It is at this point in life I would like to express my appreciation for the good folk at the Bachelors food company for making Barbecue Beef flavoured Super Noodles exist. I've unceremoniously put myself through the proverbial wars so much lately that such a gooey and flavoursome snack has provided light relief to my weary soul via my battered tongue that's been ravaged so much by sour sweets; quite frankly you'd probably be surprised if I told you that nobody's actually stubbed out a cigarette on my tongue if you looked at it. Other terribleness I've forced my body through these last few days include sleep deprivation, excessive eye-bleeding and co-ordinated hand and wrist crampage from playing far too much Mario Kart Wii, most of my insides refusing to go on, subsequently leading me to the conclusion that Jägermeister is no longer an optionable drink for me, and allowing myself to watch the infamous "Dennō Senshi Porygon" episode of Pokémon what got banned by the Japanese government after it put 700 kids in hospital after suffering seizures (ironically, the culprit of such erratic on-screen light patterns was a computerised ambulance). I tell you what, if being stabbed repeatedly in the gut by the "masterful hunter" doesn't make you think 'what the fuck am I doing with my life', being subjected to red and cyan strobing frames while you're trying to read the subtitles will.
Anyway, that's my busy week so far and it's yet to continue, which has made me quite wary that things are actually happening in my life to make it feel like I have a life. As opposed to doing nothing and not even trying to let my brain free on here for a bit, just to pass the time, I've been thinking to myself about how much I want to be writing stuff here but can't because I'm preoccupied by several other things at that precise moment, most of them often to do with bodily functions. It actually reminds me of the night on my recent trip to Germany where either my diet was so engulfed by salami and chocolate that my body could no longer handle it, or a very very very teeny tiny strain of the infamous E.coli popped it's head into my system for an hour or two, you know, for a quick hello. The night (or rather early morning) consisted of me lying nearest-naked on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom, although after putting a towel down first so as to reduce the coldness and ultimately making the exercise just that little bit more pointless. But I'm babbling, I shouldn't be including that here. It's all supposed to be in a special "Fun Summer Holiday" post which I am still yet to create with my arsenal of words. Chances are I'll finally get it done by this time next year, just in time for next summer. Either way, it won't be for at least another week.
Oh yeah, I finally succumbed to boredom and committed the ultimate act of betrayal to myself... I set up an account on Twitter. Yes it's evil, and yes it's only really for people who are popular or people with superiority complexes or people with God complexes or people with Universe complexes, but some of those people give out regular updates which I'd like to know about, and to be honest I like the 5-minute time-wasteyness of creating an account with something online. You know, the name, the email address, the password you intend to use which is exactly the same as your password for everything else. So now that exists, but I'm not directing anyone to it for two reasons:
reason Roman numeral i: I won't be "tweeting" anything there, and
reason Roman numeral ii: I feel that anyone who would want to read anything I put there is a complete moron.
Besides, it's a good thing I won't put anything there since character-limits seem to be the death of me. I struggle to stick to 140 words with these things, let alone characters. I had to write a short bio-"about me" thing in 160 characters or less and nearly lost the will to live.
Anyway, I haven't given out my Twitter name to anyone (and no it's not HardlyAmazing, quite frankly I'm bored of the name and all it stands for now but I'm living with it purely for the fact that it exists now), yet I've already been followed by two people from the United States who have names I don't even recognise. They apparently follow thousands upon thousands of people yet have no followers in return and no "tweets". Furthermore both of their web addresses include the words "live porn". Well done idiotface, you've become a spam target. Next I'll be followed by R0lex with a zero and the President of the Nigerian Bank Society. For now though, I shall ponder my next strategy as to whether I include a link to it here, even though:
Latin alphabetic symbol a: I won't be writing anything there, and
Latin alphabetic symbol b: Nobody reads this anyway, therefore any pre-conceived ideas of self-promotion don't just fall by the wayside but fall off the hard shoulder completely.
Having said that, I'm now questioning my choice of motorway metaphors since I don't even drive.
Thursday 30 June 2011
Thursday 23 June 2011
22
I really should've done this yesterday but God had other plans, ranging from violent hayfever to mindless procrastination. Anyway, the fact that this is a day late means that the original genius idea of such a premise is gone, so if you could just imagine that today is actually yesterday we can get through this much smoother. Cheers.
Woo, yay, and other such words signifying jubilance. Today is most definitely the twenty-second of June, and this particular twenty-second of June marks the point at which I have completed the twenty-second year of my existence (not including the nine months I spent in a state of gestation), meaning I no longer can claim to be full of youth and opportunity at the age of twenty-one and must finally succumb to the harsh realities of the harsh real world by taking my title as a twenty-two year old. In honour of such a momentous event, here are twenty-two facts about the number twenty-two. Why? Because it seemed like such a good idea at the time yesterday.
1) Twenty-two is a number consisting of two twos.
2) Twenty-two in bingo is commonly referred to as "two little ducks". This is commonly met with an audience response of "quack quack".
3) Twenty-two is the number of boxes in a game of popular televisual mind-numbing, zombie making-fest Deal Or No Deal.
4) Furthermore, box number twenty-two in the aforementioned televised science experiment is superstitiously referred to as the "death box" in some kind of ritualistic occult manner.
5) Twenty-two in German ist zweiundzwanzig.
6) Twenty-two, according to the folks of Ancient Rome, is XXII.
7) Twenty-two divided by seven is nearly π (or "pi" if you can't read Greek).
8) Twenty-two is the atomic number of titanium.
9) The Hebrew Alphabet contains twenty-two letters.
10) 22 in binary is 10110.
11) Twenty-two is two times eleven.
12) There are twenty-two Major Arcana cards in a standard Tarot deck, numbered 0-21 (for some reason).
13) Twenty-two is the number of players on the pitch in a game of football at any one time (or if you're American, "soccer").
14) According to novelist Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" is the name of a paradox in which a situation cannot be resolved until the resolution of the situation is achieved in the first place... or something mind-fucky like that.
15) The twenty-second letter of the alphabet is V, unless you're Welsh, in which case it's RH.
16) The year 22 began on a Thursday.
17) "22" is the title of a song by Lily Allen about being 'nearly thirty now'.
18) Twenty-two is the amount of minutes so far I've spent trawling the Internet looking for obscure facts about the number twenty-two.
19) Twenty-two is a less common answer to the popularly customised joke 'How many (insert type of people here) does it take to screw in a lightbulb'.
20) Alabama was the twenty-second state of the United States of America.
21) Twenty-two is the number of bones which make up the human head.
22) Twenty-two is the number of pointless things I've just typed out and you've just read... which is impressive considering I normally talk a lot more random shite than this.
Woo, yay, and other such words signifying jubilance. Today is most definitely the twenty-second of June, and this particular twenty-second of June marks the point at which I have completed the twenty-second year of my existence (not including the nine months I spent in a state of gestation), meaning I no longer can claim to be full of youth and opportunity at the age of twenty-one and must finally succumb to the harsh realities of the harsh real world by taking my title as a twenty-two year old. In honour of such a momentous event, here are twenty-two facts about the number twenty-two. Why? Because it seemed like such a good idea at the time yesterday.
1) Twenty-two is a number consisting of two twos.
2) Twenty-two in bingo is commonly referred to as "two little ducks". This is commonly met with an audience response of "quack quack".
3) Twenty-two is the number of boxes in a game of popular televisual mind-numbing, zombie making-fest Deal Or No Deal.
4) Furthermore, box number twenty-two in the aforementioned televised science experiment is superstitiously referred to as the "death box" in some kind of ritualistic occult manner.
5) Twenty-two in German ist zweiundzwanzig.
6) Twenty-two, according to the folks of Ancient Rome, is XXII.
7) Twenty-two divided by seven is nearly π (or "pi" if you can't read Greek).
8) Twenty-two is the atomic number of titanium.
9) The Hebrew Alphabet contains twenty-two letters.
10) 22 in binary is 10110.
11) Twenty-two is two times eleven.
12) There are twenty-two Major Arcana cards in a standard Tarot deck, numbered 0-21 (for some reason).
13) Twenty-two is the number of players on the pitch in a game of football at any one time (or if you're American, "soccer").
14) According to novelist Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" is the name of a paradox in which a situation cannot be resolved until the resolution of the situation is achieved in the first place... or something mind-fucky like that.
15) The twenty-second letter of the alphabet is V, unless you're Welsh, in which case it's RH.
16) The year 22 began on a Thursday.
17) "22" is the title of a song by Lily Allen about being 'nearly thirty now'.
18) Twenty-two is the amount of minutes so far I've spent trawling the Internet looking for obscure facts about the number twenty-two.
19) Twenty-two is a less common answer to the popularly customised joke 'How many (insert type of people here) does it take to screw in a lightbulb'.
20) Alabama was the twenty-second state of the United States of America.
21) Twenty-two is the number of bones which make up the human head.
22) Twenty-two is the number of pointless things I've just typed out and you've just read... which is impressive considering I normally talk a lot more random shite than this.
Sunday 19 June 2011
Happy Birthday, Dear Caviar
I sit here in an empty room, except it's not empty, it's full. What I suppose I mean is that the shelves are empty, the wardrobe's empty and my brain's a bit empty along with it, but luckily all that space-occupying stuff which has occupied such space over the last nine months is now occupying the space inside boxes and whatever space is offered by the floor. Yes folks, it's a long-winded way of saying "I'm moving out of this room soon".
Firstly (well, not really firstly because that first paragraph was firstly so I suppose this is secondly, but whatever, just go with it), I have not recounted the adventures from a week's worth of vacationing in Northern Germany in this kind of incoherent, consistent, mind-melting rambling style what I always do, which is a shame because it should've been up here as soon as I got back.
Firstly (well, not really firstly because that first paragraph was firstly so I suppose this is secondly, but whatever, just go with it), I have not recounted the adventures from a week's worth of vacationing in Northern Germany in this kind of incoherent, consistent, mind-melting rambling style what I always do, which is a shame because it should've been up here as soon as I got back.
-But Jamie, why not do it now instead of this?
Because I've packed up the book that has all the words from off of my German adventures in it, and without such verbal stimulation, my complete stupidness of a brain refuses to remember what happened. Hell, right now, I'm not even sure I was even there. It could've just been one big hallucination that began at that point in Manchester Airport where I let myself loose onto the runway and sniffed a vat of Kerosene or whatever magical petrol-like substance it is they use to make those things work. (I would like to point out that the above mentioned event did not actually happen. Or did it...?) So tales of holidays will come, and I'm sure they'll be amazing, but right now I've got a room full of nothing to talk about.
Currently, there's a load of boxes all reporting for duty lined up along the wall, backs straight, rather cuboid-like posture. The notice board is completely free of notices, except for them there mandatory ones what came with the room (you know, the stuff that tells you the address, the internal number to ring in case the Internet goes "nah, I'm bored now", and what to do in the event of a fire [turns out you vacate the building. Who knew?]). The TV Licence is cancelled and hopefully I shall be reimbursed for my unused £36.37, whilst for now the TV's hiding under the desk in case any of the apparently non-existent TV Licence Enforcers who've been harassing us all year show up unexpectedly and burst through the door all guns blazing to raid the place in scenes reminiscent of the life of Anne Frank.
In fact, the only thing remaining up is this 'ere computer what I'm using to type up this little communiqué and unleash it unto the world. That's actually a lie. The other half of the desk (where the TV once lived) is now playing host to plates, pans, various implements of culinary derivation, cutlery and teabags because I didn't have enough boxes to pack up all my kitchen stuff, so instead I just transferred it all from its home in the kitchen to temporary refuge in here. I don't know why I'm getting all nostalgic over vacating the room because I'm simply leaving all my stuff here for two weeks before coming back. Then I can worry about shifting it all and start crying about "how much I'm gonna miss this place and shit" even though I'm not.
(I'd just like to take a brief pause to mention the loud crowd downstairs who decided to let off fireworks right outside my bedroom window earlier tonight. They've just taken a quick break from the loud music to sing "Happy Birthday", although I can't help thinking I've misheard them chanting the name of the recipient of birthday singage at the line "Happy Birthday, Dear Caviar")
I'm not exactly sure what the point of this was now. It was probably something to do with me packing up stuff during the weeks, only to discover I have a finite amount of boxes and have gained more stuff over the year and appear to have more than what I arrived with. It might've been to notify you of the "Coming Soon" post about a holiday I took the week before this one where I, apparently, was in another country, but unfortunately I forgot this since the notices have been taken down. It might've been to tell you how much I've started talking to myself pretending I have a radio sidekick who collaborates with me on the words I speak and somehow, in a session of making a cup of tea, I managed to have a conversation with myself where I deduced my belief that Cliff Richard, Bruce Forsythe and Her Majesty The Queen are in fact three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, due to their apparent immortality and inability to just end. They will be here, and continue to be here, long after we mere mortals have departed this Earth, long after we have vacated our Halls of Residence. I am yet to conclude who the fourth member of this elite group is.
Of course, if one of those three people happens to die in the 0.17 seconds it takes between me clicking Publish and this lot of words appearing all Internet-ready then that's pretty much my theory buggered.
Wednesday 1 June 2011
I Don't Sprechen Ze Lingo O' The Valleys
I've just watched Pobol Y Cym for the first time. Goodness only knows why. Maybe somewhere in the back of my head I've been secretly itching to get into Wales' number one (and probably only one) soap opera, maybe I wanted to hear the beautiful sound of the language of Cymraeg spoken in all its fluency, or maybe I was just clicking around BBC iPlayer on an idle Wednesday afternoon with a cup of tea and thinking "I'm so bored, I'll watch anything". Then again, it was probably an amalgamation of all three. For the passive, the ignorant, and the not-at-all interested amongst you, Pobol Y Cym (or "People of the Valley") is, well I've already mentioned it... It's a Welsh soap opera, made in Wales, set in Wales, spoken in Welsh, it's essentially what Eastenders could've been if it had been made in Abergavenny.
Unlike Eastenders, though, the majority of the Pobol are really old and live in a village consisting of a single row of independently owned shops, the obligatory pub, and 7,000 acres of field. On the flipside, there's the younger generation of characters; these are the people who are about 25, focus more on personal relationships rather than traditional values, and manage to slip borrowed words seamlessly into a Welsh-packed conversation. It gets a bit odd listening to what is essentially gibberish to these ears (as I don't sprechen ze lingo o' the valleys) and being suddenly curveballed by the mention of "Facebook", "mobiles", and "chocolate". All in all, the whole thing looked like an episode of Emmerdale got smooshed together with an episode of Hollyoaks, and the whole thing was directed by Enya.
After a good 84 seconds of this, I managed to cotton on to the little "S" at the bottom of the iPlayer frame and realised that, with English subtitles, I too could understand what the Welsh-speakers understand, although to be honest I only ended up coming away from that episode even more confused than if I'd just watched a lop-sided donkey being pulled around on a skateboard to Madonna's "Like A Virgin" for 20 minutes straight. As it turns out, character Meic (pronounced "Mike") ended up walking out on his wife after she had an affair, and decided to pack his entire life into a single travel-size suitcase, pop it in the back of a taxi and start his new life as a hedgehog with a permanently bemused expression on his face like he should've gone to Specsavers or something (which, incidentally, he should have). All the while, as a newly engaged young couple talk about the English words for hotel, honeymoon and Manhattan, their friend shows up fresh from the Fake Tan, Wotsits and Sunny Delight factory, breaks into their house and steals a single bottle of champagne.
Oddly enough, as much as it didn't really go anywhere and I struggled to keep up with what was going on (heck, I even read the subtitles out loud in a Welsh accent to try following it whilst keeping an air of authenticity), I feel like I've now fallen victim to the nature of many soap operas: there was no particular cliffhanger or hook for the next episode, yet somehow I want to keep watching these people to see where valley life takes them next.
The urge shouldn't be too bad to overcome, though. Like I said, the show is essentially half-Hollyoaks and I'll be amazed if I ever sit through a whole episode of that ever again.
Unlike Eastenders, though, the majority of the Pobol are really old and live in a village consisting of a single row of independently owned shops, the obligatory pub, and 7,000 acres of field. On the flipside, there's the younger generation of characters; these are the people who are about 25, focus more on personal relationships rather than traditional values, and manage to slip borrowed words seamlessly into a Welsh-packed conversation. It gets a bit odd listening to what is essentially gibberish to these ears (as I don't sprechen ze lingo o' the valleys) and being suddenly curveballed by the mention of "Facebook", "mobiles", and "chocolate". All in all, the whole thing looked like an episode of Emmerdale got smooshed together with an episode of Hollyoaks, and the whole thing was directed by Enya.
After a good 84 seconds of this, I managed to cotton on to the little "S" at the bottom of the iPlayer frame and realised that, with English subtitles, I too could understand what the Welsh-speakers understand, although to be honest I only ended up coming away from that episode even more confused than if I'd just watched a lop-sided donkey being pulled around on a skateboard to Madonna's "Like A Virgin" for 20 minutes straight. As it turns out, character Meic (pronounced "Mike") ended up walking out on his wife after she had an affair, and decided to pack his entire life into a single travel-size suitcase, pop it in the back of a taxi and start his new life as a hedgehog with a permanently bemused expression on his face like he should've gone to Specsavers or something (which, incidentally, he should have). All the while, as a newly engaged young couple talk about the English words for hotel, honeymoon and Manhattan, their friend shows up fresh from the Fake Tan, Wotsits and Sunny Delight factory, breaks into their house and steals a single bottle of champagne.
Oddly enough, as much as it didn't really go anywhere and I struggled to keep up with what was going on (heck, I even read the subtitles out loud in a Welsh accent to try following it whilst keeping an air of authenticity), I feel like I've now fallen victim to the nature of many soap operas: there was no particular cliffhanger or hook for the next episode, yet somehow I want to keep watching these people to see where valley life takes them next.
The urge shouldn't be too bad to overcome, though. Like I said, the show is essentially half-Hollyoaks and I'll be amazed if I ever sit through a whole episode of that ever again.
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