Current Life Goals
1 - Stop drinking caffeine
2 - Learn to control my sugar intake
3 - Redevelop my body into temple in the style of Daniel Craig
4 - Don't let some crazy nut job whack my bollocks with a weighted rope
5 - Keep learning new things
6 - Stop buying books unless I specifically want them
7 - Stop buying anything unless I specifically want it
8 - Trim down my wardrobe so I'm not keeping things I won't wear
9 - Try and make the Brunette do the same (ha ha)
10 - Get off my ass and get published

It's not the new year, but hey, New Year's Resolutions. I feel like an ex-con who's been given a second chance and has decided to change the way he lives. That's a slightly dodgy metaphor, as I was never convicted. Some of the goals are vaguely tongue in cheek, and others are deadly serious. I'm trying to become a productive person.

Anyway. I've already given up smoking this year, and it has made going to the pub much less fun, and has had minimal effect on my fitness, bank balance and sex life, so I'm thinking that the hype about how giving up smoking is good for you - actually it's all bollocks. What has driven me to distraction is that bar Sianodel's mother, everyone I know who has given up smoking has started again without blinking. Now they are obviously wiser than me, and have realised that "smoking = big, hard and clever" and most importantly "smoking = cool" but it still irritates me. If I can't do it, why should they be able to. It's not fair.

***goes away and weeps in corner***

I'm more than halfway through my third novel. It's set in our world and the most frequent thing my main character has done so far is drink tea. Which make a change from last year's meth gobbling OCD sufferer.

I'm still getting rounds of applause for my turn onstage at the LBFBTV. It's amazing, I just act the rest of them offstage, and I'm heavily encumbered too, and dressed up like a ponce.

Does it make me abnormal to daydream about beating people to death and getting away with it? [If it makes any difference, they deserved it.]

However, I can now do seven minutes on a concept rower at under two minutes split time, which I'm assured is not bad. James Bond, here I come.

/later edit/
oh yeah - and Natwest Bank are wankers. I went onto the highstreet to get some copies of documents certified for the ISAs I've set up, and went in to Natwest, where I hold an account. Having been made to wait for fifteen minutes, the woman came out and said,

"What are they for? We don't certify documents unless they are specifically for Natwest business."

"Well if they were Natwest business I wouldn't need them certified you unhelpful bitch - I've brought them here." Went through my mind. "Fine" came out my mouth.

So I left and went to Lloyds, to see my buddy the bank manager there, and they certified my documents no questions asked. They even made me a spare copy.

I don't know if it is Natwest policy. If it is it should be changed, because it's lousy customer service. It might just be that the Twickenham branch of Natwest are tossers. Who can say?

So Natwest: 0 Lloyds TSB: 1
- posted by Buntifer @ 11/21/2006 08:59:00 am

 
Remind me to stop blogging from work.
I had a long blog that I had written during my supper break at work that was mainly content concerning how much shopping at this time of year makes me wants to stab my eyes out with a fork and poke knitting needles in my ears, and how much Christmas encourages me towards multiple homicide, and how people who claim Christmas is about love and forgiveness, happiness and thankfulness for being alive are either stupid or liars, it's about spending money and pretending we care about people we don't. If you don't love someone for the rest of the year, then you don't love them at Christmas. We've even forgotten about its roots, and I'm not talking about Father Christmas and Coca Cola, although that's about as valid as the Christian version, I'm talking about the original Christmas the oringinal winter celebration, before it even got shat on by the Christians, before it was named after some egotistical little twat who said:

"I come to set man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth his father and mother more than me is not worthy of me: he that loveth his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

Matthew 10:35:37

Yeah. Love and Peace like that is more like the Christmas we know today. Go Christians.

Give us a 'C'
Give us an 'H'
Give us an 'R'
Give us an 'I'
Give us an 'S'
Give us a 'T'

on a fucking pushbike.

Well. Work ate it, so here I am again.

Saw Casino Royale - very good.
Saw The Prestige - not bad, although I wish they hadn't made it supernatural and then called it 'science' because it really doesn't do science any favours. And what irritates me more is that I know people will be coming out of that going, "Wow - I never realised Tesla coils could do that!" Well I have news. They can't. They won't, and that made me disappointed in the film. That said, it was damn good for the rest of it, if a little predictable.

I'm back on nano-track, having put in a stint this morning and I'll be doing more before I go twerk.

The Brunette's back, and the flat is already a tip. We went walking round Hounslow yesterday, and, amazingly, are still alive to tell the tale. There are actually some nice areas and it wasn't half as bad as I imagined it would be. I was impressed by the upmarketness of the town centre, which not only has a 99p shop - one better than a pound shop, but also a 98p shop... one better than that. And wait for it.... it's worth the wait... really.. it is. They have a 90p shop for people like me, mortgage and a job that pays me a fraction of what I'm worth. So it's ok folks, I can afford to get you all presents this year.

Right now, I'm thinking bacon sadwiches and Spooks sounds like a plan.
- posted by Buntifer @ 11/20/2006 10:21:00 am

 
Blue Emptiness
Blue emptiness makes me cold.
I sweat the ache from my bones in a bath,
but when I climb out, the pain returns.
The flat is hostile,
it will not talk to me.
I hurt inside and out
and I cannot find the source.
I am not home,
I am somewhere else, somewhere that I stay.
I am neither tired nor awake,
I function by reflex,
Hit me on the knee and I'll kick you in the teeth.


And I'm behind on my Nano. Almost four thousand words behind. Not that I can't make those up, tonight, if I can be bothered. What worries me is that I'm not sure I can be bothered, and I know if I fall further behind now I may not make it later in the month. Work is very draining at the moment.

I must head back to ye old keyboard shaped grindstone.
- posted by Buntifer @ 11/09/2006 09:44:00 pm

 
Je suis un cretin.
Io sono cretino
Ich bin ein kretin


I am the biggest cretin I have ever met. Just recently, that is. Usually I'm a fuckin' genius, however, in the week leading up to me taking my Mensa test, I have obviously dropped around a hundred IQ points somewhere in Marrakech.

Great weekend by the way. Can't be bothered to blog here about it. If I've told you, you know, and if I haven't, tought.

Anyroad. On my way back I decided to listen to me mp3 player. Pulled it out, and couldn't switch it on, no matter how hard I held down the 'M' button. Bastard thing had bust. So I bought a new battery, which did about as much good as a cucumber in a squash match.

So I irritatedly put it away and thanked my lucky socks that I had purchased product insurance or whatever Currys call it when they rinse you for an extra twenty quid after you've already spent a hundred.

Yesterday, I went in to Currys. Showed them the player. The guy fiddled with the buttons, so I told him you had to hold down the 'M' key to turn it on, and he couldn't turn it on either, even with a special 'Curry's' battery. But they didn't have any in stock, and the system was down, so they couldn't tell which other stores did have. They offered me an exchange, but since I liked the model I didn't want to swap.

So I went in today, their system was up and running, and the Currys in Hatton Cross had ten of the model in, so I walked up there, about a twenty minute walk from Richmond. They took the player, fiddled with it and replaced it. Very nice of them.

I got the player back to work and tried to turn it on. Holding down the 'M' key didn't work. I cursed, I swore, I fumed. Then I checked the manual. Holding down the 'M' key isn't how you turn it on. You have to hold down the 'Play' key.

Which means (for those of you as slow as me.) I exchanged a perfectly healthy player because I had forgotten how to turn it on.

As I said. Io sono cretino.

In other news, we go into tech tomorrow, which I had forgotten. The news was as welcome as Ted Haggard at a gay strip joint. Hold on, that's probably quite welcome. The news was as welcome as Ted Haggard at an evangelical faith conference. That's right, Ted... they don't like benders! And the irony is, the people most likely to accept him are people he has been preaching against for an awful long time.

Sorry - off topic there.

tech = boo
- posted by Buntifer @ 11/08/2006 07:28:00 pm