films reviews

so, Netflix, eh? some great tv shows. some great films. a lot of shite films with high Netflix ratings.
IMDB used to be a reputable source for ratings. these days, imdb cannot be trusted for ratings as far as you can throw them. and as ratings are an abstract concept, you can't throw them (and thus trust them) at all.

Film 1
The Oranges
I think that's this is what it was called. It has House in it. And Maebe from Arrested Development. It has 4/5 starts on Netflix and 6/10 on IMDB from 8000 ratings.

An entirely forgettable film. I have already forgotten it. My fading memories are House is great, Maebe said 'maybe' a couple of times and that is all.
1/10 (House saving it from a 0/10)

Film 2
Robot and Frank
Netflix rating, 4/5 stars. IMDB rating, 7/10 45,000 votes.
This film was described as a comedy. The only comical thing about it was that the writers somehow managed to get paid for this overwhelmingly awful film. It was impossible to tell whether the acting, writing or directing was the worst part of this film. Set at some point in the future, nothing seemed in any way realistic. Characters made the strangest decisions, completely free of logic on all possible occasions. It had no discernible plot. The only way I was able to finish watching it was because the snacks I made prior to the film made me not want to get up.
0/10

Netflix bonus rating
After i rate films 1 star on Netflix I get constant offers/threats - "based on you watching Robot and Wank, you'll enjoy these film..."
WHY?! Why do they do that. I hated it. Offer me good films instead perhaps? My friend got recommended Archer repeatedly by Netflix before he gave in and watched it. He then recommended it to me, so there is a chance that it could work.
Netflix algorithm: 1/10

dreams and nightmares

had a rather horrific nightmare to wake up to at 445am today. oddly, it involved sexy time. who'd have thought that could be nightmarish! i remember not being able to get back to sleep, but i obv did as my alarm once again caused me to wake up unpeacefully.

i think i'm a bit old to be having nightmares.

it's not all bad news though. i played 5 a said yesterday and made a save that ranks in my top 3 all time save. i literally didn't see the ball from just before it was shot to it hitting my hand. i anticipated it going to the open side of the goal, dived at the right time, and all i can remember is the look of incredulity of all around me. that's when I know i gone done did good.

as for everything else, life eh? i seem to be in a bit of a rut. haven't written anything for a long while, and everything seems to be a struggle at the moment. maybe i should just try writing 500 words a day. that's much more manageable and with what i've done so far, i should be able to finish by january's end...

scary movie

My lack of writing continues unabated. It would be impressive if it wasn't so depressing. Last night i decided to just chill and watch the american football instead of doing even a wee bit of writing.

This was after watching a scary movie. I have decided that I do not like scary movies and am not afraid to admit so. Luckily, I find that the tension remains high and the movie remains scary right up until the point that they visually introduce the scary monster. At that point it becomes laughably bad. I refer to all horror movies that involve monsters.
Yesterday's offering of "The babadook" was no exception. The tension was mounting, scariness levels were approaching 'I may have difficulty in getting to sleep tonight', and then they show the monster and instantly my entire body relaxes.
I think the real scary movies which can lead to nightmares are based on true stories, like The Dallas Buyers Club.

l a z y

every day for the past few months has been a struggle to get up in the morning. i have, what i would call, a heavy heart. it weighs me down, and i imagine it appears from the outside to be laziness.
This has not helped me with doing things during the day or the evening. Last week I think I bummed around for about 36 hours on Thursday. Couldn't even be bothered to head down to the vic to play some pokers. Tuesdays is seemingly a better tournament with more people for about the same price. Of course, the standard is the same because the people are the same. And I'm pretty sure a chimp from the zoo randomly hitting fold/call/raise would have a better roi than most of them. which makes it embarrassing that in 3 trips there i haven't cashed once.

in the meantime, I have spent two weeks thinking about my story, and needing to write better. I have a few more plans (e.g. better character falws, and decisions that they need to make with the consequences) and a few more chapters mapped out and so now I have started writing again. I will try to write 1.5k words a day, 5 days a week for a couple of weeks and then take stock again. This will include editing the first part, which will comprise about 70-80% of the book. No idea yet how the story will end, but i'll see what part I is like before I worry about that...

That is the plan, anyway. the new plan. The deadline of the old plan has been sent on a one way mission to investigate the surface of the sun. Part 1 was very much not finished in November. New plan is more realistic with a mid decemeber end for part I and 35k words.

current word total: 21.7k

crisis

less words this week, mostly due to an existential crisis. I think i burned myself out writing about 20,000 words. I have a decent plan to finish. Part I to be finished in November. About 30k words. Part II to be finished 10 days into December. 10k words.

Existential Crisis

I forgot to mention that this week's focus is humility. This is looking for the good in others as this will help remind me that everyone is better than me at some things. I thought I was good at this. I started thinking that this trait should lead to an appreciation of other people. Of course, I am well aware of how much I dislike most other people on this planet. I then realised that the two thoughts are mutually exclusive.

Apparently, these inconsistencies iron themselves out by the time you reach 50 something...

total word count: 20.6k

it's only words

and i have only managed 1000 words today. very slack of me recently. at least today i was actually working (after getting up at noon). I don't think i'll be done in November at this rate. I'm hoping one day this week I just bash out 5000 top top quality words. Don't hold your breath though.

total count: 19.9k
current status: it's 3:24am. I am tired.

post office

i constantly miss letters that the post office deliver. It's like they wait for me to be out and then send the post man/woman/child round to deliver. and they don't seem to like trying to leave the packages with the neighbours. This means that i have to go to the post office depot to pick up my packages.
i did however notice an oddity when I tried to present my ID.
If you show your passport, which contains your name, picture, and no address, that is ok (this is you. address unknown)
If you show a utility bill, which shows your name, no picture and address, that is also ok (correct address, human unknown)
If you show a driving licence, with the wrong address because you didn't change it since you just moved, this has the correct name and picture, but wrong address. This is unacceptable to the post office. They say that it is not me, and I cannot pick up the package.

I would however argue that the drivers licence is more stringent as a test for who you are then the utility bill. It is on the same level as a passport. In fact, you need a passport to make your drivers licence. It has your name and recent picture on it. Like a passport.

These days, I do all my bills online. I have a 2 month old council tax bill from when I first moved in - payments for this are also all now done online. I will not receive any more bills by post for as long as i live here, and as utility bills have to be recent i will only be able to use my passport to pick up future letters. This seems like overkill. If I'm in Europe, I don't even need a passport to go across borders, but the post office need me to show it to get a letter.

word count: 19k
plan: almost completed. been through all i have written. last few pieces of plot to be put together tomorrow.
then 1 day off.
from sunday: 2k per day for last 8 days of month for 35k total words.

this week's focus

cleanliness
this is quite a self explanatory one. i don't think there's nothing wrong with dressing down. looking casual is fine. obviously if you have an example to set, such as the US president, you probably should wear shirts for interviews rather than polo neck t shirts, but maybe that's just my thinking.

being clean, on the other hand, is not something up for debate. this includes clothes as well as at home. hopefully, i do not have much of a problem with this. I think i am a bit lazy with cleaning some things like my fridge, so it's a good excuse to do something small each day this week.

word count: 18.9k
after about 1 hour of work I ended up cutting more than i added. I've noticed it's tougher to have a time goal than a word count goal. Happily, I have but one more day of time goal and editing before I get back to writing.

kindness is magic

i think the saddest thing about society is that people constantly judge others. they seek to put down other people for anything and everything that they do differently. i guess most of it comes back to making themselves feel better. it is a shame they use other people for their yardsticks, rather than concentrating on doing the best that they can do. if others aren't hurting you (or anyone else), then there is no reason to even be concerned with what other people are doing. just be happy for them. there is an infinite amount of happiness to go around. and life is too short to be wasted on hating other people.

word count: 19k
on target to go through everything i have done so far, and reorganise it to make it easier for me to write, and complete a sensible plan. This semi break is totally not in the spirit of writing a book in november, but i have to do it this way to make sure i can complete it, and not have a complete piece of shit. just a semi piece. who knows, if all goes well this week, then i might be able to do 2k words a day next week and get close to 40k words. if i work a bit hard the next couple of days i could even start writing again properly from friday!

plans are good ummkay

so i did write another few hundred words the other day and then crashed and was lost in what i was writing.
yesterday i evaluated what i've been doing and need to change the structure of the book. i was jumping about in time, which i like, only i have found it difficult to know what is going on! so i have instead decided to write it sensibly (ie chronologically). this will make it easier to make it make sense to me. when i'm done i may mix around the times a little bit, as i think nearly on it makes the story better. perhaps not. i will get my editor to decide that.
for now, i am going over the whole thing again, and making sure my writing isn't lazy. this morning, i had 17000 words of mess. i have been through about 1/4 of it, and it's now 18000 words, and slightly less of a mess. i will finishing going through it by the end of the week, aiming for about 20-25k words done.
then, there will be about 7 days of writing i have left, to get it up to about 40k words and a complete story. i am now less worried about the word count, and making sure that the story is good and complete. The november writing will be used mostly as a motivator to make sure i write for at least 2 hours each day.

that is all.

a new low

today's count: 1195 words
I'm beginning to not like what i'm writing. This is quite a problem. I may have to get someone to read it who can honestly tell me whether i should bother carrying on. I very much want to quit right now. I think i may try and do 300 words to at least hit today's target.
total count: 15753

this writing malarkey

malarkey is a lovely word.
writing however, is becoming arduous. I hope I will break out of this funk shortly. I almost quit today, but managed to soldier on. My reward of a twirl definitely did the trick. The glucose hit probably helped my brain if not my water retention.
Yesterday I went out and only got home after 10, finishing writing after 1am. At least I am done now.

last two days: 3157
total word count: 14558 (442 behind target)

this week

this week, the focus is decisiveness

deliberate
decide
act

this can again obviously be honed on the poker felt and then applied to real life. you weigh up your options based on opponents, and betting patterns. You decide what your best course of action to take is. and then you do it. In poker you have the timer to force you into action. in the real world you don't have one, so need to make sure you remember to act. the balance between thinking long enough about doing something, and just doing it is quite key. the most important thing is to be aware of the results of your actions and remain aware and flexible to change your actions to receive the desired outcome.

these processes can then become internalised so that in similar situations you have an almost reflex like ability to understand the situation and how to respond. this can only be done when you are familiar with the situations!

it is important to note that results based thinking, while sometimes the only way to interpret actions, is not always the right way. as any poker player knows, it's about making sure that the decisions you take are the correct ones, rather than the outcomes that follow which are not in your control. being aware of this is something that i think poker players learn much quicker than the rest of the population.

in other news, the weekend was a bit farcical for writing. My day off spanned almost the entire weekend. I've almost caught up but am now too tired to do anything meaningful so will have to go to sleep. I will do 1600 minimum per night for the rest of the week to catch up.

words since last count: 2307
current total: 11,401 (599 behind target)

day 6

today, i have run out of words.

todays word count: 1588
total words: 9094

search results

i haven't checked these in a while. traffic has died recently so there are no good ones of late. However, when i checked all time search terms that people used to arrive at my site, i found some previously untouched gold:

"although i served him with section 8 and section 21 notices and obtained a court order for possession of the property, he was reluctant to move out or pay any of the rent arrears.county court bailiffs got him evicted and his total debt to date is £1,263. (quite much)."
-to that i agree. it is a lot.

"followed by ghosts"
-not sure i've ever offered advice for this problem.

a bad dancer is always impeded by his own balls
-must explain why i am so bad at dancing, and why no women are bad dancers.

chihuahua swallowed whole clove of garlic
-perhaps they were looking for yakshi

i just ate a whole clove of garlic
-perhaps not, and blaming the dog was a first attempt at hiding their shame, but now they're so ill they admit the truth! (or maybe it's a different person)


what is odd is that i didn't add the quote marks, so how did the first term get anything as a response, let alone reach my blog?

today's word count: 1470
total word count: 7506

exercise

i kinda peaked during my weight gaining, and had to concentrate on losing weight as i'd added way too much fat. I'm back to a much more pleasing 12% fat or so, and would still like to lose a couple of % from that. I also think i need to add some strength, without adding too much weight although a kilo or two wouldn't hurt.

my current regime is following the 4 hour body plan.
it is hilariously easy. i wonder if it will work at all. it begins with a 4 week conditioning program. which is solely walking 3 times a week for 15 minutes. lol. so i will walk 3 times a week, as fast as i can, aiming to walk slightly further each time. however, as i am not an american obese man, I will only do this for about a week and a half.

after these 2 weeks, the strength building will begin, with more hilariously short training exercises. they take less than an hour, with about 90% of it being resting (i.e. doing nothing). after 4 weeks of that, i'll see how i feel. I may need to go to a gym for this. I hate the gyms with a passion. There are many people who act rather entitled. I may try to find someone to go with as the boredom of gyms is also detrimental to pushing oneself further.

There are many things I seem to be doing on a daily basis now. learning a language, writing this terrible novel, reading more and learning some useful computing things like MySQL and building databases. I think not having a job is the best thing i've done in a long time. Once i get into these routines, sadly, I'll have to start looking for some more work.

Writing was pretty tough going today. I have made some plans for forthcoming plot and chapters so it's not all bad. It was just tough to motivate myself. Luckily the excess I wrote yesterday helped. I think i will take one day off each week otherwise I might burn out. This will mean that in November I will only be writing a total of 39k words. However, I will be pleased with that as a first draft.

Today's Word Count: 1170
Total Word Count: 6036

cheat post

i totally forgot to say how the focus of order relates to poker (although it's obvious). simply put, it's don't multitask while playing. Don't read the internet, play with your phone, talk to people, or anything else that distracts you from what you need to concentrate on.
playing multitables requires enough working memory at times that you can't do anything else. and when you feel like you have spare brain power, it should be used on focusing on your opponents and their play. I forget who said it, but there is always something to focus on at the table. Working out what players have for each hand, during the hand, and comparing the range you give them with what they show up with, will fill all your time at the table.

also, hopefully no one will notice that this is really one post that could have gone yesterday split into two, so there is something for today.

today's word count: 1854
total word count: 4866

day 2

when i write day 2, i always say it in my head in a geordie accent. I only ever watched some of series 1 of big brother and it is ingrained in my head forever, it seems. Though i did also watch dead set, perhaps that is what fused it in the wires in my head forever.

This week's focus is going to be order. To me, this will mean two things. One doing, putting first things first, in order, and at the right time. Not trying to do too much at once. This then follows on to mean focusing on the things I am doing. Concentrating on what I know I should be doing instead of thinking about the wrong things and the wrong time.
This will be much tougher for me than some of the other ones, so I hope to remember to think about this during the week.

Happily, I have already done my writing for the day. Both days I have enjoyed the first 750-1000 words, and found it tough thereafter. I hope this improves with time....

Day 2 word count: 1373
Total Count: 3012

movember

that famous month when everyone writes a book. I've tried this before and failed. This time I am more prepared. I have a vague plan, and less fear. RULE: I will document each day after completion of my 1500 word count minimum. I will include word count, and self rating of work.
RULE: Days only end when I go to sleep.
I simply need to remember to write the words before bedtime.
RULE: rollover words count. So if i write 3000 one day, I can do 0 the next day. I can get ahead of the limit, but must never fall behind.
30 days of this will lead to a 45,000 word book. That will do nicely. I don't need to write a 7 book series a la game of thrones. Just something light hearted and funny and thoughtful. More hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. Obviously it won't be that good. Perhaps I should find a rubbish book to compare my literary work of nonsense to, thus dampening everyones frame of reference before I talk to them. If you know a light hearted rubbish book, please let me know in the comments. Thanks.

Day 1 word count: 1639
Total word count: 1639

a new wake up routine!

i have finally cracked waking up my brain in the morning. sure, blue lights will work but that won't want to make me get out of bed. also, i'd have to buy one terrible overpriced LED. meditating didn't help me either. i can currently easily get out of bed, go the toilet, and get right back into bed. even when i had a job, i would wait till the last possible second. i tried reading twitter but no, didn't help. as for having a girlfriend - unpossible to make me get out of bed. so far the opposite, it's ridic.

my latest trick is to play a game on my iPhone. You might think this wouldn't help. i found that it hugely increases the sharpness of my thought. currently i am playing circle. it's a cross between that kids game where you have to move the circular hoop around a metal wire without touching the wire, and helicopter. helicopter, for any kids that don't know, is the original flappy bird, and was actually fantastic. playing this noticeably brings my mind to life, with a clear progression of reaction time and speed of thought. after a few minutes (10-15) i get bored/frustrated playing the game, and get up, too awake to go back to sleep.

you're welcome.

an alternative view to patience

i read a definition of patience i'd never heard before. Well, I'd heard the idea but never associated it with patience. In essence, it said "control the things you can control"
any one who's read about the mental side of poker will be familiar with the concept. As will any recovering alcoholic. Focus on what you can control, and accept what you cannot control.

I am beginning to think that many of the traits that i will work on in the coming weeks will often be closely tied together.

the most important thing i'm doing is tracking my progress, especially, in how often i fail. apparently this helps greatly too. we shall see.

patience

after equanimity, patience is the next thing for me to work on.
once again, the parallels between poker and life are uncanny. in poker, once must remain endlessly patient. you have to ensure that your decision making is not clouded by boredom.
you do not know when your next run of cards will happen, and you don't want to throw away money through mistakes, which will reduce the benefits of the future winnings.
patience is a long term habit to be built so that you can maintain your good play over long periods. long periods being months and weeks, rather than hours and days.

and then we come to life. where i can copy and paste the sentence above with a couple of tweaks and everything applies just as well as to how one should behave:

in life, once must remain endlessly patient. you have to ensure that your decision making is not clouded by boredom.
you do not know when your next opportunities will happen, and you don't want to miss them through mistakes, which will reduce your future happiness.
patience is a long term habit to be built so that you can maintain your balance and awareness over long periods. long periods being months and weeks, rather than hours and days.

fin

my wish is my command
yesterday, i go for a drive. my road is about 1km long, and the entire length of it i am forced to follow a learner driver at less than 10mph. They make it impossible to overtake by moving slightly too far to the centre of the road when no one is coming the other way.
and i was late to a comedy store event in town.
thankfully, i remembered to not let it bother me, so i didn't let it bother me.
i don't think i need a huge amount of practice in equanimity, other than in driving and online poker.

i'm not sure what i'll be focussing on next week, but i'm sure it will be arranged to test me as often as possible.

the last couple of days have been happily uneventful. other than having to remind my clients that i'm not a bank and do not wish to loan them money till they bother to pay. i don't know why they think it's acceptable. I assume they are just testing me to see my reaction as i can fathom no other reason for their unfair practice of not paying on time when they have the money in the bank.

testing

It's comforting to know that as soon as I try and practice something, the world aids my attempts to do so.
Not long after writing the post about staying calm in testing situations, I went outside to get in my car and drive off to a meeting. Except my rear tyre was flat. A short investigation revealed a 1.5cm screw had inserted itself into said tyre.
I enjoyed having to rearrange the meeting, change the tyre and go to a shop to get it repaired. It was a bit annoying with the meeting that I had to rearrange but they were quite understanding. I'm not sure these are the sorts of things that cause me to make bad decisions so I will kindly ask the universe to try a bit harder for the remaining days of this week.

tilt!

the parallels of the last post with tilt are incredible!

for example, you think you have made some improvements with regards to not tilting like a special needs monkey only to find yourself playing at 4am, trying to dig yourself out of a hole, as your accounts become emptier than your soul.

It's only when things get tough, do you see how far you've come and so you always need to be on guard even when you think you're getting somewhere. It's a lot easier to tilt in poker than irl for me. The only parallel I found was with driving. Other drivers used to make my blood boil! I noticed a strong correlation between peace with the stupidity and homicidal nature of drivers and an increase in poker winnings. I should probably start driving around town on Sundays to see how i am doing with my equanimity.

equanimity

I just learnt this word. It's a cool word. It means having calmness and composure, especially in a difficult situation. Every day this week I will try to put myself in a difficult situation with the express intention of remaining calm and composed and clear of thought. I will let you know how I get on.

Tomorrow, I am going for a meeting where i will be showing someone how to set up some analytic tools. I don't remember how to do it. I will not panic, or show and panic, and help them set it up.

I need to find things to fill the rest of the week! I will make some phone calls to companies (almost cold calls) which I don't like to do. That will be a good test. I also want to start doing a martial art a couple of times a week so I am not so weedy. I will find a class. I am not great at meeting people in unfamiliar situations so this will be more practice.
If anyone can suggest more awkward situations for me to put myself in, I will be very grateful.

I just thought of another. A company that owes me money, and who knew they owed me money before I started working, didn't tell me when I started, nor when i invoiced them, nor when I told them their invoices were late. They waited a long time to tell me. I was deciding how angry to pretend to be when I next speak to them. Instead, I will remain calm and composed when I next speak to them to explain to them how terrible they are at business and how they will have to change their ways if they wish me to do any work for them in future. That can be saved for later in the week.

forgetful sticks

i have lost many memory sticks in my time. I need to start password protecting them all since i know have data on them that could be called sensitive. my current losses are 2 identical looking ones. they're a bit shiny. i moved from my cave to an actual flat and now i can't find them. one is empty and one is full. i need the full one quite urgently. i will spend another few rounds of combing every inch of my flat including all the "obviously it can't be in there places because i haven't even opened that cupboard since i moved in and have no idea what is actually in there, i hope it's not spiders" places. i will simultaneously concentrate on not thinking that it is in the laptop case i threw away which was falling apart.

in other news, i moved out of my cave into a flat. i forget if i mentioned this. i am forgetting lots these days. i surely mentioned the bricks that masquerade as "heaters"?

as a brit, when people ask me how i am, i respond reflexively with, "great thanks!" if i had to answer truthfully i would say i feel both truly brilliant and utterly terrible at the same time. it's quite odd. i also find it difficult (impossible) to tell other people about this. i don't feel sorry for myself, and don't want anyone else too either.
one feeling often wins from the other but they're both always there. i appreciate immensely how incredibly lucky i am. i am well aware of this and it often permeates my many thoughts. it is a great source of relief and happiness and motivation to do well. at the same time, and sometimes winning are overwhelming feelings of depression and despair. i sometimes think about just moving away from everyone and living in an actual cave somewhere. i wouldn't even like to tell anyone. just go, for 6 months, and then come back to see how i feel. i often think no one would even notice. sometimes, i even like the thought that no one would notice. but like the occasional suicidal thoughts i know i don't have the gumption to go through with it. gumption. what a lovely word.

(i don't think i even have actual suicidal thoughts, just those where i don't really care if i accidentally or on purpose ceased to exist.)

five bellies

i hope five bellies isn't initiated by eating too many desserts. I have a worrying suspicion that that is exactly how it begins. And if that is indeed the case, then I must surely cut down. firstly, i am in love with twirl bites. horrifically, they are equivalent to 4 twirl two finger bars, yet i have no qualms about devouring the entire pack in one sitting. something i would never do to 4 twirls. jelly bellies are also a massive weakness. lemon tarts are another phenomenal dessert which I could just eat continuously. I am in some ways lucky that I don't know how to make them.
yesterday, i went out for food and had an awesome cake for dessert. mousse, with biscuit, a bit chewy, a bit soft and a whole lot of delicious. I was still hungry so we went to get a tea and belgian waffles covered in cream and ice cream from another shop. I felt like telling the waitress we were there for bang bang, louis ck style.



though of course i didn't. the waitress was so hot I think i might even go back.

logic

is all logic based on either circular or axiomatic logic?

for example, "stop" is defined as
(of an event, action, or process) come to an end; cease to happen.

"cease" is defined as
come or bring to an end.

"end" is defined as
a final part of something, especially a period of time, an activity, or a story.

"final is defined as"
coming at the end of a series.

so it seems that you can't use dictionaries to understand words without knowing some words to start with.

maths is axiomatic and just uses some axioms which seem obvious (e.g. a+b = b+a) to construct the maths. but really, they aren't defined anywhere.

i don't know where i'm going with this. I guess I don't really know anything or know how anyone knows anything.

bubbles

i think everyone likes the bubbles that float out of the washing up liquid bottle.

bubbles, which no one likes, are poker bubbles. luckily i avoid them by going out just before the bubble.

i played again last week and went out just as the final table was forming. it was quite uneventful and mostly standard. i made one mistake where i chickened out on my plan when it came to shoving the turn after i raised the flop against someone who just bets incessantly and folds to pressure without big hands.
what was most interesting was the guy who rocked up late to the table. wearing sunglasses. lol, it was night time outside. and not that bright inside. nor were the lights in his head too bright. he was big boned (not fat, just quite big framed) and was obviously accustomed to being all alpha male. at one point i needed some change so help up a chip to him and said "have you got any change?". he replies "yes" and clearly purposefully looks away and pauses before looking back and saying "What's your next question?"
i replied "thanks" and threw him the chip.
he repeats "what's the next question?" and i just stared at him till he gave me the change. i think he takes himself a little bit too seriously. anyone playing in this tournament is not good at poker. including me, it would seem, as i can't beat these mouth breathers.

i play the euromillions when the jackpot becomes large. however, it's still -ev.
the odds of winning are about 1 in 116,531,800. it must be noted that it costs £2 to play. So only when the jackpot is £233,063,600 should you start to play. this of course assumes you are the only winner.
i think what makes it all worthwhile is that i never remember to check the results, but i do get an email from them when i win. so you awake to find a teasing "you've won something check your account" message, to which your mind dreams for a few minutes. then you check your account to find £2.80 in there. after you spent £10.

that was really two blogs in one, so i need a break. back on the weekend.

a tale of murder

google tells me i haven't blogged about storage heaters. i find this hard to believe.

i used to live in a flat with them. during this time, they were the bane of my existence. they call themselves heaters. they are not. they masquerade as technology. they are not.

they are a caveman antiquity.
step 1: make fire
step 2: get brick
step 3: hold brick over fire
step 4: wrap brick in newspaper/bearskin
step 5: sleep with brick
step 6: die of hypothermia

storage heaters replace the fire in step 1 with an electric element. and they replace the bearskin in step 4 with a metal case.
they are stupid for innumerable reasons. mostly that they heat up overnight, give off their heat during the day and are back to being ambient bricks in the evening. most people sleep at night (under a duvet) and are out during the day. thus rendering the storage heater invisible. other than on your electricity bill.

after one winter where it was colder inside than outside and showering in the morning was such a tortuous experience i used to go to the gym and do some sweating solely in order to shower there instead, i left the flat.

i have recently found out that a few years before i moved in, a criminal who was owed hundreds of thousands of british pounds lived there. he was also murdered there. the man who owed him the money gone done did it. i wonder why the estate agency and landlords forgot to mention this? luckily it wasn't haunted. i think he had more important things to worry about than haunt me, such as his death.

multiple events

i start posting regularly, and now a myriad of occurrences occurs (as occurrences tend to do) so a story of murder will have to wait till tomorrow.

today, i want to discuss more mundane things of road users.
they're mostly dickheads. car drivers, cyclists, pedestrians. i would say about 65% of people are just not pleasant. this increase to about 145% when they get into vehicles.

today, i was riding a bike and turning right at a round about (traffic circle to americans. not sure about other languages, sorry) and a car decided that attempted homicide was a more preferential option than waiting. so i had to brake and renounce my right of way as i preferred to be alive. i had indicated for about 5 seconds before the turn and during the turn. while braking one handed and straightening the wheel so he didn't hit me, my right hand almost subconsciously, changed from the pointing to the open palm. i was, in sign language, asking why? why not wait about 3 seconds, before accelerating with ease to tailgate the slow moving car right in front of you whom you will catch up to in about 5 seconds with the effort it takes to move you foot through about 10 degrees. if that. i think this message made it through to this man driver who decided to respond by giving me the finger.

i laughed, but on the inside i feel sorry for someone so angry. it must be terrible to be him.

in other news, i wore a watch the other day for the first time in years. it was weird. i had to stop wearing watches when they all stopped working. it would have been ok if they stopped, but instead the went at a time of their choosing, choosing to be anything but the real time. of course they chose times that weren't completely unrealistic. i could not handle this. telling the wrong time is much worse than just stopping.

A collection of Scary

there was a recent study i read about regarding online dating. it described how the best way of matching people was using just a couple of simple questions, one of which was "do you like scary movies". apparently, matching answers here was the best correlation they found for successful matching. i find that odd. it's a binary choice.
also, i wouldn't know how to answer the question. i like good movies. the genre is less important to my liking of a movie than the goodness of the movie. i like good scary movies, i dislike bad scary movies.
i think that the point of the question is more about being scared. i don't really get scared by movies any more. some, like the butterfly effect, are truly harrowing, without being scary. also, the butterfly effect has complete nudity in it and yet is rated as a 15! that is scary.

yesterday i got very confused while driving. the man in front of me was driving frustratingly slowly down the road for about 500m before finally braking and pulling over into a bus stop without indicating. i fired one blast of a horn at him as he slowed without notice. as i drove away i heard a horn fired. i don't know whether the man was retaliating or someone else found his manner dangerous and required him to be blasted in the head with an warning sound.
i hope it was retaliatory. you can tell a lot about a person by the horning that they do. some people use it as a toy (e.g. eygpt, new york city), some people use it accidentally leading to awkward situations (me), some people never use it, some people blast it due to anger, and some people wait until you are far enough away before using it e.g. the man in my story.

i expect that this would be a much better way of finding out what people are like, instead of asking whether they like good movies.

it must be fate

one of my earliest jobs was the finance department of a small internet firm run by submentals. i'm sure i've written about them before in the past. it was like a terrible sitcom.
one of my roles as the finance department, was to chase people for money. it was horrible. calling people a year after they should have started paying was bad. calling people who had service problems no one told me about. i used to get a lot of bizarre abuse. the strangest was when i called a company in the same building asking them to pay. i got shouted at by this unbalanced women for about 10 minutes after which she hung up on me. a few minutes later, the ceo (a truly terrible human being) stormed into the office asking who had made them so angry, asking why they were being shouted at. reluctantly, i said it was me. i tried to then describe how in fact i had been shouted out, and not the other way round. before i could speak, he then starts to congratulate me for doing a sterling job.
how very odd.

these days, i have to chase people to pay me for work i have done for them. at least now, i don't have to be a dick about it, and due to this horrendous past, i don't feel at all bad about it since i do it in a timely fashion for work they know they need to pay for. I am just amazed how some companies have the gall to respond to your request for them to pay overdue bills, and then not do anything about it!

the golfing range

i went to one this morning and they seem to have replaced the plastic tees with automated plastic tees. this is an amazing example of trying to implement technology for no reason and failing miserable. you're supposed to load a bunch of balls into it so it can replenish automatically for you. i couldn't work out how to do it anything other than one at a time which makes it equivalent to a non automated tee.
except this was worse. when you do a practice shot, and just stroke the ground at the right level, the tee things you hit the ball and so tries to replenish the ball. this takes much longer than you want, and so you need to throw in another practice swing.
this could get you stuck in an infinite loop if you're not careful.

golf, as a game, is a curiously lonely one. made bizarre by the slave you employ to carry your clubs because walking for a few hours is tiring enough without the added strain of hitting a ball maybe 80 times.
to be fair, if i could afford it, i would have a butler do things for me that i could not be bothered to do.

homicidal drivers

i gone done did a bit of cycling recently. i quite enjoy it.
however, it can be very scary. i find driving scary enough. people don't seem to realise the kinetic energy possessed by a two tonne metal object travelling at 30 miles per hour, let alone at 70 miles per hour. while it's scary in a car, when you're on a bike, you know that you don't have much protection. instead of an engine built to take an impact, you have clothes. these don't work in quite the same way. many drivers seem rather persistent in their attempts to bring about an untimely demise for their fellow road user.
i thing i have noticed is that there are an equal proportion of terrible drivers to terrible cyclists. many cyclists are as suicidal as drivers are homicidal.

this all got me to thinking. drivers that don't indicate.
for years i thought they were just super selfish people who weren't really aware of the existence of others. but they must know that there are other people on the roads. and if that is the case, then i can only conclude they really don't care at all about themselves. it's like they've given up on life and are just letting it slide. to me that's pretty scary to share a road with.

what else is scary is my 1tb drive is almost full. what on earth do i have that takes up 1tb?!

sharing thoughts

i find it easier to share my thoughts online sometimes. in real life i'd usually keep them to myself.
i wonder why.
it's like it's easier to care about people you don't care about. there's nothing invested in them. when someone you care about annoys you, doing things you know annoy you, that's much more annoying than when people you don't care about annoy you in the same way. or maybe that's just me.

when i think about it, it's really the wrong way round.

whatever it is i'm afraid of with people in the real world, i think it's bad for me to behave how i do. that will be something i will focus on for the rest of the days of my life. it's way outside my comfort zone but i'll give it a go. things like my hopes and dreams. i wonder what it's like to share them.

i never go for the big stuff, cos even the small stuff people disregard or laugh at me. like when i said i don't want a job. i want to work for myself, set up lots of streams of passive income. they call me unrealistic etc. i wanted a job for about 12 months for experience and money, and i know working for someone else is not what i want long term. maybe later down the road teaching is one of the few things i could see myself doing which involves working for someone else. but that's because teachers can actually make a difference.
i think i wrote this as a draft about two years ago.
since i had a job for the last couple of years before i was finally in a position to tell them to leave me alone and work for myself.
i tried the talking more openly to the people i think i'm closest too. that didn't work so well. i think i need a better approach. it turns out that people who say they want the best for you, often want you to do what is best for them, while they convince you it's best for you.

my head hurts.

as yakshi has been too lazy to finish his work out art (the final chapters of quincy), i have begun to reread the five part trilogy of the hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy. i like books.

i did a poker!

i finally managed to rock up to a casino, the ol' vic on edgware road in london town for a game of the poker. not many people turned up for a 1 rebuy if you bust tournament. It started off well as the table was short handed so i won a bunch of pots against people stuck in 2004. an old man KEPT limp reraising monsters and no one else seemed to notice. one dude would only play AQ+. just before the final table, i was a couple of seats around from him so i just kept raising his big blind. 4 occasions i had the chance. 2 he shoved on me (over 25bb). i lolled and folded both times. both times he showed KK. i saw him get kk 5 times in the tournament and he played them just as badly every time he was given a chance.

i remembered how boring live poker was, and also how easy. of course i bubbled the first tournament i played in years. i lost AK vs 77 for the chip lead and then when i finally got a chance to shove 6bb i got k9 called by j7. i flop 2 pair and lost to a straight.
maybe i shouldn't have called with my ak earlier. the raiser was an average to bad player. he opened to 6bb, playing 12bb. i had about 25bb. i figured him for a pair because it's still 2004 and decided a race to become chip leader could gain me a great chance to win. he who dares, eh?

it's a bit of a turbo because live play is so super slow. i spent my time trying to guess everyones hand in every pot, but there aren't even that many showdowns. it's quite scary how loose some people play. they can play almost anything based, i think, primarily on how bored they are at the instant that they have to decide whether to call or fold (no raising allowed, it's 2004!). so guess the hand becomes quite the eye opener when you expect sets+ and see top pair no kicker win.

possibly worth going back. i just don't have the time for poker at the moment, so maybe ssnl online is the way forwards for now. i haven't logged in to pokerstars in so long i think they may have forgotten about me. i do miss making the money at poker. tax free and it was pretty steady for a few years. if i can just sort out my anger management issues, i think i'll be ok...

funnily enough, i think reading bringing down teh house (after all, it is 2004, isn't it?) made me excited to go to a casino and play a beatable game. amazingly, i found out about another card room, which charges a rake on it's tournaments of up to 40%. FORTY PER CENT. LOL @ anyone who plays there. seriously, it's a £25 + £10 tournament. i had to work out the % rake twelve times and then use a calculator because i could not believe that it was so high. it did make me realise that 100% rake just means the rake is the same as the entry. maybe rake should be calculated as a true percentage, eg 50+5 is 9% not 10% and 25+10 is 29% not 40%. either way, you have to be insane to play there. which makes playing there surely profitable if you're not insane? i think i've just discovered a catch 22 (it is 1961 isn't it?).

why i quit my job

diabetes charities.
helping people who couldn't help themselves to another piece of cake.

i mean that only as a joke. that's obviously wrong as type I is genetic.

what is not a joke, however, is the following tale. set in one of the largest UK companies who supported a diabetes charity for a year. within the company (i did a bit of work there) all the charity raising initiatives for years up till then had involved cake sales, and tuck shops, and more cake sales.
in fact, everything revolved around selling sugary items to people and taking the proceeds for charity. Thankfully, diabetes (the charity) came to town. I naively assumed that now, things would change and charity raising would involve other things, perhaps involving exercise.

i was wrong.

the cake sales, chocolate sales, fizzy drink sales continued unabated. the irony of selling diabetes inducing goods to people who sit around in an office all day was lost on them. i saw them merely giving money to a charity via the method of increasing the amount of work the charity will need to do in future. yes, it was as though the charity was on a recruitment drive, although of course they wouldn't have approved. in fact, for one day, the charity came to the office and gave away free fruit to people at lunchtime. sadly, they literally (as in the original meaning of literally, not the new definition of literally which is literally defined as figuratively) couldn't give it away. I took a few pieces, instead of buying them from the canteen that day. almost no one else went to take some. i told the people sat around me and none could be bothered to go for a walk to get a delicious free food.
the irony was further compounded when a fellow member of staff pointed out, that if someone had diabetes, they would not be able to contribute to the charity since it was all sugary goods that were being sold to raise money.

the worst part was that apart from about 5 people, no one could appreciate all this irony. and that is why i quit working there.

Picture 1

One of my favourite error messages. What boggles the mind is that someone programmed this in.
All I did was press the close button to exit Excel.

catharsis

from the moment i first laid eyes on her, something in my head and my heart clicked. the short hair, the unique clothes, the smile, i could go on but i don't know exactly what it was. i would describe her as the type to use black headphones with her iPhone. but of course, she didn't have an iPhone.
when it all turned to shit, i would be miserable for years afterwards. was it worth it? I have never allowed myself to ask that question of me before. deep down i must have known i was too close to it. right now, i would say yes. wholeheartedly worth it.

maybe that's why i find myself in a similar situation with someone else i can't ever have. hopefully the feeling of melancholy will pass. it always does, yet each time always feels different. getting absorbed by work is a terrible solution. it just avoids the issue instead of resolving it.

i don't think this post sounds like me. from tomorrow, i will begin again my 30 day photo challenge. i'm not even gonna lie, most of them will be old photos. but that's ok. they're still ones i took and they're not terribad.


"novelty is brilliant, because it exists as a concept"

bicycle. BICYCLE

i went to ride my bicycle.

I think the entire saddle industry needs a rethink. Either that or i don't know how to sit on one. I only went for about an hour and a half yesterday, and today i must have bruises the size of DVDs on the tops of my inside thighs. I can fortunately undertake all tasks that i would like to do. The only act that causes me great pain is the sitting down on the saddle.

While I'm at it, if anyone here cycles, how do you stop flies flying into your eyes, mouth and nose? I wear (sun)glasses but this doesn't even protect my eyes.

Finally, if the road makes could make roads (at least the edges of the roads) out of not gravel, that would be appreciated.

robots

If you live in england you will have no doubt suffered the mental abuse that is getting a phone call only to answer it and have a robot on the other end say something along the lines of "Have you been missold PPI..."
The worst thing about this is that they put this little pause in before they start the message, so you answer the phone, say hello, and then get abused.
It was like those people who used to make answerphone messages of themselves saying "hello (pause) how are you (pause) i'm not here, please leave a message (beeeeeeeeeeep)"

These tend to occur from unknown numbers. Sadly, I sometimes have to answer unknown numbers as some businesses want to hide who they are. (chickens). When i answer the phone from a number i don't recognise (or unknown/blocked) i now just wait a few seconds to see if it is a human.

yesterday i confused a lady who called me because of this silence. i realised yesterday i have been conditioned to annoy/confuse real people by answering the phone with silence, because i don't want to be tricked into saying hello to a robot. a robot who probably doesn't care.

The robots are winning.

work avoidance

I think i could probably write a book on this.
Ways to avoid work while remaining productive:
1)eating.
this is always acceptable. one needs to eat to live.
2)hot drinks.
as with 1, can also be consumed at a higher frequency than foods.

...

16)go and vote.
all politicians are self serving and detrimental to society. It gets worse the higher up the chain you go. however, due to the fact that some are worse than others, you have to vote for the horrible, egotistical, narcissistic and often mentally challenged folk, to ensure that the worse kind (BNP etc) get a smaller percentage of the votes.
I think it would be great if you could vote negatively. anyway, this is tending to non productive thoughts so they are for another day

...

24)buying computing equipment including wireless mice and keyboards because laptop keyboards and mousepads are built by people who are clearly submental. the keyboard should be as close to the user as possible idiots. not as far as possible.
the f keys should not require extra buttons for them to be pressed.
the mousepad should not be so intrusive that when you use the keyboard you keep accidentally selecting things with the mouse.

...

72) defrosting the freezer.
it has to be done. so why not take a break to do it?

...

141) write a blog post
it's been a while. people might be worried. others might be craving their next fix (MAYBE?). it's essentially important to society that you blog.

monday bingo

every monday morning at work there is a meeting. it holds up to 15 people and lasts up to 90 minutes. my presence is obligatory, yet my presence is completely unnecessary.
yesterday, i went the entire 50 minutes (it was shorted than usual) without uttering a single word. the best part is no one noticed. I wonder how many weeks i can get away with this for. if i do this for long enough, can i then stop turning up without anyone noticing? an interesting social experiment. i honestly believe i could not turn up for a day and no one would notice. in fact, next week i am having a day off, and i wonder if i could pretend i was there all day....

cooking

cooking is quite boring. however, i am learning to cook more. and while the boredom hasn't decreased, my interest in going to restaurants has decreased. paying way over the odds for food i can make just as well seems very -ev. sure, there's the atmosphere, and the going out that have value. but i'd rather spend the money on fun things like holidays, track days, and many other experiences which will be new to me.
i think i'm going to do a track day as soon as i find a decent one near enough to me.
also i want to go to a rifle range.
i don't want to become an expert at any of these things. i just want to try new things. and also it's getting warm outside so going out is now a lovely option of which i must make the most of.

skiiiing

i think the number one attribute you need to be good at skiing is having the part of your brain that processes fear removed.
anyone that does ski racing is especially mentally challenged.

i am, yes, a little bit envious as I am mostly still learning how to stop. or more precisely, being confident that i can that stop when i want to. Of course, didn't stop me doing some parts of black runs on the mountains which are traditionally reserved for those people who have a desire to laugh in the face of death.
i am not one of those people.

it's all very well pushing the limits in poker to see and learn where the boundaries are. the worst that will happen is you'll lose a few hundred big blinds. not quite as easy to do when the consequences change to falling off a mountain. or flying head first into big trees.

after 4 days of avoiding death i almost began to enjoy it and wanted to go a bit faster. sadly, it was hometime.

maybe i'll go again soon...

tyred

i am currently tired pretty much all the time.
not sleeping doesn't really help. i seem to get about 5 hours a day, waking up ever earlier. i'm sure i read once that humans naturally move to a 25 hour cycle. i seem to be on a 23 hour cycle, waking up an hour before my alarm each day, and then going to bed slightly earlier the next night.
i'm on holiday next week and plan to reset this through the copious ingestion of alcoholic beverages.

i still haven't played any poker for a long while. busy setting up a company which hopefully can lead to retirement in 5 years time. a company that actually does useful work. eventually (couple of years time) for improving education is the plan. early stages for now, and hopefully can discuss it in more detail in some months time when things are happening.

right now, have many other things to worry about including, women, money, moving flat, not being able to afford to buy a house ever, and learning many more things like how to use access properly, as well as c++ and other languages, such as the language of wimmen.

anon

one thing that was important to me when starting this blog was the anonymity. i like the idea of being able to type freely without any real fear of consequences. however, something has always prevented me from making full use of this and as far as i can tell it's the idea of one day losing said anonymity.

i could for example, have spoken of how the first girl i ever loved crushed my heart and how it took far too long to get over. to the point that my next proper girlfriend had no idea that i still thought about her. (except i think she did).

or i could have written about how i had to move back home after running out of money making from both PhD studies and poker. I still don't have a full idea of where the money went!

hopefully i shall become less afraid in future.

things they don't teach you

how to walk properly
how to talk properly
how to stand properly
how to sit properly
how to iron.

i've seen lots of surveys* which ask about why people get married. i'm sure they're always devised by men. there's always the standard answers like sex, money, love etc. but the real reason men marry women, which they conveniently ignore as they don't want to let the secret out, is because ironing a shirt is a ridiculous experience. men make shirts, and wear shirts and sometimes even wash shirts. but only soldiers iron shirts because they get threatened with a gun to the face.


*surveys in the loosest sense of the word. i'm sure they just ask about 20 people in the street and make up a bunch more. i've never been asked about any survey ever. although, if they did try to ask me i would politely inform them i have no time for them.

**this was in my drafts folder but i thought i'd already posted it. apologies if i have. but only minor apologies as it made me laugh a little and hopefully you too.

i literally have no idea how people blog every day. is there that much to talk about?

that may have felt like the title was going to be all, but i do actually have something to write today! not much though, don't get too excited.

i was in the gym today and they have the tv on with subtitles. the news was on and talking about matthew something famous about his new film coming out where he had ot play a guy who got aids. they talked about his method acting and his many months spent getting into the role. subtitles made it funny because they spoke about how "he had to lose £47" for the role. all i could think was i would accept many millions of points in exchange for £47.
i can't tell if it's automated or they have a fast typist doing subtitles. i think it's people as they correct some mistakes that are made...

in other work related news, i think i've said this before, but it seems to be contagious and more and more people at work keep saying yourself instead of you.
most people i can tolerate but when people try to sound clever but only succeed in making themselves sound moronic, i can't help but want to avoid them at all costs.

now, i need to go to the shops. haven't been for weeks. i have literally no idea what or how i've been eating.

breaking bad

i watched season 1 of this when it first came out. i didn't like it. at all. i didn't realise that years later i would be ostracised for making this decision. So i have since started finishing it thanks to netflix. netflix is amazing. breaking bad is not. mainly because i just don't care about the characters at all. there were 2 i liked in all of the show. the rest were just annoying, insignificant, or worse: inconsistent.
from about season 3 it became more watchable. however, i just don't understand the hype. sorry.

!

dunno how my daily posting attempt went so tits up so quickly. though i think alcohol probably (definitely) had something to do with it. and not just out drinking, i also made the bestest mojito's i'd ever made. i went for applegate rum in the shops. i think it was the pretty bottle which attracted me. and it turned out the rum is rather good too.

you'd think after about 5 days i'd have something to say. i don't. not really. i think i'm just gonna do this here brief post and try to get back on it tomorrow.

books

i have once again started reading. libraries are pretty awesome. but i see so many books i want to read that i run out of time. i try to read one good book and one entertainment book at the same time. for entertainment i been reading the jack reacher books. they're pretty easy to read and also quite good. the latest proper book i'm reading is "thinking fast and slow". it's pretty slow going as i need to spend time digesting what's in the book. so i think i'm gonna buy it. i've noticed lots of the ideas about how you think is built upon my jared tenlder's "the mental game of poker".

off to do some reading now before sleep. i think it's quite terrible how i've become less and less nocturnal. i liked waking up late. the sacrifices one makes to have a job in order to live in a tiny flat with lovely food eh? i think i need to start doing more to be able to enjoy a better quality of life. (and on that note, maybe i'll play 5 minutes of gta before reading...)

sweaty betty

i went to the gym today at work. after the gym, my body takes ages to readjust so whether i have a hot or cold shower, afterwards i find myself sweating quite a lot for about 10-15 minutes.
there's an episode in seinfeld where george complains about the same thing. he goes to work after the gym and he goes to a meeting where they're trying to find someone whose been stealing things from work and George is sweating uncontrollably like he is nervous so they accuse him.

as i got back from the gym today, my boss comes up to me to ask about some work i'm doing for him that i was trying to finish last week. as i defend the increase in length in time taken i notice he's looking down a my shirt. after our conversation i look down and even i am surprised by how covered in sweat my shirt is. i must have looked ridiculously nervous. all i could think about afterwards was how this is no good as a comedy sketch because seinfeld and LD got there first.

insurance scam

recently i have learnt of this scam undertaken by insurance companies to bleed you drier.

a car hits yours while you are driving. the other driver takes all responsibility. they sort out their car through their insurance and any damage to your car too. you are lucky as yours is quite light. you may not even worry too much about making a claim. perhaps you even say to the other driver that aren't concerned with making a claim if it pushes up their insurance.

a couple of weeks go by and you get a call from some vehicle company who claim to act on the other driver's insurance company. they have your details so it seems legit. they say you can claim money! yay. you say no thanks. they seem shocked. they say, go for it, it's free money! you ask - can you confirm it won't increase the costs or the insurance premium of the other driver? they put you on hold.

they play terrible music.

they come back to you and say, yes, that is correct. you ask for that in writing.
you have to send them an email and in it, you request again, for confirmation in writing that it won't affect the value of the claim to the other driver or their premiums.
a few weeks later you get a cheque for a couple of hundred pounds. you never got a reply in writing.

a few more weeks, perhaps months go by and you renew your car insurance. all the other quotes are much higher than your renewal with your same company so you stick with who you've got.

a few more weeks go by and they email you to tell you that you lied when filling out your form and are gonna add 50% to the premium. you call them, and they say it's because you didn't mention the claim.
well, you did. and they check their phone records, confirm this, and waive the fee.

it turns out, they should have charged that amount, it's just the person on the phone renewing it made a whoopsie.

this got me thinking. you get hit by another car, so your insurance premiums go up?? apparently, people that get claims for being hit, then go on to make claims against their own insurance more often, so the premium goes up.

i want to know how it's possible for a third party company to be so pushy in getting you to claim a small amount of money, knowing that the insurance premiums for at least one if not both parties will increase, and not be up front about it when questioned.
i want to know if the insurance companies are behind this attitude to encourage people to claim, knowing this means that they can get more in the long run.
i want to know what happens if you don't take any money for a claim when you get hit. if you still mention it, do you still get a premium increase?
i want to know if this is common knowledge? do people know that if they get hit, everything goes through the other party's insurance, their own insurance premium will go up?

so many questions. i may have to write to watchdog.

a quick hello

i think this will be a quick post. again i missed the last couple of days. my final sentence in this here post will explain where i've been, what i've been doing, and why my posting attempts were absent.

i am about to watch the football. manchester united vs chelski. and for the first time i can remember, i will be cheering on the detestable manchester united. i play bridge with some man united fans. for the last couple of years their incessant gloating has become intolerable. as they are too young to remember pre ferguson days, they are now afraid. what is most interesting however, will be how they now respond to gloating at their expense. after dishing it out for a while, i would like to see their response now.

i don't get women.

another day, another missed day

2 days of news. still not much to report.
today i drove into the countryside. i remember driving before gps on phones. i remember driving before gps at all. armed with a simple map, you had to juggle looking at that and the road. using road names where possible as markers to keep an eye on your progress. it was arduous and no doubt rather dangerous. today was a breeze in comparison. the main difference i find was i used to be better at committing to memory all the places i went. nowadays, like phone numbers, i don't bother to remember any since there's no need. I wonder if this lack of practice makes me worse at remembering, or declining age (increasing years) make this something i am naturally worse at?

i've started reading books again. i have about 10 books on shelf awaiting to be read. it's funny that the written word can be shared without it's value being extracted. it's like your brain makes a copy of the information without increasing the total energy available in the world. makes sense when i think about it that way.

the book i just finished was called 'sugar blues' and was written in the 70s. it's mental. it's interesting. and it's mental. scientific theory is pronounced based simply on a single anecdotal story told to the author. that is often enough evidence for him. there is no doubt a lot of what's written is sensible. It's just very hard to believe it all when it's so unscientific. it's quite motivating in terms of making me want to eat less sugar. anything that does that is surely good.

next up on the list are 'fear and loathing in las vegas' (i didn't like the film so much so i can barely rmemeber it) and 'fast and slow thinking' which may require purchasing since i need to take it back to the library soon.

i'm gonna stop typing as my wrists are hurting again. i'm even typing with my keyboard on my lap and it's no good. i think in need a proper desk/chair combo.

till tomorrow. i hope. (two missed days this week, hopefully but one next week, and none thereafter)

Mobile posting

Well, judging by the reviews, it seems the blogger app is awfully bad and so I am going via chrome to write this today. I do hope that it works.

I find that writing extensively on a phone keyboard gets tiresome rather quickly and takes far longer than using a real keyboard. The one rather enormous benefit is autocorrect. This can be used to explain any and all typos, misspellings and grammatical errors.

Today was rather an uneventful day. I went to the gym and used a TRX thing. It's basically a couple of handles you pivot against a door to do exercises with your body weight as the weight. The gun surprisingly had one but in pieces and the lady didn't know how to set it up since she left a piece out back. As she web too get help to get it sorted a man (old) said to me with disdain in his voice "what you doing that for?! Just use some weights"
I replied merely to say I weigh more than any of the weights"
He still didn't shut up but I ignored him. I couldn't help but notice him later on as he stood over me watching me doing one legged lunges and squats.
He was a grumpy dickhead.

On the way home I think I only swore about 7 times today. About 4 of them were just in my head. I think that's an improvement. If I can continue to be less angry about all the duck yards then maybe I will trust myself to play some more poker. I need to as I need a new car. Mine is literally falling apart. Doesn't help that when I took it to the garage he forgot to screw all the panels back in properly. I'm never going back to him.

blogger is trying to stop me!

honestly, i posted the previous words yesterday. or so i thought.

anyway, that means a double serving for today as i will post today's today too.

today's will be brief and centred around that time of the morning where you wake up. you alarm yourself into consciousness and then spend the next minutes snoozing in 9 minute intervals if you own an iphone. why 9 minutes is the snooze time, i do not know. i would like to change it to 10 as that is a much more wholesome number but i do not know how.
so my alarm went off at the unearthly hour of 640 this morning. well, 635 to be precise. i hit snooze for what would be the only time. at 644 i hit turned the alarm off, and took the phone in hand, to read some internet for a couple of minutes while i psyched myself up to get on with the unenviable task of getting up and going to a bathroom colder than an igloo in the north pole. literally (see 2).

however, my imminent attempts at checking the internet were usurped by a loud banging at the door. as with all loud noises, i assumed it was the neighbours because this is what they do. both front doors are probably within 5 metres of my head so i assumed it to be the next door door that someone was trying to bash in. then some loud knocking started and with teh echoing down the hallway and to the bedroom door to give surround sound, i realised that it was in fact my front door.

no good news ever arrives by loud door banging at 645am. i thus decided to not answer the door. the banging went on for a bit. some letterbox peeking ensued followed by someone saying out loud "it's pitch black in there"
well, obviously it is. it's 650am. i the metallic sounds against wood as something got shoved through the letterbox. i hoped it was merely a letter and nothing more offensive. i heard someone trudging away and waited a minute till i got up. i decided against turning on most lights for a bit in case they waited out front to see if any lights came on.

the upshot is that i ended up at work quite early as i didn't lie in bed for 30 minutes till getting up. every cloud, eh?

i am a failure

It may look like I have already failed to blog every day after just one day. And that's because I have. There are no excuses. I simple forgot. I remembered at the wrong time and wrote a post in my head. I don't think that counts. (I could be wrong, though). Then last night I was going to post it. I forgot again. I think I need a reminder on my phone. It would be easiest if there was an app that let me post directly from my phone. I will have to check that out.

Friday was uninspiring. I arrived at work stupidly early. 730am early. I don't like early starts. Most of my colleagues have finally learnt i arrive at 840 and leave at 440. With a trip to the gym during the day. The car park was incredibly empty when I arrived and yet there were many more cars than I had expected for a Friday at such an hour.
For one reason at least 730 was an excellent time to arrive, and that was the international space station making a pass overhead and with beautiful blue skies I planned to stare at it briefly. With not a single cloud or star in the sky it still took me a good minute to locate it. Just a little bright star-like object moving across the sky at a constant and relatively fast pace.
As I arrived in the office, I pass through two sets if doors. Like an air lock. It's a useful place to make phone calls as no one can hear what your saying unless they're walking through. As I was in this air lock, I see 3 colleagues sitting there. The loudest of the three sees me. The surprise is etched on her face. And then a cry so loud even I can hear her shout "bloody hell"
The only other horror show of the day was the sheer number of Johnson's being thrust around openly in the gym. I'm not the biggest fan of seeing cocks. Nothing against them, mind. I have one. I just don't need to have it literally waved around in my face.

As for my writing of this, I am currently sat on a train after getting the wrong branch on the northern line as I belatedly head in to London Town. I just saw two people who I can only describe as heavy drug users trying REALLY hard to not give the impression that they are heavy drug users. They have failed.

the time has come

30 days. a post a day. mostly in the evenings. sometimes in the mornings. days will end when i go to sleep.

i don't like the sound of my own voice, and find my own stories quite boring. the end never surprises me. i tried explaining this to my girlfriend who says that i don't bore her. so i tried to bore her but she still seems interested by the mundane occurrences in my life and how i tell them. allegedly.

i read a while ago a great story about ricky gervais as a kid where he would write fanciful stories in english lessons and get bad marks. his teacher always told him to write about things that happened to him. so to spite her he eventually wrote the most boring story he could that had happened to him. something about visiting his gran if i recall correctly. when he got his boring story back, it was marked with an A and his best result. hashtag heartwarming.

so for the next thirty days i will attempting to bore the pants off you. especially if you're a pretty lady. (i won't. i have a lady, thank you kindly).

today i drove to work. driving is like poker - most people are dicks. on the way to work i swore 9 times. 6 f****s, 1 c**** and 2 dickheads. on the way back i only swore 6 times! today was a good day.

i haven't been to the gym all week. i like going to the gym as it takes away from work time. tomorrow i think i will try and go first thing in the morning and do somem cycling. my belly is getting very tubbs. i can still see my feet so it's not terrible, but i need to drop a kilo or so of fat i reckon.

anyway, that's enough for today. need to save some topics of conversation if i'm gonna do this every day for 30 days. that said, i think the low-functioning people i work with could provide consistent doses of entertainment.

(1/30 - complete)