Permission to Scream: Authorised

Well, I finally sold the Honda. I suppose that should be a cause for celebration seeing as it’s been the source of quite a bit of stress over the past week or so. Ever since I bought the Suzuki, I’ve had the burden of entering the murky world of vehicle sales looming over me like some kind of sentient shadow. A bit like Count Dracula’s in that shit movie with Neo Anderson from The Matrix in it. But hold the champagne – the celebrations haven’t been given the all clear just yet. One word: Paypal. I’ll come back to that in a second, but first let me explain why getting rid of the Honda has been such a pain in the ass.

The first and most important thing I had to contend with was actually getting the bike exposed to a buying public. I advertised it on eBay as a classified listing and had exactly zero phone calls for about a week, before noticing (quite by chance)that eBay had placed a totally random telephone number in the ‘contact the seller’ section. I clearly remember entering my actual phone number, so where this random string of digits came from, I don’t know. I know some services offer a ‘number masking’ thing, where buyers only get to see an 0800 number to protect your identity, but eBay never offered one: this random telephone number seems to have been entered seemingly at random. Odd. Suffice to say, that after entering my correct details I had a call within an hour that led to the eventual sale. But we’re not at that point just yet. Due to the lack of interest from eBayers, I decided that putting the bike up for sale on several websites would garner more exposure, so off I popped to Gumtree.

I’ve sold things on Gumtree before, but the kinds of people who respond to Gumtree ads tend to be the ones who bring a certain odour with them when they turn up to buy stuff: that of sweat and faeces. Why? Who knows, but they do. Anyway, I tried to post an advert in the motorcycles section of Gumtree, but every time I did, the advert appeared in the ‘cars’ section. This happened about 7 times, and every time I tried to contact customer services to ask why, I was met with an automated response with a different (stupid) name attached at the bottom. People like ‘Gary Sultana’ then started to bombard my inbox with requests to take a customer satisfaction survey and such like. Here’s my customer response, Gary Sultana: take your ridiculous name and go fuck yourself you prick. Your service is nonexistent and your website is a fucking joke.

I’m pretty sure one of the emails was from an actual person – somebody calling themselves ‘Liam Henderson.’ I wrote a lengthy and polite email to customer services explaining that I was trying to place an advert in the motorcycles section and that my advert, once accepted, would continue to be placed in the cars section, ergo anyone searching for a motorbike would not see my advert...because it was in the wrong section. You get the idea. Liam Henderson sent me a reply saying this: “Your advert is in the section ‘Cars, Vans & Motorcycles – Cars – Honda’...seems like the right place to me.” FUCKING MORON! At this point, I realised that trying to communicate with this online entity was like smashing my head repeatedly against a submarine hatch, so I admitted defeat and put a filter on any future Gumtree mail sending it automatically to the ‘junk’ folder.

I also paid £15 to have a third advert placed on the pages of MCN (that’s Motorcycle News, for those not in the know), and I didn’t actually have an issue with it, other than a few calls from people who were from hundreds of miles away asking if I could deliver the bike to them (erm...no. That’s not how buying a vehicle works).

Even in the face of this web-based adversity, various time wasting phone calls, and several visits from people who were clearly trying to get the bike off me for a fraction of the advertised price, I managed to sell the bike. The guy rang and emailed yesterday (after I amended the aforementioned eBay contact info issue) and seemed like quite a keen, decent buyer. He turned up, looked at the bike and we agreed a price (slightly lower than the asking price, but a sensible offer and one I was only too happy to accept after the developments of the past week). The only problem was that it was about 7pm and the banks were all closed so he couldn’t get the cash out for me. We decided to use the Wi-Fi in my flat so he could send the cash to me using PayPal, which seemed like a perfectly acceptable method at the time. That is until a) I realised that PayPal had siphoned off about £50 for the pleasure; and b) I got an email from them saying that my request to withdraw the payment to my bank account was ‘pending’ until they had reviewed it. REVIEWED WHAT?! The guy was sat in my house chatting with me when he did the transfer from his bank account to my PayPal account. We shook hands, and he left a happy man. Why does PayPal feel the need to stick its fucking stupid face in? I’ve queried this, and been told that it’s for my protection. Eh?! From what, exactly?! 

So that’s the current state of things. I’ve sold my Honda and the buyer is happy with it. I’m happy with the price he paid. But I still haven’t got my money because I made the massive mistake of letting PayPal become involved. And there isn’t a single fucking thing I can do about it.

The morale of this story has several layers. I propose the first one is this: do not sell a vehicle unless it is a matter of life and death. The stress levels you will encounter are (probably) similar to those endured when moving house or losing a loved one (as those are, apparently, the two most unsettling events you can go through in a stable, developed country...although evidence suggests that’s bullshit). Secondly, the internet fucking sucks...or rather, the people tasked with running shit that is based on the internet suck. Ultimately, people are people...and as I stated in a previous blog post, quite correctly in my opinion, people are cunts to each other. The last one is this: PayPal seems to be a company that creates its own rules and regulations and generally they fuck with people’s lives. I’ve had a look at the community forums to see how long they generally take to release users’ cash, and there doesn’t seem to be a definite answer other than: when they want to. Which is quite a big flaw, actually. The closure of my account will be pretty swift once I get my cash – well done PayPal.

I’m quite relieved that this whole ordeal is (almost) over, and when I finally get my money released, it’ll be a good few years before I dip my toe into the world of vehicle buying and selling. I’d like to dip my fist/boot into Gary Sultana or Liam Henderson’s face though. And PayPal’s collective face too, if possible.

In a sudden and rather unexpected change of tack, go here to read my blog post over at the National Archives blog. It’s about Digital Preservation, so not going to appeal to everybody...but go have a look anyway. Expand your horizons and all that shit.

Update: I've just been looking at my PayPal account and it appears I have a limit on the amount of money I can withdraw or send through my account. I've just been on the phone with them and they said that this shouldn't affect the transaction from yesterday and that my money will go into my bank account in the next few days. Gah! If only I'd insisted on a cash payment. Hindsight: what a fucking amazing invention. I'm not holding my breath - I expect a bloody, drawn-out war over this. My Afghanistan, if you will. Further updates as they happen.

Procedures

Found myself way oop north last week. Yep – I took the train to Durham to meet up with some work colleagues and have meetings etc. Doesn’t sound too exciting, I know, but my employer arranged for this meeting to take place behind the scenes at Durham cathedral...and also incorporated a guided tour of the building. To say it was amazing is an understatement. I’d never been to Durham before so it was a fairly spectacular introduction to the place. The city itself is pretty nice – it’s not a big city like Birmingham or Manchester, but for that reason it has a totally different feel; very olde worlde, little winding streets and crooked alleys with independent shops built seemingly on top of each other.  Most people have probably heard of Durham University and the reputation it has, but the cathedral and castle are the first things you see as you approach on the train. Place looks like fucking Hogwarts – indeed, they used the cathedral as a set in Harry Potter...but I've never really been interested enough to watch any of those films so I couldn’t really comment. Something about ‘Monogle’s’ classroom? I don’t know. Meh. The guided tour of the cathedral was fascinating, and it was helped along by the fact that tour guide seemed to know a factoid about every single brick and door knob and column...so kudos to him. I’d definitely recommend a visit to the cathedral if you ever find yourself in that part of the world, and also a visit to the Shakespeare Inn just around the corner. It’s basically the Prancing Pony from Lord of the Rings, but without the Nazgul trying to stab you in your bed.

Durham cathedral entrance

Took all these pics with my PlayBook

Durham cathedral cloisters. There were bats flying around, naturally.

Saturday was slightly more nerve-wracking. A little bit of background: I've had gut problems for years. This may qualify as ‘over sharing,’ but fuck it. I don’t care. So yeah, I've had gut problems for years, and these problems have manifested themselves in various ways: feeling like shit, bloated, farting out noxious gasses that could put down a shopping centre full of families. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember and recently I’d resigned to putting up with it for the rest of my life...however long that will be. I’d tried altering my diet, cutting out alcohol and other stuff like bread and dairy and also trying those bullshit bacteria drinks like Actimel and Yakult...to no avail. However, however. Saturday morning I went and had a ‘procedure.’ This procedure is more commonly known as colonic irrigation and involved a pipe being shoved up my ass and warm water being forced into my colon. I must admit to being extremely fucking apprehensive – who wants to get their ass out in front of a stranger and have a pipe slipped up it?! I was even more apprehensive when myself and my significant other (who arranged the appointment, by the way) walked into the clinic and the only member of staff appeared to be a bearded man who clearly weighed at least 30 stone. Not a good start. Fears were repealed though when the therapist turned up and it was a less fearsome-looking female of normal human-like proportions. So I took off my pants,  got on the table, had water squirted up me, shat it out...and I must say that the result is nothing short of revelatory. Since Saturday morning (it’s now Monday morning), I have had no gurgling, no pain, no bloating...and no repugnant clouds of stench. The impossible has become reality...I have normal guts! Amazing! So, if you suffer from a bad stomach/digestive issues I’d wholeheartedly recommend going for one of these treatments. Once you get over the initial embarrassment and realise that the people who offer it see hundreds of asses and yours is no different, you’ll be thankful that you did.

Away from ass news, I sorted the issues with my new bike. The Suzuki Goose now has some new indicators and a headlight that points in the right direction as opposed to at the floor. The only niggle I have now is the speedo. Because it’s an imported machine, the speedometer is in Kilometres instead of mph. And because of this, it has a conversion sticker overlaid that...er...converts your speed to mph. It’s just that because the Goose is so much more powerful than the CBF, I feel like I’m going slower than the speed I’m told I’m going at. Example – when the speedo tells me I’m doing 30mph, I feel like I’m going slower than that because the engine is hardly ticking over, just sort of growling, and I can’t rely on the flow of traffic to tell me that I’m actually doing 30mph because nobody drives at the correct speed anyway! Fucking annoying.

Equally annoying is the way that potential buyers of my previous motorcycle are pissing me about. It’s advertised on several websites for £1650, which is an absolute steal for this type of bike...but people keep trying to get me to part with it for less. One guy turned up to look at it on Saturday afternoon, spent about half an hour of my time trying to find faults with it (he couldn’t) and then offered me £1400! That’s £250 under what it’s advertised for...cheeky twat! I understand that buyers expect to haggle...but that was taking the piss, and clearly indicated that he’d turned up with that much cash totally expecting to pay that much for the bike. Quite simply: do one. Other biking news: I picked up a rather nice biker jacket at a carboot sale on Sunday morning...for a fiver! I also managed to get an official and rather rare PlayStation carry case for £5 too. There was a distinct lack of Dreamcast stuff there, but you can’t have it all: I think a virtually new biking jacket and a PlayStation branded carry case for a combined total of £10 are great spoils. On top of that, the weather this weekend has been stunningly good...so all in all a pretty good weekend. Feels a bit strange to not be moaning about shit (no pun intended), but don’t worry – I’m sure I’ll find something to bitch about in my next post.

Snobbery?

Got to work this morning and someone had bought a newspaper and left it on the side. I picked it up. Inevitably, it was The Sun (inevitably, because most of the morons I work with aren't capable of digesting news written in a style other than that of a Ladybird book). Now, I haven't read The Sun for quite a while because there's now a newspaper published in these fair lands called The I, which is an offshoot of The Independent. It's basically a smaller, condensed version of said broadsheet and is in all honesty one of the best rags I've ever had the pleasure of reading. And it only costs 20p - but that's beside the point. The point is, I read The I. Not The Sun. So, one can only imagine the utter disgust I couldn't help but display when I flicked through the nation's 'favourite' red top this morning. It's fucking full of stories about The X Factor, Rihanna's tits and (honestly) a scan of the sea bed that revealed a shape that vaguely resembled the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars. I couldn't actually be bothered to finish reading the fucking thing - so I threw it at the wall and left it there in a sorry heap.

I can't believe that people pay 30 pence to read such festering dogshite. I'm no snob, but after nearly a year of buying The I (and being labelled as 'intelligent' for doing so (it's meant as an insult in the military, by the way)), I'm shocked that this comic can still masquerade as a legitimate newspaper. Atomic Kitten are not news. Amy Winehouse is not news. Joey Barton's Twitter account is not news. I could, rather depressingly, go on giving examples of subjects covered in today's copy of The Sun that shouldn't qualify as news items. But I won't, for fear that I may projectile vomit all over the computer.

I suppose I shouldn't really be suprised that every single person I observe leaving the shop on the base where I live/work has a copy of either The Sun or The Star (spit) folded up under their arm on a morning - the vast majority of them look as if they have only just mastered the ability to walk in a straight line and/or fashion their own name on a slate with a crushed crayon. And if that comment makes me a snob, then so be it.

Assorted Stuff from the Ether

Hello. It’s been ages since I’ve even thought about updating this shit. Mainly because no-one actually reads what I spunk out on here. But I’m a bit bored so I thought I might as well have a go at writing something to see if it makes any sense. To be fair, I’ve actually done quite a lot of interesting stuff since I last put anything on here (and looking down there at my previous entry, my amazing deduction skills tell me it’s been 9 months), so I may start updating again on a more regular basis just to boast about the exciting shit I’ve been up to. Maybe.

But anyway, here we are. I’m still in the employ of the navy, but hopefully not for very much longer. Why? Well, I’ve applied for voluntary redundancy. You may think this is madness in a time of recession, but I think I’ve definitely had my fill of being treated like an imbecile and living in ‘unsuitable’ conditions. I’m not one for being cryptic, so let me explain. When the powers that be in government decided to bin the Harriers and flog the Ark Royal for scrap, they also happened to shut down most of the Fleet Air Arm’s operations at several RAF bases around the country. As such, we had an influx of naval personnel sent back to Naval Air Stations. Where accommodation was already stretched. So the top brass decided that all junior rates should be taken out of single living accommodation and forced to double up – that is, cram two people into a room designed to house one. This might not sound like the end of the world, especially considering the cramped conditions people serving onboard ships have to live in, but when the only place you have to store all your belongings in suddenly has to accommodate the belongs of two people, you can imagine how crowded it gets. So yeah, along with hating my job, I now have to live in a cramped shoebox. With a bloke who snores so loud that the corpses in the graveyard at the back of the base probably have to wear earplugs every night.

To combat this, I have been sleeping on a couch in the mess square (basically a communal TV room), and it was during one such night a few months ago that I decided that I’d had enough of living like this, at nearly 30 years old. Doing a job I fucking hate, sleeping on a couch, living in the middle of nowhere and only getting to see my girlfriend at the weekend and never being able to go home to Manchester because it takes 5 hours to drive back there. So for me, the idea of taking voluntary redundancy has been a bit of a dream come true. People constantly ask “what are you going to do?” and I constantly reply “start living my fucking life again.”

So that’s the main thing going on at the moment – getting away from here, this job, this subservient lifestyle. Meh.

Got my car insurance renewal quote a few weeks ago. For some reason, the same company that last year demanded £550 for third party fire and theft cover wanted £2165 for the next. £2165 to insure the most undesirable car ever built?! To them I said “fuck you kindly,” and went on the hunt for a new insurance company. I eventually managed to get a quote of about £400 and I’m happy with it, but because I went on Compare the Finance Supermarket or whatever the fuck website it was, I’m now getting constant phone calls from dodgy insurance brokers asking me if I want a quote or, more worryingly, if I want to claim the accident I had recently. What fucking accident?! Has somebody stolen my identity and started having accidents? Sounds outlandish, I know, but there are shady fuckers around and they’ll stop at nothing to make a quick buck and bollocks to whoever’s life they screw up. Hypothetical cunts.

Also managed to acquire another Xbox360. Selling my old one cut me deep, but I had to in order to buy food or something. That was last year so since then, the only consoles I’ve been able to play have been my trusty old Dreamcast (respec’) and my crusty old PlayStation. But now I’m back in the game (excuse the piss-poor pun), but not without a bit of annoyance. You see, because I’m a cheapskate, I thought I’d go for a pre-owned Xbox 4GB from GAME. It was £139.99. And then a day later I saw that Argos were selling the exact same machine for about 10 quid more, but brand new. I then, after a few weeks of ownership, discovered that the 4GB hard drive fills up pretty quickly and have had to fork out for a hard drive that slots into the bottom of the console. That was another £30. So all in all, I would probably have been better off just buying a 250GB model in the first place. It’s not all bad though, as I now have a 250GB console, but in the preferred matte black, as opposed to the shiny, smear-prone actual 250GB. I’m confusing the hell out of myself now, so I feel for you, dear reader. The games I have bought thus far are such: Aliens v Predator, Alan Wake, Halo Reach, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Forza 3, Fight Night 3 and WRC and I must say that I am impressed with all of them so far (and looky over there at my gamertag thingy! It's automatically updated itself! The wonders of modern technology, eh?!). Not so much Fight Night, actually, but it was only a fiver so I can’t complain too much.

The last thing I want to announce, proudly, is that I have finally defeated my Facebook addiction. I decided one day a few months ago, to go cold turkey and totally deactivate my account. I thought I'd only be able to last a few days...but here I am, three months later and I don't even miss the cunting thing! So you see, it IS possible to exist without updating the world on when you're having a shit! WIN!

That’s enough from me for now. I’ll probably write some more words next week or something.

Bleary-eyed Musings

Well, it's 4am and I just thought I'd check in to spill my thoughts across the technological void. Just finished watching series 1 of Dexter - a US TV show/drama about a psychologically unhinged Miami forensics expert who also moonlights as a serial killer. And I have to say that it's one of the best shows I've had the pleasure of watching. Prior to Dexter, I was pretty engrossed in Fringe - a kind of next-gen X Files clone, but I got a bit bored of it towards the end of season 2 because it got a bit ridiculous and started throwing loads of random new characters in...and just got a bit boring. Same thing happened when I tried to get into series 1 of 24. I know everyone bleats on about how good 24 is, but I got to episode 15-ish (I think) and then got bored. Dexter, on the other hand, kept my attention all the way through. I borrowed the series 1 DVD box set off a friend last week and blasted through all 12 episodes in under 2 days and I'm seriously considering purchasing series 2 and 3 once I have sufficient funds. And for someone who never, ever buys DVDs, that's a strong indication of how good I thought the first series was.

Thinking about it, it's quite apparent that I do have something of an issue when it comes to sticking with things to the end. That's because it something doesn't really grab me, I switch off and let it fall to the wayside. And it's not just TV series - I do it with films too. Most movies follow some kind of formula and with the vast majority, I seem to be able to predict what's going to happen and then just switch off about three quarters of the way through. And then there are games too - I usually get a fair way into a game and then get bored and end up trading it in before I've even finished it. Why? who knows...but I guess I'm just one of those people who needs to be constantly shown something new for my attention to remain focused. Probably why I'm always complaining about being bored. Hmmm. Either that, or I'm just generally bored with my life at present. Yeah - it's most probably that, to be fair. Pfft.

Just looked at the little clock in the corner of the screen. It's 4.35am now. 2 hours to go before I can get the fuck out of this hideous little cell and go to bed. And fuck, do I need to get some sleep. The past 3 days have seen me go to bed at about 7am and then get up again at about 11 to go to the gym or some shit, but I know for a fact that today that simply isn't going to happen. I am absolutely fucked beyond belief and I reckon I'll spend the whole cunting day in my pit. The upside of that is that tonight I (hopefully) won't feel like a wet, crumpled newspaper; the downside is that when I awake I'll only have coming back here to this fucking horrendous cubicle to look forward to.

It's bad news when you hate your job as much as I do. You spend so much of your life at work that when you despise it this much, it has an adverse effect on your whole personality. Look at the facts. If you enjoy going to work, there's a damned good chance that you're likely to be a generally happy or upbeat person. Which is great. If, however, you see your job as some kind of punishment or prison sentence (as I do), and you spend every second that you're away from it dreading going back...then it's going to manifest itself in the form of a generally negative attitude. Hence my current, slightly melancholy outlook on life. Oh, to have a job I enjoy. Oh to have a job where there's someone to actually talk to or have a laugh with. Humph. I have had jobs in the past that I enjoyed, but they were mainly temp jobs and so by their very nature didn't last that long. One particular job I had was working in the reprographics department of a huge law firm in Manchester. The 'workshop' was in the basement of the office block and there was a team of about 5 of us down there basically photocopying documents etc. Sounds dull as fuck, I know, but in reality it was anything but. Normally, we would have to enlarge building plans etc and because the photocopiers were only able to enlarge up to a certain size, we sometimes had to do it by hand, using rulers and massive sheets of paper across the tables. It was actually quite good fun recreating massive scale copies of the documents and architectural plans, and the banter was brilliant, too. Ah...halcyon days! A far cry for the miserable and solitary existence I now lead. Tut.

This post has gone off on a bit of a random tangent (don't they all?!) and I'm bored now (see paragraph 2 for further information), so until the next time (probably 4am tomorrow morning)...adios.

Books and Boredom

Hello there. Me again. Finished my book yesterday - Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. And what a book it is/was. It's an account of the trials and tribulations faced by the author as he tries to eek out a meagre living whilst looking for work in Paris, and then later living as a tramp in London in the late 1920s. Reading it, you'd be forgiven for thinking the book is a factual account of Orwell's personal experiences (indeed, I though it was), but upon researching the book on the net and looking at Orwell's biography, it appears that the tale is a work of fiction. Fiction based in fact, but fiction nonetheless. Which was a bit surprising considering the amount of detail Orwell goes in to when describing his various situations throughout the story. Fact or not though, the book is a fantastic read and you'd never guess it was Orwell's first proper novel if no-one told you. I was a little sad when I finished it - kind of like how I felt when I completed Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I played that fucker from start to finish in about 2 weeks whilst I was in the first year of my A Levels, and when I finally restored the land of Hyrule to it's former glory, I was gutted. Gutted because in the back of my mind a little voice was saying "now what?!"

So, while the various inhabitants of Kokiri Village and Hyrule Castle were engaging in an eternal dance of victory, muggins here was sat there wondering how the fuck he was going to continue to fill his evenings. And good as it was, I'm not the kind of person who completes a game, only to start again and repeat it. What's the point in that? You've already seen everything so why do it again? OK, so I didn't catch a massive fish in the hut on the shores of Lake Hylia...but who gives a fuck? Reminds me of Metal Gear Solid on the PSX. Yeah - it was a fucking incredible game...but do I really want to replay the entire thing just because Snake is now wearing a tuxedo? I think not.

But going back to Down and Out in Paris and London, I feel that it was such an amazing book and painted such vivid images in my head that I don't think I can read anything else for a few days. Just need to get over it's brilliance before I start on The Road to Wigan Pier. I've also got Animal Farm (as mentioned t'other day) and The Clergyman's Daughter to read, but I've never heard of the latter so may read that last. It seems that I've become slightly obsessed with George Orwell in recent months, but I suppose an obsession with a dead author and his work is more desirable and less destructive than an obsession with drugs, booze, prostitution, crime or vandalism...right?!

I also managed to get hold of some second hand HP Lovecraft short story collections when I was in Bath (love that place) a few weeks back, and I've already smashed through some of them. Slight deviation from Orwell, being horror and all, but they're very good. Noticed severe over use of the term 'waning' when describing the moon...but who am I to argue with the creator of Cthulu (pictured above, yesterday)?!

On a different note, I've started road running again. Went on a few lengthy runs at the start of last week whilst I was up in Manchester, but running through a city like that is fraught with perils - namely busy roads and bus stops crammed with people who simply refuse to get out of your way even though they can see you coming a mile away with your luminous yellow top on. Running in Somerset is somewhat more enjoyable (if running can be described thus) due to the quiet lanes, stunning scenery and over-powering stench of cow shit that wafts like a wraith across hill and dale. Well, maybe not the last point, but you get the idea. Been for three Somerset runs this week and will be embarking on my fourth today. I'll be doing it at dinner time just so I can get off this godawful base for an hour or so. Small pleasures.

Been thinking about my future over the past few weeks. Well, my employment future. I'm quite unhappy with my current job and can't decide whether to put my notice in or not. I really miss city life and wouldn't mind leaving the navy and going to live somewhere like Bristol and just working in an office or a shop or something. Sounds a bit dull, I know, but I really miss having some kind of stability in my life. As it is, I never know where I'm going to be from one month to the next - even now I have no idea how long I'm based in my current location so I simply can't make any plans or think about my future on a personal level. It's quite unsettling not to know where you're going to be in a year's time...which may be great if you're 19 and have no worries in the world...but when you're almost 30 and it's a little worrying. I've got no home, is what I'm getting at, and it's an awful feeling knowing that there's nowhere you can retreat to when things get a little stressful. Hmmm. Leaving the relative security of the services right now just because I don't like my current position may seem a little hasty, but that's just how I feel. My next draft may be fucking awesome and actually live up to everything I thought being in the navy would mean...but so far, I'm decidedly unimpressed with the lifestyle and the levels of abject boredom I'm privy to. Wouldn't mind working on an oil rig or something to be honest, but where does one start when trying to transfer into a career like that?! Something to think about, for sure.

Until next time, bitches!

Perplexions of a Dangerous Mind

Howdy. Been off for the past week and couldn't be arsed writing owt. That, and it's been quite sunny so I've had no inclination to sit indoors on my laptop writing arse just for no fucker to read. But now I'm back for another week of the dreaded night shift, so blog away I will!

Just read on the BBC News website that PC Zone magazine is closing down in September. Seems that a lot of mags are being wound down at the moment because no-one is buying them. I'm not particularly fussed about PC Zone shutting it's doors as I've probably only read it once or twice (I've always been more of a PC Gamer kinda guy), but it's still sad that yet another mag is going to the wall. During my teenage years, my whole life was gaming - buying/swapping games, talking about games, arguing about games, fighting - yes, fighting - about games and reading/writing about games. I was obsessed with games and more to the point, games mags. I regularly bought about 3 or 4 of the things a month and still have the vast majority of them stacked up in a bedroom at my dad's gaff. There are hundreds of them and if someone with a sadder life than mine actually wanted to arrange them in date order (requests via email, peeps), you could probably see which console I had at the time due to the leanings in the purchased content.

I used to get CVG and Gamesmaster every month anyway, but along with those I bought stuff like Mean Machines Sega, Saturn Power, Official Saturn Mag, N64 Magazine, DC-UK, Dreamcast Magazine etc. Because of the mags, It soon came about that I started to think that maybe I could become a games journalist and began writing reviews for a local newspaper (South Manchester Area News...anyone know if it's still going?!). I did that for about 2 years all in all and got paid £20 per article...which was a fair old bit for a tramp like me back then. As usual, this isn't going anywhere - I just thought I'd regale you with a tale of Tomleecee of yore. A trampy, skint cunt who played too many computer games and wanted to write about them for a living. It didn't work out as I planned - I'm in the navy now. But who knows where I'll be in 20 years. I could be the editor of Edge by then. And if I am, I'll sack the whole editorial team and reform the team from Amiga Power circa 1994 and turn it into a decent, fun and entertaining periodical. Edge: taking the fun out of gaming since time began.

So yeah, PC Zone is no more. Which is sad. Sort of.

Did some volunteering last week. I've not suddenly become some kind of charitable avenger of justice - I just did it to avert my attention from the boredom of living in Hades (Somerset). The week before, I signed up with a volunteering website and then someone from the Council rang me a few days later...and viola - the following week I was building a gate in a field. Oh, and removing some graffiti from a fence. And pulling up weeds. It was a pretty good day to be honest and quite a good laugh. I may go back and help out again next week - it certainly beats walking around the town centre on my Jack Jones looking at crap in shops that I don't really want or need but am buying because my life is dull and void of interesting shit. Although, speaking of interesting shit - I'm going to Paris in September with my ladyfriend. Actually quite excited as I've never been to France before - hell, I've never organised a holiday before - so it's a whole new (grown-up(ish)) experience for me. Me - doing 'grown-up' shit. There's an oxymoron right there. Hmmm.

The hotel I've booked is pretty basic (and has received some horrendous reviews), but to be fair - I don't give a flying toss. I spent the early part of my life living in battered wives refuges and homeless families hostels so I'm sure I can handle sleeping in a basic-looking hotel for a week. Furthermore, I'm not going to be sitting in the fucking hotel 24 hours a day - I'm going to be out and about and revelling in the culture and hustle bustle of a 24-hour continental capital city. It's going to be about as far removed from fucking Yeovil as you can possibly get. And for that, I am truly, truly thankful. That's because - and I make no apologies whatsoever for the following statement - Yeovil is a boring cess-hole. But I digress.

Completed the single player campaign on Modern Warfare 2 today. I'm a bit perplexed. Y'see - I was just getting in to it...and then it ended. What a goddamn joke! And what a crap final scene! Sure - I'm happy to take back my previous comments about the game, but the ending is such an anti-climax. Bah! And what's all that shit with the museum thing at the end?! Bizarre. I'm going to take it to Gamestation this week and swap it for Alan Wake or Lost Planet 2. Hopefully they'll give me a decent trade-in amount for it as they've bumped the price of a new copy back up to £44.99...aaaand here I am talking about swapping games again. Old habits die hard, evidently.

I've got more stuff to write about, but I'm going to try and stretch it across the week. Because it gives me something to do when I'm at work, to be honest. Bye bye, me hearties.

Clutter Snipe

I've been a bit of a miserable cunt recently and I've let a few things get out of hand, so what I propose to do from now on is try to keep myself busy to take my mind off all the less appealing events that have been going on recently. So, the first things I intend to do are finally have a good auld fucking tidy up. You may remember how I waxed about being evicted from my house-share a few weeks ago via text message. Well, since then, I haven't actually unpacked any of my belongings or clothes - I've just thrown them into a big cupboard in my room and left it all in a big heap, leaving me rummaging around for items of clothing whenever I need them. Not an ideal situation by any means, so I need to sort the detritus out and put it in some kind of order.

On the subject of my recent eviction, once I had got back to my previous (or is that current?) dwelling, I noticed that I was slightly lighter on clothing than I thought I should have been. After a quick call to one of my previous housemates, I discovered that I'd left a load of clothes in some draws in my old bedroom. Shortly after this call, the cowardly bastard of a landlord texted me to tell me he was leaving my clothes in a bin bag outside the back door on the following Sunday. Fucking charming behaviour for a middle aged, apparently professional adult, eh? What a cock (sucker). Hope him and his live-in closet boyfriend go on to be very happy in their own little version of Narnia.

I also need to tackle the obscenely scruffy article that is my car. Since I used it to move all my shizzle from the house of a thousand pillow-screams, It's become something of a shit-tip. Food wrappers, empty bottles, old shoe boxes (?) - it is just full of crap. It needs a damn good internal clear out and a good scrub on the outside too. It shall be returned to it's former glory and regain the crown of best mid-range family saloon driven by a family-less bloke in the South West...you mark my words.

So what else has been happening? Well, it looks as though my time as a glorified security guard/boredom researcher is coming to an end - and thank fuck. I can honestly say that the last 6 - 7 months (of my employ, naturally) have been pretty damned dire. Overall though, said months have been pretty interesting and, let's say, 'character building.' Sometimes, random sequences of events pepper your life and they can leave you head-fucked and completely at a loss as to who you are, where you're going or where you've even been. My sequence of events, I'm sure, have been going on for a few years now, but I just need to re-address how I'm looking at things and move on. So that's what I'm doing. If not physically, certainly in an emotional sense. And the first thing I'm going to do is sort my clutter out.

Insomnia

Christ. Feel like I'm some kind of ethereal trance as, for some reason, I haven't been able to sleep for the past few days. I'm currently working nights (that is, from 6.30pm through the wee hours up until 6.30am), so as soon as I finish my shift I try to get my head down. However, due to some fucked-up disorder (or whatever it could be described as), I'm finding it very difficult to drift off to slumberland during the daylight hours. Makes me kind of glad I don't live in Alaska or wherever it is that the sun doesn't set for 6 months. Perpetual daylight would no doubt inevitably lead to my premature death through obscene tiredness and exhaustion. On the flip-side, living in such a location would also mean 6 months of perpetual shadow, meaning I would probably have to go into hibernation like some kind of bear/human hybrid. I'd gladly take that though, if it meant I could evolve massive Grizzly-style claws with which to gouge out the eyes and throats of my enemies.

But yeah - back to reality, and here I am - bleary eyed, feeling light-headed and fuzzy and oh so tired...but without the physical means to actually go to sleep. Could this be the fabled insomnia? Whatever it is, I'm going to invest in some sleeping tablets if this crap doesn't sort itself out over the next 24hrs.

I'll keep you pos...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Excursions

Hello there. Been an odd couple of weeks for me, and I've been all over the place so not really had the time or the inclination to post any of my usual brand of shite on here. I'm back at work for the next two weeks though, so I should be spilling my mind onto the tinterwebs with alarming regularity over the next couple of (well, 14) days. So what's been occurring then?

Well, last week I ventured out of the south and headed back up to the Great Industrial North (tm) for a week of head-clearing, reflection and relaxation. Inevitably though, it just ended up being a bit of piss-up that lasted for 5 days. I had every intention of going up there to just chill out and get some good running and cycling done, but due to recent events my mood was slightly awry and this was perceived by most of my friends and family (Gawd bless 'em all) as "let's get him pissed to cheer him up." It kind of worked for the most part, and I had an enjoyable time (more later), but I still just couldn't help but go over the events in my personal life over and over and over...ad nausea. Which was shite.

However, apart from get monumentally bollocksed, I did partake in some decent activities. I went up to Jodrell Bank space telescope in Cheshire with my cousin after enquiring with a former housemate (who now works there) as to whether there was a visitor's centre. He enthusiastically informed me that there was a 'small' one there. So me and cousin ventured out to the place...only to discover that the 'small' visitor's centre (that also charged a £2 entry fee), was little more than a room with a few pictures and an extortionately expensive cafe. Unimpressive is the least offensive word that I can use to describe said vistor's centre. The telescope itself, however, is a real feat of engineering - the thing is fucking hur-uge, and it can rotate on a massive track-type job. It did actually move at one point, and it makes you think why it was moving and what the bods in charge were looking at/for. As a side note, I remember that when my former housemate (who was studying for a PhD in Astrophysics at the time) hooked up his bedroom PC to Jodrell Bank's through the internet, all that came up on the screen were rows upon rows of numbers etc. Not what I had in mind when I thought about telescopes...although it is a radio telescope so assuming that there'd be big pictures of nebulae and shit on the guy's computer screen does seem a little on the naive side when I actually think about it!

Also at Jodrell, there were these things called 'the whispering dishes,' which are these two big green...er...dishes facing each other and are spaced about 200 yards apart. If you stand in front of one and whisper into it, the person standing in front of the other one can hear your voice as clear as a bell. Fuck knows how it all works, but I would hazard a guess that it's got something to do with acoustics or something. Still, a brilliant little curiosity and unlike the crappy visitor's centre, they were free to marvel at.

After Jodrell Bank had offered up all (well, both of) it's wonders, I took a trip to Stockport to see a mate who I've not seen for about 2 years (which, as you've probably predicted, turned into a visit to the pub). This event was tinged with regret though, as it saw me break my year-long, self-imposed ban on the consumption of the donner kebab. Look - It was late, I was pissed and I hadn't eaten all day. I was attracted to the bright lights of the kebab outlet like a moth to a flame...and the rest is history. I have to say that after I'd consumed it, I felt disturbingly horrible. Greasy and disgusting, in fact. I toyed with the idea of trying to wretch the fucker up into some bushes, but there were a load of boy racers watching me from their hideously coloured and 'tuned' Vauxhall Corsas in a supermarket car park across the road.

The week also saw me take a train ride to Southport, which is a little seaside town just down the coast from Blackpool. It's quite a decent place, but you can tell that it's a shadow of it's former self (thanks Resident Evil for that quote - I use it more often than I should). There is a fun fair like the Pleasure Beach at Blackpool, but it's been closed for a while and there are umpteen closed down food stalls and arcades along the seafront. It's quite sad, really, as you can see that the whole place is slowly dying off - maybe it's down to the recession, or maybe just down to the fact that Blackpool is just up the road (you can see the tower and the Bog One roller coaster from the beach at Southport), but it's still quite eerie when you walk past the closed rides and empty pier. On the plus side, we did stop for a pint at the world's smallest pub (they've even got a plaque on the wall that was issued by the Guinness records people) and also got some proper fish and chips that was devoured with gusto on the sea front.

On Thursday, I finally got to speak to my sister and see her baby girl (my niece, obviously). She's a big old unit considering she's only 8-ish months old and I was scared shitless of dropping her, so declined the offer of carrying her. Added to this, she was probably wondering who the fuck I was and started to flap every time I got near her, but I eventually got the chance to have her sit on my lap...at which point she shat her nappy. Always nice. But yeah, seeing a real-life baby was cool. Which reminds me that my brother's baby is due in August, too. Mental. Gonna be an uncle for the second time in the space of a year!

So, it was fairly good week, and it was good to see so many people again who I've not seen for ages...and it only took me 4 hours to get back up there in the Proton (which is still going strong, for those who are interested). If only there hadn't been so much negative horse-shit going round in my head. Ah well. Maybe the shrink I'm off to see can suck it all out of my swede. If that doesn't work, I'm going to employ Mike Tyson to beat it out. Hmmm...!

Home Truths

Why the fuck can't someone hurry up and invent a time machine? Preferably priced at £9.99? If such an item existed, I'd more than likely travel back to last weekend and change the course of my personal history drastically. As it is, I've lost my abode, lost a lot of self respect and am now on the verge of losing someone very dear to me...all through my own rash stupidity and bad behaviour. I suppose I'm just one of those people who has a self destructive gene. Hardly surprising when I sit back and actually think about my upbringing - most of which consisted of chaos, destruction, violence, women's refuges, homeless families hostels, fighting, violence...and, er, fighting.

Obviously, there was a bit of guidance away from this cycle in the latter part of my adolescence (hence my journey through college, university, umpteen jobs and now the military), but I can't help but feel that if I'd had a more 'normal' childhood (y'know - like not having your toys smashed up on Christmas day by your dad; or seeing your mum beaten up by her subsequent boyfriends) I wouldn't be anywhere near as melancholy or generally self pitying as I am now. Don't get me wrong - I don't walk round with a constant scowl adorning my face (infact, quite the opposite), I just seem to always manage to bring about the worst outcome in any given pseudo-negative scenario. Recent events have only proven to me that I need a drastic change of attitude, but how does one go about changing one's entire outlook on life, the universe and everything?

I have learnt through this past week though, that I must completely change my outlook if I am to change my attitude and subsequently my life, and just writing this is actually making me feel slightly better about recent events. Obviously I give more of a fuck about some of the past week's events than others, but without going into too much private detail (well any, actually), I also need to work out how to repair the damage I have done in certain areas of my life. I know this diatribe is a diversion from my usual rantings about O2, fucking ASDA Smart Price and the like, but it's been a while since I've felt so completely devastated and wracked with remorse over my actions, and I just wanted to vent.

On the flip side of this though, the rational, intelligent Tomleecee is whispering in my ear. You can't please everyone, is what he's saying. And you know - I think he's got a point.

Come back next week and I'm sure I'll be back to my usual crap, regaling with tales of drunken derring-do and bargainous gadgets that I've managed to beg, steal or borrow...but for now, I'm in a slightly pensive mood.

Guess What?

Its raining and I just ate some crisps. However...

Don't usually talk about current affairs on here because, well, I don't want to - but what the fuck is going on with Israel? Boarding aid ships full of civilians and blasting the hell out of them? That ain't on, seriously. Can you imagine if British forces did that? or French or German? Hell, forces from ANY supposedly 'developed' country? No, me neither. Those fuckers seriously need to be dealt with by the international community. A nation that allows it's special forces to board an AID SHIP full of unarmed CIVILIANS and then shoot a load of them, is a nation that could potentially cause problems of the mushroom cloud-shaped variety, if you catch my (radioactive) drift. Anyway, that's enough about pseudo-interesting news items - lets discuss ME. That's me, by the way, not M.E., just so we're clear.

Really need to sort my shit out. Not literally, you understand - I'm not implying that I need to take a dump into a petri dish and have a rummage around with a scalpel/breadstick - no, I mean I need to actually unpack all my belongings and get my current (albeit hopefully temporary) abode in some kind of order. Since I moved last week I haven't had the inclination or the willpower to get up off my arse and get all of my crap out of my myriad suitcases and put it all away. Ergo, my room looks like the kids' bedroom from Poltergeist after the little girl gets sucked into the telly. But fuck it, that shit can wait. I have more pressing matters to attend to - namely Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Now, I know that I lambasted this game upon it's (in my honest yet humble opinion) over-hyped release, but I finally bit the bullet on Sunday and bought it. It was reduced to £22 in CEX (used) because Gamestation has recently reduced the price of a new copy to £25, so I just thought "why not?"

And yeah, I have to concede I may have been a little hasty in my slagging of the game, as from what I've seen so far, it's a quality piece of software. Granted, I only managed to get up to the infamous Airport mission, where you have to mow down scores of innocent civilians in the terminal with a massive great gun (Israeli military training aid, perhaps?) before I had to retire to my pit, but yeah - I'm suitably impressed. Great graphics, brilliant shoot-outs, baffling storyline - it has it all. Don't know if I'd have been as impressed if I'd shelled out 50 notes for it like some knobs did, but what you gonna do?

Went for another run last night. It was pretty balmy and my balls kept squashing out of the side of the lycra boxers I was wearing under my shorts, but it felt good to be running the old routes again. Somerset - even though I think most of the towns are chav-infested shitholes with fuck all going for them - has some beautiful countryside, and for this reason I find running round here more of a pleasure than a hindrance. I'm also going to join a proper running club and start entering runs etc, just to keep me busy. And with any luck, my fucking knees will hold out permanently this time.

Anyway, that's enough inane bullshit for one morning. Might check in later with some more. Peace, bitches.

Living and Learning

Well. How the devil art thou? It's been a long time since I updated this little baby hasn't it? A month and a day if I'm not mistaken, and rather shockingly, quite a bit has happened in my social-wraith-like existence.

Went camping in South Wales during the second weekend of May. I went with my better half to the idyllic, shining beacon of industry known as Swansea...and it rained. It wasn't actually Swansea town centre that we camped in - it was a place called Clyne, a bit further down the coast, and had it been as sunny as it was when I decided to book the campsite, I wager it would have been a pretty spectacular weekend away. As it was, we got there on the Friday evening and had a little BBQ in the brief spell of sunshine that the Gods granted us...before the heavens opened and unleashed Dante's vision of Hell upon the campsite. And there said vision presided - through the night, into the Saturday and then on into Saturday night. The weather was, happily, the only shite thing about our little excursion. We had a nice walk into the town centre, ate a fucking enormous meal in a pub, and walked around some ornamental gardens. All in all, a rather enjoyable weekend. Shame the tent was fucking tiny and the rain came through in one corner, but you can't have it all.

Which is pretty fucking weird, considering the weather has been pretty damn fine throughout most of the rest of the month. Ah well. Speaking of the fine weather, I have made the most of it by resuming my running. My knee has finally decided to stop pissing me about and sorted it's act out. So no more ridiculous pains and no more painful feet when out pounding pavement. I, as previously documented at great length, had reverted to using a cross-trainer to get my exercise done whilst my knee was out of action, but in recent weeks it seems to have fully recovered and as such I'm back out in the wilderness again. Not to the excessive levels I was previously, you understand, but out there nonetheless. As such, last week I bought some new running trainers: Saucony are back in my life.

Saucony are, without a shadow of a doubt, the best running trainers I have ever used. I was previously wearing Nike, and the physio I was seeing advised that I get some dedicated running footwear in order to lessen the effects of my injury. Alas, I couldn't afford any new trainers at the time and that's where my love affair with the cross-trainer began. Last week though, I pooped into the new TK Maxx store in Weymouth and spotted a pair of (gasp!) size 9 Saucony Grid running trainers for the meagre sum of £29.99 wedged in between the hideous bright blue pairs of Converse basketball shoes (who the fuck buys those?!). As soon as I spotted them, I knew they had to be mine...so I handed over the card and purchased them. And as predicted, they are every bit as comfortable as both of my previous pairs - the first of which fell apart after so much use; and the second which shrank after I washed them and tried to dry them on the radiator (as previously documented here, on this very blog folks).

Also been doing a bit of reading. After the marvellous Frankenstein, I have acquired a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it is superb. Far better than the film adaptation, but then that's to be expected these days. Not finished it yet, but getting there.

Remember how I was going on a few months ago about trying to find somewhere to live and then deliberating about how I was thinking of moving out? Well, the decision was made for me earlier this week by my landlord: I was evicted via text message. Seriously. The reasons are still a little cloudy, but the story leading up to the aforementioned text message are as follows.

On Sunday last, my dad and cousin ventured down from Manchester to visit me in my shared house for a few days. I had previously asked the (live-in) landlord if this was OK, and he was quite enthusiastic and had said it was fine - they could use the spare room. He even went to the trouble of making up beds etc. Which was very good of him. When my guests arrived on Sunday evening, I had already arranged a bit of a BBQ for them and a few beers in the extensive garden, and also strategically arranged the seating etc in an area as far away from the occupied bedroom windows as I could in order to a) prevent smoke going into open windows from the BBQ; and b) prevent anyone being bothered by noise. Furthermore, I invited several of my housemates to come and join us. None of them did, but the landlord and his partner (he's gay) came out to chat with us for a while. It was all fine, up until half eleven that night when the previously jovial landlord came storming out of the house in his dressing gown to tell us, quite abruptly to shut up and keep the noise down. It was news to us that we had been making an inordinate amount of noise, but with that we decided to call it a night and went to bed after tidying up our mess. The next morning, I spoke to him (the landlord) and apologised for the 'noise' and that was the end of it...or so I thought.

That same night, after being out of the house all day showing my old man and cousin around the town and the beaches etc, we went back to the house end ended up sat outside again, as we had the previous evening. Not long after we had got back, one of my housemates appeared with his girlfriend, a crate of Budweiser and a bottle of vodka. Cue much merry making, but in greatly hushed tones due to the previous night's chastisement. We finally retired at around 2am, making sure as not to disturb any of the other people in the house. And so the night was done. Until the following morning, at about 8am when the landlord decided to boot my bedroom door open (while I was still asleep and thus waking me up), and go into a raving tantrum about how we'd kept him up all night with our 'yapping' and how we'd left the garden looking like we'd had a 'festival.' Don't know how many festivals the tit has been to, but if any of them looked like how we'd left the garden, they must've been pretty shit.

I got up, went downstairs and tidied up the beer bottles and ashtrays that had been left on the table. It was done in under 3 minutes - just to illustrate the scale of the debris. Landlord then flounced off to work. After this (and after also, unbeknown to me, being rude to my dad and cousin), neither of my guests wanted to stay in the house and cut short their visit by a day. I avoided the landlord for a further two evenings by staying one night in my room and then the next night at my girlfriend's house. By this time, it was Thursday morning and I still hadn't seen or heard from the melodramatic twat. I decided to try to clear the air by sending a text message to him asking if we could sort it out. He responded by saying he thought it would be best if I moved out by the middle of June!

For a bit of fucking noise!

I'm actually working for most of June, and won't be at the house very much, so decided to move out there and then, humping all my worldly possessions back to my previous residence at the military base I sometimes (but once again, exclusively) called home. In some ways, I'm a bit disgruntled because there are some people living in that house share who have done some pretty shocking things whilst lodging (one guy held a fucking knife up the throat of a previous resident, for example...but still happily resides there); but in others I'm quite happy to be out of the place as I no longer have to give a chunk of my wage away just to live a lonely existence in a town where I know nobody whilst sleeping in a room the size of a shoebox. Silver linings and all that.

Other events that have littered May are: a cricket match that turned into a piss-up that nearly turned into me pissing in my girlfriend's wardrobe; a visit to a tapas bar that, again, turned into a piss-up; a day's temp work on a building site that saw me dig a ditch around a building with a pick-axe; nearly getting citizens arrested by a Community Support Officer (a fake cop, basically - with no real powers of arrest) for riding my bike along a coastal path that didn't have any signs stating that I wasn't allowed. At 7am. When said path was deserted (what the fuck was the jobsworth doing down there at that time anyway?!); being recognised by somebody watching a Navy recruiting video; meeting my girlfriend's parents (I was shitting myself, but it turned out to be a great day); and then, at the death of the month, having a bit of a fall out with the aforementioned lady in my life. Not a great end to May if I'm honest, as both that and the eviction episode occurred in the same week, but we live and learn don't we. Well, most of us do.

Lastly, yesterday I purchased a used copy of the much-hyped Modern Warfare 2 for my 360. Got it home and popped it into the drive to be confronted with the 'disc unreadable' message. Upon closer inspection, it appears that the disc is cracked in 3 places. Which means I've got to drag my ass back to the shop and get an exchange. Not impressed, CEX. The moral of the story is to check your game discs before you leave the shop, folks.

Some Friendly Advice

The best thing to do with advice, reckoned Oscar Wilde, is to pass it on. So without further ado:

Fucking nose hair. Ghastly stuff, and I seem to have a talent for growing the shit. I was having a shave today when I caught sight of my nostrils and could've easily mistaken them for a photograph of Murkwood. Without further ado, I embarked upon a mission to fell said nostril-forest as if I was the smog-based baddie from The Legend of Fern Gully. I tried first to do the deed with my fingers, ripping the blighters out, but this proved quite painful; and trying to cut the bastards with scissors also proved a logistical nightmare due to the delicate dimensions of my breathing apparatus - the scissors were simply too big to fit up my schnoz. And then I had an epiphany. I had been using a Gillette Fusion razor to shave my face, and this particular shaving utensil has a nifty little blade running across the top of the razor head that is meant to be used for trimming sideburns, goatees etc. I seized said razor and shoved it into my left nostril, decimating acres of nasal woodland. So far, so good. One nostril: clear. It was as I approached the other aperture that my concentration waned and I ended up smashing the blade up against the septum and cutting a deep gash into it. Cue much bloodshed, stinging pain and lots of swearing. I endeavoured to clear the hairs within said nostril after stemming the flow of claret, but I have learnt a valuable lesson: do not try to trim your nose hair with a Gillette Fusion. Just buy a proper fucking nasal trimmer. Or simply put up with giant redwoods growing out of your conk. And there's the advice. Do with it what you will.

Prior to my Saw-esque encounter with the razor blade, today saw me venture back to see the physio regarding my knackered knee. After walking up and down and performing several ridiculous variations of the 'lunge,' (possibly) simply for her own amusement, she (the physio) came to the conclusion that the reason for my continued knee pain (and now foot pain, to boot*) is that I have one leg shorter than the other! Furthermore, my right kneecap is 'twisted.' As a result, I now have to walk around with a heel-raising insole in my left shoe and my right knee has been taped up to buggery in an effort to 'reset' it's positioning. I feel like Forrest Gump prior to the leg-brace escape scene. I just hope I don't have to have my right leg lopped off and replaced with a MOD-issue steam powered cast-iron replacement. From 1875. It is fucking annoying, not being able to run free, but I'm still nailing the cross-trainer and the weights so keeping on top of my fitness.

I'm off work next week though, and that means no gym access, so in an effort to keep my fitness revolution going I'm going to hit the cycling, and hit it hard. I've been looking into cycling routes around Dorset and fully intend to get my ass up and out onto them. I may be a born and bred city-dweller, but I love cycling and where better to do it than the great British countryside? There must be hundreds of little trails peppering my little part of this green land, and I fully intend to explore a few of them. Hopefully the weather will hold out, which isn't a lot to ask seeing as we've now officially entered British Summer Time.

Should also have some family members coming down to visit from the North in May, and several of them have expressed an interest in hiring bikes and going for rides, so what better reason to undertake my aforementioned mission? Two birds, one humongous stone, wouldst thou agree?!

This is a slightly random and disjointed conclusion to the post, but I've just sat through the Brendan Fraser remake of Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Whilst it's a fairly entertaining family romp, I feel I must make an observation: the special effects are absolutely fucking terrible. In places, it's hard to believe this film was actually allowed into cinemas in this state! In one scene, the hapless trio that make up the main cast are involved in a fairly standard runaway mine cart scenario...but in places, the sequence resembles that subterranean level from Donkey Kong Country on the SNES. Truly pathetic CG, I kid you not. Watch it yourself and you'll see what I mean. Oh, and watch out for the equally bad piranha bit. Laughable stuff, really.

And there I shall bring this particular diatribe to a close.

* pun totally and hysterically intended.