Cheapocrite

Not me, yesterday.

Well, it’s almost September. Where has 2012 gone? It only seems like two minutes ago I was packing up all my worldly possessions (all one suitcase of them) and heaving my ass through the gates of the naval base I called home. Those were dark days, I must admit – why anyone with half a brain cell would want to endure a lifestyle of constant degradation like that...sheesh. And then there was the whole business with the motorbike training, and the moving and then starting my new job – it seems to have all flown by so quickly.

I hope it continues to do so actually, as April 2013 marks the end of my current job (it was only ever for a year) and the start of my planned 3+ month backpacking trip to Australia. Or possibly India. Or maybe Peru/South America. I’ve not really decided where I’m going yet, but it’ll be one of those places...and Australia is winning at the moment simply because it a) looks epic; b) is sunny; and c) the least amount of fuss is required in order to do some exploring, seeing as they already (quite handily) speak a form of English there. I know Australia is a bit of a cliché and the indigenous people (well, the ‘new’ indigenous people) must get sick of all the English who turn up at their airports sporting backpacks...but fuck it. I want to go there so I’m going. Australia is also top of my list (so far) because a few of my old school friends have gone out there to start new lives, and meeting up with some fellow Mancunians on the other side of the planet just sounds ace...even if they are Man City fans. 

So 2013 then. The year of my great excursion Down Under. Goodbye England, with your miserable weather and even more miserable population! I know the old phrase ‘the grass isn’t always greener’ blah, blah fucking blah...but in this case I really don’t give a toss. I’m putting all my shit in storage, putting some clothes and other assorted stuff in a bag and then fucking off for a few months: bliss. I know I’ll have to come back at some point and that will be another grim day...but I think a break from this isle will do me good and maybe help to shift my perspective of life here. I know I moan a lot (even though a lot of it is meant to be tongue in cheek), but I know that the quality of life in the UK is amongst the best in the free world: we’ve got the NHS, clean running water, freedom of speech, electricity, the internet, roads, a free press...loads of stuff a good chunk of the rest of the world doesn’t have...it’s just that the constant greyness of everything, well – it gets me down. And I need an extended break. So I’m taking one. And I’ll more than likely document it here on this very blog so people back home can see what I’m up to...so there’s also that to look forward to, you lucky lot!

In other news, the Paralympics had its opening ceremony last night. I didn’t watch it though – I was too busy listening to the bombcast (Giant Bomb’s vaguely games-related and funny as hell podcast), while playing NOVA 2 on my PlayBook. I seem to have become a massive fucking hypocrite in recent weeks: if you’d suggested to me, in say June, that in August I’d be playing on a tablet PC whist listening to my iPod, I’d probably have spat bile in your face. The June version of me would have said that tablets were a waste of time and that iPods are a piece of shit because they break so easily (I’ve owned several – look through the archived posts of yore for details of their individual demise). So yeah, I’m a hypocrite – but the facts of the matter come down to me also being a tightwad. The PlayBook was £129, and the iPod was £30. Bargains, I think you’ll agree. If I’d been offered either device at their full price, the aforementioned bile would again be raging up my oesophagus with a view to landing on the facial region of the seller. So, with that in mind, I’m not simply a hypocrite – I’m a cheapocrite. Which is something else entirely. So there.