Champagne

Firstly, I should thank my Dad for pushing the best part of a bottle of champagne at me during dinner tonight. We ate out, for Mother’s Day, and I have come back needing my bed. Tucked up, cosy as ever, I write this.

I tried a trial at Match.com this weekend for shits and giggles, on the Dr Pepper principle, but as it turns out everyone is either really fat or a complete stereotype. Wait, that should be and/or, because 80% of them are both.

I enjoy romantic meals, walks on the beach and ‘insert generic sport here’. My favorite quality in men is humor, and they shouldn’t take themselves too seriously… For some reason, after having searched for ‘the one’ in all the nightclubs in Bournemouth, it turns out all the guys I hooked up with were narcissistic wankers, I just don’t understand my bad luck?!?!

I’m pretty sure there isn’t as contrived a collection of personals in the entire universe, and you have to consider that I am writing this as a note on Facebook.

Yes, every now and then there is a rare gem that sparkles out in the sea of womanly mediocrity, but advances on an internet dating site are a bit feeble… and I’m not sure my profile picture is as good as it could be, unless you girls are really after Chewbacca.

Still, I’ve had enough champagne tonight to lower my standards (I’m sure) and they all still appear grotesque and uninteresting. I now face resignment, perhaps I will actually have to brave a conversation with someone… and be lucky enough for them to be both interesting and equally interested.

No. I’m fucked.
Really, we’re all fucking fucked. (totally not the champagne talking)

Tenerife

I’ve let an entire week of holiday go missing from the blogosphere, what should be prime material for a wordpress or two… In fairness? Nothing big happened, especially nothing that isn’t more interesting on Facebook.

Ah well. Maybe next time, I might even get a tan.

Blizzard

So I’ve been finding more and more music, and it seems my iTunes has grown exponentially in the last two months. I’m now on 400+ albums and enough music to play me to death. Still, at least I can’t complain about running out of fresh stuff to listen to, it’s just a problem being technologically OCD when it comes down to ordering my files. I’m currently going through UNKLE and Placebo to make sure they’re all ranked properly.

Heading off to Tenerife with my Dad and that side of the family next week for a short little break. It should be nice, though it’s still a bit of a club island, just taking some time away from England. The only problem I could possibly have with this free and muchly undeserved holiday is that I’ve been to Tenerife. In fact, we all went to exactly the same hotel a few years ago, and it’s beyond me why the repetition could be considered a draw.

Sure, it was nice, but it makes me wonder if Dad chose to go again out of convenience, or just lack of interest in the rest of the island, let alone the world. Perhaps it’s an age thing. Or a me thing.

I’m pretty bothered at how bothered I am that it’s been a year of the good old batchelor life. I don’t really believe that if I push for a relationship I’d get the one I needed, but in my current state of affairs I don’t exactly get out much. I can’t help but feel a bit hopeless, really, I think the short break to Tenerife might help.

It is pretty bad in this house, though, what with Mat missing. The balance of 2 to 2 in housemates has been offset and I quite often feel like a third wheel. Still, Jaggard has been coming around a lot, along with others, which is a nice relief from the same old faces, and as long as I keep myself in University a lot I can starve it off (friend hunger?). Lawrence keeps saying he wants to come round, but he’s mad off his head with Chalowe and I can’t really blame him.

It’s snowing today. I went into university with Chris and Su early in the morning. We were the only ones there for about 20 minutes, just waiting around for Pete and Dovey to make an appearance like the sexy Boscome divas they are. It was only partially raining when we left the house, but by this time it was full on snowing outside. As a few more stragglers came to the lesson, we got on with talking to our teacher Bob Cotton before Liam burst in and told us we had to leave the Arts Institute because it was closing. Outside was like a full-on blizzard, and the busses in Bournemouth had to be stopped. I’m not sure about all of the public ones, but the Yellow buses and the Uni ones were shut down for a good while.

The snow has eased off now, but I’m not sure if it will be coming back any time soon. I’m in two minds if I want it to, it’s going to be a trek to get into work tomorrow. For some reason my boss got the impression that coming in at 12 would be a good idea for me so that I could get more work in. 12 being 2 hours before the usual shift starts. While extremely kind of her to do so, due to the lack of need to put me in for those hours, she’s actually made my life a lot more difficult.

Still, if the busses aren’t running tomorrow I think Dad is prepared to make the trek down here and pick me up to take me. The man is crazy, but it invalidates any excuse to not go in, and subsequently not get the extra money. Woah, is it nice to have that extra money (it all gets wasted on Cravendale).

Anyway the snow fights were nice, Chris was trying to live out a childhood dream, I think. It’s a shame not many people were around in the morning. It was the perfect atmosphere for an epic snow-war spanning the entire University, and there are pictures on Facebook to back me up. Still, we amused the local primary school by having a little spar outside their classes. Vicious chants of ‘fight, fight, fight’ could be heard throughout Winton as they gathered at the window. Shouts of glee as I struck Pegg down with a perfect long-range hummer. My prose is glorified, perhaps, but it was an awesome shot and in those kids eyes, I’m pretty sure I was a god.

I’m pretty sure we annoyed more teachers then our own today.

Awesome.

The Doctrines

I have just gotten a text message from my father with a picture of a Yellow Mini attached to it, and now I finally realize I have created a monster. I can’t get in the car with my family any more, for fear that they might start looking out for specific excuses to beat me. I’m hardly the most perceptive person at the best of times, especially not when I’m zoned out in the car, so it has become a mortal fear.

And now a Yellow Mini… and a picture, no less! Is that even in the rules? I’m fairly sure you can’t collect points in the car game, I’m fairly sure that won’t stop my family too. They’re crazed, dangerous people and they’ve started corrupting the rules of all the classic lessons I have taught them. On Sunday, my brother tried to claim bagsy on my birthday money, and when I told him he couldn’t bagsy it, he attempted to lay a dibs. Who are these obscene children who think they can corrupt the doctrines that must be rigorously followed by all adolescant, regardless of race, religion or gender? Heresy, I call, I am outraged.

Still, today I am free and safe from dead arms, or whatever these unruly teenagers are calling them nowadays, for I am in Bournemouth and waiting, once again, for Liam to… um… well he was meant to be circulating the room, but he’s not in here now and I haven’t seen him for about an hour, which means he could be doing anything by now. I was waiting around doing nothing all day yesterday, I don’t want to have to do it again! At least I have done my banking today… I guess.

I’m going to go get some lunch… later!

The Pogues

So I went to see the Pogues last night, with their recklessly dispassionate frontman Shane MacGowan. They were pretty good, and considering I’ve never really liked their music I did enjoy myself quite a bit. Unfortunatley, by the time the gig had kicked off I was half asleep, still tired from all the effort that went into the Christmas meal from the night before.

Shane himself was absolutely wasted, and I don’t use that term lightly, but with the atmosphere in the hall it seemed to be pretty natural.

True story: One of the crowd threw a bottle at the stage, not entirely surprising, and it landed perfectly in Shane MacGowan’s front coat pocket. Strange! Amazing! FANTASTIC! No, but it was pretty cool, I would hope someone got it on film.

A one picture argument against the rock and roll lifestyle, eh? One up of the evening is that Shane only laughed once, so I’ll only suffer a week of sleepless nights. No joke, but for me there’s a direct link between the wheezing hacks that he’s managed to turn into a laugh and the darkest fears in my heart. I’m pretty sure that if I were to encounter a Boggart, the creature that would manifest would make the same horrible sound.

Anyway, that’s me for today, back to watching Drake and Josh with my brother.

Stuff off!

I am writing a very late article today, because I have only just come upstairs from a good evening’s host of a Christmas Meal.

That’s right, we had a bit of a get together at 19 Green Road. Invited to this dinner party were captain actionscript himself, Mr. Adam Jaggard, and also a Mr. Mike Simpson and Mrs. Stuart Livesy, and they all performed their roles as guests admirably. From the home team we had Chris, Su and me, myself. Oddly, THE OTHER HOUSEMATE wasn’t involved (because he’s ill) but in fairness I think Jaggard did a more then impressive replacement for the man himself, and even cut the chicken! How dashing.

I think having been watching ‘Come Dine With Me’ a lot this year really has put major impressions in my head, and I was willed this Christmas to try and pull off some super culinary skills that I could be proud of. And so, for the last month or so I’ve been pushing my housemates (or Chris, who put up the most resistance) to have a nice Christmas meal with some guests. On the basis that I would cook, along with Su, an alternative (but still pretty traditional) roast dinner for everyone. We ended up losing Mat… well, that was quite a while ago, eh Mat?

It’s been a bit odd without you, but we’ve all adapted and developed into better people for it so be careful if you come back just in case we revert. Yeah, and your room is a great airing cupboard. Jokes aside, we do miss our forth and cannot wait for you to come back here so we can moan about you again.

Anyway, I’ve been researching recipies and trying stuff out for a good while now, though I did leave the testing for the stuffing balls a little late, having done them the night before the meal itself. Still, they came out pretty good, and over to the left are some glory shots of the test subjects…

So all in all I’ve had a good night tonight, and there will be more pictures of the final foods themselves going up soon, along with the recipies I used.

Anyway, that’s the Uberbeard done chatting for tonight, I shall return soon for more Christmas guffery.

…to all a good night!

Grumpers

I keep getting told I’m grumpy.

It was a catch 22 situation yesterday, where I was only getting frustrated with people because they kept telling me I was being grumpy, and of course I was – because of them! I could have broken the cycle by putting on a smile, granted, but I’m too transparent when I get annoyed, and I was getting a little big of snark thrown my way towards the end of the morning. This is something I don’t appreciate, I hope to think I’m big enough to accept it if someone doesn’t like me and that no matter how wonderful I am there will always be someone who isn’t able to put up with my excessive behavior, but to be snippy with someone and approach it with snide remarks? Isn’t that a bit juvenile, not to mention contrived.

There are people I don’t like, sure, but if anything I would call myself honest, at worst just uncomfortably frank. I’m not malicious, and my confidence takes a dent when other people tend to slyly jab at me, in jest or not. Perhaps I should stop expecting people to approach things in the same way I would, I seem to be the freak in most social case studies.

Anyway, I get the feeling that people aren’t actually reading my expressions properly anymore. In some respects, it may be a case of the boy who cried wolf, in where I look so ‘miserable’ all the time, people have come to expect it. It’s become normal, and thus the emotion means nothing when people see it on my face. Perhaps I’m just more tiresome then is pleasant to consider. Perhaps people just don’t like me, and they don’t give a shit. I’m not really that content with any of these explanations, so as soon as I can think of one that doesn’t take a big dump all over my self esteem I’ll go with that one.

One thing has to be said, because it is true enough that I am usually happy enough in my misery, if that even makes sense. My frown is upside down, even if I have a genuine reason to be upset… Well, heck! At least I have a reason! I don’t usually talk about problems, and if I do I tend to moan. Because of this, people don’t seem to have the patience to listen to a single line of dialogue when I sound like I have even the slightest of complaint on my voice.

So now I have no way to put forward any concerns without seriously monitoring my tone, which is hard. I’m certainly not the type of person who can smile a frown away, If I’m pulling a scowl I imagine it can stay on there for indefinite until I find a good reason to break it. Yes! I like to think I have strong ideals, and perhaps I am no idealist because I do not solely act upon those, but I stick to them and I stick to my feelings.

I’m not sure what I am in a labeled respect, I certainly have a morbid outlook on life, and I can be pretty pessimistic when I’m talking about other people, or fielding an opinion on something, but when it comes to my personal outlook? I’m not sure, quietly confident I suppose, though perhaps not as abrasively positive some people can be.

You know the ones. They giggle a lot and wear too much pink.

I hate people like that.

The Red Ring of… What? Again?

So, it’s one o’clock on a Sunday night and I’ve just started watching Lucky Number Slevin for the first time, I thought I’d have a go at blogging too.

My Xbox 360 gave in today, which is more then plenty frustrating considering Fable 2 will be coming out in only two weeks, and it’s doubtable that Microsoft will fix it on time. It’s made even worse by the fact that I bought four new games on Friday, and was enjoying playing them all the way up until it froze and gave me the ring of death. Again.

Lame.

Speaking of lame… Lawrence’s party on Saturday night was… actually quite fun, a bit quieter then Sara’s but better in that respect. You could talk to people, you know, communicate, which doesn’t seem to happen all that often at house parties. Unfortunatley, I have left the party wounded – almost mortally. As a consequence of having a quiet party, I managed to talk to everyone… including a rather strange, vampiric woman who attacked me half way through the party with a marker pen, so of course I drew a cock on her, and then wrote cock on her. Then she bit me, drew on me and then bit me harder. Course, it could have been pleasant if I didn’t get the distinct feeling she was actually trying to eat me.

Lawrence has a bizarre fascination with dressing up (like a woman), point of fact, moreso then I do. Thusly, it was fancy dress, and it had an ‘L’ theme. We saw Laddettes, Lawrence of Arabia, Lidl and… well, of course Luigi! I went as both Lazy and Late, but later adapted to a Leek. The Alliteration is beginning to hurt, so I’m going to stop at that.

I’ve felt pretty disillusioned about everything, and I have no idea how I’m going to motivate myself into doing everything I feel I should be doing. There’s a lot I need to sort out, including the work I keep meaning to do with my aunt… What the? Greg has just messaged me on messenger, hold on folks…

Okay, so you had nothing interesting to say to me Greg, and I’m returning to my blog. Chris just walked in and pulled me out of the room too. Some random man was playing guitar outside his window as he walked down the road. He was on his own, which I find strangely haunting and sad.

Chris, on the other hand, finds it comforting.

Chris, on the other other hand, is weird.

With that lol, I’m going to watch the rest of the film.

- teh Beard.

Stray Cats

So, I went to see these guys live… Live and, well, old.

They were interesting enough, and there was a weird collection of equally old punk/goth weirdos with quiffs. It’s weird, the style borders seem to have been entirely forgotten in this mixture of 50s greaser and 70s brit punk attack…

Ah well, more updates soon.

Forwards and backwards.

I was talking to Georgie last night, and while we bantered on about how late it was, and past relationships, and all the usual catching up jazz that you talk about when you haven’t spoken to someone in a good while, we approached the topic of old friends. She said something that made me smile, not a happy smile but a knowing one, she said she was surprised at the amount of people who have now matured.

I immediately thought, “bah” because I had been writing my last blog post earlier that day and was rather caught on how everyone I’d been hanging about with had gone one of two ways: Forwards or backwards. Still, rather then dismiss it I thought about it and realized just how many of the people I know have matured enough. I also wondered if I’ve matured at all since Toynbee, but if you think about that you have to account for my dual levels of maturity when it comes to being silly and that just gets complicated.

I guess not everyone is running off to university, but in a way everyone our age now has to confront the fact that they are becoming an adult and if they don’t go with it they’re going to have a very difficult path ahead of them. Last year was good for me, in that sense, because I struggled with this but had the benefit of a relationship to stop me going over the edge.

We also brought up Ben Johnson as a subject, and I explained a whole lot of back story which, coupled with talking about Emily, got me really nostalgic and depressed. I think it was about this point that ‘Foundations – Kate Nash’ came on, and I decided to call it a night before I died of a brain anurism. Anurism? Well, if that’s how you spell it at least.

- teh Beard.