Another one...

This time from The Girl|

Archive meme.

Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you’ve written... but there is a catch:

Link 1 must be about family.
Link 2 must be about friends.
Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are, what you’re all about.
Link 4 must be about something you love.
Link 5 can be anything you choose.

Post your five links and then tag five other people. At least TWO of the people you tag must be newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better...and don’t forget to read the archive posts and leave comments!


So that's how it goes. As you may be aware, I havent't been blogging on here for long, so I'll do my best and maybe just provide you with some text in place of links, should I not have anything relevant.

Family Post: Pets. I think this paints an interesting picture of my family, at least while I was growing up.

Friends Post: I haven't really done a friends post yet. Maybe because all of my friends are back in Australia. My friends are awesome. I miss sitting down the river over summer, drinking beers, skiing, wakeboarding and sitting round a fire talking crap with them. I don't think I appreciated it so much until I came over to the UK and went from being surrounded by friends to being a face in a crowd. So friends rock. I hope you all have some.

The Me Post: I haven't really done a who I am and what I'm all about. The closest I have is this
I think I might do a bit of a 'me post' some time soon.

Something I love: Tough one... I don't think I've posted about anything I love. Mainly because I'm not sure what I love. I love trying new things and going new places and just generally learning about things. I love my girlfriend. Heaps. I love spending time with my mates. I love the sense of accomplishment that comes with things you've worked hard for. Be it a promotion, cooking an awesome dinner, landing a Backside 360, tackling two people and managing to grab the ball and handpass it off to your team mate, intercepting a fast ball heading in to the goal shooter or ordering a meal in Czech. I love to be able to do things. I hate things I can't do. Unless I can improve at them, then I'll stick at it.

Anything Link: I dunno... Maybe I'll just post some stuff I wrote ages ago for something else...
OK, this is something I wrote a while back when I was super-hating my old job and feeling pretty lonely, depressed and worthless.


X09fgolM
14SandersonRd
0395255451
3l3ph4nt
3GigStorageSpace
PayBy13/03/06
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S
NoRightTurn
InsertABlankDisc
NewUpdatesAreAvailable
Do
you
want
us
to
remember
your
password?

Every day you're bombarded with useless information. Your available memory gets used up by trivial values like client ID's, urls, item codes, login details, phone numbers, street directions.
Do you ever wonder if your brain is glazing over?
Sometimes you feel like each empty piece of information you take in is like a tiny grain of sugar which along with all the other grains of sugar, melts to create the toffee which covers the apple, which for the sake of this particular analogy is your brain.
Now, if there's enough sugar (or enough information) and hence enough toffee, it's impossible for the significant or important or beautiful events that are worthy of remembrance to break through this glaze and register in your memory.
Thus, instead of remembering the name of the cute girl you met the other night, you remember a client's registration code. Instead of recalling an anniversary, your mind regurgitates a certificate number. Rather than reminiscing about the image of a mountain silhouetted against a burning sunset, you remember one of a thousand other utterly hollow pieces of data.
Eventually, your entire thought process becomes consumed by your requirement to absorb all these granules of detail and you're no longer able to recall anything that is of value to you.
You become completely numb and you only process what is given to you and nothing more. Not because you don't want to but because you don't know how anymore.
You're no better than the computer you're sitting in front of.
At some stage in your life, you reach that fork in the road where you have to decide:
Do I want to really use my brain or do I want a toffee apple?

Umm.. yeah, so that's it... Not much else to say... Hopefully I can do this meme again in a year's time and have all manner of stuff to link to... We'll see...

I'm not a fan of tagging people, so if you wanna do it, let me know in the comments so I can come read your stuff. Five of you do this and some good thing will happen for 5 years and the man/woman of your dreams will kiss a baby that will turn into a tasty biscuit that you'll eat and thoroughly enjoy. Alternatively, if you don't do it, a small starving child in Africa, that has to walk 5 kilometres to the nearest well and only gets a bowl of rice per week will stub its toe on a log.

Can you live with that on your conscience?
Do it.

Three reasons why you're able to read this.

K, I've been tagged for a few of memes. I can't do Feverdog's one yet because my camera is being held in lost property at Gatwick Airport, but I suggest everyone else does it. And as soon as I have my camera back I'll do it too because it's a heaps cool meme.

So, to begin with, Mikey tagged me for the following:

The Rules

Rule 1) List three reasons for your blogging.

A) As some people are content writing for themselves, I prefer to know that I've made someone laugh, or angry or I've evoked some kind of reaction with what I've written. And the people that kick around here are all super awesome and I wouldn't have known them otherwise.

B) Because I'm an angry bastard who gets so pissed off with the current state of people/humanity/society/morality/etc that sometimes a rant is in order and it's better to rant here than it is to rant at my friends who would probably just shrug, sip their beer and go back to clubbing seals or whatever it is they do with their spare time.

C) Because I enjoy twisting words and mangling sentences. And someone apart from Non Blondie needs to be subjected to my bad puns and dad-jokes.

Rule 2) List the rules.
Check!

Rule 3) Tag three others with the meme.
Aww man... I hate tagging... So if I tag you, don't feel obligated... I just don't want to fuck with the rules. Feverdog, Dune, Non Blondie, You're it.

Another one in a moment...

Screw global warming...

Yes, screw it! It's not an issue.
The biggest threat to mankind as we know it is apparently not having EVERYTHING filed in lever arch folders.
Or so my 'manager' at work would have me believe.
I used quotation marks there as she doesn't manage anything. Her day consists of sitting idly, punctuated by innumerable instances of getting up to make tea.
Anyways she pisses me off because she has no idea how to do anything much at all.

My place of work is currently undergoing a lot of staff/process/system changes and part of my job is to work on fixing/tuning these processes.
Which would be fine if this insane bitch didn't keep interrupting my day with her 'ideas'.
Her answer to everything without fail, includes the words '...and file it in a lever arch folder.'
Fuck off with your outdated filing.
Emails? Don't create folders in your mail client. Print them out and keep them in a lever arch folder!
Need a new lever arch folder? They're filed in a lever arch folder labelled 'Lever arch folders'.
I kid you not, this woman's idea of managing people is surrounding them with towers of goddamn folders.

I've told her that I am not using folders as everything I do is saved on the server, but she just goes into a talk about how when she used to work at blah blah blah 10 years ago, she found it worked best when they put everything in folders and blah blah blah... FUCK OFF!
You grew up before gameboys. You probably used an abacus. In your day the only mouse you had lived behind your wood-fired oven. She plays dumb instead of trying to learn anything...
I mean this woman can't even add two cells together in excel. Puppies learn that in obedience classes these days.
Half of my day is spent showing her how to change settings in word, or print a letter or search for a person in the database and she has the gall to offer me advice on how to work more efficiently. She also has time to email all her friends and screw around on the internet. How about we print out all the sex disease support group sites from your browser history and put that in a lever arch folder!? Huh?

Meh, I'm feeling pretty uninspired at the moment.
Hopefully I'll get to hate someone on the tube tomorrow and you can all read about that.

Goodnight peeps.

And we're back!

Hells yeah!

What's up peeps? As you are probably well aware, I had a bit of a screw up with the whole 'Italy Trip' thing.
Luckily, it all turned out to be awesome and was well worth the hassle of getting there.
So here's how the Italian Job went down. Minus the photos. This will be explained later. (Also, see The Girl's account of the trip for a more interesting version of this story)

* Ok, this is like... all kinds of loooong. So fix yourself an espresso, grab a slice of pizza and warm up your eyes. Also, If you awake in a pile of drool in a few hours time, I apologise for telling such lengthy, boring stories.*


Having had a day to dwell on my stupidity, I wrote myself a list of everything I needed to walk out the door with. I ate some soup and went to bed.
(An aside: Later on I came up with the idea of having a velcro suit made, then sticking the corresponding velcro to all the important things I need to take whenever I'm travelling. This would mean anytime I was had to go somewhere, I could just roll around in our room and everything I would need would be stuck to me. I could also have a suit made in the opposite velcro, and then put the corresponding velcro on all the items I need to say, go to work. If I rolled around our room, then I'd only pick up the items I needed for work, and my travel items, such as my passport wouldn't stick because everyone knows that the fluffy bits of velcro won't stick to each other. Man, am I a problem solver or what!?)

Ahem...

So I awoke with a start at 10 minute intervals from 2.00am through 3.20am, each time thinking I'd slept through my alarm and had missed my plane.
I rose at 3.30am. Got my stuff together and set off for the trusty night bus.
London at 4.00am is an entirely different creature. The air is crisp and there's a calm in the air. I felt energised as steam billowed out with each exhalation. I felt good finally being on my way.
In the back of my mind I worried I'd be caught out down 'Stab Alley' and mugged, however the closest thing to a threat was a wily fox that coolly snuck behind a fence as I approached.
I caught the bus at 4.07am. It was almost empty, warm and I felt really relaxed. Much nicer than my usual Friday morning commute. At Turnham Green a man boarded the bus wearing the fluorescent threads of a tube worker. Smiling, he greeted the 8 or so of us that were sat on the bottom deck of the bus and proceeded to hand out a Metro to everyone, accompanied by a cheery 'good morning!'
It was actually a really nice journey in as I had time to compose myself which I needed considering the past 24 hours' overload.
Getting to Victoria, I caught the 5.02 to Gatwick. Arrived at the airport at 5.47, checked in early and had a seat in the departure lounge and waited for boarding.
Had a chat to a nice Aussie guy from Adelaide called Andy and then caught a transfer bus to the plane which was waiting for us in what seemed to be a vacant field.
I was asleep before take-off. Which is weird because I particularly love the take-off part of a plane journey.
Waking up, I find I'm squished between an insurance broker named Emily and an unnamed man in a leather puffer jacket with the most porno moustache and hair I've ever seen.
Still tired, I put my rolled-up hoodie behind my neck and drift off again.

I rouse as we are passing over the alps and the view is amazing. I think I'm weirding the insurance broker out as she is in the window seat and I'm peering across her at the mountains which look like cream that's been whipped into firm peaks. I never realised the alps were so vast.
I expect I look like a small child, peering out the window and grinning foolishly. Insurance broker lady asks if airport is near Milan city centre and I explain how far from Milan it is in kilometres, minutes, how much the average cab fare is, how much a shuttle bus costs and how far away Milan's other two airports are. She looks bewildered and I explain that I know this due to my frantic attempts to sort out the whole 'forgotten passport/trasferred flights' conundrum.
She finds this hilarious. I'm still not ready to laugh about it, so I nod and force a smile.

We touch down in Milan. Finally, I set my feet on solid ground in Italy. Relief.
On the horizon, I see the rocky, snow capped peaks of the Orobie Alps and all my tension, stress and anxiety dissolves.

A disinterested customs official punches my passport and I head through to the arrivals lounge where I know I have a 4.5 hour wait for my transfer to Presolana.
I buy an overpriced lunch panini, a water and some gum which is called Vigorsol. I chewed two pellets, read the label and then worried I'd end up with a four day erection. I swear I've had spam with the words 'Discount Vigorsol' in the subject line.

I'm paranoid I'm going to miss my transfer, so I do all I can to stay awake. I decide to venture outside, however there's only carparks and no footpaths, so I return to the arrivals lounge to partake in some people watching.
I was of the impression that milan was the fashion capital of the world. I think on an episode of America's Next Top Model that The Girl was watching the other night, they described the style as 'Italian Sexuality'. I saw nothing that equated to anything even vaguely similar to this description.
Apparently if you're a man, you have to wear zip-up, roll neck knitwear, jeans with huge D&G embroidering all over them, a racing style leather jacket complete with Shell and Penzoil sew on badges, aviator sunglasses, nike runners (not stylish ones, but like cross trainers or something) and some unholy arrangement of facial hair.
If you're a woman, you must wear horribly cheap looking hooker boots, jeans with huge D&G embroidering all over them (perhaps they're unisex?), something that displays your adequate stomach protruding over said jeans and again, aviator sunglasses.
Oh, also you must be so orange that you'd outshine a bag of carrots.
The fashionistas and fasionmisters were all horribly unfashionable. there was no 'Italian Sexuality' unless sex in Italy is usually conducted in charity shop drop-off bins.
Watching these people, the time passed rather quickly.
The Girl sends me a few messages lamenting the language barrier, the lack of ski lessons and the uphill walking in ski boots.
I make guilty apologies and vow to be there soon.
A ray of sunshine enters through the automatic doors as Carlo, my friendly transfer driver walks in carrying a piece of paper with my name on it.
I jump up and resist the urge to hug the man that will finally take me to my intended destination. (Hmm... I expect this may turn up some hits from people searching for homo-erotic literature)
As we travel through Milan and into Bergamo, I pull out my camera as the alps loom higher and higher above me.
I learn about the local textile industry, the river and the abundance of activities the resort offers. Seamless salesmanship from Carlo.
I arrive at the hotel at 5.40pm. For those of you who don't follow maths, that's 14 hours since I left home.
By this stage I am so excited, I rush out of the van, and attempt to check in at the reception desk. This proves difficult as the lovely man behind the desk doesn't have the greatest command of the English language.
Carlo brings me my camera which I left on the van. (Need the velcro suit)
Hands are shaken, Carlo leaves and I head up to our room.
The Girl arrives back at the hotel a short time later and I sit on the bed with her and laugh as relief washes over me and I'm so happy to finally be there.
Showered, clothed and feeling fresh we decide to descend the mountain for dinner.
We go to Pizza l Rustico for dinner and we eat the best pizzas I've had. Proffering a mashed-up Italio-English-mime-a-thon, we also manage to order a nice bottle of red and tasty dessert.
Full and content we walk back up the hill to our hotel, and fall into bed where I sleep like a narcoleptic on Ambien. Which is extremely well, in case my analogy reads stupidly.

Morning, and I open the shutters to reveal a sun kissed mountain peak surrounded by thousands of pointy green pines.
We get our stuff sorted, head downstairs for breakfast of fresh mortadella, cheese, rolls, home made croissants and coffee.
We then dress and catch the ski-bus (which I thought Carlo was calling the 'caboose') up to the slopes.
It's sub zero temperatures, but there's not a cloud in the sky and the sun is warm on my face.
We hire The Girl a snowboard and then trudge up the hill a little way where we go through the basics and then begin the potentially volatile process of me teaching her to snowboard.

What can I say. She's good.
When I was working at the ski resort in the US, I usually ran a lift on the beginners slope so had a good understanding of the steep learning curve involved in snowboarding. As such I had expectations that like most beginners, she'd spend the most of the day skidding on her butt, be completely disenfranchised with snowboarding by lunch time and possibly have called me all manner of bad words and left by 2pm.

After an hour and a half, Non Blondie was getting up on her own and was doing really well...
I put it down to my superior instructional methods, although i'd be lying if I didn't say she did really really well. I was the proudest person on the mountain. Also, I had the sorest knees on the mountain from kneeling and explaining things on hard snow.

So we snowboarded, we rode a lift up the mountain (much to the dismay of The Girl who upon boarding, remembered she really didn't like lifts at all, but still calmed herself down very bravely) and we sat in the sun and ate lunch.
I haven't had such a good day in a long, long time.

Sore, bruised and tired, we retired to the hotel where we rested a while before heading out for a stroll around the lovely village of Bratto. We went for ice cream, wandered past shops filled with cured meats, fresh made pasta, all manner of cheeses and then found a nice place to have a coffee.
We sipped on tasty lattes (Boy, does that sound wanky or what?) and watched in no particular order, a burly man pump endless euros into a slot machine, a waitress casually chat with her friend at a table, said bury man drink shots of grapper/ouzo and a midget come in with a friend to order something I didn't understand.
Not being one to racially stereotype, I suggested to Non Blondie that the midget was the Mario you start out with in Super Mario Brothers before you punch that second brick and get the mushroom which makes him go bigger.
She shook her head and told me I was a horrible person.

We then sauntered back up hill, taking photos of the sunset all the way to our hotel where we readied ourselves for dinner.
Dinner was a three course extravaganza at the hotel restaurant, cooked by the lovely man who greeted me at the reception desk. Again we mangled pronunciations successfully and had ourselves a three course meal encompassing veal, venison, lasagne, gnocchi, amaretto, pear and chocolate torte and a bottle of chianti.
Thoroughly satisfied, we paid our outstandings, received a complimentary shot of local liquor and headed up to bed full, drunk and happily exhausted.
Waking to the alarm, we packed everything up and got ready to leave. I checked that I had everything. I then checked again, just in case. And I repeated this four more times.
Satisfied that we had everything we needed, we met Carlo at 7am and headed back to the airport.
We ate a horrific airport breakfast, then boarded our flight and sighed as we soared up and away from what could possibly go down as the best short holiday ever.
Like excited school kids, we took photos as we passed back over the alps and then watched quietly as small white coastal cliffs, and then the green patchwork of rural England slid past below us.
We waited for our bags at the 'Wheel of Fortune' baggage carousel. Non-Blondie's bag came almost instantly, however after half an hour and watching another flight's worth of luggage be spewed up and hauled away by it's owners, we decided my snowboard bag wasn't making an appearance and headed to Lost Baggage.
The guy ahead of me was lamenting his smashed up cello, which had been labelled as 'Fragile'. Unfortunately this probably meant very little to a non-Enlgish-speaking baggage handler in Italy.
The man behind the counter then explained to me that oversize baggage goes to Zone 10. This isn't made known to anyone at all, so frustrated at having waited for so long for no reason, we grab my snowboard bag and head off to catch a train home.
Train is filled with Chelsea supporters and we cram into the door way. After 40 or so minutes of idiotic, Stella fuelled football banter everyone disembarks at Victoria.
The Girl and I are walking towards the gates when a shockwave runs through me.
"Oh Shit!"
'What is it now!?" Asks The Girl.
"My bag. Where's my backpack!?"
"Oh my god..." She shakes her head. (Again, need velcro suit. Need it now.)
So I rush back to the train, where there is no sign of my bag. I report it to lost property, the train cleaners and anyone else that doesn't walk away from me like I'm a crazy man foretelling the coming apocalypse. I tell them all it contains some books, clothes, my camera (SHIT!) and ironically, my travel insurance documentation.
We resolve to call Gatwick once we get home to see if they have my bag and hopefully avert a bomb scare caused by a suspicious Fitness First backpack sitting on Platform 2.
Walking down to the District Line, the hand-scrawled sign informs us that the District line only runs to Earl's Court and then the Piccadilly only runs to Hammersmith.
Sighing and already lamenting being back in Scuzz City, we catch the District line, change to the Piccadilly, then alight at Hammersmith and join the 200m queue for the replacement bus service.
Around an hour later I walk through the door at home, throw down my snowboard bag and lie on the couch while The Girl picks up some ciders and falafel wraps for our lunch.
Whilst I'm stressed over the loss of my bag and all it contains, I'm glad to be home and am already recalling the relaxation and fun of the trip.
The Girl brings in sustenance and we flop onto the couch where we spend the rest of the afternoon and evening.

It's nice to be home. But it's even nicer to be in Italy.
Yesterday, I got a call back from Gatwick who have my bag and everything it contains! Hooray for honest people!
Once I get my camera back, I'll post photos.
I hereby declare that there shall be no more stupidity on my behalf and that I'm not going to foget important things anymore.

Also, I have some memes taht I've been tagged in to do, so Mikey, Feverdog and Non Blondie: Keep an eye out and I'll get them all done soon.

Absolutely shattered...

Guess who wins fuckwit of the week award?
It's me.
Fuckwit of the year actually.

I'm the guy that plans to take his girlfriend away for a few days skiing/snowboarding in Italy. I'm also the guy that gets up at 5.30am this morning, makes sure he has all his gear packed before heading out to airport.
Then I'm the guy that puts his girlfriend on a plane by herself because he FORGOT TO TAKE HIS FUCKING PASSPORT.
That's right. I'm that stupid.
So angry....
We got to Gatwick, Non Blondie grabbed her passport out of her bag, I see her do this and my stomach leaps into my mouth.
"Got your passport?" She asked.
"FUCK!!" I'm panicking.
"You're kidding aren't you? You can't be serious?"
"No, not kidding. Fuck it."

Cue much swearing, mad rushing and trying to shift flights, but there's no time so put The Girl on a plane and then proceed with much discussion with lady at Easyjet desk.
Apparently the only other flight to Milan today is full, so my only option is the flight tomorrow morning at 6.50am. But the only transfer I can get from the airport to the resort is at 3pm, meaning I don't arrive at the hotel until 5pm tomorrow afternoon.
We've changed our flights so we can stay for an extra day and night, but fucking hell....
This could have been avoided if I hadn't been so fucking stupid.
I don't think I've ever been as angry and disappointed with myself...
I had plans of taking her out skiing, plans of seeing her smile as she walked through the snow and plans of a nice, peaceful few days of fun.
But I go and blow it by being so disorganised.
Now I have to get up at 3.30am to get a nightbus at 4 which will get me to Victoria station in time to get a train to Gatwick in time for check-in. Hopefully.
While I sit here fuming at my idiocy, The Girl is having dinner by herself somewhere in Italy.
I am making a mental note of how gutted I am over this, so as it never happens again.
Sometimes, I could just punch me.
Anyways, hopefully this time tomorrow night I'll actually be in Italy with The Girl and laughing about all this.

Anyone want tips on how to sabotage a relationship/holiday? Give me a yell....

I guess this is what I get for gloating, hey Jay?

I'm going to bed... Long day tomorrow...

Ok, so I lied...

... but I couldn't leave without posting this.
This is what I encounter walking home from the station tonight.

Lady walks out of house onto footpath, talking into phone.

"Yeah, I dunno... Hold on!"

Lady is then distracted by small dark shadow in the middle of the road. She walks towards it.

"Hey... Were they leopard print?"

Walks to dark shadow on road, picks up and holds up in the streetlight. It's a rather large pair of ladies knickers.

"Yep! Found 'em!"

I see her smile in the yellow glow of the streetlight as she turns and triumphantly walks back inside.

And that's all it took to make my day.

Goodnight!

Scheduled Outage

Issue: No posts till at least Saturday
Cause: Snowboarding in Italy

Farewell people. The Girl and I shall be back next week. With photos to induce much envy. or broken cameras, one of the two.



PS: How good is time off work!? So good!

There was an old lady that lived in a shoe...

She did, it's true. And if the fairy tale was set in London, the shoe was probably described as a 'Cosy home, complete with open plan kitchen/lounge, separate loft bedroom and good ventilation.'
It would probably also have cost her about £1000 a month to live in it. I mean, come on! A shoe! Those laces add all kinds of value! You can... umm.. you can... TIE YOUR BIKE UP WITH THEM! Yes, that's right they're the built-in secure bike storage facility. Rent is now £1100 a month. Payable immediately.

"That's right sir, it's your 3 bedroom dream home. No they're not 'holes' they're nature viewing portals. You wanted a door too? Why didn't you specify this earlier. Christ. Actually I've got another place that would be perfect! Oh, wait you're probably gonna tell me you want a roof now aren't you?"

That's right folks, it's house hunting time.
The lease on our current hovel is due to expire at the end of February and there's no chance we're staying any longer in the exorbitantly priced cellar we call home.
As such, I've been tee-ing up inspections with people all over London. We're actually going to move across the city to the the Eastside as it sucks serious ass travelling over an hour each way to get to work.
We had some inspections last night. One place was decent and bearable, the other, not so much.
I hereby declare, people, that there is no such thing as a normal house/flat in London. Unless you're a family that has settled in the suburbs somewhere or you're someone that works in magic and can afford to spend the average person's paycheque on rent.
Needless to say, I'm not a family and I don't work in magic anymore... So options are limited.
Actually, no. They're not completely limited.
If you're into mould/mildew/cramped damp space/funky smells/insane flatmates/zoos then there's tonnes of places you'd adore!
The problem here is that there's no regulation of the real estate industry in the UK. Well none I can see anyways.
So if you have a spare bathroom cupboard, you can rent it out as a single bedroom.
In all of the approximately 15 viewings we've made since we've been here, I'd say very few, if any have been normal dwellings.
The problem is descriptions rarely match reality and as such a these places which sound amazing turn out to be rubbish.
As a service to mankind, I'm going to cut through the jargon for you. I'm just that nice.

When they say... - Located in pleasant suburb - Small bathroom/toilet - Double bedroom - MUST BE CLEAN AND TIDY. Will not stand for plates/cutlery to be left on sink, any items not labelled in fridge will be thrown out. -Dossers ok - Spacious flat - 2 minute walk to tube, but can also catch bus out the front of house. - Flatmates like to cook - 37 year old female flatmate - Refurbished Edwardian Terrace - Basement unit - Super happy housemates. Always up for fun and laughs and going out and even sharing meals. - WiFi access -Phone plan with free overseas phone calls to landline - Sharing with 6 others - Quaint, but needs some work

What they really mean is... - Pack heat. Shit gets stabby out here. - We tiled the space under the stairs and put a tap in there. - Technically a double bed would fit in there. But not a single atom more. - I'm a psychotic, anal, control freak. You so much as sneeze on a surface and I'll fucking cut you. - Many people vomit/fuck/piss in out lounge room. - Oh by fuck, it's tiny! - You can walk to the tube if you want but you run a high risk of being shot/mugged/raped. - Our unwashed dishes support a family of mice. - Cats. Lots of cats. - Skinny, falling-apart shack. - Subterranean dungeon of the damned. - You'll want to extract our eyes with a fork shortly after moving in. - Dumbass upstairs door has unsecured connection - Fat homesick girl won't get off the fucking phone. - Your shower day is: Tuesday - Do you have any matches?

The list could go on... In fact, we could make this a definitive list... Anyone got any more to add?


PS: Next post will be the meme The Girl tagged me in... Promise!

A study on consciousness

Some things really intrigue me. For example, whose job is it to tuck the legs into the asshole of a roasting chicken?
More importantly, I'm intrigued by what goes on when you slip/are slipping into unconsciousness.
I pondered this on the train today as The Girl was starting to nod off on my shoulder.
I was thinking about how nice it feels when you're really really tired and you start to fall asleep.
This reminded me of when I was overseas last year and The Girl was still back at home.
Due to the US to Australia time difference, I had to either get up super early to call her or alternatively set my alarm and get up halfway through the night to make the call.
Which wasn't so bad. I mean, I'd set my alarm for 3am, get up, make a coffee and then lay down by the phone and start dialing.
This was usually fine although occasionally I'd have had a really big day of snowboarding and after an hour or two's worth of talking I'd start nodding off.
Usually this was no problem and I'd be roused by The Girl yelling 'Are you asleep!?' down the phone.
On one occasion though, I was doing the talking and then started to nod off.
Now it wasn't like my voice trailed off, oh no. If only that was the case. What actually happened was much more umm... insane.
There we were chatting about something actual and relevant, when ever so slowly I started to fall asleep and my mind failed to tell my mouth that I was asleep and that I'd started dreaming...
What transpired involved me telling a story which went something like this:
"So I was walking out to the other ski lift and then all of a sudden there were heaps of soldiers. They were falling from the sky so I just walked over and started picking them up off the snow. There was thousands of them falling from the sky. Tiny green toy soldiers with parachutes."
Then I was dragged back to reality by The Girl.
"JIMINY!!! Hey!! What the hell are you talking about?"
"Oh, umm... the soldiers... I had the umm... soldiers..."
Then actually coming to:
"What the hell was I just talking about? Was I talking about toy parachute soldiers?"
The Girl was as bewildered as I was.
Weird stuff. I hope I don't usually talk in my sleep. People would be privy to some crazy goings on...
Although when I was on school camp a friend sleeping on the bunk above me declared loudly "No, I'm not the tooth fairy!"
A few days later he went to hospital as his mum realised he'd been bitten by a spider and they had to drain a huge amount of ooze out of his septic hand.
It would seem spider bite dreams are apparently even crazier than cheese dreams. I don't really wanna test that theory though.

Why I Hate Harrods.

Before I came to London I was of the impression that Harrod's was a noble place. A place where the rich went to buy opulent and luxurious goods. A place where the social elite congregated to purchase their truffles, their perfumes, their spices and their caviar. A place where you had high tea and drank champagne at the oyster bar.

Whilst the amazing fresh fruit and vegetable displays rotted on their shelves, Britons were busy fighting over the last pack of fish fingers in the frozen food section.

It's nothing like that though. Well it probably is, but you have to get inside. Which isn't usually an option due to the throng of idiots that surround it constantly.
On a Saturday, if you're European, consider yourself to be wealthy and have the the worst fashion sense this side of the Eastern Bloc then for some reason you'll find yourself walking around out the front of Harrod's. There's no explaining it, it just happens. You may not want to be there, but on a Friday night someone inside the big domed tower overlooking Brompton Road flips a switch that turns on a special bad taste magnet which is so strong that if you live anywhere from Germany to Italy to Portugal and have one single item in your wardrobe that is embroidered, is glittery or has rhinestones on it, you'll wake up on Saturday morning some time and realise you're wearing your embroided/glittery/rhinestoned clothes and are blocking the footpath out the front of Harrods.
It's probably not your fault, but by god do you bunch of retards piss me off when I'm having to pass through that area.
Seriously, what the hell is with people who can't get from one point to another without doing any of the following:
1) Drifting.
Drifting is when you walk along the footpath and ever so slowly deviate from your initial course and begin walking diagonally across the footpath, cutting off everyone behind/beside you. Whenever someone attempts to pass you on the otherside, you then counter-drift in front of them. This is usually when you'll feel a sharp blow to the back of your head, courtesy of me.
2) Stopping.
This enrages me so much. People who walk along, then suddenly decide that the best time to stop dead in their tracks and reach around in their pockets to find their rhinestone encrusted Nokia is whilst they are on the busiest footpath ever. If you do this, know that I will probably cut you.
3) The Flying V
Yes, like on The Mighty Ducks. This is when there's a bunch of people walking shoulder to shoulder and taking up the entire footpath so anyone walking in the opposite direction is forced to edge between them, walk onto the road to avoid them or just turn around a walk back the other way. For fuck's sake you people, the footpath is wide enough to accommodate maybe four people, there's eight of you. It's not going to work. Go single file you assholes and stop making everyone else walk around you. Often this is a family. I still hate them. Children are not an excuse.
4) God-ing it.
This is when you believe that you are a supreme being that can walk through crowds without having to ever move for anyone else. You think the crowds will part, just so you can get to the luxury optics aisle to find a tinted lense for your Prada monocle.

Anyways....

I hate going anywhere near Harrods.
If it's not the European fashion victims clogging the footpaths, it's the Japanese tour groups.
And then you've got the protestors picketing against Harrods because they use fur in some of their items.
Fuck off with your posters of skinned dogs. I don't care if Harrods has a tiny zoo full of animals it slaughters nightly to create fur lined chihuahua carriers. Yes it's bad that these animals get treated so badly, but if I've pushed through 10,000 people to get to Harrods, I'm not going to turn around just because you're giving me a fucking pamphlet.

Wow, does this rant ever stop!?

Well yes it does.
Sometimes all it takes is one little moment to make it all worthwhile.
Today, that moment was a dick joke.
On the tube, I was nearing Knightsbridge, preparing myself for the impending battle through the Harrods crowds.
As the train was about to pull out of South Kensington the standard announcement rang out.
"Stand clear of the doors. Mind the closing doors. This is a Piccadilly line train stopping all stations to Cock..."
For some reason the message cut out and so the train's destination changed from Cockfosters, to somewhere arguably less savoury.
This was enough to make me giggle, because I'm basically a 4 year old. But the best part was just down the carriage from me there was a man and his son. The son was about 8.
When the announcement was made, the little kid threw his hand over his mouth and began laughing. He looked up guiltily at his dad who smirked, ruffled the kid's hair and laughed as well.

Yep, dick jokes bring people together.
It's badly dressed Europeans out the front of Harrods that tears them apart.