// My So-Called Life
If you insist…
I had occasion to pop into the Apple Store on Regent Street yesterday, which is always a distressing experience given the place is always thronged about with ghastly tourists fully taking advantage of the free internet on the pretty laptops.
My reason was to purchase a new keyboard. Due to a distressing accident with a bottle of cola the other week the existing one had become practically unusable. With a tendency to force-capitalise everything.
But anyway, while I was there I noticed that the staff had new t-shirts, seasonally themed this time: “Santa has his elves,” they proclaimed. “You have me.”
And aside from the fact that I thought the message was kind of cute, there was also a bit of me which, on noticing how well one of the swarthier guys was filling his shirt, couldn’t help but go “oh, all right then”.
It’s unusual for me to fall in love with the staff in that place, I must admit. The products yes, but the staff rarely.
That said, I’m so over him now.
Posted on December 2, 2008 | Filed Under Battles with Technology, My So-Called Life | 0 Comments
The Quiz is Dead – Long Live the Quiz…
Well, it’s official now. Other Rob and I announced last night that as of our 100th quiz at the Griffin we would be giving it up. 4,500 questions down the line, and after over two years of continuous service (barring the pub refurbishment work) we’ve decided to call it a day.
Basically, whilst the presenting of it is fun, it does mean that not a single Tuesday can be entirely our own – and there are occasionally things I’d like to do on Tuesdays. There’s a comedy club in Soho, there’s various “gay professional” events which tend to be on Tuesdays and so on.
Plus it tends to impact on my Monday nights in order to get things ready, and a huge chunk is taken out of both of our weekends writing the thing – a task which is getting harder the longer we go on. (Seriously, writing this week’s quiz was like pulling teeth.)
So there we go, time to move aside and let someone with new ideas come in, freshen up the format and so on. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a chance to enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labours now too.
We’ll miss it of course, despite the hard work. “What will you do on your first Tuesday?” Rob asked me yesterday. I thought about it a bit and realised I would probably end up standing in the middle of my living room looking slightly lost and out of place.
So anyway… 23rd December 2008. Quiz 100. Our last stand. Do come along if you can make it!
Posted on November 19, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 0 Comments
Oh Bugger.
It’s amazing how often curiosity can lead you to bad decisions.
The other day I saw in Boots that all blood pressure monitors were half price. So I nabbed one for ?Ǭ£15 and just gave it a go, having been wondering for a while whether mine might be a tad high.
A tad high? Mine registers at “Stage 2 Hypertension” apparently.
A diagnosis which, ironically, has made me feel just a little bit stressed.
Posted on November 14, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 2 Comments
Working from Home
What a marvellous invention this is. There are, I think, fewer greater pleasures to be found in life than emerging from your pit of a grey weekday morning and making a cup of tea at the same time you usually find yourself hoofing it for the bus in the pouring rain.
Of course, the downside is that I’ve spent the day trapped in a cold house waiting for the plumbers to arrive at some unspecified time in the morning to fix the heating. But hey.
The arrived an hour ago which somewhat stretches my understanding of the word “morning” but who am I to judge?
Happy National Customer Service Week, by the way…
Posted on October 7, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life, The World we Live In | 0 Comments
A World of Noise and Pain
There are fewer things more irritating at five thirty in the morning than the experience of being rudely awoken by the shrill insistent sound of a car alarm in the street outside.
Things that are more irritating include having the same car alarm being allowed by its owners to continue more or less constantly until about six forty-five.
But an even more irritating experience than that is having all of this go on and then having a nearby flock of wild parakeets take exception to the noise and begin competing with it.
So, given that I am in rather desperate need of beauty sleep at the moment anyway, I currently wish all people who have car alarms a big healthy dose of syphilis and eternal damnation.
You utter, utter bastards.
Posted on August 7, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life, The World we Live In | 0 Comments
Attack of the Binmen
In our last flat we had the luxury of a large communal bin area where we could just dump rubbish on an ongoing basis and not really worry about when it got picked up. (And to be honest I never did really figure out when the council came – it seemed to be very much on an ad-hoc basis, but certainly it was commendably regular).
However, now we find ourselves adjusting to the routine of a weekly pickup again, having to make sure that the recycling is gathered up into the lurid orange bags provided for this purpose, and that the main refuse is dumped down in the whelie bins outside the house.
ANd every Monday morning as I leave for work I am invariably faced with the job of falling over the bin, muttering dark words and putting it back in its place after the collection has happened. Every week I’ve had the same gripe: why can’t the bin men just put it back where they found it?
Today though I left the house to find it in exactly the same place it was left. For a moment I assumed it hadn’t been emptied, but a quick check reassured me on this point and so with a shrug I stepped into the street to head off on my merry way.
Only to discover that everyone else’s bins were as out of place as normal. It was only ours that had been put back in its place.
This strikes me as very odd behaviour. I mean… it’s a very odd way of victimising someone isn’t it?
Posted on August 4, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 1 Comment
Morose? What do you mean, morose?
- Sunshine
- Lollipops
- Whiskers on Kittens
Happy now, Northover?
Posted on August 4, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 1 Comment
An Odd Competitive Streak
It seems that Boots are now stocking both Female and Male fertility testing kits, which is a development I find somewhat surprising I must say.
What’s worse though is that despite having no interest whatsoever in procreating (or children generally if I’m honest) there’s a part of me that’s now wondering how I’d come out.
Is this just my inner self-loather trying to find another stick to beat myself with or am I developing a competitive streak: “hah! I’m hugely fertile and no you can’t have any!”
I worry myself I really do.
Posted on July 28, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life, The World we Live In | 0 Comments
It’s a Small World
So, we found our new house. Needs a bit of work, admittedly (the painting is in progress) but it’s big and its airy and it has lots of wooden floors – which possibly makes our new living room my dream space.
Our first visit post-contract signing involved a certain amount of “okay, need to deal with that” and removal of clutter, and it was then I discovered the (empty) box of an M&S Easter egg on top of my bedroom cupboard. A Dalek Easter egg no less.
“Ho-ho!” I thought, “We’ve had fans!” And I must say I grinned slightly as I presented this finding to Chris and my Aunt. “It was meant to be!” I proclaimed.
And then, on sorting through the kitchen, aforementioned Aunt discovered a pinny in one of the drawers which seemed even more bizarre. White it was, but with a large TARDIS emblazoned across it. And another one saying “Stuff being princess, I want to be Queen”.
Gay fans then. Definitely home.
Later I found myself building a pile of post for the previous occupants too, thinking “I’ll get rid of that later” and then carried on moving in.
And then a little later there was a chance encounter with a neighbour outside the front door. “The guys who lived there before moved to Australia,” she confided. We smiled and agreed that it was a nice plan, and then we thought no more of it.
Until… well, do you know those moments when you’re not even thinking of something, but suddenly different thoughts rush forwards to occupy the mental space and combine into a sudden realisation? Suddenly it all linked: Who’ers, Gayers, Australia-ers. I knew someone who ticked those boxes and now I came to think of it his surname was one of those on the post I’d sorted.
On returning to the old flat I dug out the Mac and messaged an occasional drinking buddy of mine on Facebook. “Here, Giles” I asked, “You didn’t live at ******* did you?”
Turns out he did. Of all the places in London Chris and I could have chosen to live, it turns out to be the home of a gay, Who-loving friend of mine who has not long vacated the property and I didn’t even know was so local to me. As far as coincidences go I think that’s pretty impressive.
(The move, incidentally, is now complete. It was hellish. I hurt all over and feel thoroughly drained and ill, but we are, at least, in. Now we just have to get it sorted in time to have a housewarming or we’ll never hear the end of it.)
Posted on June 24, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 0 Comments
That’s Probably Not What They Mean…
I was in EvilTescoTM just now and whilst idly perusing the cleaning products – well it beats working – I was deeply amused by the name of one of their packs of cleaning wipes.
In fact I involuntarily let out a bark of a laugh which made me quite glad no-one else was around.
“TWO THICK MOPPETS” it said.
My mind immediately wandered to G-A-Y for some reason.
Posted on June 6, 2008 | Filed Under My So-Called Life | 1 Comment