has anyone seen the yaks?

he seems to have hit radio silence. this is worrying. but mostly sad that i don't get to read his words.

on the roads in england they have changed the rules so that if you don't drive on the left of multiple carriageway roads you can get a fine and 3 points. this is great! well, it would be.
it was the yak who said there are 2 things necessary for a law to be useful. i forget one, but the other was that it needs to be enforced/enforceable.

this rule, is completely and utterly unenforceable. so while it would be lovely if all the idiots drove on the lefttermost lane, they still refuse to in case they catch a disease or something and are happy to slow everyone else down.

what they will do sooner or later is put gps in everyone's car and then you can automatically see who doesn't drive properly and then remove them from the roads. although i expect that driverless cars will be a reality before that occurs. and that will be relaxing and efficient and safer!

obsession and resolution

they sound like names for calvin klein aftershaves. they probably are.

i find obsession quite easy. i get obsessed by things frequently. people, ideas, work. only my obsessions tend to not last long enough to see things through till conclusion so i can start a great many awesome things but find it tough to finish. this resolution of stuff is what i need to work on.

i tried doing things for 30 days but couldn't even manage that to begin with. so i'm doing 1 week at a time for now. then i'll move on to 2. then 4.
so last week, for a full week i managed to avoid all possible glucose. so no chocolates, sweets etc. i had a little in bread but then buying sugar free bread is super tough. on the plus side i actually noticed my belly being slightly less fat after that. so that was good, but i don't think i want to live like that forever so i just need to buy a bike and a trainer. if you live in london and want to sell a decent bike let me know! otherwise ebay/gumtree it is.

one day soon i plan to start (and finish) doing a blog post every day for 30 days...

behind the sofa and out the window

behind the candelabra.

behind the sofa with your eyes closed is the safest place from which to watch this film which i would put in the horror genre. out of the window is the safest place to keep this film. specially if its a cd and you live on the 100th floor of a building and acid rain is falling from the sky.

things i don't want to see in a film
"matt damon"
"matt damon's butt"
"matt damon's butt repeatedly"

i don't actually mind matt damon that much, but points 2 and 3 are not conducive to enjoyable film watching. i don't even mind that he kissed a 140 year old man who looked like michael douglas. i do mind that the plot to this film was "LOOK AT ME! LOOK HOW CAMP I AM. I MADE FRIENDS WITH SOMEONE 100 YEARS YOUNGER THAN ME. I THINK I'M A GAY TOO"

that's it. i don't know how this got passed the stage when they were planning the film.
-let's make a film about one of the worlds most famous and greatest entertainers.
-what's the story gonna be about?
-story?? ha. that's for loser films. ours will just be about making a man look camp and talking to other men. and maybe we can get matt damon to show his butt to everyone. sweepstake on how often? over under line is set to 113.
-i'll take the overs.

I'll confess. i didn't make it to the end of the film. i haven't quit a film since i saw big tit zombie killer (i think that is what it was called. that was 5 mins i'll never get back), and i actually felt like i was saving time in my life to do something more pleasant and meaningful; like iron someone else's socks.

rating -2/10

a confederacy of dunces

every day at work there is some event that leaves me depressed with the state of humanity.

There were two such serious events this week, that deserve to be recorded indefinitely on the internet.

1) minding my own business at my computer i hear a conversation so loud it was more frightening than thunder coming out of your head. i turn around to see a man 5 metres from me at his desk pretending to use his phone. i say that since there was no need for the phone at all, everyone within a 100 miles radius could probably hear me.
and that's not the worst part. in my enforced overhearing of the conversation he says "I will copy yourself in on that email"

YOURSELF??

in what i hope was an attempt to look smart, he sounded like a ignorant asshole.

2) someone hit reply all to an email, which went to the thousands of everyone in the company. about 137 people replied to all saying either
"this wasn't meant for me"
"ditto"
or
"PLEASE STOP REPLYING TO ALL"

none of these people were funny. i hope they were trying to be funny because the alternative is that they are a lower life form than an inanimate carbon rod which disintegrated thousands of years ago and has been returned to the dust.


tomorrow, I review the film behind the candelabra, so you don't have to.

goooooaaaaaaalllll!

just a quick update for me.
i was stuck on 79kg for many many weeks. then 2 weeks ago i got up to 80kg. hurrah! goal reached. last week I was weighed in at 81kg. I am getting a bit tubbs around the belt area so have started doing some exercise to lose some fat. cycling is more exciting than running, although i need to borrow a bike...

angggggggrrrrrrrry

there aren't many things that make me angry. however, there is one 'word' that people seem to use at work that makes me go into hulk mode.

let me preface this by saying there are many made up 'words' that they use. they also get confused between nouns verbs and adjectives. people seem to be able to 'calendar' events. things also get 'actioned' quite regularly.

none of that is as infuriating as he constant references people make about upskilling - yourself or others, and getting upskilled. a completely made up word which is entirely redundant. i want to shout in their faces "just use teach or learn!!" two perfectly good words which more than adequately describe the situation.

that is all for now. i have a feeling there will be some more regular blogging coming soon. mostly because it is winter now and my flat has storage heaters so until i can move out i need to use my computer as a heat generator.
whoever invented storage heaters (which as far as i can tell is a heating element used to heat a brick which then radiates the heat away before you get home from work. yes, it is caveman technology) deserves a place in hell.

Don't ever lose your dinosaur (boats and hos)

My new friend is the kindest person I have ever met. Sweet, honest and enthusiastic beyond compare, she is an example of how people should behave.
Kids have this way of thinking. They question how everything is, and aren't afraid to be themselves. She's a grown up with all those best qualities that haven't been beaten out of her by society no matter how much anyone has tried.
And so you should never lose your dinosaur. Not so that others will like you, but so that you will like you.

falling behind

it is now the twenty two of july and i have missed some picture taking days. i put this down to extreme tiredness due to overheating of my brain.
however, in this selection of pictures, i will have some worth way more than a single picture. but that is not good enough. challenge failed. it was a noble attempt though. perhaps i should have tried to post one every day instead.

spiral galaxy pancake. not a great picture. but immense tastiness.

an actual sign in the town of brighton. TOTALLY 100% legit.

MASSIVE lorry. little skip.

surprise

meat on a stick in the street. in the style of peep show.

an actual picture i took of the moon. through my camera phone, via a telescopic lens.

peeecs

a restaurant in town

it's hard to tell but the bottom of this 'get copies of your payslips' sign it says
"FOR LEGAL PURPOSES ONLY"
a surefire sign of meaning
"FOR ILLEGAL PURPOSES ONLY"

a pic from the hampstead heath at night. an unusual location that makes london look like it's in a bowl (it is in a bowl)

my teeth. after eating pancakes. covered in chocolate syrup. so much chocolate in fact, that i couldn't see the pancake i was eating.

i finally took this picture in the gym. the machine in question is a treadmill. you know, one of them machines that you run on. so the ground moves, but the machines stays in the same place and you run on the 'moving' ground. a real special sign is this one.

2 more pics

i went for a natural theme. nature is pretty cool.
the first is my attempts at growing a plant. so far i have accidentally ironed a couple of leaves. and two of the three flowers seem to have died/be dying.
2 growing flowers seem to not want to be flowering. it's not going well.

so i went outside and took a picture of a Ginkgo tree. just last week i found out that remains of leaves from these trees were found fossilised with dinosaur bones. that's pretty cool.

i trust you can work out which photo is which.

tomorrow i go to london town so hopefully there will be more interesting subjects to photograph...

picture a day

i have decided i will take a picture a day. i may not post every day, but a few at once. this will last all of july.
i will try to take interesting pictures.

July 1st.
This is the view from my flat.

July 2nd
This is some useless graffiti.

July 3rd
This is the most awesome tree branch i have seen.

July 4th
this is a stupid good luck charm outside an office i have seen.

July 5th
this is somerset house in town.

moving

moving isn't that painful when you don't have that much stuff.
it's slightly more painful when you have more stuff. and a bit weird when it belongs to an ex. at least she had good taste.

these days, unbeknown to me, when they give you internet, it no longer takes 5 days! they just come and sort out your phone line and then you plug in your router and boom, you can move in. it's pretty small place so i'm missing a table for my computer. i have one monitor on a coffee table and the other on the tv stand as a tv/monitor. though obv i need to buy a tv and then will have 3 screens in close proximity. i can turn on my work laptop and mac to have 5 screens all next to each other to full super cool. like that guy in that film.

i forgot to switch over my betfair account to their latest sack of shit software providers. this means i no longer get rakeback. i need to find another account which gives me something decent as i actually plan on playing a little bit soon. exciting times up a head.

i don't have many more funny things to report. i think i forgot them all. except maybe one conversation i had with a friend and when he said you can have too much of a good thing, and i replied no, blowjobs. no one turns them down saying, i've had enough. physically pushing a lady's head away and shouting, no, not now, i've had enough!

this post has been rather crude. my apologies.

tunnel vision

when i play football i have this great gift that apparently not everyone has. when looking down at the ball (to make sure i don't kick myself or trip over my feet) i can see out the corners of my eyes at what is round me. it helps me have great awareness and react a bit quicker to what will happen.

however, with great powers come great anguish. when i walked into the gym changing room today i was confronted by utter nakedness of a man. the male form is not that pleasant. for many reasons i do not look down ensuring my eyes remain at eye level. except this awareness doesn't turn itself off and i see his flopping member out the corners of my eyes. one would think that looking in the opposite direction to this man who was naked for a considerably long time would help. but oh no, the gyms have a habit of lining every single wall space with mirrors.

the mirrors are interesting. they both help and hinder in the actual gym. when there is a hot lady on the running machine i can see her in every single direction. i find it quite disconcerting, but maybe that's just me.

derek

i thought i'd written about this before but google disagrees.

this is the series that gervais wrote about a guy who works in an old age home. of limited intelligence, many people assumed it would be laughing at him. like all the best tv and films, it turned out to be anything but what you thought it would be about. the entire series is in fact about kindness.


the pilot is a heartwarming piece of telly vision. you have to be a cold bastard to not appreciate it. lots of my friends turned out to be cold bastards! so i decided after watching it, that i would make new friends based mainly on the criteria 'did you like Derek'.

two weeks ago i met a lady who i started doing some conversation with. at one point the conversation turned to tv shows. i was afraid to ask, because if she said no, i would have to not be her friend. i tested the water with a "did you see Derek?"
the response of overwhelming love for the show was awesome, and more than just a relief for me. so i think i made a friend. going to london town to tomorrow for an injection of culture with this new found friend. (not the comedy store, which one of my members of colleague at work seems to think is all london people do).

women want a bastard

i believe this is the case. it's probably genetic.

i often hear women say, i just want to meet a nice guy. this women often goes for the biggest bastards of them all.
i spoke tangentially to this in an earlier post to which yakshi's comment is wise.
"It's hard not to be careful and unconfident when you see so many boobs acting confident, utterly failing, but not noticing it enough to change their behaviour"

recently i began rereading Feynmann's first general memoir book. it's a lot more technical than i remember. or i'm getting stupider. maybe both. there's one chapter on how he was being taught by a man in a bar how to pick up women. general advice: treat them like shit. so he spent an evening with the mindset "they're all bitches." he ignored them, etc etc and to cut a long story short he got with a lady. he did this again once more. after this second time, he decided he no longer liked behaving that way. i liked that ending.

i don't like behaving that way. i tend to be slightly socially awkward and lacking in courage, although what i will say is this. the two women who i have loved were awesome human beings. and it turns out that a tiny percentage of women act like they don't want a bastard. maybe i won't ever be able to easily walk up to a girl (though i can recount quite a few times that i have while unintoxicated!) i believe i am happier this way. i also realise that while the sample size is unacceptably small, the outcome of my attitude has been to find the type of person i would willingly enjoy for the rest of my life. if only i wasn't so semi retarded, i would have had a better shot at that part.

i finally rented a flat and am soon to be waiting to input internet so that it becomes habitable.

in the meantime, i would like to share my tale of woe with an estate agency. i will abbreviate it thusly:

i agreed a tenancy application. i paid a deposit which included money for agency fee and reference check. they kept changing the move in date, and set it to a bank holiday. 2 working days before that date, i got the latest application form from them. they also asked for the rest of the deposit. i said no, not till we sign the actual agreement.
5 hours before the end of the banking day (and still no sign of a tenancy agreement) i got a call saying the landlady had changed her mind.
this was interesting because their tenancy application states that:

“All or part of the holding deposit will be non-refundable and will be paid to the landlord in the following circumstances.
…
2. having signed a tenancy agreement, you do not take up your tenancy and pay the full balance due on or before the commencement date”

no mention of responsibility, just that if i had paid the full amount, i would get nothing back because i didn't take up the tenancy.


also, of course, if i hadn't paid by 4pm that day to ensure they could get the money, they would have taken all my money.

at this point, they only wanted to return my deposit. not their fees or reference fees. the office of fair trading doesn't like this and their guidelines state I should get it all back.
having checked before sending them any money, and during their last minute phone call as to whether i would be receiving the full amount back (which i spoke in numbers for their benefit) I was told yes twice. except, that's not what they offered now.

my two favourite sentences from my letter of complaint to them were:

Dear Turdburglars,

I wish to register a formal complaint with your practice for your deplorable management of an attempted tenancy.

...


When I pointed this out to you [that they would keep all money money if i had paid more, or not by 4pm], you claimed that I would have received the full amount back. Yet, having heard that before from your company, I cannot trust your words.


Delightfully, this story had a happy ending as they finally agreed to give me all my money back.

This story almost had a diabolical ending. while i began to look for another place to live, i found a much better place. the letting agents? these bar stewards. what a pickle that would have been.
fortunately, a day later, a second agency also offered the place up, so i went with them instead.

real sitcom

my life appears to have rapidly degenerated into a series of unbelievable events. where a series can equal 2.

1. a friend has tried to arrange a date for me. this whole concept is beyond the realm of my understanding. for so many reasons. you do not know what i want. you probably don't know what the women wants. it seems to be a set up of convenience, rather than because it would be perfect. the conversation went something like "i have a friend, blah blah blah, can i give you her number"
pathetic, i thought.
"no, i am not looking"
i meant, no, do not look for me. then i had a thought. "unless, of course, it's natalie portman?"
"haha"
i wasn't joking
"so, i'll send you the number?"

how my friend made the logical connection from is it natalie portman, to sending me the number is beyond me. i may have to reconsider the friendship

then i starting thinking about what i would say if i met this woman. i imagine beginning with "so, when this goes wrong, which one of us has to break the news to our matchmaker?" and if that doesn't get a laugh i will say this isn't going to work and will get up and leave.

and then i began to think of all the amazingly bad things i could say. like "why are you single?" or "how was your childhood" or "have you been subtly forced into doing this too because you made a joke about natalie portman?"

the list goes on. i like that list. i wonder how many questions i could use from that list before she would leave of her own volition.


of course, the first thing i actually did was a facebook check and she is not attractive to me so is there any point? (hint: no)

2. estate agents continue to amaze me in their complete lack of benefit to society. however, it has now crossed over into a blatant detriment to society. on tuesday, when i hear back from these latest set of mongoloids, i will share the email i sent to them, enclosed within an email i'll be sending to the office of fair trading - for their contract and precontract are brimming with unfair terms.
they didn't reply after i made a thinly veiled comment about seeking further advice should they not comply with my demands of returning my money. i think they are either making me sweat it out till tuesday (lol, i've had to sweat dodging a flush draw when the river card gets delayed for what seems like an eternity. they cannot compete with that.) or they were too retarded to respond in good time on friday (most likely). we shall see.

"a gentleman might throw in the towel

but not me" - andy bernard

my brain and mouth sometimes have a ridiculous disconnect.

when i went to say "how are you", it came out as "are you ok?"
she stood there holding my credit card. she nodded awkwardly.
i repeated "everything ok?"
another awkward nod.

a lesser man would give up. i gave up, but only temporarily. i will be back for this russian lady another time...

i wonder how larry david got all those dates with the women that work in restaurants.

conversations from an office. Part III

TNBD (we'll call him tim) stars again.

next to me was sitting an man who turns up occasionally. we'll call him pete.

a couple of desks along sits an unapologetic math hater. we'll call her gertrude.

tim was sitting behind pete.

tim makes a phone call.
pete picks up his phone.
tim says "i know we haven't met, but my boss told me you can help with something"
pete says "ok. let's meet in person"
tim says "great, where do you sit?"
"do you know gertie?"
"yes"
"i sit next to her"

at this point a couple of people next to them have noticed their conversation. and that they're talking to each other.

"but...that's where i sit" says tim as he turns around to see pete on the phone turning around.

much laughter ensues.

the end.


ps i gave some brownies today to a hot kind girl because she was craving them from the last time i made them. SHE GAVE SOME AWAY TO ANYONE BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T WANT TO EAT THEM OR TAKE THEM HOME. i no longer like her. (luckily she is not flag girl or hot eastern european canteen girl.)

how are you?

a friend just emailed to ask how i was.

i no longer know how to answer this honestly, without saying, "i have no idea what i'm doing. i need to sort out my life".

but no one wants to hear that. it's just a bad beat story. i tried it at work. someone asked me how i was, i said "terrible". they just said "great" and walked away.

just do it

i often get stuck when writing. i think i'm afraid it's going to be rubbish (which it likely will be regardless.) but that shouldn't stop me. i got some great advice from a friend once. just write. it won't be as bad as you think when you go back to correct it.

i was tasked with finding a location for a work event. i try to find things i want to do. i ran out of ideas so obv checked the interwebz. eventually making my way to tripadvisor i saw many things listed. galleries, gardens, shows and many more entertainment things. then i saw this:



the tube

yup. the 176th best thing to do in london for sightseeing is the tube, (added bonus: if you're lucky, you'll see plenty o' rats scurrying along the tracks. (to be precise, they're usually under the tracks, not directly on)).

this is a better attraction than the millennium bridge, the horseguards parade or somerset house!

current state of writing: 0 words today.
current amount i would pay for a boob-second: £0.50

[the second one is to remind me to talk to hot canteen girl. i almost know what i'm going to say!]

conversations from an office. part II

cast:
lady in a meeting
man in a meeting
3 extras
me

lady: so, (man), we see that you are in charge of the next section, tell me about it

lady points to title which reads "cameras - info"

man: it's info about cameras!

man laughs and looks around for reassurance.
awkward smiles break the faces of 2 extras. extra3 makes no effort to hide disdain.

woman: great, but what does that mean?

man: it's about pricing and [bla bla bla - i tuned out here]


later, that meeting


woman: so, (man), tell me what you plan to do to save money in your department?

man: save money! ha ha ha. 2 for 2.
raises hand
man: high five

no high five is forthcoming.

no extras smile.

the end.

fake

last weekend, i met two ladies.
apparently, i did well in the whole talking to them thing, according to the lady i was with. but that's not what i want to share (but i did, humblebrag, obv)
what i want to share is that i noticed accents i couldn't place so i asked where they were from and they lied by pausing and saying eastern europe. they followed this, under light interrogation, by clarifying exact location: "Russia". Lie.
This, I am sure of, because when i said things to them in russian, they did not understand!
I don't know who was more surprised. Me, with my ability to talk to women, or them, when i spoke russian.

Conversation from the office. part I

Scene with:
Tim nice but dim
Uninterested party 1
Uninterested party 2

Silence broken by a very loud exclamation:

TNBD: "Guys! Guess what film I watched last night"

pause

UP1: "The Lion King"
TNBD: "It's amazing how people have guessed that. I asked someone else and she said the same thing"

Brief pause while the response sinks in.

UP1: "Wait. You mean you actually watched the Lion King last night?"
TNBD: "Yes"

Back to silence.


The End.

today i ate some minstrels.

most places i go, i get accused of being a local. not russia, mind.
i get asked for directions often, so i've learnt to say in many languages "go straight, and then it's on the right."
sometimes, my lack of language gives it away. sometimes, my no doubt hideous accent.
sometimes though, i can just use international sign language. or if i'm far enough away e.g. directions to a passing automanoble, i can just mumble.

yesterday, i hit a first.

in a bar in town, unbeknown to me, they had a foreign gathering evening. i was there early, and drinking alongside two pasty ladies. one hot, one, not so much. opposite my friend and me, were a group of audible spaniards. the manager walked over to the ladies and told them of the foreign evening, saying they are welcome to stay where they are sat, but it might get noisy. he tried some awful banter and then turned to walk away. he saw the spaniards, and continued on his visual scanning of the room. next, it was us. he looked at us and said to himself, out loud, "you're ok here" and continued on his rounds.

my friend turns to me and says, "well, in a suit you do look like the algerian prime minister"

i went home and had a shave.

updated goals. yeah.

a minor change to my daily goals. but a good one.
also, im gonna try to stick to it.

slacked off on reading my personal statement every morning. i got afraid as it motivated me to do stuff and i'm lazy.

started reading again. 30 minutes a day minimum. i like this one. currently reading about economics as i know very little about it. it seems interesting, if hugely subjective in practice.

i want to include 30 minutes of writing a day on there too. but i feel there is a lot there already. i will try to do some of that, but won't yet force myself to do that every day like the other things.

actually, there's one more thing that i won't force daily yet, and that is the poker. i have remembered that my betfair account is in the red. this is partly because i spunked away £1k on horses. but nonetheless, i would very much like to see the card deposits back in negative. to the point of obsession. (is this how addictions start?) i can't remember how much i am down, although i would like to wipe it out in 3/4 months. i will deposit some money and report back with target to level. THATS RIGHT. I MIGHT DO SOME POKER!!!1!

google vs google

when one google source and another google sauce tell you different things, who do you trust?

i remember when i was at uni, my brain was so fried one day, that when i was doing a shopping list i attempted to write down pasta sauce, but couldn't remember any way to spell sauce, other than source.

so, in my blog, my page view count for submentals is 93!
except, when i go to google analytics for my website, the page view count is 15!

who to trust?

the bigger number. obviously.

dog racing

this was just brought to my attention.




i think monkey jockeys would improve this sport immeasurably.

a russian doll part II

I like the roman numerals in titles.


recently, i spoke to the 2nd hottest russian i'd ever seen. a follow up from my previously failed attempt. (attempts if you include times i didn't say what i wanted.)

this time went much better. (having been poker schooled, when i say better i am not being results orientated in my analysis.) i managed to say,
"this is what i wanted to say last time and i hope you will understand my accent."
(in russian) "you are very beautiful."
she smiled and said thanks
"i am not finished yet."
(in russian) " i want to take you out for a drink"
she smiled again. i have seen this smile before. it's a 'not a fucking chance' smile. i hoped i was wrong.
she said "you are very kind"
she paused.
i said "you can answer my question with a yes"
"firstly" she said, "i want to say thanks, you are nice. secondly, no"
it was my turn to smile. it may not have gone perfectly to plan, in execution or result, but i had to ask.

encourage courage

on one of my many walks outside the office to avoid work inside the office, i thought of the words courage and encourage which sound so similar yet seem so far apart.

i would say i have approximately no courage. there are a few people at work with courage. one who is very smart. he speaks bluntly, yet is almost always correct.

i envy them. the good envy where i want to practice to be more like them.

then i saw challenger, the film based on richard feynman and his position on the enquiry into discovering the reason why challenger exploded. he had courage. he was a genius. so he was almost always right.

i don't think i'm that smart. i know that there are many many people better at anything i can do. so how can i speak up when i'm not always right?

in order to do so, i would need an injection of self esteem, and this would probably be in the form of encouragement. and then i realised of the link between courage and encouragement. encouragement > self esteem > courage to speak up and stand up for what you believe.

maybe however, it's all in my head, which was filled at the time with great boredom and perhaps i'm seeing links which aren't there.

no, you.

The age old question of, "I know you are but what am I?"
By the time you reach 25, you tend to do this slightly less. However that's only because it gets replaced.
You find you'll start saying, "you're projecting." It means exactly the same thing but is somehow more acceptable. helped no doubt by House.

Funnily enough, as any poker player will tell you, you project all the time. Usually subconsciously.
For example, you like to bitch about people at work when you're frustrated, so you expect others to do likewise. In fact, when they don't, you become concerned for their mental well being.
of course, you're just projecting your attitude on to everyone else and thinking if they don't think the same as you, they're bad. and that is a surefire recipe for disaster if you're a poker player. unless you're a bad poker player, when most other people do actually think like you. except you will still lose because you're bad.

goal achieved!

i made it to 80kg!
though i think my belly is now a bit fat. this is terrible news because it means i will need to start doing some cardio work. and showering in a gym is quite unpleasant. mostly due to the unabashed nudity waved in your face. everyone knows the male form is not something aesthetically appealing.

oh, and i'm in love. with this.

My (Acting) CV

Name: Mudwig
Address: London
Other: (I have a blog)

Education:
School, Poker, Brain, Travel

Skills:
Can grow a bread very quickly.
Have extensive historical use of a 'poker face'
Extensive experience of feigning interest in (bad beat) stories - I was acting!
I do not sing. I concentrate on using my voice for 'acting'
I can memorise things. Sometimes more than one thing at a time.
I will accept kissing Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman at the same time. But only if the role demands it.
I do not mind if i have to cut my hair or grow it.
I can be presented with - or without - glasses.
I've seen telly vision so i know what people expect.
I can wear a huge variety of outfits (you will have to provide them).
I once told a woman that they she wasn't at all crazy (she was. i was acting. again).
Can pretend to speak one of many foreign languages.

Availability:
Contact my agent.

oh my gosh i was wrong

turns out a compressed spring does have more mass!

i don't really get it so will have to read more about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_energy_equivalence#Practical_examples

my brain doesn't like me

following the yaks advice i went russian.

so i had it all planned out in my head.
to say "hello". in russian.
to hear "hello" back.
to say "what's your name" (still in russian).
to hear "[name]" back.
to say "hi, [name]. you are very (very) beautiful. i have a question for you. i would like to take you out for a drink" (still in russian).

1) to hear "erm..."
to say, "great, saturday night. after work" (in russian)

2) to hear "yes"
to say "great, saturday night. after work" (in russian)

3) to hear "no"
to say "sorry, i don't understand. yes, or yes?" (in russian)
to hear much lolling

1), 2), 3) - great success.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:

i say "hello" (in english)
i hear "hi"
i say "you are russian?" (in english)
i hear "yes"
i say "i'm learning russian, you want to help me learn?" (in english. i wonder if this is what it's like to squeeze your own balls in a vice with everyone you went to primary school watching.)
i hear "go on a course. there are lots"
i say "bit busy, would rather have someone help me"
i hear "i'm a bit busy too"

STICK TO THE SCRIPT NEXT TIME. THAT'S WHAT SCRIPTS ARE FOR.

busting myths

before we begin, some poker talk!
other people play poker. they then talk to me. i am quite uninterested since they still talk about bad beats etc. i try to direct them to talking about strategy but then they ask simple questions, like i was short stacked with AK, was i right to push after a raise? (erm yes).

i think i might try to start playing again. i know the main reason i failed was my temperament and it's something i've been working on in general (road rage!). but then i've been saying this for a year and haven't played. i just need to think of the extra money i could make.


so, on to busting myths.
the internet is amazing. you can write *anything* on it, and more often than not, people do. then other people believe it!

there are some amazing falses people believe and i hope that you will become enlightened by reading this here post.

1) glass flows.
No. no it doesn't. it's a solid. solids don't flow.
people have thought it flows because upside down glasses 'stick' to the wooden shelves (the wood has dried). or because old windows are thicker at the bottom than at the top (that's just poor technique because the middle ages people weren't as advanced and making huge glass windows isn't easy).
like almost every solid, you can make glass flow by heating it up - ie melting it. that's when it will flow.

2) this one i read recently and was incredulous about it. i couldn't believe it was true. much of the internet thinks it's true. i don't.
springs weigh more when compressed.
only slightly more, but slightly more. the argument is that the extra stored energy is equivalent to some extra mass via e=mc^2.
sadly, as nice as this sounds, i don't think it's true. having a greater potential energy doesn't 'give' the object more mass. the only reason mass changes is because in special relativity going faster causes you to appear heavier. it's slightly more technical because it depends what frame of reference you're in (in your own frame you are always at the centre and not moving so stay at the same mass! unless you eat something.)
you can turn energy in to mas, and this will occur in proportion to the equation above, however, you aren't turning this energy in to mass. it's remaining as an energy.

there is still the matter of the potential energy it does have that an uncompressed spring doesn't. where does this extra energy go? well, if for example, you destroyed both springs by turning all the mass to energy, i think the one which is compressed would have a higher energy density. that would be the case if something had a higher potential energy and you destroyed it so i've assumed something similar for elastic potential.

i could be wrong and would be eager to hear any thoughts on the matter.

the rules of the underground

i broke a rule by smiling at a girl. clearly Russian or Ukrainian, she was Hot (capital H). She had great dress sense and wore black headphones with an iPhone. i like that. sadly, i'm now so old I think she was too young for me.

another rule, which i almost broke was that of helping tourists. i once helped a girl with a suitcase down the travelator and she started talking to me. attempting a proper conversation! once we had gone down the many (many) flights of stairs i was ecstatic to find we were going in opposite directions. today, i almost helped a man who was looking at a map with a face of complete and utter confusion. had i asked him where he was going, he would have said "SAME AS YOU" and we may have had to talk for my entire journey home. bullet dodged. and the moral of the story is be a hot woman but not too young for me.

good night.

i don't mean to get all political but...

in applying for jobs i'm looking at some renewable energy/climate change jobs.

what i've noticed it that it is mostly filled with left leaning people, to the point where they're almost falling over. being surrounded by them would be painful. i don't like the line drawn in the sand to separate party politics. it's such nonsense. it epitomises all the bullshit prevalent already in politics and neatly shows that all politicians are self serving power hungry wankers. how can you pick a side and then accept almost *all* their policies is beyond me.

enough politics for one lifetime. i believe douglas adams was right, and the person who should be in charge is someone who "does not want to rule the universe and tries not to whenever possible, and therefore is by far the ideal candidate for the job."

'universe' is replaceable by any political position.

moar science

this is a tiny bit more advanced than previous posts. but only slightly. and it's something that someone pointed out to me today so i'll just do an overview of the idea. an idea rooted in special relativity. it's quite a good name for the type of relativity, as it's general relativity's special brother. (more basic and often wrong).

the idea of relativity is that time is also relative. so you're familiar with the concept that different people are in different locations, and no one location is more correct than another. thus you can choose any location to be the origin (to borrow the maths term). relativity says that time is also relative. this goes against our everyday understanding that time is the same for everyone. so a simultaneous event, in relativity, is no longer the same as our common experience of it. different things can happen at different times for different people. a feature that does get retained is cause and effect, where the effect is always seen after the cause.

that's off to a slight tangent. i want to write about the effect that time is in some ways like another dimension of space. so if you got rid of one space dimension and replaced it with a time dimension you could then picture a 3 dimensional image where one dimension is time.

this analogy is even simpler where you think of a 2 dimensional space. like a square. if you travel across a 1 mile square at 1 mile an hour along the line from the bottom left corner to the bottom right corner it will take one hour. if you went spent an hour travelling aiming along the diagonal you wouldn't reach it because you have further to travel in the same amount of time.
now, imagine that the bottom line represents time and the vertical represents space. so in the first example you travel no distance in space and one hour in time. in the second you travel some amount in time, and less amount in space. ie you have a set amount of travel and it's shared between space and time.

so then, you take it to the extreme so you travel the full distance in space and not at all in time. but is this possible? the answer is yes, if you have no mass and travel at the speed of light. not possible for humans, but something which particles of light (photons) do. these travel at the speed of light and so do not travel in time. they literally never age. when a photon is created in a light bulb, as far as it is concerned, when it reaches your eye and is absorbed, no time occurred between those two events. crazy.

there are many many weird things about this i do not understand or comprehend, yet there's only one more thing i want to share which amazed me.

almost all particles have a 'half life'. This is just like radioactive particles which decay over time. some particles have very short lifetimes and decay in fractions of a second.
it is conceivable that the photon also has a minuscule half life but will not have had a chance to decay since it doesn't travel through time. what would happen if there was a glitch in the matrix so that photons experienced a brief moment of time, long enough to decay? all the photons would be gone and you'd have to wait for new ones to be created. in the mean time, they stars would be invisible. the sun would be gone for 8 minutes. and loads of other weird things i haven't yet contemplated.

ps weight up to 79kg. 1kg from target! still thin though. may have to target 82kg instead.

motivation

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

- Steve Jobs

Every day when i wake up i try to think two things.
1) Thanks for waking up.
2) This day could be my last. What I do today is what matters most.

It was with all that in mind that I was able to email the first girl I ever loved to tell her what a profound effect she had had on me. not that she cared!

and they say movies are unrealistic

i saw this and thought of you

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21410565

in other news, i forgot my weekly round up of weight. i was 78kg when last i checked on a thursday morning. 2 kg from target. that is going well. i feel like i've missed the boat on taking a picture every day. i will instead try to take a picture every day of my bonsai tree and then make a film in 6 months time. likelihood of lasting one week? 10/1

i wrote another post too but fear it would detract from the magnificent story above so will save it for tomorrow. also, it's unfinished.

flag girl vs canteen girl

so i've narrowed down the choices.

there were two canteen girls, but one is not for me. flag girl is awesome. looks english. canteen girl is also awesome. and likely eastern european. there is a third lady, who i think i described as the crazy blonde killer lady from die hard 3. which is the perfect description. she is incredibly hot, and a little bit scary. definitely russian. i feel like i should only choose one. i don't want to settle for second best.

it's been so long since i had to introduce myself to another human i have forgotten how to do so. i also have the etiquette issue of this occurring in a work place.

the only plan i can come up with in my head is to ask them directly about the etiquette. of course, the conversation in my head always goes very well. but then i'm not great at predicting what other people would say. if only there were only three actions (eg bet/raise/fold) that other humans could do.

anyway, as steve jobs said, we're all gonna die soon. and that is hopefully motivation enough for me to get it out my system.

slow reading

i usually read pretty quickly. yesterday i finished a 200 page book. i started it the day before yesterday. i think there should be a single word for 'the day before yesterday' like there is in other languages.
it was a book about public speaking. i didn't read through it all very thoroughly. lots was repetitive. the stories then repeated what it had just said in a narrative form. and some paragraphs were redundant. like the news you can often get a sense of whole pages just from the title.
last week i finished a confederacy of dunces for the second time. it's an even better book the second time around and definitely one of my all time favourites. a yak tip (Thanks). I read it much slower this time around. i made sure i took my time to enjoy the conversations, the situations, the magnificent metaphors and everything else about it. i really tried to imagine every step of the way. it's a book that deserves the attention. it also has an amazing foreword.

and so it has come to pass that the modern day hero has returned to grace us with completing his story. i, of course, am referring to the man child, quincy capers. and i will be reading this slowly, such that i am forced to enjoy it immeasurably, every single step of the way.

scammers!

working for other people is a scam.
it seems that i had to set myself up with an umbrella company as i am a contractor. the umbrella company issues an invoice to the client, for my pay. by the time the money actually gets to me, i receive half of what was on the invoice. HALF!? how the fresh hell is this possible?
taxes, taxes, admin, more taxes and then i'm left with a wee amount.

what makes an expert?

in science, you spend years studying something, reading papers on a subject, perhaps devising and running experiments, interpreting results, leaving your methods, results and interpretation open to others to critique. After years of this, you find that you have learned a rather large amount of information and by virtue of not many other people having spent time in this area, you are an expert. quite possibly only because you now know more than most (which probably defines expert?).

however, having read 'bad science' it seems that anyone can call themselves an expert. with the advancement of anonymity on the internet and the lack of honesty in the media, it seems that people can call themselves experts (or get called experts) when they lack any sort of knowledge, let alone more than most. yet they get listened to. listening to a rock star's opinion on politics is a subset of this effect. famous for one thing so you listen to their opinion on another?! equally wrong would be as would be listening to a doctor's opinion on football tactics because they are doctor. yet people happily listen to actors opinion on medical issues. and then newspapers print it because they need to sell, and what better than to write about calabrities opinions on things that might affect you!?

so i wonder how do you know when you become an expert? especially in fields where there are no qualifications/regulations or ratings systems. let alone fields where luck plays a large factor (e.g. poker).

re peat

i have lots of drafts saved. i should probably get around to posting them. except, when i read through them i think i have posted the content in some of them before. yet they still appear as drafts...

i hate repeating myself. if i tell a story to one person, i will try to avoid ever telling it again, in case the same person hears it again. i don't like when people repeat their stories to me.
maybe i should change how i think there. a wise man recently told me, don't treat others how you want to be treated, treat them how they want to be treated.

also, i had for you to miss out on perhaps one useful nugget located in the deep recesses within some of these drafts even if they are repeats so perhaps i'll post them and hope for the best. i only wish that someone would type in the comments: "REPEAT!" if they see some repetition. not that i'm testing you. (i am)

submentals

i've studied a bit of physics. i wasn't great at it, some of it was very difficult, some of it was boring and some of it was interesting. One of my favourite bits were the explanations to the crazy quantum world and this is where some philosophy would come into it.

i also like that many of the best discoveries throughout history is one person doing an experiment, real or of thought.

yesterday, i met one of the greatest wallies of my generation. when he found out i knew a bit of maths (or so he thought, i know very little maths) he cornered me and threatened me with his world view. this included:

- reworking the colour diagram into a round ball (had he not heard of photoshop?) so that two circles of colour can come together on opposite sides.
- red + green + blue = black
- together, this makes the yin yang logo
- Einstein's time is over. all future thought will be collaborative.
- dismissing existing physics (eg Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which is fundamental to many things!). This is because he was "thinking outside the box". as far as i could tell, the box consists of sanity
- the world should now be built solely for extroverts (no quiet time)
- and so on.

while he was talking i imagined what would happen if i just stopped him by covering his mouth with my hand and saying "no. you're talking shit"

that led me to dream of bullshit man flying in through the window to save him.

i don't know what to title this

my first job out of uni was working for an internet company that ended up being so bad it was king of the watched on watchdog. (for those non uk people, watchdog is a show about things so bad british people actually complain about it. they write to anne robinson who then tells all the other british people what they knew but were too afraid to complain about themselves).

the head of this company was a phenomenal imbecile. however, it is hard to hold genetic defects against someone, even if it pervades the very essence of their being. his greatest flaw, out of his many flaws, was the small fact that he was, and probably still is, a herculian cunt. i don't use that word lightly. Hercules was, to the greeks at least, a deity. or semi deity? im not too familiar with the greek mythologies. in any event, he was the strongest of all the made up people, and stronger than any man could ever be.

but back then, i was young. i knew that people could be cunts, but was always a bit distanced from it. they're not in my generation. my generation could grow out of it, i thought. and if not, surely they won't get anywhere in life.

WRONG

i used to play football on sunday mornings. the frequently cold, regularly wet, always half asleep and often semi drunk excursions were worth it. i always tried to play on a team devoid of pointless human beings, and for the most part i selected teams well. perhaps only 2 people who should be forcibly removed from the planet did i ever have to share a dressing room with. thats not to say i wasnt surrounded by them on the pitch. some of the opposition players managed to outperform the great many people i have met to form unbelievable, yet true, tales of this blog.

however, there are some that slip through the net. and one of the characters i played with on my team was a shining example of everything one should not want to be in life. his superhero power was to whine. perpetually moaning about everything and everyone in football (and probably in real life - i only once had the misfortune of having to see him elsewhere) could be acceptable if you were any good at football (or indeed anything in life). his football special skill was 'abuse the ref'.
he grew up as the child of a deputy head teacher of the school he went to and abused this power by being a cunt. analogous to cartmen's uncontrollable plight in le petit tourette, he forgot how to not be one.

these are the human beings which i don't think should be able to get anywhere in life. so when you see one being abused for being a mongoloid on a relatively popular podcast i am torn with conflicting emotions. there is a nice feeling, that everyone else instantly can see what a terrific specimen of bile he his. however, there is shock, horror and disbelief that he could get there in the first place. i know life can be unfair, but quite this unfair?

i need to somehow deal with this. i'm going to try to apply the techniques learnt unto me by jared tendler in 'the mental game of poker' to the real world and my current predicament. wish me luck.

downtime

frustratingly, my internet keeps going down. like a

catchy title here

i have now twice in the past three weeks injured my back. trying to put on or take off socks. i missed out on playing football with the injury defined as old age. this most recent injury also included an ankle strain i seem to have picked up at the gym the day before the back injury. even in the snow the swelling seems to have remained. if i lived 100 years ago i would probably be put down. and if not, i'd be close to avg life expectancy. the best almost cliché i can muster for this is a good innings for a bowler. so no weight update this week i am afraid.

i recently started reading another book of feynman lectures. i think if i was asked which 6 people i would invite to dinner given a choice of anyone at all, feynman would be top of the list. closely followed by larry david and karl pilkington. i am yet to decide on the other three. joe montana is likely to take up one of those three spots. as is natalie portman. as for the final chair? probably yakshi. although i'd make him sign a non compete clause for portman.

here's the bear up a tree

next week - Russia's marble arch

what is that?

when you see question time on tv (if you're unlucky) or some other debate, people who asks questions are told off if they make a statement instead of asking a question. Oprah has got around this minor inconvenience by adding the words, "what is that?" to the end of a statement.

if anyone cares about the lance armstrong cheating, but not enough to see a tv celebrity 'interview' him, here is a summary:

"you cheated! you're a dick! what is that?"
"I'm a dick. i cheated"

as for me, i'm still doping with creatine and am now up to 79kg! 1kg away from target although i still appear to be the same size. how very odd.


turns out writing is much more difficult than the thought of writing. even with a great idea you have to do all the story arcs, the dialogues, the twists (and the turns) as well as all the bits in between. it seems a good idea is no where near enough. nonetheless, i shall plough on. i have written only a couple of thousand words so far. i've stopped to write a basic plan of where things may go and signposts along the way, and then i can get back to writing 500 words per day.

here's a picture. next week - bear up a tree.

cinematics

i'm giving up on the cinema. not because it's exorbitantly expensive. nor because i'm so old that i don't like modern day films. but because i'm so old that i don't like modern day human beings and no longer care about hiding this fact.

There's not much worse than a collection of people. for example, i heard a great definition:
democracy (n), where any two idiots can outvote a genius.

that's a bit of a tangent though. i dislike the cinema because the odious cretins that we are forced to share a confined space with seem oblivious to other human beings. they have no qualms about talking, playing with their superbright phones and worst of all, eating like an animal which has been starving all winter, and finally gets that first food of spring, devouring it in double quick time afraid that a lion will chase them away.