The Neblog.
In all it's... something

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 Green VI, eh? ;-)

Currently playing: "My Radio Said to Kill You" by someone other than the Cheeky Girls because Jim deserves a knighthood and let's just face it, Fahnn fucking rock.
Normal Neblog activity has, as you might expect, been somewhat suspended for the time being. This will continue as I am, as you might say, buggered up with college work, writing, scrabble practice, organising a scrabble tournament, organising COLIN 2006 and upgrading the site to version IV. Thusly, I shall just say I am back at college, lovin' it lovin' it lovin' it, still at work, hating the sight of the sodding shithole. That's all really, if I am so moved I will most likely Neblog at random mid-week intervals from now on. Verily, fore sooth!
#1 Thought of the Day
EUlOGIA D2 ;-)

Sunday, September 11th, 2005

Currently playing: "Shit all" by "my bowels" because Fahnn, let's face it, just fucking rock rock on!
Kommie sie nicht irgendwie nahe, oder Ich erhalte Herrn Nobbly heraus.
Righto, the week as it was. Monday I went a scrabbling, and kicked off woth two victories in which I scored over 500 points, giving me an aggregate of 2485 points from the previous five games. Thereafter, I went completely fuckwitted, tried too many risky words and wound up in an unwinnable position in my last game, only to watch my opponent play a move that would actually have given me a win on a two-move outplay (rather than the "play out to win" situation I thought I was in). Annoyingly, I'm concentrating more on the losses than the wins, because I do so want to get back to blitzing everyone in every game that I'm in. I like those days.
Tuesday and Wednesday, was helping my Mum paint the kitchen in between having my sinus blasted out of my nose by the smell of it all (I;m allergic to paint fumes, whoop-dee-fucking-doo). Thursday, went into town briefly and also got a new game for the collection- Archer MacLean's Mercury, one of the better PSP launch games (and most of them were pretty damned good)- a cross between Super Monkey Ball (coolness guaranteed) and Lemmings (legendary status guaranteed). Like Lemmings, though, it is hard and does have some bizarrely difficult puzzles- nothing I can't handle, though!
And unlike Monkey Ball, you can actually save your progress and come back to it later if necessary without having to tediously replay all the previous levels as well.
Thursday, I also got the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie on DVD- it is cool. It is funny, but it is not as good as the novels or the TV series (and definitely not the radio series). Marginally better than the towel version, though.
Highlights definitely include the infinite improbability drive (although the line "Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it." should most definitely have been included) and the vomiting yarn, as well as the scenes on the Vogon homeworld, which were all inspired. However, with a cast like they assembled, you can't really go wrong- Sam Rockwell is perfect as Zaphod, Bill Nighy's Slartibartfast is a joy to behold, Stephen Fry is beyond perfect as the book, and Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin? Could there be any better casting in a movie? I think not. Well worth at least a rent, and I'd recommend you'd buy it, at any rate.
Friday, got myself mentally psyched up for Saturday and work.
Saturday, my mental psyche-up lasted all of 16 seconds before being eroded into out-and-out depression. I'd rate my job satisfaction at that shithole on a scale of 1-10 if I could, but frankly going as high as 1 would be unduly generous. It's the same, boring fucking repetition and the same, boring, coffin-dodging customers who come in. I even have nicknames for them all, which frankly anyone would recognise if they bumped into them on the street. "80-year old botox victim", "One-track-minded Jock", "Chav Mum" (although that is more generic than specific), "Scratchcardophile", "Mumbling Monkey Man", and the ever-famous "Man with the worst breath in Britain". The last "personality" (I use that term seriously lightly- our customers, for the most part, have none) has noticed that whenever I am serving him behind the counter, I have a tendency to cough. He assumed that this was due to some sort of infection and gave me a couple of Strepsils to take. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was because his mouth smells (and, for that matter, looks) like a donkey's arse. Honestly, his teeth are brown. He might very well be Shane McGowan's dad, in fact, it's that tragic a case. Fortunately, short-term memory loss surfaced at the right time and I managed to block the entire depressing 9 1/2 hours from my mind today, leaving me to watch an incident-filled Belgian Grand Prix (JPM you mug) in peace. Ah well, at least the day had a (partially) happy ending.
#1 Thought of the Day
Would anyone not understand if I just quit my job? Moreover, would anyone understand if I stayed?

Sunday, September 4th, 2005

Currantly playing: "I am Burning" by Fahnn, because Fahnn are not responsible for the two week gap between Neblog entries!
Right, some people at this point would hold their electronic arms (waldoes?) out wide and go "OMG I R teh ALIVE!" but 1). My conscience won't let me talk like that, 2). My conscience won't let others talk like that, to the point that forced amputation of digits is called for, and 3). I'm not feeling all that alive right now.
I'll go over today in details once I've been over the previous 13 in slightly less detail (in places). Haile forking crorp, why did I wait this long to update...
Monday the 22nd. Can't remember.
Tuesday the 23rd. Can't remember there either.
Wednesday the 24th. I think I did something consctructive today, but I'm damned if I can remember what.
Thursday the 25th. Seriously now, I think the message will have been got by now. The brain functioneth not. Without vast gallons of vitriol to throw over customers (reasons for that coming up later) I'm kind-of lacking in ammunation for the Neblog.
Friday the 26th. I recovered from my short-term amnesia, only to promptly catch it again iirc.
Saturday the 27th. Now we're talking, it's BMSC time! Got meself into the Open division (for expert players, much as like at Sheffield in July) and set about playing some expert players.
Lost my first four on Saturday and was pissed off in possibly the truest (that just does not look correctly spelt, not even for a second) sense of the word. Opting for a different approach to my superstition, I decide to change into the T-shirt I had lent Stewart "The Terminator" Holden at Sheffield (and that he was wearing when he stormed day 2 and went on to win said tournament).
Obviously something thusly worked as I go on to win my last 2 of the day against the same level of opposition (if not higher than) I'd been playing all day. Excellent.
After about 70 minutes' sleep on the first night (sleeping bag+ hard concrete floor+ Holden's snoring=arse arse shit shit arse shit bollocks crap crap arse shit), I don my specially-bought "The Prisoner" T-shirt to wear on the second day's scrabbling events. I am not a number, I am a free man, and I most certainly am fucking not a 292-635 loss like I suffered on the second day before lunch. Sandwiching two 80-point bonuses with two moves, one of which was a 158-point nine-timer is a way to generally hack me off a little. To be fari, David (my opponent) did admit he was having a little luck (the nine-timer was ORDNANCE around the N- hardly high-probability), but I was 1 out of 5 going into tea (I swear too much. I just misspelt that "twat") and I decided a change in superstition was needed again. On went the tournament-winning T-shirt.
Out of the two remaining games that day, I won all 2. Once again, The T-shirt played its part (either that or my opponents were more than a little tired).
Tea came and went, and brought with it the AGM of the ABSP, which I had entered the BMSC with the explicit intention of attending (the AGM, that is. You can tell I'm a little pooped). However, there was a game of Gambler going on so I joined in that instead. nearly won as well if it wasn't for my being rubbish and expert Gambler player Ivy Dixon-Baird running away with the game from very early on. I've now not won a game of Gambler since the championships last october and I'm getting a we bit down about it. Ah well.
Along came day 3, and I was up bright and early (my roommate wasn't, but that's another story entirely), wearing my trademark hawaiian shirt (even though I ain't Graham Nash) and walked straight into a kicking in my first game.
That's when things changed.
My average score over my last 3 games was 485. Bonuses were coming out left, right and centre and they were getting laid down left, right and centre. My last game in particular was so jammy it was unreal- I won 541-330 (just about my biggest winning spread of all time) AND I had two unplayable bonuses during that game. The only unlucky thing was that I didn't win by 8 more points, as there was a spot prize on offer for biggest winning margin of the last two games which was won by a player taking his game by 218, putting my 211 in the shade. Ah well, in total I won 8 out of 17 at the tournament, enough to boost my rating to the magic 150!!!!!!!!! Woo! That's what I've been waiting for all year- +28 from the start of the year- I have, according to no less an authority than the Terminator, "broken out of the layer of crap and established myself firmly in the layer of mediocrity". And coming from him, that's high praise indeed!
Heading on home, Thursday brought with it two things- my Broadband connection and my PSP!
The PSP is one sexy piece of hardware. Everything about it just oozes sleekness, and as the graphics are of PS2 standard, well, frankly, "oh yes". The UMD movies just look bloody stunning too- can't wait for FFVII Advent Children, as you KNOW that is just going to rock.
The broadband too is awesome, following the ten hours it took to connect, eradicate viruses from the system and get everything set back up right (I still haven't managed that though). Ah well, wouldn't be the Neblog without a PC bloke-ification, eh?
Work has been just fucking shit. So I'm jacking it in very soon indeed. I'm getting taxed too much and frankly, as my hours are being alashed, it's just easier to jack the whole thing in entirely, it's not like it brings me that much money anyway.
#1 Thought of the Day
Posthumous knighthood for Freddie Mercury?
What do I mean, I mean, honestly, why did I phrase that as a question and not an order?

Sunday, August 21st, 2005

Currrntly Playing: Flash by Queen, because Fahnn acknowledge the greatness that is Queen, although Jim isn't quite the performer that the eternal legend Freddie Mercury was.
One man went to scra- went to scrab a, erm, scrabbling (and not just for a way to cover up that fucking disaterous pun-song-cock-up-attempt-and-yes-I-know-there-was-supposed-to-be-no---between-cock-and-up-dong). Went unbeaten for the first time in ages, which was good- BMSC next weekend, which is going to be a challenge and a half (and I don't just mean trying to sleep through the Terminator's snoring), against some of the best players on the face of the planet- many of whom will be playing in the World Championships in London in November.
Also during the week, I actually did some writing for the first time in ages! It won't be uploaded to N-world for a while due to the changeover to version IV, but rest assured, you will be seeing chapters 6 and 7 of the Scarlet Blades very, very soon indeed! So goos to finally consider myself a writer again, hopefully my new creative urge will be enough so that I can suppress it and get work on version IV done again (don't ask. It's just the way I work. seriously).
Bah. I'm now up to the weekend, and I know it's a cliché that I must point out what depressingly nearly-dead customers I work with, and how our management structure appears to be constructed of mutual arse-scratchers with badly misplaced self-esteem, but seriously, what a load of cooking funts, sorry, I meant FUCKING CUNTS, I have to deal with on a daily basis. Ever since I started doing the 8am-12pm shift on Sundays (no fucking idea how that fucked-up shift came into being) I've had to deal with one elderly gentleman (and that's the politest you will ever hear me talk about any of our moronic customers) who comes in to pay his paper bill every week at about 8:15am on Sunday morning. Wouldn't be so bad (you have to do something some time) but he doesn't ever actually say anything. Oh, he makes the vaguest mumblings which I'm sure he believes in his head are articulated words, but anybody outside a 4 nanometre radius would have an extremely hard time deciphering just what the fuck it is he's on about (fortunately, he also brings in his till receipt from the previous week, otherwise I'd probably be there all fucking day). Also winding me up this week are some customers in invalid carriages who decide not to come into the shop, but bang on the window and get me to take their shopping out to them. I'm probably overreacting here- they do deserve to get out from time to time and I am little more than a sales bitch to be honest, and our shop has one step leading up to the entrance which is a hassle (doesn't stop the massive (and I mean massive) amounts of chav mums dragging in their five-year olds in pushchairs though), but there's something about banging on the window and just pointing toward the shop door that is just... rude. I will freely admit sometimes I just park myself at the other end of the shop and read Nuts or Zoo magazine, well out of sight of the window near the till but still in a position to deal with customers should they come in, just to get some peace and quiet.
Before I get "you and an evil nazi anti-disabled person" bollocks emailed at me, I should point out that my mother is disabled, can't get 50 yards without an invalid carriage, but she still actually comes into the shop whenever she wants to buy something.
Oh, and the till fiasco resumed this week again with some bloody classic occurrences. Our main till (the one people will queue at even if there's no one there) went quite cataclysmically wrong, so we opted to use the secondary till as the main one for the whole weekend.
The results, needless to say, were predictable. My supervisor and I knew full well that people were just ignorant twats in general, so we had pinned a notice to the front of the till stating that the till was out of commission.
About 60% of people noticed this. The rest just kept queueing there as usual until prompted otherwise, even when I was clearly standing behind the other till. Having a slight brainwave, I opt to pin the notice to the countertop instead. This has more of the desired effect, in that the level of people noticing it rose to 90%. Some people, however, are just fucking cunts.
One lady in particular, who dumped her lottery tickets on top of the fucking notice, only partially obscuring it (the gist was still very much there, as was I behind the other till), and then proceeded to hand me the tickets around the lottery machine to where I was standing. This continued for about eight lottery transactions, conducting business around the machine (I certainly wasn't fucking moving, the "the customer is always right" bullshit ends at our shop door) in what was possibly the most painful display of stupidity in history. In hindsight, I should probably have said "I'm sorry madam, but I'm afraid I can't serve you as you have all the brains of half a golf ball and my conscience simply won't allow it".
Then again, if I said that, I would be lying. Ever since working there, I have had no conscience.
#1 Thought of the Day
Is it wrong to assume that most people in the world and just here to make up the numbers and have no valuable contribution to make to society?

Sunday, August 14th, 2005

Currently Playing: Red/Green by You know who, because You know who promote regular bowel functions and can help lower your cholesterol or whatever fucking bandwagon the celebrities are jumping on this month!
This is going to be a short entry, mainly because I'm replacing a short entry and mainly because most of my week has been spent playing endless amounts of Civilization 3, studying Scrabble words (kiss my ETIOLIN!) and working in the hole of shit. Instead, I'm going to prattle on in an angsty fashion about things that are happening in my life.
...Actually, I think I'll get over them instead.
Wednesday, incidentally, did see the funeral of my Great-Aunt Gladys, who as I mentioned earlier, died aged 96. Needless to say, the whole family was upset at losing her, my Mum in particular, and also my Great-Aunt Hazel (the only sister of Glad alive/well enough to attend the funeral), who is rapidly becoming the head figure of the family (and, if I may say so, would do an excellent job of it, being as she beloved by everybody lucky enough to be related to her).
I think I've burnt out an aggression fuse or something as I can't find it in myself to call any of our customers cunts this week. Well, except for that person who paid for a paper with change including a 50 Lira coin and then walked out before I could publicly point out (to his face) just what type of a moron he had been, what with not only using a foreign coin, but using a foreign coin no longer in circulation (we had a Swedish Krona a few days earlier too). Some people, alas, are just thick.
Oh, and big props to Nuts magazine (and me mate Pete "Countdown" Cashmore) for keeping me sane the past few weeks at work, knowing that there are women out there whose chins haven't drowned in all the fat of their neck and become unidentifiable. And who don't stink. Nice one! Also, big props to my main girl Desi for restoring my faith in msn pals following a string of stalkers who were all either 13, ugly or otakus, as opposed to 20, uber-fit and cute in a kinky way. Even nicer one!
#1 Thought of the Day
Alas, some people are just fat, ugly and they smell. Fortunately, some people are fit, cute and nice-smelling. Few and far between, though...