The Plan

Hmm I'm not really sure what I was talking about there. Based on the events that transpired subsequent to that last post, I can only assume that my plan was as follows:

1. Go to bed smirking with an undue sense of optimism about the next 24 hours.
2. Awake to a sensation I can only describe as "Ugh.... please no."
3. Provide yet more evidence that my mother's disappointment in me is well founded and receive the 'burning the candle at both ends' talk.
4. Go to work wishing I was dead, feeling very dehydrated with red eyes and no doubt smelling like a tramp. [Ed. "Tramps may well be loveable rogues, but they smell like ass."]
5. Spend my day with my head in my hands while parts of my brain implode.
6. Return home and don dressing gown.

If this was indeed my plan, as mentioned last night while very inebriated, then I'd say that it was a resounding success and that I am a master tactician. Then again, we all knew that already.

The day has not been without its highlights though. For starters, I'm not dead - despite praying to every God I could think of for the sweet release of my head actually falling clean off my shoulders. I can scarcely imagine the excitement - if indeed that's the right word - that my spontaneous head displacement would cause in the office. Secondly, I'm now home and can proceed to spend the rest of my evening in bed chillin' like a villain.

Another highlight is thanks to my mother's keen negotiation skills. This merits a new paragraph, as it needs explaining. While getting ready to go to the house party last night (I was 20 minutes late in the end - not bad by my standards), I decided to wear my new jeans that I picked up in Debenhams the other day. My previous favourite pair have become subject to many holes over the course of time, but they've now developed a rather unfortunate crotch window that has consequently rendered them ill-advised evening wear; especially in these cold winter months. I therefore set out to find a new pair of jeans that were as close as possible in style to my previous favourites. Luckily the Sonneti section of Debenhams was able to furnish me with exactly what I wanted, much to my surprise. On a quick side note, after checking the Debenhams website, I am displeased to see that said jeans have dropped down by £9 in the 5 days since I purchased them - oh well. Anyway, [Ed. "This has become an incredibly long, drawn out paragraph for a not very interesting story."] last night I was about to put on the aforementioned jeans when I noticed that the shop assistant had left the ink-filled security tag still attached to the jeans - as such I was unable to wear them for the evening. My mum took them back to Debenhams today, while I was at work, to have the security tag removed and managed to walk away with a compensatory £5 voucher. Therefore I think I'll treat myself to a nice t-shirt or something from there on Saturday.

Right, the time has come, the walrus said - I'm off to sit in bed and watch telly while my brain shrinks like an old balloon. I'll leave you all to amuse yourselves in whatever debauched manner seems fit to you. Alternatively, you can listen to this song:

Adele - Hometown (Axwell Remode Remix]

It's making me feel ready to throw some shapes on Friday night already.

Milk 2

We never get old. I have a plan. I feel sick. BUT I have a plan. Will explain later.

Milk

Like myself, many of you may have noticed that you have become subject to ageing. Ageing is a terrible affliction, known to affect people at random with a variety of symptoms; face cancer, unwillingness to 'live it up to the max', adding unnecessary sound effects to simple bodily functions, disillusionment, a skewed 'yawning/not yawning ratio', hair displacement, complaining more about things despite increasing indifference... the list goes on. We all hope to age like fine wine, but the reality of it is that we age more like milk.

The reason I'm thinking about ageing is because it's a work night, I am incredibly tired and I am due to leave the house in 20 minutes to go to a student houseparty. Right now I can think of nothing better than sitting down in comfy clothes, in a comfy chair and watching some light-hearted comedy before having an early night. Furthermore, knowing that I was to attend this house party, rather than take some cheap lager or vodka and mixer etc, I seem to have purchased a few expensive ales that I intend to slowly sup during the course of the evening.

How on earth has this mental shift come to pass? Not more than 6 months ago, I was out partying almost every night without fail. I used to have a job where I had to wake up at 5am for an hour and a half commute and yet I still spent only 1 or 2 nights in my apartment per week. Most evenings I was out living life. Right now 'living life' seems like something that can wait till the weekend. Even then, I am filled with a slight amount of dread about having to get a train to Leeds on Saturday and then having to deal with Sunday trains and not having a day to sit around in my dressing gown watching TV. This is a shocking attitude. I am usually known for my undue amount of enthusiasm towards all possibly enjoyable activities. I am labelling this current period in my life as a Funk.

It's not that I'm not happy or bored - I am perfectly contented with my current circumstance. I have a job, money, plenty of friends and a very easy life. However, I can't help but feel that I should be doing things. Maybe this too is a subject of ageing; that nagging feeling that the sands of time are running out, so I should go and do things while I still have time. I know that I am only 25 and am far from being classed as 'old', but I'm still older than I was (a redundant statement I know) - point being that the time between then and now passed by way too quickly and continues to do so.

Hmm like other old fogey friends, I seem to have lost my train of thought. I was distracted by singing along to a Girls Aloud song - which I suppose serves as a sign that even though I may feel about 100 years old right now, I'm still wonderfully immature :) (the smiley face is further testiment to this).

Anyway - I'm going to drag myself off for a shower, as the aforementioned 20 minutes, has now reduced to 4. Then I'm going to go find the happy middle-ground between being a fun-loving houseparty-goer and a sensible person who doesn't want to feel like a zombie tomorrow. For we all know - Zombies don't win hugs.

Another World, Another Time... In the Age of Wonder.

Things I found in my head:

• I wish I had eaten less of that chocolate Santa.
• Friendly Fires - 'Paris' is an awesome song.
• What happened to Yogi Bear?
• Brrrap Obama.
• Keifer Sutherland is cool.
• iPlayer Downloader is a very handy program.
• I have an urge to watch Face Off and I, Robot but lack the resolve (or a copy of Face Off).
• I seem to have lost the motivation to move my left arm.
• Brave-starr! Bravestarr! Eyes of the hawk, Ears of the wolf!
• If you had the ability to fly, how much would you really use it on a day-to-day basis? I mean without an aeroplane.... airplane.... plane.
  
• An Aero-plane would undoubtedly be structurally unsound.
• I can't believe there is a whole website devoted to a chocolate bar.
• Sarah Jessica Parker really isn't as bad looking as people claim.
• Flight of the Navigator was amazing.
• I might be wrong about the SJP thing.
• I haven't 'concurred' in ages.
  

Drizzle Fo' Shizzle

My last post got me thinking - namely about 'drizzle'. Here are some drizzle related wonders/musings that have been kindly provided by our sponsors - The Magic of T'Internets.

• Drizzle "(also called mizzle) is light precipitation consisting of liquid water drops smaller than those of rain, and generally smaller than 0.5 mm (0.02 in.) in diameter." [Wikipedia]
• Drizzle could be a suitable nickname for Dr Dre.
• Drizzle is "a story which develops around a young marine biologist and his assistant, who suddenly find themselves able to communicate with whales at the same time the International Whaling Commission, following a twenty year moratorium, re-opens the seas to harvesting whales." [A novel by John H Burns]
• Drizzle could be urban slang for the derailment of a train... D-Rizzle.
• Drizzle is "hydroponically grown marijuana." [Urban Dictionary]
• Drizzle in French would be 'Drizzlé'.
• Drizzle is "a lightweight SQL database for Cloud and Web" - you're guess is as good as mine. [Launchpad]
• Drizzle is one of the 'Stealth rains' - along with 'Spitting'. You'll be soaked through before you even realise that it was raining.
• Drizzle is "the best little independent ISP in the Puget Sound region". I don't know what a 'Puget' is or what sound it/they make. [Drizzle.com]
• Drizzle is the appropriate action to take when applying lemon juice to your pancake prior to the addition of a light dusting of sugar.

Delayed Gratification

Bonsoir mes amis. Apologies for the considerable amount of time between this most recent post and my previous one - but what can I say, I'm rubbish. Anyway, lets get this up-to-date with where things stand at the moment.

I forget where I left things, but as of the last 2 weeks I have been a working man - just like a normal person. These two weeks have been pretty good. However, I absolutely loathe waking up in the morning - man should not rise before the sun. Fact. Waking up feeling like a zombie, with bleeding eyes and hatred towards everything can't be good for people and it can't be just me that feels this way in the mornings. On the plus side, I received my first non-government paycheck since August, which was very nice indeed. Being poor is not for me. Hopefully over the next few months I'm going to be able to save up a nice big wad of cash - then I will definitely have to pull my finger out and come up with a plan.

I'm now trying to think what else I've been up to recently. Not alot it seems. Work has taken over my days - something we all experience and tolerate, but something we all slightly resent when it comes close to the end of Sunday and Monday looms afore us like an ominous zeppelin, full of irrate monkey managers screaming and throwing pots and pans down at you from the heavens while you desperately try and catch them all like an over-worked character in a retro computer game. Atleast that's how I envisage work being tomorrow. But atleast I'll get in tomorrow and be reminded that it's actually a nice place to work, with pleasant people; think of those poor souls who actually do have the job of cleaning up after the Monkey Zeppelin.

This weekend I decided to take it easy and chill like a villain - exercising, eating wonderful things, playing on Xbox Live with friends and catching up on TV. It's been absolutely fantastic. This is the disguised blessing of work - as soon as you lose your free time, the rare times where you can just sit on your backside doing very little seem like bliss. I guess it's like they say, without the bitter the sweet wouldn't taste half as... sweet - something like that anyway. I'd say it's like how having pancakes with only sugar on and no lemon would be considerably less amazing than going the whole hog and drizzling that lemon juice all over the shop. Not applying the lemon juice also prevents you from utilising one of life's rare opporunities to 'drizzle' - think about it; how often do you drizzle things?

I think that's enough for now. I am going to go watch the first 2 episodes of the new series of Lost. I am very excited. My friend informed me that the new series had started, so I downloaded the new episodes on Thursday and saved them for today. Many people have lost interest in Lost over the years, but it's one of the few shows that I'm sticking with and I love it. When I finally get around to visiting Canada, I am also owed a delicious Cold Stone ice cream thanks to a Lost-related wager - you know who you are ;)

Anyway, enjoy whatever you were doing prior to reading this or had planned for after reading this. If you are now at a loose end then I shall leave you with this excellent tune that I discovered recently while educating myself as to what is currently in the charts...

Madcon - Beggin'

Ostravar

I'm currently enjoying the finest Czech lager that one can buy for £1.15 in your local Somerfield (subject to availability, currency and various other factors) . Times are good.

I have now completed two days working at my new job. It’s pretty good as admin jobs go. It’s no doubt more entertaining than most due to the inherent drama that is associated with the teenagers that the company helps. I had forgotten how much teenagers manage to imbue an unnecessary amount of drama into all life’s seemingly inconsequential ups and downs. Watching them express their concerns is like watching an unconvincing soap opera on TV – great stuff. The other staff I work with are all nice and have been very helpful – which is good, as I can only pretend like I know what I’m doing for so long without assistance. Fortunately all of the job’s requirements of me have been well within my abilities and I’ve been able to impress with a modest amount of IT savvy (and no doubt being dashing and charming won a few hearts and minds too).

Job aside, I’ve been occupying my time with exercising and my future plans – both long term and the more immediate future. In the immediate future – I will joined by one of my more lovely friends (a girl in other words) this weekend to go to a party with some lovely Lincoln students who will all be dressed as cheerleaders. Needless to say, I was sold on this concept immediately. I’ll endeavour to get pictures, but don’t count on it as I am useless at photographing things these days.

Stretching slightly further into the future I am planning some partying in Leeds at the end of this month, followed by more London shenanigans early next month, then Manchester again and then very possibly Liverpool. All of this being dependent on finances of course as I have no idea when my first pay cheque will be. I must admit that I am rather relishing the idea of not being poor again. As much as I have been able to live quite comfortably on my modest budget, those of you that know me well will know that comfortable and modest are not life goals that I strive for. I am very much all about indulgence and extravagance and generally satisfying my every whim without worrying about consequence.

As far as long term plans are concerned, I have been investigating which countries I would like to visit. I was originally thinking Australia or Singapore so that I might join some friends of mine. However, I then thought that it might be nice to go somewhere on my own and dive in at the deep end again. I therefore had a thought about which countries interest me and where would be a unique and exciting experience. So far the list involves Tibet/Nepal, Jamaica (though I don’t care for the humidity), Thailand, Cuba, Mexico. Most of these countries would probably involve me working as an English teacher again, but that’s fine – it’s a perfectly fun job and a handy ticket anywhere. However Nepal has opportunities to work in Orphanages and conservation areas – which might be interesting. Maybe if I got a job looking after orphans it might slightly reduce the risk of me going to hell for my usually selfish style of living – no worries if not though. I am also tempted to join the thousands applying for The Best Job In The World which my friend recently informed me of.

I was going to leave you with some cool music to download, but t'internets is thwarting my most excellent plans. Instead I am going to go play GTA IV online on my Xbox 360 and leave you with a slight feeling of emptiness. Adios.

[Ed. "Here ya go - I fixed t'internets: DJ Yoda/Sway - Chatterbox. Enjoy."]

Coolio FTW

I'm very on and off with Big Brother, but as I haven't watched it for a few years now I've decided to dabble a little with the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother. I have watched it a couple of times during this first week and am now definitely rooting for Coolio to win, although I am sure that he probably won't. He seems to be the only member of the house that actually has a personality and any banter at all - the other members of the house comprise of the dull and the positively awful. I don't doubt that Coolio will be nominated at every possible opportunity, but I really hope he goes the distance as he's the only character worth watching. I'm sure I'm not alone on this one.

The Goosebump Conundrum

It has just occurred to me how rubbish Goosebumps are. It's bad enough that your body chooses to signify its distaste for the climate by altering the texture of your skin to appear similar to that of a goose - as if shivering, chattering teeth and, for men, a sometimes severe blow to your masculine fortitude weren't enough. But it has also dawned on me that Goosebumps actually increase the surface area of your skin, thus allowing you to lose heat faster and become colder. It's the metaphorical equivalent of trying to cool down by wrapping yourself in a duvet.

Maybe I should create an 'Anti-Goosebumps' group on Facebook...?

The Start Of Something New

Yo. [Ed. "Not a strong start - but it'll do"]

After seeing that many of my friends are now blogging and after some mild encouragement , I've decided to give blogging another punt. I'm not envisaging a massively strong return to form - atleast not at first, but I'll crack on and see what comes out.

Might as well start with a personal update. As you may all recall, up until recently (well, kinda recently) I had been living in Japan - where I met many fine individuals. On September 10th 2008 I returned home - a move which many have questioned. I don't know why I left - it was just the right time. Well, 'right time' is probably the wrong label to use as I decided to give up a secure job during the beginnings of a global economic downturn and return to a country full of people far more skilled and experienced than me, who are equal to me only in their new found need of employment. Anyway, I like a challenge (lies) and, more to the point, I am known for making stupid decisions.

So here I am - in Merry Ol' England. Now not to worry, this isn't all doom and gloom ; as I realise my opening paragraphs have set that kind of theme. I wanted to start a blog on a vaguely positive note, so luckily I have positive things to say. For a start, I have mostly really enjoyed being a bum living at home. Once I got used to it, it was great. All my food is bought/prepared for me, clothes are washed and ironed and there is no rent - this is all good. Couple this with the fact that I have endless free time to exerise, eat healthy, play Xbox online, catch up on the TV shows that I missed while I was busy living life - also most excellent. Then, as the final icing on the cake, the government gives me just enough money every week to keep myself stocked of DVDs, Games and booze (gotta go out and socialise sometimes). I thoroughly recommend unemployment to those wth the right attitude (and circumstance I suppose). All I do is work out, play games, watch TV, eat nice healthy food and go party with both old and new friends. Times are good.

Ok, so I may have fudged over somethings and glamourised it a little - but on the whole, I am pretty content. However, as much as it's nice to be a bum - I knew this would just be a short time thing, because there are much better ways to spend my youth than just chilling out. I'm considering this a taster session for retirement (assuming that happens). So, other than the good parts of unemployment, there is that one large, ominous cloud hanging overhead that we've all encountered at one point or another - job hunting...

Job hunting is life's way of trying to crush and grind your spirit like black pepper. It is incredibly easy to become disillusioned and demoralised and I have seen it happen to many friends - it's happened to me once or twice as well. As much as it sounds a bit clichéd, the key really is determination, perseverence and positivity. Upon coming home, I took a month to get used to life in England again (it's all the same old grey) and then have spent the last 3 months job hunting. I started strong; doing maybe about 5+ applications per day - but that number soon started to decrease. The compfy lifestyle that I currently enjoy is both a blessing and curse, because you find yourself not that bothered as to whether or not you get a job. It seems strange to think that life can be too easy at times.

Luckily my friends are good enough to regularly call me on being a lazy goon and don’t let me quit the hunt for work. So, feeling morally obliged to find work, I persevered with my quest to eliminate my free time and, as of last Thursday (8^th Jan), that dragon has been slain (so to speak). Thanks to a friend of mine hooking me up with a trial day at his place of work, I have now gained employment and from Monday (12^th Jan) I will be attempting to pass myself off as real person with a job and everything.

This will now allow me to get back on with my plan, consisting of 3 main points:

1) Get cash – Unfortunately jobs are essential to attain any real amount of money, unless you are very lucky or a convincing criminal sort or both.

2) Get experience – My CV needs bulking up, to become a MEGATRON CV (its new title). CVs (or Resumes for my overseas friends) are like rolling stones gathering moss – you just gotta keep that CV rolling downhill so… wait – what the hell I am saying. Ignore the ‘downhill’ aspect – you wanna be reaching for the stars… or something. For those of you with slightly more realistic ambition, just imagine you are reaching for a slightly higher shelf than where you can comfortably reach for. Anyway, the point is the more I get on my CV, the more weighty it’ll be when I bash prospective employers round the head with it to demonstrate my suitability for a role. [Ed. “Apologies to the families of those lost in the train wreck that was this paragraph – I am no longer quite as skilled at wielding metaphors as I once was.”]

3) Leave the country – As much as I like England, if I were her captain I’d be yelling “Abandon Ship!”. Not that it’s much worse than anywhere else I’m sure – it’s just not my cup of tea. There are many places in the world that I need to see, so I don’t have time to wallow around here in the infinite greyness of England. To date, I have only lived in one other country and that one proved better than here – I can’t believe I am lucky enough to pick the only country better than England first time, so there must be other places that are also awesome and I wish to reside in all of them for some undetermined period of time. I guess I should be fair and say that other countries are not necessarily ‘better’ than England – it’s all subjective I suppose.

Anyway, I think I’ve waffled on for long enough. To sum up: Bum – Job – Money – Escape… Hmm perhaps not the best summary, but it’ll do. Oh and to anyone currently hunting for that elusive job dragon – look up...