying if you are new to a blog and are trying to read every post in chronological order. You have to start every new page by scrolling down to the bottom and then gradually scroll up, careful not to miss the start of the next entry.
With my prefered system, with oldest posts at the top, you can just read through by pressing 'space' every time you get to the end of the 'page'(that is, not the entire page, but the part of the page you can see). I felt so strongly about this that when my friend Ian was in charge of my(and his) blog(his was much more awesome) I asked him to put an option in to allow readers(not that I had any) to be able to switch the order around.
He did it so well that I will be blatantly stealing it for this site as well(not that I'll be taking the code directly from his scripts, because it is light-years ahead of me. No, I'll be writing my own, dumbed-down version from scratch) once I have the contact page finally done(I've been asking readers to contact me using that page for a few days now, a somewhat impossible task... good thing I don't have any readers!).
Oh, I did fix the 'problem', so now the entries flow just like they would on any well-put-together blog. That's right - I have only the illusion of order.
'I am not good at coding.'
At least one and a half hours of my morning have so far been devoted to trying to understand why my head.txt file was not differentiating between 'olive' and 'blue'. I tried everything. Literally. I tried every single thing in the universe to resolve this probelm. I even did that crappy move from Superman II where he throws a giant cellophane 'S' at the problem.
That one actually seemed to help for a while.
In the final analysis, though, it turned out that the reason nothing had been coming up trumps was because I missed one of the '=' in my IF statements. One. Sodding. Stupid. Little. ASCII. Character. I wasted an hour and a half.
And people ask me why I'm doing this "stupid polyphasic thing".
'Like... oh my God!'
The O.C. has been cancelled. It's a decision that makes me angry, certainly, especially since the latest season has been the best so far(the 'loss' of Mischa Barton certainly helping in that respect.)
What makes me more angry, however, is the fact that this was reported as a news item on the radio. What the hell? When I listen to the news I expect to be told about important things, like wars or the weather or how the government is screwing us out of our pensions.
If I want to know about a show not being on tv anymore, I can check somewhere dedicated to that type of information. I don't log onto TV.com expecting it to tell me about embryo research(unless 'Embryo Research' is a new HBO show. That I would totally watch, BTW) and I don't listen to news bulleteins to be informed about Fox's new spring schedule.
'Lots of coding today.'
I've been slowly but surely starting to integrate all of my old blog posts from other site's into this site's system. To do so I had to change a few things in my posting script, and copy and paste several hundred documents.
I'm not entirely sure why I'm doing this, because most of my early blog posts really embarrass me. They are often filled with hateful rants against people I barely knew, and had a bizarre obsession with sex and swear words.
I hope that by keeping those archives alive I can both appreciate the past and keep my distance from it. I like to think that I've change a lot in the past two and a half years. Although the title of this website would indicate otherwise.
Once I've finished importing all the old stuff, I think I'm going to get around to a new site design. This one sucks, in my opinion. Too many stars, and the blue is depressing. Once that's done I'm going to try and get an RSS feed up... but those things confuse me at the moment.
'So, despite what I said earlier...'
I may not begin working on a new design for this site just yet. I've been thinking about creating a better site for my local comic shop(their current one is an endless stream of tables and has no style) for some time now, and I've decided to do it now, whilst I retain some inkling of how to create a site using PHP.
I have finished uploading all the old posts to the archive. There aren't that many, although the ones that there are do span back three years. I have edited a couple to remove the most graphic/embarrassing content. Otherwise, they are as they were.
'Ugh'
I absolutely crashed last night. I put off my 11pm nap by 40 minutes or so because I was watching the end of 'Accepted' on the 'net and texting someone, and by the time I had my nap my body had decided I had to pay.
I set my twenty minutes of white noise going and settled down. After about ten minutes I got to sleep(I haven't settled into being able to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow yet) and once I woke up to the alarm(a cheesy cock-a-doodle-do!) my groggy mind told me I deserved more time and I shut the alarm off. Cue me waking up this morning at 7am.
Sometimes I piss myself off monumentally.
In other news, I've been working all day on the Paradox website. I've once again gone for blue, because I am gay for the colour blue. Since I'm doing this without Andy(the owner of Paradox)'s knowledge, I've given myself carte blanche to make it how I want. If Andy ends up liking the site and wants to use it, I'll happily make any design changes he wants.
I'm having great fun making this site, it's proving a real challenge. And it looks pretty.
'What shakes the elephant?'
So I've been thinking about destiny, free will and determinism and the idea of fate. These are literally the only four words I can remember from my entire two years in sixth form. Yes.
Someone recently said to me that everything that happens to me is a direct consequence of my choices, which is, for the most part, true. I mean, I can't suffer through an earthquake and think "well, I've gone and done it again", but the normal, everyday stuff is down to me.
The thing is, though, that I(along with everything else in the universe) am a direct result of everything that has happened before my existence. The big bang, the formation of elements and compounds from base molecules, evolution, the formation of how the human brain works. Everything that has happened so far in history has been the result of logical, scientifically measurable steps.
So how can all that have happened, not by chance, but by the very opposite of chance, how can all that have happened and yet we can suddenly say that I am responsible for all my choices and actions?
We can't. If anything, every single event so far in the universe, as a consequence of the law of cause and effect, action and reaction, is responsible for my actions.
To be honest, that both takes the pressure off somewhat whilst at the same time crushing my spirit immensely.
'Ch-ch-ch-changes...'
I've changed the title of this site to 'i wash daily' because I became concerned about people I know stumbling across this place and making assumptions. Not untrue assumptions, to be sure, but still...
I am almost done with the design side of the paradox website(just have to make everything center... which is proving difficult CSS) and then it's onto the php and mySQL side of things, for which I have bought a book.
Looking at the mySQL side of things, it looks like I am going to have to change this site to mySQL too, because it's a much better system for achiving data than what I have set up. So that should be a fun little project once the paradox site is done.
If anyone reading is anxious to see what I have of the paradox site so far... you're out of luck. I don't like people to see things until they're done, and since the site is just a shell I'd feel like people judge it harshly. Suffice to say that it looks cool, and will kick arse.
I realised earlier(and this isn't the first time, but it's one of those things that hits you know and then) how lucky I am to have been born with a brain like a sponge that can soak up information. Granted, I didn't use my brain at all in the past four years, but I'm glad I'm only an idiot by choice, not circumstance.
'I did it!'
Well, it took a really long time for me to wrap my head around(I'm hoping because I'm tired, but it's probably because, as previously mentioned, I am bad at coding), but I finally managed to make everything look good in my Paradox site design.
The problem had been that whilst everything did look right, everything was also aligned to the left, meaning that anyone using a computer with a larger screen than 12"(I'm working on my tiny iBook) would have a massive blank space next to the right of the page. This obviously would not do.
In the end the only way I could get it to work was to accept the fact that I wouldn't be able to have the sidebars sitting flush with the main content. The sidebars now rest right against the sides of the browser window with the main content slap bang in the middle. It also took a while to make sure the header and footer didn't move along with the rest of the page, but that turned out to be a fairly simple fix.
So now I've got that done I have no excuse to not move onto the MySQL part of this endevour. I'm going to the comic shop with Tim on friday, so I have two days and ten hours to get this thing fully operational.
Wish. Me. Luck.
'This sentence is in Spanish when you aren't looking.'
Go ahead. Prove me wrong.
I don't understand people who cut themselves. It seems like such a stupid way to deal with your problems. I can understand suicide, because that is effective - once you succeed, you don't have to worry about things anymore. Becuase you're dead.
With cutting, though, there's no solution. Instead you're just left with the same problems you had to start with, plus a bunch of scars on your arm/leg/whatever. Some of which never fade and cause people to judge you for the rest of your life because of something you did when you were young. Or you could just wear long-sleeved tops forever.
This probably sounds, at least to some extent, like I'm recommending suicide over self-harm. I'm totally not, unless you are the idiot drives by my house every night playing loud R'n'B and honking your horn. In which case I will gladly pay cash money to watch you hang yourself.
I would obviously recommend neither self-harm or suicide, but rather therapy. For some reason though, people in this country seem to view it as a bad thing. In America everyone and his uncle has a shrink, maybe two, but over here seeking help for any mental health issues is seen as a bad thing.
And that's just crazy.
'Busy day. Ish.'
I've been thinking hard about what time I woke up today, but I can't seem to quite grasp it. All I know is that I definitely had my 7am, 11am, 3(ish)pm and 7pm so far today, and that is obviously a good thing.
I went to Poole with Tim today. We hit up Burton's first because it was freezing and I needed a jacket. Since most of my clothes are up in Cornwall and I'm lazy with doing my washing, I currently have a very limited amount of options when choosing what to wear.
First I tried on this ridiculous wool Jonathan Creek-style overcoat that(despite being a size small) proved too big for me, which is lucky, in retrospect. Then I noticed a fake leather bikerish jacket in a nice brown, so I tried it, bought it and wore it. I feel bad about throwing the coat-hanger away.
We went to Paradox to pick up some comics(Tim wanted to get Thunderbolts #110, I wanted to get everything) and I unfortunately did not get to show Andy the site as I am nowhere near finished. The code for putting comics into the database is proving complex and I keep making rookie mistakes, which slow me down. Plus I need to work on the presentation.
Andy also seemed a bit cold to me, which was a shame. Now I'm a bit scared as to what his reaction will be when I do show him the site. I hope he takes it the right way and sees what a powerful tool it is/will be.
We then went to Pizza Express, which tasted great, as usual. I couldn't finish my pizza, though. Guess I had a small-stomach-day.
We hopped over(yes, like gay little sailors) to Waterstones, and talked for a good long while with the best shopworker in the world(besides me). He was, as always, awesome.
On the train back the guard heard us make a remark about the speech software on the train, and he told us that the trains actually ran Windows 98. We had some fun dialogue("At least it's not ME." "At least it's not Vista!") and a fun time was had by all.
We hung out in my funnel web, reading comics 'n' stuff, and Tim was kind enough to realise that I needed my 3pm nap, and said he'd better go home.
I spent the rest of today browsing the net and not working on the Paradox site at all, because I needed a break.
Today has been fantastic. One of my best days in a while. It's amazing that I was able to go out and interact with people without nearly dying from anxiety. I think a large part of that is Tim, who is funny and nice about it, as opposed to other friends of mine who I get uncomfortable around. That sounds gay, but it totally isn't.
To round out the day, I just did something totally cool that no-one will know about until the middle of next week. Awesome!
'A quick reminder - I am the system!'
So once again I am posting this a few hours late because I got wrapped up in other things. Mainly eating tomato soup and watching Jackass 2. Which is funny, by the way.
I am contemplating going up to Cornwall on either monday or tuesday, because there are various checks, slips and deposit books I need to sign so that all hell does not break loose. Naturally, all my financial documents are an 8 hour train journey away.
I am a little wary of going back home. Not only will I have no internet there(number 1 on my priority list is always internet access) but also Jack and I have had a bit of a falling out. Mainly because he is a borederline alcoholic with a Peter-Pan complex who can't pay his bills on time without someone to hold his hand.
I think back to August, when Jack and I were driving to Falmouth for a quick visit and we decided to move in together. We were so rediculously excited about living in the same place. I believe we even referred to it as 'living the dream'.
Now, when I have to explain to people why I'm not exactly 'living the dream', the phrasing I usually use is "I didn't really plan on having a child this early". It is seriously that bad.
I mean, his bed went mouldy after he left a sky-light open for two days. In winter.
I am not even kidding.
'I am rain man.'
I was just reading various other people's blogs(an activity that must take up at least 55% of my time) an was thinking about putting an RSS feed and comments on this site.
For a second I thought to myself "no, that would be way too hard!", but then I thought about it for a few seconds and realised I could do it.
I could see the scripts writing themselves in my head: where to include links and files, what to call the strings and all the various IF statements necessary to make it work.
I love little moments when you realise how good you are at something. Like the time I saw a web-page that used CSS to make it look like a knife was slicing it in half and I realised I knew offhand the exact code that they used to make it work.
It's good for self-esteem to sit back and think about how awesome you are every now and then.
I've decided to put the Paradox site on hold for a day or two, because I'm really sick of the colour and design scheme for this site. I'm going to take my 7pm nap now, and then I'll probably do some sketches and tinker with the design here. If things go fuzzy on the site, you'll know why.
After that, I'll probably work on the comments and RSS feed.
'I am ridiculously tired.'
I am, once again, attempting to give up caffeine, mainly Coca Cola. Being someone who usually gets through at least 3 litres a day, this is proving difficult.
Since Saturday morning I have only had one small glass of coke, and that was an hour ago. Today I absolutely dive-bombed polyphasic sleeping - the withdrawal headaches were too much to withstand whilst awake, so I slept through most of the day, waking at around an hour and a half ago.
I've also noticed that this time around I am suffering pains in my legs, like I have a constant cramp. I think this is probably a combination of my general tiredness from adapting to polyphasic sleeping and my body's need for coke. It sucks, whatever it is.
Quitting caffeine is the first step in what will hopefully be my move towards a totally raw diet. My aunt has been a big fan of it for a while now(despite never quite fully converting, I believe) and a few blogs I read have got me really enthused about it.
The only problem is that I've never really liked vegetables. Or fruit. Which could be a problem, to be honest.
'They get ice storms in the US.'
And here we get drizzle. The UK is shit for weather.
I have re-designed the site, and I finally have it at a place where I think it looks gorgeous. It looks especially nice in viewed in Safari on a Mac, where this text will be given a drop-shadow, like all the other stuff on the page. I realise most people view this thing using IE(sadly) and it should look fine there too.
I am once again typing this entry the day after it was due. I did have an entry for today ready to post at about two this afternoon, but it was to announce a part of this site that isn't ready yet, so I had to post-pone that.
Today was mostly spent in bed, browsing the internet and trying to stay awake. Once everyone went to bed I went downstairs and did the washing up and the ironing whilst I listened to some podcasts.
I like ironing, for the most part. It requires just the right amount of attention that my brain can just shut off and get the job done for a while. I don't have to stand there and think about the secrets of the universe or anything major like I normally do.
Tomorrow(wednesday), two important things are happening. First, I'm going up(down?) to Cornwall to pick up some stuff from my flat and make sure Jack hasn't sold my posessions. I've got about 9 hours before my train leaves. I'll be back on thursday at six in the evening.
The second important thing happening tomorrow is the big secret I've been keeping since friday. I am very excited.
I will, obviously, not be making a post on wednesday, but I will write one on my laptop whilst in Falmouth(and maybe take some pictures) and upload it once I get back.
I hope you have a fun wednesday. I won't.
'How I got stuck in Frome - Part One'
In the spring of 2004, I was called into the year office at school and told that I had been selected to attend a summer school program. Usually that means that you're a little slow in the brains department, but in this case it was just a random selection of kids who would be sent to different universities up and down the country for a week to see what it was like.
I had been chosen to visit Bath University for the week. Bath is one of the few major English towns that I've been to, and I'm a big fan. It's got great shops, a cool canal and a kick-arse Burger King that I can find my way to blindfold.
The story of my week at Bath Uni is a long and complicated one, which I do not have time to tell today. Suffice it to say that I had, for the most part, an okay time. I also made one friend who I've kept to this day, and who has influenced me in a lot of ways and helped me through some bad times. He also convinced my Mum to get broadband for the house, which gets him bonus points.
I had been a bit scared about the week at the Uni ending, because the train journey up had been confusing (a couple of changes - nothing major now, but enough to give me the frights back then) and the trip back had yet to be arranged. The uni said they had bought and paid for my ticket, but hadn't furnished me with the details.
The mass exodus from the main University site was a difficult procedure in itself. I seem to recall one bus for all 60 of us, and a very long wait in the uni car park whilst another bus was procured (it was during this wait that I acquired the phone number of someone who had spelt accommodation wrong on a flyer and made it my mission to punish him through the medium of prank phone calls).
Once we were all herded onto the correct buses and shipped down to the station, tearful goodbyes were said (not by me - I had thankfully stopped crying in public by then) and it seemed like everyone but me was getting on one train whilst the student handlers tried to work out where I should go.
This, in essence, seems to sum up my existence. Of course I would be the one person whose journey details were unsure, whilst everyone else amiably crowded onto a train guaranteed to get them home. Sometimes having weird things happen to you sucks.
My guides finally pointed me in the direction of the 'right' train, and I thanked them and boarded a train on which there seemed to be only two other passengers. No matter, I simply plugged in my iRiver(I had no style in those days, and no iPod either) and began reading my books as the train cheerfully chugged away from the station.
Everything was fine for the first forty minutes or so. The train stopped at various stations, people got on and off, and basically normal, boring train stuff happened. Then the train pulled into Frome. And stayed there. For a while.
The train guard approached me and gestured for me to remove my headphones. I did so and he informed me that the train was terminating here for the night. Panic stricken, I showed him my journey planner, and he informed me that I had been ushered onto the wrong train. I asked when there would be another train going through Frome that would take me in the direction of home.
There wouldn't be. Not until morning.
Crap.
'How I got stuck in Frome - Part Two'
So, last time we saw me I was at Frome train station, being told by a conductor that I was stuck there until morning, a good sixteen hours away.
I'll be honest. I very nearly cried right then and there. I'd been put off by train journeys in the past by thoughts of being stranded in some hellhole, and now those nightmares had become grim reality.
I got off the train(apparently it needed to go back to train land or where-ever trains go to sleep) and shuffled my way down the platform. One of the wheels on my suitcase was broken, so the left corner dragged annoyingly on the ground, gradually wearing a hole in the material.
I reached a bench and sat down, trying to get my bearings. I had roughly twenty pounds on me, most of it in notes, unfortunately. I would have to limit my use of the nearby vending machine to only the most necessary purchases.
I looked up the platform and saw a homeless man talking to himself, and immediately began praying silenty that he would leave the station, and me, alone. I know that I had a home I would eventually get back too, and that homeless people need places like Frome train station to keep(relatively) warm in, but I just don't need a crazy person salting my game.
There was a toilet nearby, the key to which could be obtained from the taxi-cab company that operated in one of the station rooms. So I wouldn't have to pee outside. In a town like Frome, that goes in the 'bonus' column.
I foraged amongst my elephant-skin jacket for my mobile phone, which at the time was a brick-like Ericsson contraption that probably only had four numbers and used rotary-dialing. I called my Mother, explained the situation, made plaintive cries, and was told she'd be there soon.
How soon, you ask?
Four hours. Give or take.
'Nothing much going down... ladies.'
I've just had my seven pm nap and whilst I was trying to get to sleep I was hit by the realisation that it would be so easy to regress into the pathetic guy who would be crying in the corner about now.
I just felt this tug at the corner of my mind, a little spark of thought that kept reminding me that if I just thought for a few seconds about the hopelessness of existence and how shit things were lately, I could be a gibbering wreck - unreachable and inconsolable.
Lately I've been thinking that my willpower is weak. I break out of things like polyphasic sleep and quitting caffeine whenever it gets even slightly hard. Having this sudden realisation, however, has shown me that I'm totally wrong.
It would probably be so comforting to give in to the dark side, go completely catatonic and get committed to some institution. I'd be taken care of; I wouldn't have to worry about things like bills, or jobs or the real world at all. I could just spend my days quietly weeping in a padded room. And that scenario is(whilst scary) slightly welcoming.
If I have the willpower to keep going with the day-to-day, and keep up the(sometimes tenuous) construct of my sanity, then I really have more willpower than I thought. And I really shouldn't beat myself up about failing the self-imposed challenges I set every day.
I hope this post doesn't make people think I'm a crazy person.
'Arhg - timeline nonsense.'
This page currently shows nothing for the twentieth and twenty-first of this month, which is annoying. I do have those entries almost ready to put on the page, but some fine-tuning needs to be done, and whenever I write an entry in Word and then post it up here I have to convert various text characters, which is boring and arduous.
I am, unfortunately, going to Center Parcs today for a week-long holiday. That's right, a holiday from the job I don't have. A holiday from the university i don't go to. Craziness.
Whilst I'm there, I'll most likely be eating only raw food, because my Aunt is a nut for that stuff. I'll also be mostly writing stuff on my laptop and reading books I'm taking with me.
When I come back I'll hopefully have a huge backlog of stuff to put up here whenever nothing exciting happens in my day. Which is often.
So, I shall return next friday and post not only this saturday and sunday's entries, but all this coming week's as well.
I really should have waited until after my holiday to start this thing.
'How I got stuck in Frome - Part Three'
Four hours doesn't seem like much to me, nowadays. It's four or five episodes of The OC. It's less than half the time it took me to learn to unicycle. It's a fraction of the time it took me to learn huge things, like reading or writing. No, four hours doesn't seem like much at all.
But time is a funny thing. It always feels like it's going by fast when you're having fun. Hours, even days can pass by when you're laughing with friends, splashing down at Splashdown, or watching a film. But when you're stuck, alone, at a train station in a small, almost lifeless, town, time can slow to an almost interminable crawl.
At first I tried to just pace up and down the platform. This presented problems - how far up should I go before turning back to avoid talking to the(crazy) homeless man? How could I turn in a way that made it seem like his craziness wasn't the cause? Should I walk slowly to make the platform seem longer, or fast to keep me warm?
Yes, dear readers, my neurotic brain can make even the molehill of walking seem like a mountain of Olympian proportions. Perhaps the homeless man wasn't the only crazy person in the station.
Next, I tried reading the only book I had with me - Love All The People, the collection of the late Bill Hicks' routines, letters and interviews. I was actually doing okay with this one, until I could two or three performances in.
You see, a lot of Bill's acts were modelled on the same basic skeleton, with various small tidbits added on. This works well when you watch his various performances, because his inflections and intonations really make it worthwhile, but reading the same material over and over can become a bit boring. Or a lot boring.
My iRiver was running out of juice, so that wouldn't be a distraction for much longer. I bought some chocolate from the vending machine, and went to the toilet twice. I even tried wandering past the homeless man, but saw only an industrial site.
There was a beacon of hope, for a few short minutes. Two guys on BMXs came to the station, and we got chatting. Turned out they knew someone who went to my school, so we yakked about that for a bit. Then they got on a train(not headed in my direction) and left me.
My iRiver ran out of juice. I felt like crying. I was cold, lonely and worried that I might die in some godforsaken town. Things were bad. I did the only thing I could think of.
I sat still on a bench for three and a half hours.
I wish I had done something more exciting, like set fire to a bin and try to live in it, but I didn't. I honestly just sat there. For three and a half hours. And tried with all my might to turn my brain off. If only for a few minutes.
By the time my Mum turned up, my arse had nigh on frozen to the bench, and my eyes were sufficiently glazed over. The moment my phone buzzed to let me know she had arrived was one of the happiest moments in my life.
I should probably be of the opinion that the Frome experience was one that changed me profoundly, and at least made me appreciate fact that I don't live in Frome. But to be honest, I was just glad to be out of there.
And that's the Frome story.
'Center Parcs - Much later.'
So I've decided that I'm going to cut my trip to Center Parcs short. I've been here at least a dozen times, and each time had progressively less fun.
I don't know if it's because I'm becoming too used to it, or because I'm maturing as a person, but for some reason going to the Plaza and 'braving' the Wild Water Rapids for ten hours straight just doesn't seem enjoyable anymore.
Many would say that there are plenty of things to do at Center Parcs, like go to the sports center, or paraglide, or get a massage or spa treatment. Go to the pancake house. These are all commendable and, probably, entertaining ways to spend one's time. However, nearly every activity at Center Parcs requires money. Bags of it.
I am in dire financial straits as it is without the added strain of dropping 80 on a facial. I'd like to, but I need to show some self-restraint.
So in a few minutes I'm hopping into my cousin Jane's car, and we're journeying back to Dorset together. Yay.
'When there's nowhere else to run.'
So I'm back home, with delightful internet access. Ah, how I have missed thee.
I am slightly annoyed, however, at the fact that the entire blogosphere appears to have done nothing but sit on it's thumbs for the three days I was away.
I know I only subscribe to 15 or so RSS feeds, but for none of them to update in 3 days? Surely that's a statistical improbability on a par with monkeys not typing Shakespeare!*
Still, I console myself by reading actual books instead. My aunt is trying to get me to convert to a raw food diet, and I am tempted. She's given me several books to peruse, and the author seem to be outlining a lot of things that make sense.
The thing is, the sort of facts they produce also sound like what you'd hear out of a 'crazy health nut'. Stuff like "eating cooked food takes away your enzmes! Think of the enzymes!!". It's all abcked up by verifiable science, but there's still a touch of the insane that puts me off slightly.
Still, once I have polyphasic sleeping down, I will be trying my absolute best to convert to a raw food diet. I need to move away from the lifestyle that has me eating nothing but weetabix or maltesers. I need some actual vitamins in my life.
*The old "infinite amount of monkeys typing forever would produce the complete works of Shakespeare" is actually not a statistical certainty. It is entirely probable that they would manage this feat, but it is more probable that they would type a stream of crap because there are more groupings of letters that make up nonsense than there are groupings of letters that make up words used in Shakespeare.
There, don't you feel smarter?
'I am addicted to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.'
Despite it being terrible. It's like watching car crash TV, except I also sort of care at the same time. Odd.
Today I ordered a new iPod. My old one is functioning perfectly well(despite a few scratches and being dropped many times). Mel's iPod mini, however, is not.
Many would wonder why my sister's iPod not working is my problem? Well, really, it isn't. I did buy it for her, though, so I feel a certain responsibilty for it. I also want a new iPod nano for myself, so I bought one so she could have my old 60gig iPod photo.
Why am I downgrading from a 60gig to a 4gig? Well, I don't really listen to that broad a musical spectrum, really. I like the Unicorns, the Shins, Death Cab, a few compilations, Spoon, The Killers and Damien Rice, but that's about it. I also have some stand-up and a few comedy podcasts in my iTunes, but I don't really have a lot. I honestly don't need 60gigs.
I also want to start running, something that would only be bearable for me if I listened to music/spoken word at the same time. This isn't really workable, because the 60gig's hard drive would get messed up by the repeated movement. Thus, I need something flash-based, like the nano.
The iPod nano can also be used with the Nike+ kit. This is a small sensor that can be placed in your trainer, which then sends data to your iPod. Data like how fast you're running, how far, how many calories you're burning, how long you're taking. The iPod will tell you various little facts about your run whilst you're still going ("You have run 2 miles!"). That's not even the best part, though.
Once you get home, you can plug in your iPod and transmit all your data to the nike website, where it will use a gorgeous flash page to show you the statistics about your running history in a gloriously readable form. You can even keep track of other runners, and start competitions. Awesome.
I need something like this, that turns excercise into a game, to get me running. That may be sad and pathetic, but at least such a product exists to save me from my laziness. I cannot wait until it arrives on monday.
'Just went for my first run.'
I managed maybe a mile before my searing insides hastened a return to The Funnel Web. I had to stop to walk a few times, although I enjoyed some success with the "just make it to..." technique. Viewing the journey as lots of small goals rather than one big goal was useful.
On monday I'm going to Poole with Tim. I may pick up some jogging gear whilst I'm there.
I am presented with a bit of a quandry when it comes to running stuff. I already have some sweat-pants, and lots of perfectly good t-shirts. My new iPod, however, is red, as is the armband that I bought with it.
I own next to no red clothing, because for years I have held the opinion that red makes me look fat(despite the fact that I weigh 6 stone). When I go shopping on monday do I purchase red trousers and a red t-shirt?
I also have perfect Puma running shoes, with cool spikes at the front. They're blue, however. Do I get some red-spray paint to make them fit in? Am I subconsciously trying to look like the Flash?
These are questions.
'Consistently shirtless.'
When I was going to sleep earlier for my seven pm nap, I could feel a cutoff point from regular-consciousness to the dream-like state of falling asleep.
It was awesome. I was like: head on pillow, think about various insane things(code, books, universe, spray-painting shoes), then it felt like I seperated from my body, but only half-way. Like I was floating slightly above myself, but being in myself at the same time.
I like to hope that this is my brain creating a palpable difference between awake time and nap time. That would be awesome, because I have huge problems getting to sleep for my naps sometimes.
'Chicks getting naked is pretty much my penis' answer to everything.'
If you are one of the thousands who have spent time reading my archives, you may have noticed that I spent an inordinate amount of time using the term 'whore' as an insult.
What's weird is that I didn't use it to imply that the person was a sex worker. That thought didn't ever enter into my mind. My thought processes were simply "I want to say something mean about this girl... she's a whore".
When I heard other people using the term, I would immediately assume that they meant "she is a prostitute" or "she lets the dicks of paying men enter her body". I always thought it was a highly judgemental thing to say, and yet I said it all the time, with no regard for what it signified.
One afternoon a girl at school was irritating me, so I said "shut up, you stupid whore". Since this was the first time I had used the word about someone who was in earshot, I wasn't expecting the deluge of people who were angry at me for even thinking that word.
I found myself having to come up with fake arguments to 'back myself up', when really I just ended up digging myself deeper. The use of the word 'trollope' could have contributed to this.
Since then, I almost never say 'whore', unless I honestly mean to say "you are a sexworker". That means I've grown as a person.
Probably.
'Who is the idiot? I am the idiot? Oh.'
So this morning I went for my first run with the nike+ iPod kit. This kit basically consists of a small sensor that goes in your shoe and tracks your movement, while the iPod carries an attachment to pick up the info.
If you own a Nike trainer, then you'll have no problem carrying the sensor, as the shoe has a specially designed slot for just this occasion. However, if you are like me and own a Puma(or any other brand) trainer, you'll run into difficulties.
There are various products available on the 'net for making sure your sensor stays on your non-Nike shoe. I don't, however, have the proclivity towards forking out money for something I need now and will take two days to arrive. I decided to cut open my trainer, and stick the sensor in it the old fashioned way: with brute force.
The place I chose to hold the sensor was perhaps not the wisest choice... it was on the outside of the shoe. I chose this place because I felt it would not annoy my foot in any way, and I thought that the shoe material was sticky enough(on the inside) to hold the sensor in place.
So I went for my run. Immediately I knew I should have calbrated the sensor since it was telling me I had run 0.17 miles when I knew I had done a whole mile. I decided to address this when I got home. I walked back, because my extradordinary level of un-fitness had caused burning pains in my chest that wouldn't leave.
I was cold, hungry and in pain, but luckily within 300 metres of my house. I stumbled forward, as I had for the last 15 minutes, when the iPod suddenly told me that 'activity has stopped. Pausing work-out'. Wait, what? The only reason that activity would stop would be if I had stopped moving, or if I had lost the sensor. I was still moving. Uh-oh.
New sensors are 19, so I resigned myself to turning back and looking for it. Did I mention it was 4:30 in the morning? I could barely see my feet, let alone a piece of plastic the size of a 50p piece. After ten minutes of blindly searching the pavement for the sensor, I gave up and returned home.
Cut to 12 hours later. I'm walking back from Spar after having picked up some maltesers and Coca-Cola(I am a junkie. I need to stop this). I'm pretty down, since I'm going to have to shell out cash for a new sensor. Suddenly, I see it! My sensor! Lost half a day ago and then found amongst the shrubbery! Yes!
So what have we learnt from this? Well, three things:
- Trips to Spar can, in rare circumstances, be happy events.
- I am an idiot who needs to plan shoe-gadget-placement more carefully.
- Christmas miracles can happen. Even in January.
'I'll only say this once. This once.'
I was planning on returning to Cornwall today, but unfortunately sleep had other plans for me. My head hit the pillow for my 7am nap, and didn't rise again until 6pm.
I remember having a ton of dreams, all of which were awesome, and one of which gave me a new thing for my 'to do' list. You can check it out with the link below.
Today is the first day of a new month, so this post will be the only thing to show up on the front page. I am planning on making it so that ten entries show on the front page at all times, but I think I'll save that functionality(along with comments, permalinks and RSS) until the migration to MySQL takes place.
In the meantime, the archive is still open for those who want to read all thirty-one posts from January 2007. And all my other posts, for that matter.
In a few hours(I'm writing this in the wee small hours of Friday morning) I'll be catching the 0656 train to Southampton, and then embarking on a ton of other connecting trains to get me into Penryn by three in the afternoon. It's a long journey, but I planned it so that I'd avoid the railway blackspots of Upwey, Castle Cary and Dorchesters South & West, where delays are frequent and devastating.
Since I'll be in Penryn for the next twenty-four days, chances are updates here will occur maybe every two days, at best. I will endeavor to go to the Uni library as often as possible, but it's a long, cold trip.
Still, tomorrow promises a fascinating post on an addition to the Hayes/Kitching family. One regular reader knows who this exciting person is, but the rest of you will be in the dark until the next update.
Therefore, night-vision goggles are advised.
'I tell many varied lies.'
I promised an update on the new addition to the Hayes/Kitching family. Sorry, that ain't happening today. But here is something else!
I meet the best people.
Sometimes travelling by train can be a relaxing experience. This is usually the case if you have a direct train, and can just get on, relax for a few hours, and then get off and go about your business.
If you have to make connections, however, things become a little more complicated. For some reason, strangers hardly ever talk to each other on trains(despite the fact that conversation might actually make the journey seem quicker) but as soon as you're stranded on a platform waiting for the next freighter to Iceland, you're fair game for all the crazies.
Case in point: yesterday I was in the waiting area of Exeter St. Davids train station. It was pretty cold outside, and apparently First Great Western's solution to this problem is to build a waiting area entirely out of glass. Yeah, nice going.
So I'm standing there, shivering, when some haggard-looking short blonde guy comes up to me.
"They got shops round here?"
How the f*ck do I know? Then again, major city, so it's probably safe to guess 'yes'.
"How old are you?"
Whoa, this has taken a weird tangent. A second ago we were talking about shops, now we're on to personal details like my age? Movin' a little too fast there buddy. I tell him I'm eighteen, because I want to see where this is going.
"I just tried to get some Carlsberg from the shop 'ere, but I ain't got my ID on me. I'm 18 and everything..."
Yeah. Sure you are. I now know where this is going. He wants me to buy him alcohol, most likely(99% certain, but you never know) because he is underage.
What follows is my usual patter when confronted with this situation. First I outline the fact that I don't drink - never have, never will. They always, always ask why, without fail. Sometimes I fake some excuses, like 'it just doesn't appeal to me', which they decide to counter with trying to make me feel like an idiot for not numbing myself. I think this is due to the fact that people who have a problem with alcohol try to paint everyone else as the 'wrong' ones, so they can feel normal by comparison.
Since I don't want to spend ten minutes arguing with this guy about how I should/shouldn't imbide poison, I deflect his questioning with "My dad's an alcoholic, so..." For most people, this is uncomfortable enough information for them to stop with their train of thought. This guy, bless him, responds with "Yeah. Mine too. So you wouldn't buy me some booze then?"
Um, no.
Still, all is not lost, there are plenty of other people to ask, right? He asks me to watch his bag, and I can't even say 'no' before he's out the door. I spend five minutes hoping I'm not standing next to a bomb, whilst I watch him approach everyone from fellow teenagers to OAPs in his quest for ethanol.
He returns, carrying two cans of Special Brew. No one would buy them for him, so he stole them. I'd take some moral high ground here, except I've stolen in the past, and I've taken things more expensive than 5 worth of the Brew. I'm in no place to judge.
So he's sipping from the cans(yeah, two at once. He's a chain drinker) and starts rapping at me. No lead-up, nothing. The first one is okay, but they get progressively worse. As someone who has studied the dynamics of performance in general, I feel like I should tell him that he should be opening with something okay, then working towards his best piece as a crescendo, whilst gradually trying out his new or on-the-fly stuff as he builds up. Still, I know if I tried to explain this to him, no matter how many times I said "no, no, I don't rap" he would presume I did, and try to get some rhymes out of me.
Anway, at the end of his appalling freestyle, he says(and this is my favourite part of the entire day) "I can't read and write, but I can rap. I was born a poem."
He was born. A poem. Excellent.
He then proceeds to say "you're not a copper are you?" Um, no. Upon double checking that I'm not a member of the Met, he pulls some resin out of his pocket. This guy is carrying weed, while having commited petty theft just a few short(rap-filled) minutes ago. He is no Nobel-winner.
He proceeds to talk about how he just sells, not smokes. Well, except for a few puffs on a bong before he goes to sleep at night. Apparently it's hard to sleep in a care home. Wonderful.
At this point we are separated by the arrival of my train(not a moment too soon), and I have to wave goodbye to this strange young individual. I spend the rest of my trip pondering this man, in many ways a kindred spirit. Wait scratch that. In no way a kindred spirit. Still, for some reason he felt he could open up to me, which is nice.
Plus, now I know a dealer in Cambourne, which'll be handy if ever my personality does a 180-spin.
'Awesomeness'
Okay, so usually I wouldn't be able to make this post right now. I'm in Cornwall, where I don't have an internet connection(all firms require a 12 month contract, and I'm only here for six), so I have to go up to the university whenever I need an internet connection.
Uni is about a half an hour walk away, so I only go once a day, which can limit my options when I comes to internet browsing, especially when you factor in that I need to take a nap every four hours.
However, as I was writing some stuff down on my laptop earlier, I noticed a new wireless signal appear. It turns out that the sofa shop that has just opened two doors away has been kind enough to let their internet signal drift around with the password "passw". That's fine by me!
So now I am experiencing for the first time the joy of sitting in my sofa and browsing the internet. Fantastic!
Anyway, onto the main event: Alexander.
Alexander is the new addition to the Hayes/Kitching family that I mentioned two days ago. He's a small guy, and doesn't really do much around the house. He seems to prefer staying in his own room.
Alexander is a salamander. Specifically a fire salamander. Jack bought him when I was visiting home, and couldn't stop him. Jack also bought him whilst he was drunk. Because that's the sort of sh*t drunk people do.
I was excited when i first heard about Alex. I mean, lizards are pretty cool in principle - they're like tiny little dinosaurs, man! In person, though, Alex is scary as. Turns out that if he doesn't like you he can squirt poison into your eyes. And not the cool "hey-man-I'm-tripping-off-of-this-toad" poison, no, I'm talking flat-out, this-will-kill-you poison.
I have yet to handle Alex without gloves, and I don't think I will. His foot accidently touched my bare arm earlier and I freaked out and nearly dropped him. His skin is creepy man. And we have to feed him crickets.
Still, he's providing the basis for some hilarious conversations between Jack and I, and it's great to have something else Jack can put on my face to wig me out whilst I'm asleep.
So that's today's lesson - owning a lizard is kind of okay.
'Dear Readers: I am currently drunk. For the first time. Ever.'
I've had a few sips of alcohol here and there, but I've never been flat-out inebriated. It's an interesting feeling, but one that also scares me. I'm not quite sure where my fingers are going, and I keep having to correct my spelling.
I am not wearing my glasses right now, which is adding a whole new layer of confusion.
I don't think I'll be doing this again. I'm acting like a bit of an arse-hole, and walking is proving difficult, as it not laughing constantly.
How did I get drunk? Well, Jack revealed that he had a bottle of Jack Daniels hidden in the flat, and we played an American Dad drinking game(drink every time there's a racial slight). After 7 shots, I was hammered, since I've never been drunk before.
We went downstairs to check the mail, and I almost accidentally killed myself. This is not good. I do not like it.
I will not be doing this again.
We did, however, order some laughing gas canisters and a dispenser(sucking it off the tap can freeze your lips to the canister), that should arrive tomorrow. I am looking forward to this, since I live to laugh. It is a legal high, and I look forward to it, since I live to laugh.
I shall not be doing this agian.
'Well, I'd say things have gone pretty badly.'
Jack and I accidently set fire to a patch of the carpet. I won't say how, but a can of deodorant and a lit piece of paper may have been the culprit. I blame alcohol.
We then tried to make the situation better by cutting out the square of carpet and replacing it with extra cuts of the carpet we found in the attic. This did not help, as not only did the extras look newer(obviously) and therefore not match, but we couldn't but a precise piece and the join is fairly obvious.
We have called a Carpet Man, but he is unavailable until the end of next week. Until then I shall try and use my genius-brain to come up with an answer to this problem that doesn't cost me money. I'm having trouble coming up with that answer right now. Again, I blame the alcohol.
We were so close to the end of the tenancy, and I could've blamed all the deposit-related issues on Jack. Then I got drunk. I think this is the universe re-inforcing upon me a very important message - alcohol is bad.
I really don't know what I'm going to do. What is terrifying is that suicide immediately came to mind as a viable option. And it still is. I would get out of all this scot-free. No more worries.
But I want to keep on living. I think.
'A quick picture post.'
Not much doing until I get my delivery of laughing gas later, so here's a picture of the carpet Jack and I 1)burnt and 2) tried to "fix" by cutting it out of the floor.
'Cue laughter.'
So about an hour ago I got a delivery of laughing gas that Jack and I ordered yesterday. Short story: it's not that great.
Jack is at work right now, so I took the liberty of trying it myself. After accidently wasting a capsule due to poor screwing technique(ladies...), I managed to successfully fill a bag with the stuff and take a good whiff.
The first try did nothing for me. I didn't feel giddy, dizzy or funny at all. So I tried again, inhaling deeper this time, despite the risks inherent(you could die from not inhaling enough oxygen. In rare cases, but still).
This time, the effects were more apparent. I became dizzy and my fingers went numb. The sound coming from my laptop started echoing and reverbing all over the place, and I started laughing at the weirdness of it all.
This lasted all of a minute, and then things got boring again. I didn't want to waste another cartridge, since we only get five each, so I let the canister be.
I'm sure when Jack gets back we'll have some fun with it, but... meh.
Thumbs down for laughing gas.
'I'd say grapes.'
They don't taste as good as a banana or an apple, but there's less of a commitment involved.
Favourite fruits. No one needs to ask the question, it's constantly preying on every civillised person's mind.
Some people go with an orange, but I don't like the idea that when I'm done all I'm gonna have left over is the skin... that's creepy, in my book.
Oh, and, by-the-by, broccoli definitely wins the award for 'most tree-like vegatable'.
There was a brief moment where it looked like either lettuce or cabbage could pull into the lead, but the judges felt that, on reflection, they were more 'bushy' than 'tree-like'.
No one has any idea how the parsnips even got into the audition hall, but they were redirected to the 'thing that most looks like some sort of weird... thing" contest.
And won.
'Howdy partners.'
I'm having one of those days where I feel very introspective and sorry for myself. It sucks, but at the same time I like wallowing in my own misery. I'm sure that's not a good trait to have, but I can't choose my own body chemistry.
I was just looking at the myspace page of someone who I've been trying to get over recently. It started as a way for me to look at pictures of them, but then very quickly turned into a list of reasons why we don't work together. One of the main ones being her casual use of the phrase 'late-night chink' as if it's not a racist comment.
Recently, the days when I find myself missing her are consistently outnumbered by the days when I don't even think about her once. Which is cool. I know it'll take time, and I'm cool with that, because I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The plan to cover the burnt spot with 'moving boxes' while the Estate Agents visited yesterday went off without a hitch. They're coming around for another viewing later, but I'm not nearly as worried about this one. Still, I should really phone the carpet guy at some point and get him round to sort this mess out. This whole thing is stressing me out way too much, and I already have enough stress in my life.
I looked at some earlier posts in which I go on about how "I'll never ever drink", which jars slightly with my post from the other day, which detailed my drunken activities with Jack. I realise this makes me look like someone who can't stick to their convictions, which is mostly true. I have the iron-will of a rusted girder. I am the weak link in the chain of sticking-to-my-decisions. I am the master of bad analogies.
Still, the other day has only re-affirmed my belief that alcohol is bad and will only lead to bad things. I swear on my DVD collection that I will not drink again.
Probably.
'This is just a filler post.'
I can't post much today, since most of my time is being taken up by writing the code to move this blog system to a mysql database, rather than the clumsy text file system I currently have going.
This process has been smooth for the most part, although I had to spend a few hours re-entering every single post in this blog to the database, which was going fine, until I found out that I forget to tell the system what it meant when I hit the enter key.
So now I have to go back through every post in the database and enter "< br />< br />" every time there is a line break. This is boring work, made even worse by the fact that my spotty internet connection means sometimes the data isn't even saved correctly.
Still, I continue, because I know when I'm done it'll be awesome. Comments, permalinks, RSS, the whole lot.
Watch this space. Maybe a new design too. Because I get bored quickly.
'A few thoughts on university.'
More specifically, why university didn't work for me.
I was looking at a friend's pictures of her 'university experience' a few minutes ago. Most of them were the typical shots- lounging around late at night with some takeaway, posing in the hall ready to go out, hanging in the communal kitchen with a bottle-strewn table.
I was looking at these pictures, and not seeing a single person I liked. The girls were all dressed in ridiculous outfits more suited to a streetworker than someone seemingly dedicating three years of their life to learning, and the guys were all posturing man-apes, with stubble and spike hair, all wearing the same t-shirt(with obligatory blue jeans).
At some point in the past 30 years, something went very wrong with this country. University stopped being about the knowledge and started being about the experience. The word 'student' is now synonymous with a late-waking, money-scrounging, drugged-up partygoer.
Am I the only person who sees something wrong here?
This is why I left university. Whenever I went to that place, the atmosphere that pervaded the grounds was 'we're all here to have a good time'. I mean, for God's sake, it was easier to get to the bar than the library! This is why I, someone of(this sounds arrogant, but it's true) above average intelligence was made to feel that university was not the place for me. That our education system is in this state is a travesty.
Do I have a solution? Yeah. As soon as I can, I'm leaving this country to go to somewhere where knowlege, and the quest for it, is not treated as a f*cking joke.
It really is hard to convey in keystrokes how angry I am right now.
Grrrr.
'Here I am bending the laws of time again.'
I'm currently laid out with the cold that Jack kindly forwarded onto me. I am doing more than I usually would, seeing as I would usually be in bed trying to sleep through it. This is probably the first time in my life when I've been forced to get up(and do the ironing, washing up, etc) as opposed to just riding it out.
It turns out that it's not that hard to ignore the ache in my joints just as long as I have something to focus on(like the ironing, which I always enjoy anyway). I'm glad I know this, although it does mean I can no longer lie to myself and get extra time in bed just for being ill.
'Mika must die.'
In other news, I watched the 'Supergirl' movie yesterday whilst Jack was out sarging. Supergirl is a terrible, terrible film that makes close to zero sense. I would advise staying away from it at all costs. Although the lead actress is pretty hot.
I have slowed down in my attempts to move this diary system to mysql, not only due to illness, but also due to the fact that I realised a flaw in my database structure that means I'm going to have to re-enter every post to correct it. Whilst my blog is by no means large, there are 100+ posts, and it takes a while to re-enter them.
I have been toying with the idea of only keeping my posts from 2007 onwards, since the older posts don't paint me in a very good light. Any opinions?
'Another lonely valentines day.'
Which is really no big deal, since I don't think I'm in a place right now where I could be with someone, nor do I much care. The title of this site takes care of most of my objections to being so romanticly alone, anyhow.
I did, of course, send flowers to someone as a mark of courtesy. I don't expect(and I'm not even sure I want) anything to come of it. I just thought it was something I should do.
I also got a call today from my older sister, Cassandra, informing me that she is now engaged to her boyfriend. It turns out that she thought I already knew, since everyone else in the family did. I was a little shocked, but it's awesome news! Although I might have to go to Ireland for the wedding, and we all know how new places scare me...
I still am not feeling well, and have spent much of today in a duvet on the floor watching Star Wars with Jack. Which is awesome.
'Urgh, I've been ill.'
So I haven't been posting on time. Sorry.
Something occured to me when Jack and I were watching the Star Wars trilogy the other day: I don't really like Star Wars that much.
I mean, it's okay. It's mildly entertaining enough, but I just can't get into it. I love to go to wikipedia and read all the biogs of the expanded universe characters, see what happened to everyone after the films and such, but the main three motion pictures themselves? I have trouble getting through them, to be honest.
The weird part is, I keep buying the box sets. In '97 I made Mum buy me the remastered videos for my birthday. I was only 9 years old, but I knew that I was a geek and that I should own and 'love' these movies.
When the DVD boxset came out last year I rushed out and bought it(admittedly using my employee discount). I got home and watched them all, not really enjoying it, but wanting to be able to say I'd done it. To really prove my 'nerd' credentials.
What is ridiculous is that I don't need to. I have enough 'clever person' hobbies that I don't need to go around telling people that I can quote the entire Battle of Hoth to them backwards or whatever. Yet I still feel like I should.
The cult of geekdom is weird. And a good name for a band/album.
'Tonight I went out with Jack.'
We went to Falmouth, after having cracked open some glow sticks and covering ourselves in shiny liquid. As we walked there the glow wore off and we just looked stained.
We walked around the town for a while, then went into 'Remedies'(yeah, I got in) a club/bar. We hung out upstairs for a while, but I got uncomfortable and we left and went home.
I don't know why I feel uncomfortable in places like that. My better-than-normal hearing is a problem, because the loud music completely swamps me and I have to get by on lip-reading, which can be tough in such a dark place.
Theres also the fact that I feel uncomfortable around people who are drinking. I worry that something is going to go horribly wrong, even though I know nothing will.
Jack was nice about it. He says the evening was more about trying to get me to go out than anything else. He's out tonight to compensate anyway.
And I'm in again, doing the washing up and vacuuming the floor.
'Talking about Jack.'
I've never really had many friends. I'm arrogant, smart mouthed, caustic and judgemental. That's tough for a lot of people to take.
Sometimes I'll wake up and have a good day, and instead I'll be self-effacing, funny, witty and kind. On those days I'll usually get friends. Those days don't happen often, though, which is why I can count my friends on one hand.
Jack is probably the best friend I'll ever have in this life. Sorry if you're a friend of mine reading this and I've offended you, but it's true.
Jack and I met when I started at Purbeck in 2001. I managed to ingratiate myself into his group of outcasts, primarily as a friend of Simon Casey and Jenny Gulliford, since we'd known each other in an earlier school.
Jack wasn't nice to me at first. He and Leo were big friends back then, and they would take turns playing tricks on me(Jack's were always clever, Leo's involved hitting me, usually).
On one occasion Jack even put a water balloon down my back in science class and held his hand up against it, waiting a few seconds so that the entire class could hear me beg him not to burst it.
He burst it.
That was probably the first time I saw some humour in that sort of situation. I wasn't crying, like usual. Instead I had trouble keeping myself from urinating, I was laughing so much.
Jack and I started talking more and realised that we were alike in a lot of ways. When Jack wanted to start martial arts, I was the friend he invited along. When he wanted to go to Poole during class for a sandwich, he pulled me aside first. It was awesome.
Jack and I started going on a lot of drives. He had a car, and I had seen little of Dorset, so we made a good team. We stuck mostly to the beaches, but we also occasionally made longer road trips.
One of those times, we started the night at a beach party, decided it was lames, and spent the whole night driving to Falmouth. It was one of the best times of my life. We were joking the whole time, telling stories, quoting tv shows relentlessly. One of the reasons I'm wary of getting a driving licensce of my own is that I know I'll never re-create those times.
On that drive, Jack and I decided to move in together. He was on a gap year, and I was going to uni and staying in private accomodation: it would work great. He could only stay for 6 months before he went to New Zealand, which would be just long enough for me to get used to living away from home. Plus, he would help with the cost of living.
As you can tell from some of the posts I've made here, things have been rough at times. Jack is messy, and has a problem comprehending my personal space issues. He never gets his rent in on time, and has broken a lot of stuff in the flat.
But... when I think about all the times we've just... hung out and watched films on the wall. Or sat on the sofa talking for hours. Or even the time we burnt a god-damn hole in the floor and collapsed and laughed at what morons we were. Wow. I can't remember ever being happier.
Jack accepts me for the ridiculously flawed person I am. For some reason, he's one of the only people who can see me start to move into a mini-nervous breakdown and throw in some quip that has me laughing again. He can make me furious and he can make me feel so happy I forget that my life is slowly falling apart. Jack is one of the reasons I'm still here, I think.
Jack and I stop living together in just over 24 hours. His parents are picking him up on tuesday morning.
I know I'm going to cry for the first time since we had my cat put down. The most amazing, special, entertaining and rollercoaster chapter of my life so far is coming to an end, and I don't think I've ever been so afraid of what comes next.
We have had so much fun together here. A lot of bad times, but so many good times. There are times when I've wanted to scream, and times when I wanted time to stop so that we'd never have to grow up and be adults again.
There are a few days between when Jack leaves and when I also move back to Dorset. I imagine I'll spend those days utterly depressed. When I get back in Dorset I don't doubt Jack and I will be hanging out again straight away. But it's never going to be the same. Unless things go exetremely well for me the next six months, we'll never come home to the same living room again. God, that sucks so much, y'know? It sucks so fucking much.
So, to the one person who 'gets' me more than anyone else ever will:
I love you, man. I love you. And you better not fucking die before I do.
'You must have seen her? Dancing in the sand?'
I've been listening to Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" a lot lately, along with Jason Schwartzman's "The West Coast". They both really sum up for me how I'm feeling. I know that's a stupid emo thing to say, but it's true. Listening to those songs triggers certain emotions in me.
Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" triggers entirely different, and just as complicated emotions. One person knows what that means, and I don't even know if they read this thing.
I've been doing a re-design of this place, in preparation for the move to the mysql system. I'm not going to give away too much, because it's going to be a couple of weeks before it hits your screens. What I can say is that it's totally different to what I've got going on right now, and that I'm 90% done and have not used a single image yet. I'm moving towards something a lot more simplistic and load-able.
Scarlett Johansson was only 17 when she did 'Lost in Translation'. How annoying is that, huh?
Oh, and Jack is leaving in about 12 hours. In between that he and I will be staying up the whole night when he gets back from work, and may go fly-tipping. Hypothetically, that is.
'This post brought to you by Pontiac(part one).'
Crap, I just accidently made a post consisting entirely of a title. That's a bit of a f*ck up. Still, all it takes is a couple of seconds and an FTP program to fix, so it's not too much fuss. Still, when I finally sort out the move to mysql for this thing, it'll be even easier.
I spend a lot of time working out the code for my websites. Throughout the years(and I have had quite a few websites that I've since deleted out of shame) I've gone from HTML to PHP to CSS and now to MySQL. I've not once relied on a pre-existing system marketed by a corporation to get myself a prescence on the internet.
(For a good year or so I did use a blog system made and maintained by my friend Ian. It was an awesome and powerful tool that still influences my website design and structure today. Ian rocks.)
I have tried to use Blogger once or twice, and even created a LiveJournal account and made a few posts. The thing is, I value the mechanism for delivery as much as the content, and I just can't get psyched about getting my thoughts out there knowing that someone else has made it possible.
I like to be entirely responsible for my website. Apart from the hosting, I do everything here. Admittedly it shows(in the sometimes inefficient coding, the CSS that might not work in IE for all I know), but at least this isn't like a Blogger or LJ blog, with every page looking the same, endless tiny variations on one boring design. I like to think that there's a lot of personality to this page.
'Pontiac - the brand to drive(part two)'
My upcoming design is entirely different to what I currently have going on. I mentioned the other day that there are no images in it, apart from those specifically added to individual posts. It has a simple colour scheme, and consists of straight lines up the wazoo.
You may ask, how can this new design get my 'personality' across on the page if it's so simple and 'plain'. Well, I like to think that this current design, with it's rounded corners and odd font and bizzarre silhouette of a tree, represents my stupid, weird and playful side. I've even gone against the norm and put the text on the right side of the page, just to be different. This design is contrarian, and(lets be honest) a little annoying.
The new design, however, represents the ordered side of me. The perfectionist that wants clean countertops in the kitchen and an office with an aeron chair in the spare room. At the moment, with the way my life is headed, I think I could use the ordered side a lot more than the playful, hence the change. When things are back on track, I'm sure I'll switch back to more more fun design.
For now though, I'm looking forward to having a little logic and order in my life.
'Britney Spears is insane.'
Which I think is totally awesome. I mean, not only has she totally copied my shaved-head look, but she's in and out of rehab like Kurt Cobain and taking umbrellas to Jeeps like there's no tomorrow. I can't wait until she goes on Oprah or some crap once she's all better and talks about how stardom ruined her life.
In other news, tomorrow will be my last day alone up here in Penryn(I will be here saturday and sunday, but so will Mum and Melody). I still haven't cancelled my phone, council tax or electricty, so I should probably do that tomorrow, as well as setting up postal service redirection.
I left these things so late mainly because of my fear of the telephone. I have a hard time hearing what people say on the phone(despite having better-than-average hearing in general) and get nervous. I guess I enjoy face-to-face interaction in general, as I don't like to use instant messaging either, despite being great at it.
Hm, some people might wonder what I mean by saying I'm 'great' at IMing. Well, I mean not only do I type like a demon(I learned touch-typing the natural way - 7 years of straight internet use) but I can consistently come out with funny lines and asides. I think people should really make a conscious effort to get better at IMing. People tend to treat it as a regular conversation, but with more abbreviations, when it's really more than that. IMing is a boredom killer, really, and you're never going to have a serious conversation via MSN messenger. If it's important, you should be doing it face to face.
I'm regretting writing that in amongst the Britney stuff. When I've got the redesign done(which looks like it might be late next week) I'll probably expand on this whole thing and make it a 'featured post'. Oh, there's another new part of the design that's slipped through.
'I have a whining personality.'
I've just spent a couple of hours packing away most of my stuff. All I have left is all the kitchen stuff(since I'll need to eat until sunday) and my computer set-up(which I don't have any boxes for. Yet.)
It's beginning to hit me that I'm leaving this place behind. I didn't feel anything in particular when I was packing all my stuff up, but now I'm relaxing on my sofa it's sinking in. I'll probably feel worse when I'm back in Dorset, with all my stuff packed into Mum's garage, and me cramped up in the Funnel Web. Truth is, it might be a couple of months before I have enough money saved to get my own place, and those couple of months aren't going to be much fun, what with the constant working and living under Mum's roof once again.
Everything that's happening right now is a real blow to my feeling of independence. It was great living on my own, sorting things out for myself(and, most of the time, for Jack too). Now I have to go back to a situation where I'm not in control of many variables, and where I can't do whatever I want.
I really hope something happens that means I can get my own place sooner rather than later. I don't know what that would be, really, aside from some sort of huge cash windfall, which isn't likely. I don't even play the lottery. I really hope I don't have to work at Somerfield too long, either. I mean, I'm good at the job. Really good. But it's not challenging, or stimulating or fun. I don't know what else I could do, though, based on my lack of qualifications.
This all sounds self-pitying, but I don't really feel that bad. I mean, if I have to, at some point in my life, get into huge amounts of debt and have no prospects, I would most definitely choose now. I mean, I don't have anyone depending on me, and this age is probably the most potential-filled time I'm ever going to have in my life. Being young means you can afford to make mistakes, which is lucky, because I've made
a few.
I'm certain that in 6-12 months, I'll look back on all this and laugh from the top of my empire. Which will be awesome.
'About this site, and the author.'
This site is written and maintained by Kyle Hayes, as the URL handily implies.
For years(two of 'em) Kyle held ambitions of becoming a famous film director. With university quashing that interest in a swift fashion, Kyle quickly becamse a shiftless drop-out, lounging around his flat for three months and living off his student loan.
After his Aunt became concerned about his malaise, she gave him a ticket to America, where he stayed for 3 months, having many adventures, which will be re-told heer, in due time.
America changed Kyle, and made him a much better person. He is now ready for University, and returns to formal education in a few weeks.
The site has gone through 10 designs in half as many months. This is because Kyle is a fickle human being who enjoys experimenting with his web-site. You can probably expect to see this thing running Ruby on Rails with a black-and white design next month!
Kyle does not code this site with Internet Explorer in mind, because IE does not support web standards. Kyle writes code that is compliant with CSS and PHP validation guidelines. If that manages to display properly in IE, fine. If it doesn't, fine. Kyle recommends Firefox for a fully featured browser experience.
Kyle can be contacted at kyle@kyle-hayes.co.uk , or alternatively, leave a comment on any of his posts. Offers of sexual favours are appreciated, and encouraged.
'The World Famous 'American Dad Drinking Game'.'
It turns out from looking at my referrer logs that a lot of you come here looking for an 'American Dad drinking game', which I mentioned in a post to my diary a few weeks back. I gave a rough glance at the rules, but I figured since people keep coming here for it, I should provide a clearer version.
Therefore, I present - The American Dad Drinking Game(Kyle Hayes version)
My friend Jack and I played this game with shots of JD from eggcups, but you can of course use any alcoholic drink, and hopefully you'll use classier methods of holding it. Eggcups rock, sure, but you don't want a machine printed Peter Rabbit silently judging you from the side of the cup. I would also recommend you try shots of beer(full beer glass, not a shot glass), since that'll get you drunk faster.
Okay, so here are the rules:
1 - Every time you see or hear a racial slight onscreen, take a shot.
In most episodes, this guarantees that you take at least two or three shots. Some episodes have a more racially charged atmosphere, however, and can get you really drunk, really fast. Season one's 'Roger Codger' is good for 9-10 shots, as are both of the 'Stan of Arabia' episodes. The real score is to be had, however, with the episode 'Homeland Insecurity'. We'd run out of booze by the time we got to this one, but counted upwards of 40 opportunities to take a shot. Awesome.
Remember - 'a racial slight' means anything that can be perceived as an example of a negative stereotype or spoken, implied and passive-aggressive slur against a specific group of people based on the colour of their skin or the nation of their birth. This is true for all of Stan's activities against his Iranian neighbours, and their offensive comment about their previous, black, neighbours.
The best yardstick to go by is - If Oprah would take offence to it, you should probably take a shot.
2 - Every time Klaus says something, take a shot.
Klaus is a fantastic creation and everything that comes out of his mouth is gold. To recognise this, we take a shot every time he speaks. However, this rule is variable depending on how many people are in the scene. If the only person on screen is Klaus, or Klaus and just one other person, take only one shot for that entire scene. However, if there are more people present, every time it's Klaus' turn in the conversation you can have a drink.
This gets even more iffy in the episode 'Bullocks to Stan', where Klaus provides Director's Commentary in a fight sequence. Here, I'd recommend two shots, for the two distinct groups of speech that Klaus utters.
3 - Every time you see an American flag, take a shot for your country.
The theme of relentless patriotism is somewhat apparent in American Dad, and flags are placed prominently throughout the show. Therefore, every time you see Old Glory, take a shot and remember how lucky you are to live in a nation where blah blah blah....
Remember, once you see a flag, you can't drink for that flag again until the next episode. This is to stop some idiot from falling into a drunken coma after taking a shot every time he sees Stan's lapel-flag.
The rules can be a little confusing at first, especially once you involve alcohol and discover that keeping track of Klaus' sentences and which flags you've seen before can be a bit tricky, but remember the golden rule - if you get confused: take a shot.
Have fun, and please drink responsibly.
'The new design is live!'
Gaze in wonder at the comments! The RSS feed! The tags! The.. pretty!
This thing has taken me a while, and I'm really proud of it. I hope that it'll encourage me to write some quality posts in the coming months, in amongst all the moaning!
I wish I could write a long post right now, but I've been spending the last three or four hours putting the final touches on this place, so I'm a bit typed-out. I'm sure when it becomes the 28th I'll put some new stuff up.
Anywho, please to try out the various features. If there are any regular readers, please feel free to announce yourself in the 'comments' section of this post. I'td be a nice boost to my self-esteem to know there are people out there reading this stuff!
'It's the last day of the month. (Part One)'
I think. I mean, it's not a leap-year, right?
So today I was hoping to write an interesting post, as opposed to one of my usual, b*llsh*t "here is what i did today duuuuuuuur" posts.
I was just starting on it, though, and Jack arrived for our 'night out'. I had to leave this entry behind. Here's what happened.
First we drove to Dave's house to pick him up. I hadn't seen Dave in six months, so I was looking forward to it. Usually we give him a ring on his mobile once we're near his house, but my phone was out of credit, so I went right up to the door and knocked.
I hate knocking on people's doors.
Dave screamed as if I was a murder and opened the door, revealing an entire family gathered in the hallway to look at me. Suddenly I was fielding questions from boht of Dave's parents, whilst also defending myself from his older brother attaching himself to my hat.
Dave managed to escape the maelstrom and headed towards Jack's car, with me still trapped at the doorway. I made some comment about 'returning him in safe condition' and extricated myself from the situation.
Back in the car, we were suddenly confronted with the decision of what to do. We hadn't made any plans other than a vague 'let's go to Poole'. We decided to head to the beach first, and work from there.
Jack parked in a disabled space(c'mon, it's closer to the beach, guys!) and we stepped out into the unrelenting wind and rain. Although it was dark, I did have my light-up frisbee, so we headed towards the sand. Jack took my bottle of cherry coke and slammed it into the ground, then uncapped it with his teeth, spraying the contents upward in a geyser of froth. I probably should have taken this as a sign that he was a little too excited.
We tried playing frisbee, but it was far too windy, so we eventually ended up just throwing the disc up into the air and letting the wind take it a few hundred yards down the coast. Jack had decided to be a tw*t, so spent the time trying to tackle or otherwise hit me, or throwing the disc miles away and saying 'have fun Kyle'.
Sometimes Jack isn't fun to be around.
Dave and Jack then suggested that we go up a dark hill. Awesome. No one ever dies that way. I was outvoted, so up we went, with no murder ensuing, but with us arriving a mile away from the car. We slowly trudged backed to the disabled spot, and chose our next activity on the way.
'It's the first day of the month. (Part Two)'
We had chosen to continue on to Tower Park to catch a film, since we had nothing else to do. I had envisioned the night being about going to various drinking establishments, and in retrospect I probably would have prefered that.
There were next to no parking spaces to be had outside UCI(I refuse to call it 'Empire'), and we could see a long queue snaking away from the box office. Jack realised aloud that it was, of course, Orange Wednesday. I hate crowded movie theaters, but the guys didn't mind, so carried on searching for a space.
Jack had to park in the Tesco area, some distance away from the cinema, especially in the wind and rain. I suggested we just buy a DVD from Tesco and watch it on my projector. Again, in retrospect, the cinema would have been a better bet.
We walked into Tesco feeling like we owned the place. Dave and Jack were giggling like schoolgirls, and I trailed behind them, my wallet eager to cater to our whims.
We hit up the DVD aisle, where there was a terrific selection. And by terrific, I'm mispronouncing terrible. We all kept making ridiculous selections ("Bob the builder! Lazy Town! Veronica Guerin!") until we settled on 'Click!', which I did not want to watch.
Jack started whining about food, and I agreed that we should have some snacks for the movie. 'Some snacks' quickly became:
- 20 eclairs
- 18 glass bottles of Coca Cola
- A pack of maoam bars
- A multi-pack of crisps
- Weird 'sweet squirters' that used a pump to squirt sweet juice into your mouth
- Donuts
- Mars bars
- Fizzy cola bottles
- Regular cola bottles
- Fizzy laces
and countless other sweet items that I can't for the life of me recall.
I was feeling a little nervy about how much we'd bought, a feeling that was confirmed when we got to the checkout and the total came to 52. Jack and Dave started laughing like pot-heads at this. Well, they would. It wasn't their bloody money, was it?
We drove back to my place, at which point I realised that we'd probably be too loud whilst watching the film and would wake my Mum up. I suggested we instead watch the film in Jack's pimped-out garage, or settle for my bedroom(the Funnel Web). Jack and Dave seemed fine with the web.
Once we were in my house, I went downstairs to put the eclairs in the fridge, and came back to my room to discover Jack smushing prawn cocktail crisps into my pillow. Like I said, sometimes Jack isn't fun to be around. At all. In fact, sometimes he's a f*cking c*nt.
We arrived at Jack's, after I'd spent ten minutes persuading them that we pretty much had to, and Jack and Dave tried to lock me in the car whilst they fetched the garage keys. At this point I realised Jack must have actually been drunk, since no one in their right mind would think that it is in any way possible to lock someone in a car.
Setting up the projector in the garage proved difficult. I was missing a vital cable to connect my laptop to my projector, and all the computers in the garage had defects that prevented them playing DVDs. In the end we watched the film on my laptop, with Jack and Dave on the sofa, and me on a chair behind them, wrapped in my duvet to keep warm.
The film was awful, and the garage got progressively colder and my duvet got progressively damper. We hardly ate any of the foodstuffs I had spent my money on, and even now they still sit in Jack's mould-infested garage, waiting to be consumed.
Jack dropped me off at my place at two in the morning, at which point I had to change my bed covers (thanks to the crisp pillow and damp duvet), before finally crashing onto the floor(I don't have a bed here).
Reading all this, one would think I had a terrible night.
'Heather and Lay are b*stards.'
Most of you probably know that I left my flat in somewhat a state of disrepair. I did, however, leave sufficient materials laying around for the damage to be repaired quickly and cheaply, so that my deposit would not be eaten into.
Things would have been fine, and I would have happily sat around waiting for the letter from H&L(my estate agents) telling me that I would not be receiving my full deposit back.
However, my standing order accidently paid them 500 instead of 65 yesterday(as payment for the last few days of rent), and I had to give them a call to get my money back.
Not only will I have to wait until tuesday for them to transfer it back(and then wait until Friday for it to appear in my account), but the manager of the branch, Paul chewed me out over hole in the floor.
He was "not impressed", apparently. And he doesn't "understand why you'd want to lose your deposit over this". Um, because that's what a deposit is for? Besides, I'm not losing it. You're just gonna use some of it for the repairs. Ret*rd.
The worst part of, though, was "we've obviously got the phone numbers of your guarantors here". To rent the flat, we had to get our parents to sign documents saying that if we didn't pay rent on time, they would. Paul Beever, of Heather and Lay(Penryn) is, as far as I can infer, threatening to call our parents on us. Despite the fact that Jack and I are both adults, responsible for our own actions, and no longer answerable to the people that birthed us.
I have heard reports on the University forums of Heather and Lay being not nice people, I just didn't realise that it could be this bad.
Jesus.
'Something terrifying.'
Someone using Internet Explorer 6 and living in Essex, UK, came to this website by searching for "chicks with d*cks massage" on Yahoo!
Not only does this confuse me, since(to be honest) I don't really host that sort of content here, but I'm also slightly disturbed that when I repeated the search, my website didn't show up in more than 20 pages of results.
That leads me to believe that either this person has exhausted 20+ pages of hot she-male action, or he decided that the results that had popped up so far couldn't possibly be as chick-d*cky as it got, and that the best was yet to come.
As was he.
'The Kyle Hayes media review.'
Hot Fuzz - A bumbling cluster-f*ck of a film that doesn't know what it's doing. There are a few funny moments, but the most I laughed was when Mel dropped her bag of Skittles and they cascaded onto the ground. It's a shame, because I like Spaced.
Heroes - Is getting better and better, especially with last week's episode changing everything. I can't wait for tomorrow night's ep, which I will have to wait until tuesday for, naturally.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has been placed on indefinite hiatus, which means my un-natural addiction to this god-awful show can finally stop. Still, I'll miss it's rare good moments.
Scrubs - The recent 'clip show' episode was bottom-of-the-barrell stuff, admittedly, but it still made me cry like a child. Thats more due to personal stuff happening in my life right now than the show itself, but ya gotta give Braff some credit. Unfortunately.
Civil War #7 - An issue that makes me want to exclusively read Indies from now on. And that was a sentence that makes no sense to most of my readership.
2CRfm - Still loud and annoying.
The Sarah Silverman Program is funnier than I expected, and it helpfully features the eye-candy of the Silverman sisters. I continue to fail to understand how anyone thinks Brian Posehn can act, but aside from that(and the bloody songs), the show has no downsides.
Oh, and if you're not watching Penn and Teller's Bullsh*t, you should be. Go to alloftv.net for the goodness.
'Chillin' with ma comic book homies.'
Spectacular day today. Just spectacular.
I started out with my usual monday trip to Poole with Tim. We bout some comics, ate some pizza, and had a slightly uncomfortable train journey when we stumbled across Jack. Still, it was better than any of the trips I used to make with Leo. I've been going to Paradox for well on a year and a half now. Ever since the same day the skeleton of 'Escape' was filmed. That's pretty cool.
After cooling my heels at home for an hour or so, I hopped back on the train to go to Poole once more(using the same tickets, as they hadn't been checked. Naughty me, right?)
I unicycled to the comic book meeting that takes place first monday of every month, and bumped into Andy(the comic shop owner) about 300 yards from the shop itself. He'd just given blood(for the 35th time!) and was searching for something to give his blood sugar level a boost. Shame the shops were closed.
I was really early to the meeting, so we hung out and talked in the shop for an hour or so, about a lot of stuff, from comics to distribution processes to Heroes.
The meeting itself was fun. The discussion was spirited, and it seems that people find me ranting about bad comics(and things I hate in general) to be hilarious. Should there be more of that here? Anywho, I got to use the phrase "Bumf*ck, Ohio" multiple times, so all was good.
We then went to the pub near the shop for the usual post-meeting drink. I say usual, but I've never been before because pubs scare me. I'm really glad I went this time, because it turned out that one of the members of the group is AJ Butchers, writer of the Spy High series of books, a few of which I own. It was amazing to meet not only a published author, but one whose work I'd read and enjoyed. I'm sure I plagued him with far too many questions, but he didn't seem to mind.
Everyone tried to convince me that I'd end up going back to university in the future, which I'm dead set against. One guy(I'm terrible at names and also faces) recommended selling all my stuff and 'picking a direction and walking in it'. Whilst I like the idea, the only things I have of any worth are the things I wouldn't want to give up. Still, I do like the idea of leaving the country, and if my trip to Japan goes well I may consider moving there.
After the drink(where I had a single coke and nowt else) I waited at the train station for a good 40 minutes, meeting a bizarre, drunk, on-sabbatical rail worker who was obsessed with odd hats(like the one I was wearing) and with showing people his scarred hand(his left middle-finger had been lopped off at the tip by a railroad spike). He was entertaining to talk to, as was most everyone I spoke with today.
I really should get over my fear of people and speak to more strangers. Persons can be really interesting.
'Money, money, money.'
It's a rich man's world.
The electricity bill for the flat in Penryn came today, for the first time in 6 months. Jack and I had been under the assumption that we existed in some kind of grey area where, due to having no meter in the flat, we didn't get charged.
Well, that fantasy world came crashing down, I can tell you.
Bearing in mind that we were there six months, had the boiler and heated towel rail on constantly, in addition to the terribly ineffecient heating system and the projector being on almost all the time, we didn't do that badly. I'll have no problem paying it once my money comes back from Heather and Gay.
See what I did there?
I also found out that if I don't officially quit university until April 17th, then I'll receive two grand, half of which is a grant. Add in the bonus of getting my tax back from the last year, and I think I'll leave it a while before contacting the folks of Falmouth again.
I'm becoming more and more intrigued with the idea of being a perpetual tourist, and am thinking of at least getting rid of some of my 'dead weight' possessions, like various kitchen supplies and some of my... gasp!.. comics. Just to test the waters.
'I'm not saying I'm Jesus, that's for others to decide.'
I maintain that if you want to kill someone and don't want to get caught, then it has to be a homeless person, living no less than 5 miles from your home, but no more than 20.
You have to walk up to them, briskly, late at night and then suddenly reach out and stab them in the chest, as close to the heart as possible. It'd be good to be wearing a long coat that masks your body shape, and a hat would be handy too.
Walk away, knife still in hand(or, by now, pocket) and hide in the shadows of an alley or doorway for a good half an hour, maybe smoke a cigarette and look at your watch impatiently, then stride off 'annoyed'. When the police look at the surveilance tapes of the area, you need to be either not visible or not acting like someone guilty. A guilty person would leave the scene obviously and quickly. Keep your cool, look normal.
When you get home, wash the knife thoroughly, and put it back with your other utensils. The police aren't going to be able to use it as evidence if it isn't near the scene. If there is any blood spatter on your clothes, bleach them. It doesn't matter if they get irrevocably coloured white - you need to get the evidence off.
In the next few days, don't even think about what you've done. Treat it like a mundane, everyday task. It's done now, we can leave it be. If you think about it, you're going to end up giving yourself away, by either being tempted to revisit the scene, or by reacting suspicously when someone mentions the news story to you.
You must wait at least a year before the next time, but it can't be a year exactly, or they'll immediately think you're a serial killer working with a pattern and they will profile you like *that*.
Never tell anyone what you did. Don't even think about it too often, or you will f*ck up.
And that's how you murder someone.
'I wish I could keep to my self-imposed schedule.'
But sometimes crap gets in the way, unfortunately.
This is a filler post, I'm afraid. I've just spent a couple of hours getting .htaccess to work, and I'm about to re-do the navbar and set up mod_rewrite, which will be endless amounts of fun(!)
Let me explain what .htaccess is, for those of you don't know. .htaccess, among other things, allows a webmaster such as myself to password-protect various areas of a site.
For instance, ever since this website has been on the internet, anyone on the planet could have typed "index.php?p=post" into the URL bar and been able to enter a new post as me. That's obviously a bad thing.
With .htaccess, that is now no longer possible. To write an entry here(other than a comment) you have to know my user-name and password, which you don't. So ha-ha!
The reason it took me so long to get working is because... I am an idiot, and I forgot to specify exactly where the file containing the password was, so the server got all confused. Oops. It always takes me forever to spot these mistakes.
'Things look a little different around here.'
I know, I know - third redesign in three months. This time I did it because the old design looked like a drunken mess in Internet Explorer, and unfortunately 99% of the world uses it. I can't afford to have my site mashed around just because I have principles about not kow-towing to Microsoft.
I know this design won't stick for long, because it doesn't grab me. I see sites like http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com/ and think "My site should look that cool!".
I seem to have trouble coming up with ideas that I don't instantly judge as 'a rip-off'. I know that it's the internet and there are so many websites and only so many designs, but I still end up settling with the most pedestrian cr*p just because I think no one else is doing it.
I obviously have a lot of free time at the moment, and I'm going to spend the next few days really knuckling down and getting this done for good. I really liked the most recent design, but I know I can do better.
Watch this space.
'"i wank daily" 3.0 is live!'
So I've been working on this for the past two days, pretty much non-stop. The main design is definitely not original and totally inspired by Macintosh Computer. The colour blue I chose is stolen directly from the 'loading' bars us Mac users know and love.
I really like this design, although I know it's not the perfect one. I can easily see myself changing this thing every month or so, with it getting better each time. I don't look forward to the work, but I do look forward to the results.
The past two days probably aren't going to have posts assigned to them, because I think I did more than enough typing this weekend. I will still, of course, post everyday. I'm going to push myself to get it done on the day itself as opposed to early the next morning with some time-shifting.
You may be intrigued by our banner, insisting that we are the 'proud sponsor of octopus watch 2007'. All I can say is by the end of this year you'll know more about octopodes than you ever thought possible.
Keep watching the seas!
'Please forgive me, if this post is a little strange.'
I switched my keyboard to the Dvorak System last night to enable me to type faster.
It was totally simple to make the switch, since I'm using a Macintosh computer. A simple case of changing a preference in the menu bar and swapping around the keys on my keyboard, and I was good to go.
It is totally confusing to use, especially since I'd gotten so used to typing with QWERTY over the past 7 years. I keep going to hit completely the wrong keys, and I'm using the hunt-and-peck system even more slowly than a school-teacher.
Hopefully over the next few days I'll get it down, at which point I won't have to spend half an hour typing a post this short!
'Not having a good day today.'
I overslept last night and woke up to the noise of Mum and Mel yelling at each other. I think this, and feeling a bit weird from the day itself(for some reason I felt like I was a very unpleasant human being in Poole) is the reason I've been feeling so crap today.
I'm trying to ride it out as best I can, but I keep bringing mself back to thoughts of utter worthlessness and disgust with myself. It really sucks, to be honest, and it's times like this I get the really stupid thoughts about my continued existence, which is never fun.
Hopefully I'll take a nap at some point and wake up feeling fine. Untill then, I just have to keep myself occupied.
To that end, here is another ridiculously funny and sureal clip courtesy of Vic and Bob:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyK5CdZCaaE
'Feeling much better today, thanks.'
At some point last night things shifted and I stopped being depressed and started acting really crazy - repeating the same words over and over and throwing myself onto the floor, testing the shapes my body could make.
The whole time I was aware that what I was doing wasn't right, but I didn't seem to be listening to myself. If that makes sense. I managed to snap out of it though, and talked to Mel whilst I pulled myself together.
Right now I'm feeling relatively normal and logical. I even considered going into Somerfield to get my job, but that isn't a wise thing to do until I get my sleep pattern down. And I don't ever want to have a normal person job again, so that's an obstacle.
Still, like I said, I feel normal(for me), which is good. Of course, now I face the lingering spectre of depression/crazy. So there's that.
Oh, and I ran out of boxers so I'm wearing skin-tight running trousers under my jeans.
Hm. Yes.
'Girls.'
Last night's dream was more like a re-run of a previous day of my life. Specifically, it was a shift I worked at Somerfield last summer.
I don't like to talk about dreams(they're f*cking boring) and I want to get to the meat of this post, so lets just say that the main focus of the re-run was a conversation I had with a female employee.
This employee(who I won't name because people I know read this) was someone I felt I really clicked with, and we flirted on a number of occasions, with her even going so far as to imply that I had gotten her extremely turned on with my wordplay.
Needless to say, I had a girlfriend, she had a boyfriend, I moved away for a while and by the time I came back she had gone too.
So nothing ever came of it.
Last night's dream, of course, has me regretting the way I handled my intense feelings towards her, and I have spent no small part of today running dozens of scenarios in my head of 'what I should have done'. That's had me feeling pretty down.
Still(and here's the main point after all that pre-amble), it's probably a good thing that nothing can happen. Whilst I can be an intensely interesting, funny, kind person to be around, I can also be(and often am) evil, dour and boring. This is due to a me being absolutely batsh*t mental, and I'm only getting worse as time goes on.
Considering that I drove my last girlfriend to hate me on more than one occasion(one time doing so purposefully, which is insane) and I wasn't nearly as bad then as I am now, I would hate to see what I'd be like now.
In short, I'm saying that it's a good thing I don't have a romantic interest right now. Hopefully I'll eventually get myself under control, and then I can try it, eh?
Still, I really miss that awesome girl. Cos that's how it works, doesn't it?
'Important dates in my life.'
2nd April 1988 - I am born.
2nd April 1989 - I am fully toilet trained.
1st September 2000 - I join Poole Grammar School.
??? July 2002 - I leave Poole Grammar School.
15th April 2005 - Start of my first proper relationship with a girl.
24th February 2006 - Mrs. O'Connor brings Playmobil toys to class.
Sometime around here I sart unicycling.
26th April 2006 - The first(that we know about) time that Leo kissed a hawk.
3rd June 2006 - The day Jack and I went to Falmouth for the first time.
4th September 2006 - I move away from home.
1st October 2006 - I start at Falmouth University.
25th October 2006 - I think "F*ck that noise" and leave university.
3rd December 2006 - First time I fully shaved my head. Took three hours.
28th February 2007 - I return home.
Did I miss anything?
'Musical inclinations.'
Yeah, I know, two posts within very short space of each other. I didn't post yesterday, so this makes up for it. Sort of.
I've been wanting, lately, to try and write a few more songs. One reader(maybe two?) is aware of the lost classic "Where's My Nametag?", a song I still find myself humming every couple of days. I really want to go back and record that again, experimenting some more with the vocoder work, and maybe some loops.
I also never finished the "Mrs. O'Connor" song, featuring Charlie Hill. I thought that was hilarious at the time' and still do, but I wasn't Mac-savvy enough. I am now of course.
Seeing as I have nothing but time these days(thanks uberman + unemployment) along with a single-minded focus towards putting stuff on this site, this is more of a warning than anything else.
That's right. You've been warned.
'The Kyle Hayes Media Review'
Casino Royale - I finally got around to watching this last night, and I was impressed. It was a little held back by the 12 rating, something epitomized by the lengthy poker scene that went on a little too long. Other than that, a decent action film that really invigorates the franchise. I've not been the biggest Bond fan, but I'll definitely be back for the next one.
Oh, and the free running in the second scene was amazing. Every time I see that stuff done I want to do it too. Those people are fabulous.
Raines - This series starring Jeff Goldblum, character actor extraordinaire, has the intriguing premise of a detective who hallucinates conversations with the victims of the murders he's trying to solve, simply out of a need to bounce his ideas off of someone. To be fair, I'd watch Goldblum read the phonebook(to use a tired and clich phrase) so this show could do nothing but entertain me. Still, it's funny, smart and just the right amount of emotional, with a twist you won't see coming(at least if you don't watch the trailer on YouTube.)
Raines can be found on Torrentspy, fer those of you in the UK. Seek it out already.
Hellogoodbye - ZOMBIES! ALIENS! VAMPIRES! DINOSAURS! - I discovered this album by browsing Virb, and like most of the music I come across without the help of mainstream media, it's blowing me away. Hellogoodbye pump out solid electronica with hooks that'll stay with you for days. I've had this album half a week, and I've listened to it over fifty times. It's that good.
Stargirl - Once again I've returned to my favourite book of all time. A book I've had to buy three times after reading it to death. This story, about a girl with a unique and macical viewpoint on life, is masterfully woven by Jerry Spinelli. If you read it and don't like it, I don't want to know you.
The edition I'm currently reading comes with a silver cover instead of the usual pink.