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.