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)

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.