Small Pleasures

Life is full of small pleasures. From the sound of cartoon bluebirds tweeting outside the window every morning, to the smell of freshly cut grass and sizzling bacon. Some may also cite the tarring and feathering of a black person in this category, but I don't, as such an activity being carried out by myself would probably make me some kind of racial hypocrite. But I digress.

Today, I discovered a new small pleasure:

Yep, it's Original Source Mint & Tea Tree shower gel. What's so great about shower gel, you may be thinking. Well, apart from the divine menthol fragrance that eminates from the dark green slurry once it is ejaculated from it's plastic prison, Original Source Mint & Tea Tree has a little trick up it's sleeve (?). When one applies said gel to one's scrotal region, the sensation can only be described as 'pleasurable,' and I'm also reliably informed that if you shave your bean bag prior to applying a lather, the experience is magnified thrice-fold. Guess what I'll be doing next time I visit the shower. No, not that - you filthy fuck.

But don't take my word for it, people: in the immortal words of Art Attack's Neil Buchanan (above left, in the shower, yesterday) - "try it yourself!"

Wonder what would happen if a female experimented with the stuff. Hmmm. Answers in the comments box, please.

In a slight change to the tone of this post (it was getting a bit on the perverted side - I know), I've recently learnt of Nintendo's successor to the Nintendo DS, the imaginatively monikered Nintendo 3DS. Who the fuck comes up with Nintendo's hardware names? OK, Wii is a departure from the norm, but the vast majority of their consoles have been pretty obviously named: Nintendo 64 was a Nintendo console with a 64-bit architecture; Gamecube was a cube that...er...played games; DS had Dual Screens etc etc etc. So, with the 3DS...you get, well, a 3D screen! You read that shit right, Sherlock - it's a Nintendo DS-style contraption that plays games in 3D...but without the need for 3D specs! I know it sounds mental and hard to believe, but according to the various reports that have come out of this year's E3 convention, the technology is pretty darn special-looking.

Here's what one looks like:

So yeah, you can see the similarity with the DS but it's the specs-less 3D technology I'm excited about. And it's not crappy old red & black pseudo-3D like you got with the Virtual Boy (I actually owned one of those, back in the day...and it was shite); it's genuine, full-colour, Avatar-esque 3D...BUT WITHOUT GLASSES! This kind of shit is what I used to dream about when I was a nipper...and now it's real! Also, a lot of the launch titles seem to be re-releases of old N64 games but re-invented with 3D imagery in mind. This shit makes me want to rub more Mint Source on my balls right now, and make no mistake. I want 3D Mario Kart, and I want it right fucking now, Nintendo.

I've honestly not been as excited about getting my hands on a new piece of gaming kit since I saw the first fuzzy, low-res screens of Super Mario 64 in CVG Magazine back in 1995. I was always more of a Sega/Sonic man when it came to allegiances, but as soon as I saw Mario in 3D, I knew I had to have it and an Ultra 64, as it was still known as then. That's what it feels like now. Call me sad if you want - yes, I'm 28 and I'm getting a boner for a fucking games console...but FUCK YOU! I don't care! Nintendo 3DS - you will be mine, oh yes...you will be mine.

Right, I'm off for a shower. Peace out, ma bitches.

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.

Audacity

Just spotted some adverts in the newspaper for O2 (spit) broadband. These adverts ask the reader to meet the 'No Support-A-Saurus;' a shitly designed cartoon monster who apparently represents useless, ignorant, condescending customer support call-handlers:






One of the ads goes on to say 'If you're tired of his gibberish, why not give us a call?'

Surely the dictionary definition of irony? Either that or a very bad joke.

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.