Tumblr

I've decided to move my blog to Tumblr. It seems cooler and better. There's an iPhone app for it too. Hmm, I've just searched for a blogspot app, and there is one. Still, I think I'll stick with Tumblr, though as a negative point, it seems to be more 'social' and thus more people might read it. I don't think I'm happy with that.

http://haveareadordont.tumblr.com/

New hobby

I've got a new hobby of writing reviews for various products on Amazon.com/co.uk. It's very cathartic. I mean in the sense of that it feels cleansing and rewarding, rather than the literal sense of 'purging of the bowels'.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1EB9CBPET85Y5/ref=ya_26?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1EB9CBPET85Y5/ref=ya__26?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

Awkwardness

I went climbing at the Westway last night and I messed up my finger. I mean in the sense that I've injured it, it's painful. I've taken Nurofen Plus to deal with the pain. That stuff is divine, ibuprofen and codeine, the powerful duo. Codeine is brilliant. It's like a proper drug, with cool effects. Not like ibuprofen, in which I struggle to even sense any effect, other than I feel less pain. I guess that's the point really. Codeine reminds me of morphine, it's a bit more of a full body experience, like a dulling of the senses. Morphine is a pretty good drug, best only used for medical situations though - don't want to end up like Goering and be all addicted. Well, he's dead anyway, he took cyanide during the Nuremberg Trials. Still, being addicted to morphine isn't good. I wonder if it would be worse than being addicted to heroin, after all, they're both opiates (so is codeine). It feels like morphine is a more middle class drug, rather than the Scottish poverty of heroin, shooting up in your soiled underwear in a squat. Trainspotting has done a lot to put me off heroin. I guess that's good. I might read up about the drugs tonight since I'm clearly lacking knowledge in the subject. I feel that I should add that I've only 'done' morphine a few times in my life due to various injuries, and not because I'm some sort of addict: dislocated arm, burning stomach with cooking oil, burst appendix.

So, I went climbing at Westway last night and buggered up my finger. I didn't warm up properly and started climbing hard things straight away, and it was really cold in the centre. There was a few students there, and generally I don't mind them (considering that I was one), but there was one student there who I actually hate. I don't think he knows that I hate him. He would know very quickly if, 1) I had more guts, 2) My imagination was reality, 3) Someone ran into the centre and shouted 'It's Mad Max time! Total anarchy!'. In that case, I would say to myself 'Finally', and then walk up to the guy (I don't know his name), and I'd kill him. Well, actually, I don't think I would. If he'd had annoyed me as soon as they ran in shouting, then I'd probably just hit him a few times then run off. I probably wouldn't even do that. He's really annoying because he makes weird noises, whistles a lot, wears annoying hippie clothes and has dreadlocks. Dickhead. I hate dreadlocks, they make someone look like a prat. Complete lifestyle choice. It's like the guy went off to Thailand on his gap year and thought 'Yeah, I f*cking love being chilled out and I want to make a statement about who I am, and because I'm a dick anyway, how about I dress like a native and get dreadlocks'. What's the point in them? And he's not even a good person, sure, he seems friendly enough, but at the same time, utterly annoying. I think the main reason why he annoys me is because he thinks he's really good at climbing (he isn't) and he whistled an annoying tune and chatted to his friend really loudly when I was trying to climb a hard problem. It put me off so I fell. I glared at him then walked off and then drove home via KFC. F*ck him.

But, every cloud has a silver lining and I did see a really pretty girl there. She was a little brunette girl who was wearing hot pants. I think she was French. She was there with a male companion and I couldn't work out whether he was her boyfriend or whether they were just friends. I was thinking about what to do - is it acceptable to walk up to him and say 'Hello, is that girl your girlfriend?', if he says no, then I can ask her to get a coffee and if he says yes, then there would be a weird awkward moment. What was I meant to do? Why don't schools teach their students about social interactions? I just kept starring at her, the couple weren't really climbing together that much, he would do his own thing and the girl would wander off and climb. Argh, it was annoying, all I could think of was ahh she's really cute, is she going out with that guy? Is she single? What can I do? She's really pre... Oh f*ck off annoying hippie dickhead, your dreadlocks look f*cking dumb, you chump.

Sometimes I wish life was easier, but then I see an advert for an Oxfam appeal and I just think ah shit.

Films

I watched a film last night that I thought was pretty good, it's called The Notebook, it stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. It got a bit sad towards the end, with the old people having dementia and dying. I watched it with Kat and she thought that I was crying. While it's true that I was a bit depressed, I didn't cry as in tears and a runny nose. It was just quite emotional at the end.

I had a fun weekend. I went to London for Weatherly's birthday and saw a few of my friends - Jon, Ben, Jon, Kelly, Hollie, Alice, James, Tom. I guess I could name a few more people but it would end up as a long list. I really like seeing my London friends. I didn't take any photos because I lent my camera to Nick. Though, it's quite an expensive camera so I'm not sure if a busy pub would be a suitable place for it. The night out was quite a contrast to the previous weekend, we went to a cool pub in town, then found a late closing pub/club thing called The Lexington. It was really good because it was full of nice people, just regular 'hip' people, not chavs. At Revs, men walk around like stags, wearing t shirts or buttoned up shirts and act like chumps and the women wear slutty outfits and dyed blonde hair with fake tans. I guess the clientele at The Lexington were more for the indie side of the musical spectrum. Hmm. I just mean that Revs is chavvy and the bars which we go to in London aren't. I guess it's people who go to festivals like like End of the Road vs V Festival. HAHAHAHA, I've just watched a really funny video on YouTube.

I saw a pretty girl on the train, but it was quite busy and I didn't know what to do. I just kind of starred at her every so often. We got off the same station, so I guess I could have walked up to her and said 'Hey'.

Kat thinks I should get back on My Single Friend again because she thinks I'm handsome and that I need to set out to find a lady. My past experience with MSF was pretty awkward, but I guess that's because I took the girls to climbing centres and that in itself made the date awkward because I got frustrated when they failed to climb with any skill. Actually, I get annoyed with complete strangers when I go climbing, because I've reached a level where I'm quite good and if I see someone climb really badly, I just think what a tool, maybe climbing isn't the right sport for you. I drink coffee now, so I guess I can take girls to coffee places. I can finally say 'Hey, let's get coffee!' without the awkwardness of turning up and just drinking a bottle of orange, which is completely unacceptable in a coffeehouse - previously I'd turn up and meet the girl and she'd asks what I normally have, I'd reply 'Oh just a bottle of orange juice, smooth please, I dislike the 'juicy bits'' and she'd reply 'Orange juice? What the fuck. Why the fuck would you take me to a coffeehouse when you don't even drink coffee? You tit', 'Oh sorry, I just couldn't think of anywhere else to take you, sorry', 'Forget it, I'm off, you're obviously a fucking idiot'. Umm, that's never happened to me, mainly because of my obsession with taking dates to climbing centres and also that imagined conversation.

I think I will get back on MSF because I've just had a look at some of the girls on it, and they're rather attractive.

Also, I'm happy because I can now close a Captain of Crush Gripper No. 1. It's not something I've specifically trained, but now using it to train my pinch grip! Wooo. Apparently, it takes 63 kg of force to close it. That's almost my body weight (I weigh 11 stone). Thug life!

Forgetting things

I have no memory of my dream last night. I know that I dreamed because when I woke up, I remembered vague things, but now I can't recall anything. It was either incredibly dull, so my brain didn't bothered remembering it, or, that it was so intensely horrific that I'm now suffering from dissociative amnesia. Hmm. I'm happy that I don't speak my thoughts, every so often I look at the tv at work and at the moment, there's a cookery show on. The chef is a particularly attractive lady and I can't help but think things like 'Oohh she can lick my sauce' and 'I'd like to rub her with salted butter and beef dripping'. She was pretty. I don't know her name but she's half Italian and Welsh. Hmm, I can't figure out whether I find Nicki Minaj attractive, I guess she is, but then she looks a bit weird. I'm going to err on the side of caution and say yes, yes she is attractive. So, if I met her at a party and she started dancing while looking at me, I'd think hmm, well that's odd, I guess she's pretty, but does she expect me to start dancing with her? Oh God, I hope not. Oh Christ, this is awkward, she's looking right at me. What do I do? Errr, try smiling awkwardly, this is not enjoyable, oh shit, she's dancing towards me now, ok make your mind up - attractive or not, ahhh yeah I guess so. Then, if she asked me for my number (I'd have to ask her to text me rather than call me), I'd probably say that it would be best to get in contact via email. If she was particularly forward and wanted to come home with me, I'd have to reply 'Well, the thing is, I live quite far away so I guess your place would be better, but would you want to wait a while because I'm enjoying just standing around here and I'm not entirely sure if I like your company to be honest'. I guess this is why I'm not renowned for being a ladies man.

Training and improving

This video is crazy. Nacho (that is his name) is a pocket Hercules. I've been training a fair bit in the last 3 months but I don't feel I've improved at climbing other than regain some strength that I lost from not training and climbing for a while. I've decided to focus on finger strength, particularly on how I grip holds out on real rock - it's all about the closed hand half crimp grip. If you can get strong enough to hang one handed with that, then you're in good stead to crush some hard problems. At the moment, I'm not adding any extra weight to myself like Nacho, just either pinching the door frames or a rope. I'm doing a lot of arm/shoulder work in the form of one armed chin ups and reverse arm curls. I do front lever and leg raises for my core. This is really boring and I don't know why I'm writing it. I think I decided to write it because I'm bored and I don't have anything else to write about. I guess I can write about the time I saw the skin on my stomach (abdomen) hanging off. I was frying an egg and I (naively) let my sister fill the frying pan with oil. She put a lot in there, and it was more like deep frying than shallow frying. I even queried this with her, but her reply was along the lines of 'Quit being a bitch'. Hmm. I guess at the time I thought hmm, well I'm guess you're right, I am being overly cautious. I continued frying and the inevitable happened. Armed men burst in the kitchen and I had to defend myself. I flung the frying pan at them, sending boiling oil straight into their faces. AAAAHHHH!! They screamed and opened fire. I dived behind my sister, who bravely caught the bullets and fell to the ground dead. I rolled her corpse off me and leaped towards the first assassin (I assume they were assassins), he fired wildly, hoping he'd get me with a stray bullet. He didn't. Whilst leaping, I grabbed a pen from the table, and stabbed it into his eye, killing him. Ok, I'm stopping this now, this have got weird and I have got all carried away. Alas, armed men didn't burst into my kitchen on a Sunday morning. What actually happened was that I continued frying, and flipped over the egg and at that moment the clown from IT burst into the kitchen and tried to rape me. Damn it. Now I have the clown from IT in my mind, and I fucking hate that thing. I hate clowns. I think I hate clowns because of that film. EEWAAHH fuck that noise.

I'm going to keep writing about my frying anecdote because I want to stop thinking about clowns and in particular, clown rape. That would be horrible. So, I was frying this egg and then I flipped it over. Due to the abundance of oil, some splashed on my hand which was holding the handle. I screamed (something like AAAGGHHH!!), and annoyingly my reflex action made me smash my injured hand into the frying pan, which flipped over onto me. All the oil went straight down my belly. AAAAGGGHHHH!! Yeah, that hurt. It's hard to describe pain, but suffice to say, boiling oil on ones belly is painful. It's probably the single most painful thing I've experienced. I remember just standing there in agony and my sister grabbed my hurt hand and put it under the tap, she did not know that I had hurt my stomach. With my other hand I lifted up my t shirt. This is horrible to write, but a large part of my stomach was red raw, I looked down at where the burn had stopped and saw the hanging skin. The oil had sheared off my skin and it was hanging down. I rushed up the stairs and saw my mum, and stood in front her. She shouted 'SHIT!', or something along those lines and made me stand in the shower and sprayed cold water over the burn. I was in utter shock and in a lot of agony. We put cling film and frozen peas on the burn and then, rather than call an ambulance, my mum drove me to hospital herself. In hospital, they gave me morphine and I just kept asking for more. When I started losing consciousness they realised that I had had too much.  I was ok though. Morphine is pretty amazing, I understand now why people get addicted to it. I've got quite used to pain since then.

Health

There's a board game called Pucket which is really fun. Jez and I played it a lot at the End of the Road festival, it's a bit hard to describe, but it's a wooden board with two strings of elastics on either side and you're meant to flick a puck through a gate in the middle of the board. Christ, it's mentally taxing trying to describe it so I'm going to give up. I've lost track on what I was going to talk about. Pucket is really fun, I recommend to anyone reading this that they check it out on youtube. Since no one goes on my blog except myself and Russian porn websites (bizarrely), I'm not really helping the company that make Pucket. Oh well, small things. End of the Road! Yes, I went there a few weeks ago. It was amazing fun. This year I went with: Jez, Katie, Ben, Ali, Jon and Jon. It was probably the best year, probably because of discovering Pucket. I had seen it at the previous years but never played because we were always in a massive gang and this year, Jez and me wandered around a lot, together. Not in a gay way. This year was a mix of emotions when it came to love, because Lady Rotisserie wasn't there, but she was replaced by Mademoiselle Crepe. Oh my, she was essentially perfect. It was basically love at first sight. Well, not really first sight, I saw her making the crepes and thought oh she's quite pretty. Then she made me a crepe (not for free, £3.50) and after taking the first bite, I remember looking up at her and thinking oh wow, you're amazing. That's when I fell in love. After 3 more crepes (spread over a day and an half), I mustered up the courage to speak to her, but due to my social awkwardness/dyslexia/shyness whatever, all I could think of was to say 'Where are you from?'. She replied 'I'm from Brittany'. My first thought was Bollocks, abort Will. But I persevered, however, my speaking part of my brain didn't - struggling to think of any miniscule thing I knew about Brittany, I failed and said 'Thaaaa thhhaaaat's a nice place'. Shit, well that's fucked, good one, well at least you tried. Still wanting to fight this because the loss of Lady Rotiserrie was still in my thoughts, I said 'I want to learn French'. She was still smiling whilst making my crepe but I think that was more due to politeness, she was probably thinking this guy is actually mental, sacrebleu, celine dion blah blah un deux trois. My grasp of French is rather weak. While I was taught it at school, I wasn't the most studious of pupils and spent most of the time just chatting to my mate about shit. Not literally shit, as in defecation, but just random stuff. Our teacher was a weak willed replacement teacher who could not control us. In fact, I think we drove her to have a mental breakdown. Anyway, back to my End of the Road romance, after saying that I wanted to learn French, I said 'Ok, can I order in French? I'm actually in love with you'. Oh yes, I remember! I hadn't even ordered my crepe by this point, she was making one for someone else! She replied 'Ah oui!'. I replied 'Great', my brain quickly popped up Will, what the fuck, you haven't given me time to prepare, you haven't spoken French in 5 years, oh shit you're saying it Bonjour, je voudrais un crepe sil vous plait', she replied asking what I want on it - I wanted butter and sugar, two words which I don't know in French... She helped me out with that. She then handed it to me and said 'Bon appetite!'. I replied 'Merci, I love you, au revoir!'. I walked off thinking ok, well that went as well as could be expected - you have a crepe and you can speak basic French, well done. Then I walked over to the guys and told them of my success, I spent the rest of the time in the eating area just looking wishfully over at the crepe girl. Which in hindsight, could be seen as creepy.

This is Pucket, it's really fun.

Here are a few nice songs - Corvette Cassette by Slow Magic

A Shell in the Pit, this guy is pretty good too.

I've been re-listening to Forest Swords lately, the EP Dagger Paths is amazing.

 This is funny.

More zombies

I had one of the weirdest dreams of my life last night. It was like a movie. The first thing I remember was sitting in a room with other people (who I don't recognise, but knew in my dream) and then being invited to sit in a row of seats in an elevated simulator device. Then the guide announced that we were part of a zombie experience and were then each given a weapon (in order to defend ourselves). My weapon was a bizarre knife thing, that was very awkward to use and kept changing size and ergonomics each time I looked at it (actually, everything shifts around in my dream, nothing stays the same for very long). Then the zombies appeared. They were a mixture of the slow moving ones from the 1960s films and the more recent 28 Days Later, fast moving ones. They attacked us where we were sitting and I knew (from experience with dealing with zombies) that only beheading would be effective.  I killed one with my knife thing, but then I lost it. Somehow our simulator shifted into a train and we made a run for it down the carriage. After trying to evade them for a while on the train, I went through a door and somehow ended up at a manor house. Still lacking a weapon, I hide and then tried to escape by getting onto the roof. Unfortunately, a zombie was there waiting for me. It was like my brain was conspiring to get me killed. Desperation took hold and I had no choice but to fight the zombie with what ever I could find. I resorted to flinging roof tiles at it. I did a fair bit of damage to it, but alas did not kill it. Hmm. I have forgotten what happened next. I should have really written this down as soon as I woke up, but I got distracted and forgot. It was really vivid and my first reaction when I awoke was 'That was mental'. Zombie/apocalyptic dreams seem to be a recurring theme at the moment. Weird. I had another dream a while ago wherein I was trying to find a refuge after the apocalypse had hit the world. I was in a large horse van with my friend, driving through woodlands. I was sitting (in hindsight, rather dangerously) on top of the van and I turned around and saw another van approach. It was driven by cannibals (obviously), who wanted to kill and eat us. We started driving erratically to evade them and somehow we did. We then found the refuge and there I met my flatmates, Nick and Kat. I was concerned for the safety of my brother, and so I texted him using my new camera (which bizarrely had the ability to send texts). He was safe in Paris. I was then called to a big meeting and we all crammed ourselves in this meeting hall. I was sitting next to Kat. Another member of the meeting asked a question and Kat decided to reply using a limerick. Instead of just saying it, she decided to sing it. In front of everyone. It was weird. I then woke up and thought 'What the fuck is wrong with me?'.

Dreams are weird.

The weekend

I really like YouTube, it's amazing. The videos crack me up, I think I could spend at least 2 hours just watching the videos. I made some videos too but no one watches them. Well, some do (one video of mine has over 500 views).

I can't really remember when I last wrote on my blog because after looking at these amazingly funny videos, I thought Oh damn, I can write about how funny these videos are on my blog, and then rushed to my blog and started typing. I'm still typing. It's like my internal thoughts are linked to my fingers, which I guess is essentially true. Ah crap, I keep on losing my train of thought.

Here's a fun music video

On Saturday I went to my friend's birthday in London. Her name is Claire and I've known her for 9 years, I met her at uni. A lot of other uni friends were there too. I had a couple of Jagerbombs, which are delicious. They are the best tasty shot things ever. Much nicer than Tequilia or those spirits. I also had a cider and some sort of vodka/apple juice mixer. That didn't taste nice. Hik and Miena bought us a huge ice filled jug which was also filled with bottles of Grey Goose vodka and numerous mixers (such as apple juice). There was a sparkling firework on the top of it too. I thought that was a nice feature. The place we went too was rather busy, uncomfortably so, and there was a weird little girl running around who tried to dance with Jez and myself. She was probably about 4ft. Like a little goblin. So her and the whole busy environment made me want to leave. Which I did. Jez, Matt and I went back to Katies and soon everyone else arrived. We sat around and Jez and I rapped about Matt eating corn from toilets. This is because of something he did while at last years End of the Road festival. He ate a lot of the corn on the cob that was sold there, and described to us, in detail, as to what it was doing to his digestive system. Suffice to say, living on exclusively a diet of corn on the cob doesn't do ones bowls any good. It was happening to me too (the corn on the cob was delicious), but I had the social grace not to chat about it. Anyway, whenever he went to the porta loo, he would come back and give us a breakdown of how the experience went. Unfortunately for Matt, Nick Harvey was there and he enjoys bullying people. Also so was Nick Ripper, Alex Hayward, Jez and myself and Katie. We went to town on him. By the end of the vocal bullying session we were calling him 'Plopchomper' and 'Corny nimbler' and asking him whether he likes to have a little nimble of the partially digested corn in the loo and whether he waits for other people to go in before he gets his fill. Haha it makes me chuckle thinking about it (us making fun of him, not him nimbling poo covered corn).

Here are some of the videos I've been watching

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_v12D0-bWw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogEtfIdgjpY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLcvCH1h1qk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32FB-gYr49Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgFglYlx_cI&feature

Here are some photos of the weekend too

Here's some people I know

I don't know her, but she's the lady who brought the expensive drinks to our table

This is unrelated to the weekend, I did a quiz online and did very well indeed - I was proud enough to take a photo

Here's Claire holding her birthday firework

Another email.

I was going to copy and paste an email I received from some girl called Adriana, but I've just skimmed through it and it's really long. I haven't counted but I'm sure that it approaches 700 words in length. That's excessive. Here's a few paragraphs...

BABE... i guess your not getting any of my email huh? ive been
tryign to email u so many times but this dam laptop is such a piece of
garbage and keeps freezing.. anyways how u been? 

In case u dont know who this is its ME Adriana.. we used to chat a bit 
on facebook and then I think u deleted me :( haha.. anyways guess what... 
I got 2 things to tell u.. both good news.. 1) im single now.. yup me 
and my bf broke up about 3 months ago... and 2) guess where im moving? 
RIGHT EFFING NEAR U.. lol... ur actually the only person im gonna know 
there.. well 3 cousins too but i cant chill with them lol..


I remember when we chatted u told me u thought i was cute and u wanted 
to chill so now we finally can HAHA! im kinda scared to move.. im hoping 
this email addy is still the one you use and u can chat with me ebfore 
i get there.. maybe even help me move my shit in...are u still on facebook? 
i cudnt find ui was soo confused...anyways im gonna need someone to show 
me the town and take me out so u better be around bebe...


we only chatted a couple times but i remember thinking to myself i 
wanted to get ot know u better when i was single..a nd i thoguth u were 
cute too but cudnt tell u cause i wasnt single lol...ok so more info about 
me.. well im 23.. virgo.. love the outdoors and love to socialize, go out for
drinks, restaurants, movies etc.. travel.. i have a lil kitty named
BOO and i luv her to death... uhhh oh im a super horny gurl too but
every gurl is they just wont admit it. so ilove watching p0rn and all
that.. love sex etc blah blah blah...who doesnt..

Hmm, firstly I must stress that I don't know this person (even though she appears to know me). Secondly, from the 1st line you can realise that she's a retard. i. Your. Email. She really needs to either work on her diction or at least proof read her message before she hits send. And then she blames her tardy ability to send emails on her laptop, which doesn't really seem right since even the most basic of laptops have the technology required to write emails. I guess that perhaps it may have a virus or perhaps it has no free memory (which doesn't particularly surprise me considering how much porn she claims to watch - streaming videos requires a good amount of processing power and internet bandwidth). She then goes into how I know her from Facebook (I don't) and that she thinks I deleted her (I didn't, but would have done). Considering that she thinks that I deleted her, she still goes on to try to meet up with me. In most people, if one gets deleted from another persons Facebook, then that's a strong hint that the said person doesn't like them. Yet it seems Adriana is oblivous to that, perhaps she's actually mental. Hmm. She claims that we've chatted a couple of times (we haven't), and that she's named her cat 'Boo'. That's a dumb name. So she's 23, has a crappy laptop, likes watching porn, and has a cat named Boo. Hmm but she did say I was cute, and since I'm very receptive to flattery, perhaps she's not all bad.

Time

I think it's been about a month since I last wrote something on my blog. Since I'm the only person who actually reads it regularly (I like to laugh at my interesting life experiences), and that I don't particularly like writing a post for the stake of it, I feel that I'm justified in going long stretches of time between posts. I've just eating a huge lasagne from the work canteen (plus garlic bread) so I feel rather full up. Many people say that it's perfectly acceptable, in fact it's better for you, to stop eating when you're full, rather than just keeping on eating. I don't subscribe to that. When I have food in front of me, I have entered an obligation to eat every scrap, even if eating all of it would make me feel ill for hours after. I don't really like seeing food go to waste. I really like eating too. Fortunately, I'm rather wiry, so my eating habits don't affect my weight. I do feel sick though.

I have done quite a few things since I last wrote on the blog.

• I've watched this video
• And this one
• I went to see Liam and Ben's gig in London, that was really fun.
• Alex and I went to the Field Day Festival. Fortunately, he didn't vomit bile and so wasn't ejected. 
• At Field Day Festival, I saw one of my favourite bands - Tortoise - they played this song. Please.
• Went to the Comedy Store in London for Jez's birthday and then to a cocktail bar. There was a pretty girl there, well I thought she was pretty, but then she stood up and she must have been close to 7ft in height. In fact, a lot of the women there were larger than average. By that, I don't mean that they were fat, but that they were giants, and so were rather physically imposing. The music in the cocktail bar was being played at an excessively loud volume and it made me have to shout into someones ear, and visa versa. That made me uncomfortable. I don't understand why it needs to be that loud. It was one of those situations where the phrase 'I can barely hear myself think' would have been apt, and wouldn't be classed as hyperbole.

Field Day

 I send emails to my friend Alex every so often and he thought that the latest one was particularly funny. Since I am very receptive to flattery, I thought hey, maybe I should put it on my blog? Yeah.

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I'm going to the Field Day festival on Saturday, if you thought EotR was trendy, Field Day makes it seem like a trainspotters appreciation meeting. Going with Ben and the London gang, it's going to be berserk. I would suggest that you come, but I fear that the mere thought of a hipster wearing a grateful dead t shirt with cut off sleeves and shorts made of organic hemp from Sudan (with a Uniqlo label), and a sparrows nest (with birds) carefully placed on the head, with a tilt which varies every minute depending on the fashion at the time, would make you vomit viscous bile - which, ironically, in itself would be considered 'cool' and so quickly adopted by the other festival goers. So the festival would quickly become overwhelmed with bile, which boat shoes are ill suited to resist. Presumably, the festival organisers would be aware of how fashion works, so would quickly take down any festival goer who deviates too much from the current fashion trend. Thus, you would be thrown out of the festival, which you didn't particularly want to go to anyway, so feeling frustrated and angry, you would walk to Epping Forest, where you would adopt a simpler way of life. After a few content months of living this way, you would happen upon a young maiden, washing her clothes by a stream. She would also be an exile, so you would talk and rejoice in your mutual ambivalence to modern youth culture. But one day, while chopping wood at your self made home, you'll hear a noise. You'll think 'Oh no, why now? WHY?!'. Your beloved will come rushing over, the wildflowers that she had been collecting spill over the ground, 'They're coming!' she whispers. She rushes inside. You look off in the distance, opening your mouth slightly to increase your hearing ability. You can only hear the birds and the leaves rustling in the wind. Wait. You hear a jingle, like a dozen bracelets on one arm rubbing against each other. You hear someone shout out 'Last one on drugs is a dickhead!'. It is followed by cheers. You can see them, and they have seen you. The leader says to his friends 'Oh wow, an authentic country cottage, let's set up an impromptu party. Iona, have you got the candles? Sideways Len, have you got the bunting? Let's get to work!'. Iona is about to arrange a candle decoration when THUMP, an arrow pieces her chest. She looks down at the wound. It has cleanly pieced her retro linen cardigan, which was on sale from Topshop. She pulls out the arrow, blood spurts from the wound. She falls and dies. Some of the others immediately rush over, 'let's make tie dye with her blood, it'll be so cool!' they say. THUMP THUMP THUMP. The three of them fall to the ground. You look round and see your beloved notching another arrow, you bow your head and utter 'My lady'. Your hand grips tightly on your axe. You go to work...

So begins the saga of Alex and hipstergedon.

To be continued...

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I'm going to Field Day on Saturday, it should be fun. Alex doesn't really like the whole hipster culture scene,. And tries to avoid them at all costs. I write 'all costs' but I guess that's hyperbole - if he saw a clique of them outside Tescos, and he was hungry, I'm sure he'd walk through them to get in. Or if a clique of them held his family hostage and demanded that he buy them the albums on Pitchfork's best album list, he'd probably attack and kill them, rather than run away. I don't really care about all that 'hipster' stuff, I guess I have characteristics of one anyway. Ironically, so is Alex in some ways. Though, I think the true meaning of the word is affectation. Like wearing t shirts with annoyingly loose collars. Or wearing glasses without any lenses or which lack even a modicum of visual corrective properties.

Noble gases

I heard a good song lately, the album hasn't been released but I have found the song on a Brazilian radio show - it starts at 1:26. A nice summer song. There's a cool 20 minute sufi song which I might listen too after it. I heard it on Damon Albarn's XFM show back in 2005. I was driving home from my friend's house late at night, and I switched on the radio and heard it. A good song. I have no idea what they're talking about, but the music is nice. It reminds me of Christmas. Which I guess it interesting since Christmas is a Christian affair but the song is about Islam. They're both Abrahamic religions, so I guess it's still appropriate. I couldn't care less about the religious aspect of Christmas. I guess that's why I don't really care about getting presents or getting caught up in the season. Christmas normally works out with my family texting each other about what presents each of us want. My mum is kind of religious, but not in a 'in your face' way, more of a 'I was brought up Christian and the thought of death scars me' kind of way. She goes to church most weekends and goes to a bible study group. I sense that she's disappointed that all three of her children are either agnostic or atheists. I guess I'm an atheist, though the word is a bit weird, I'm more apathetic when it comes to religion - it all seems a bit silly, like unicorns and fairies. I was brought up a Christian, and I was sent to Christian camp until the age of 13, and I went to Sunday school etc. I was never particularly interested in it. I remember praying before I went to bed when I was young and that I had trouble grasping how the praying process works - did I have to say (or think) 'amen' after the prayer as a equivalent to 'over and out' on two way radios. It all seemed a bit silly to me. I think I stopped praying when I was 11/12, though I can't be sure. Then I had an existential crisis at 7, when I realised that someday my parents would die and so would I. Christian camp was a funny place. The first few camps were quite a laugh, because we were young and the leaders didn't force God stuff down our throats. But it got a bit weirder in the later years. Once, they got everyone in the main hall, and played us a video of Jesus getting executed in rather gory detail. The nails going in etc. And they played heartfelt music in the background. By the end, you could hear people sobbing, they were saying 'Oh, the suffering, how could they (the Romans) do that? It's awful' etc. I was thinking 'Well, the Romans did that to a lot of people, and they had other methods of execution which were much worse'. We then walked out and everyone went back to their rooms. I was sitting in my room when a leader knocked on the door and asked to speak to me. We sat on the stairs and he asked me how I felt about the video and how I was affected. I told him that I was obviously a bit sad after watching a video of someone getting executed (even though it was Willem Dafoe), but that I didn't really care about religion and that I wasn't ready to become a bible wielding Christian. It didn't help that I considered Jesus' execution a form of suicide, since he recognised that he had to die in order to achieve his goals, and did everything possible to be captured and to infuriate the Jewish council, who would invariably call for his death. I guess that's the whole sacrifice part of it though.

Another funny incident was when they led us into the main hall again and sexually abused all of us in turn, the girls first, then the boys - they played Gary Glitter's My Gang in the background. Hahahaha, that didn't happen. That would have been pretty horrific if it did, and I'd probably blank it from my memory, so perhaps it did? Haha, I'm sure it didn't. What I was going to write was: they led us in the main hall for the evening prayer and since it was one of the last days before we went home, they made it a bit more fancy. They made us stand for a while, and the camp leader said to us 'Now we're going to pray, if you don't want to be here, please don't feel like you have to'. So, everyone is there, standing still, listening to hymns, praying, crying. My brother turned around and shouted 'Screw this' and walked out. I stood still for an instance then followed. When we got outside, I turned around and saw a large number of people also leaving. We had started a walk out. My friend stayed in the hall because that they were giving out wine for people who stayed.

I can't remember if I've written about that before.

Cooking

Last night I cooked myself goulash. It was amazing. I would like to think that it was because of cooking skills, but I think it's mostly due to reading the Hairy Bikers recipe. I had some lamb pieces and was going to make myself a lamb tomato/garlic dish with pasta. But as I was cooking the lamb, I thought 'Will, why don't you make some goulash?' and I replied 'Yeah, that's a great idea, I even have the caraway seeds and potatoes'. So I did. Hmm, reading that back over, I realise that I have just come across as having a split personality. While I do speak to myself when I'm alone, I don't really have conversations. I just say odd words or sing a few lines of songs. Anyway, the goulash was really nice and I had enough left for lunch, which I have just eaten. Bare good. When I went to Hungary with Uni, I basically lived off the stew. That was a cool trip. I used to be a big drinker then too. We would work 8 hours on the archaeological site, then go straight to the pub and I'd drink 6 pints of Stella. Everyday for a month. Weird. I can't stand beer now. The Hungarians we used to hang out with used to brew there own Palinka, which is a brutal fruit based spirit. It's like alcoholism in a bottle. We were hanging around the table and the talking switched to dares. I get surprisingly confident when it comes to dares, since I don't really care about much. Suffice to say, my friend dared me to drink 8 shots of palinka, in a row. I think the stuff was about 60%, because it was moonshine stuff. Not being the type to turn down a challenge, and living by my mum's mantra 'Always give into peer pressure; it makes you more popular', I happily accepted the dare. My friends lined up the shot glasses and I went for it. By the 7th shot, I was beginning to choke up. The 8th went down awkwardly, but it went down all the same. I just sat there and my friend's were like 'Cool, now what should we do?'. I looked around and I knew that I had earned the respect of my peers, particularly the stoic Hungarians and somber Scandinavians. Things weren't really going so well though. My stomach was really not happy. The alcohol was beginning to affect me too. My body was going into defense mode. It knew that it had been poisoned and that there was only one way to fix this situation - by vomiting. Thankfully, I had enough willpower over my body that I didn't vomit there at the table. My friend, Rich, looked at me and said 'Will, are you ok? You're visibly sweating'. I wasn't ok... 5 minutes ago I had drunk a lethal amount of homemade Hungarian spirit. I looked at Rich and grunted 'Er, no, I'm going home'. I stood up and stumbled out. I walked past another friend who was entering the pub, 'Hey Will, where you going?'. I looked up at him and grumbled 'home, uhhh'. Fortunately, he was a good friend and he left me alone, which is what I wanted. I got into my apartment block and crawled up the stairs. I felt my stomach was going mental. For some reason, I went to my room, instead of the communal toilets. I lied down on the bed and that's when the spinning started. It was hell. It like like my brain was metaphorically spinning at 500 rpm in my head. That was the final straw, my willpower was failing. I lurched up and ran to the toilets, I started vomiting before I reached the toilet bowl, but the majority went in. I stumbled back to my room and my bed. The process of bed/toilet repeated about 4 times in total.

It was a horrible experience. I don't really drink much nowadays, it just makes me feel really ill. There are a lot more drugs out there that are better for you. Though, I do still drink cider. That stuff is amazing. I don't understand why anyone drinks beer and not cider. It's like apple juice. Jaegarbombs are pretty nice too.

This is the only photo my Hungary field trip. I'm not even in the photo.

Strength

You should listen to this while reading.

I have been re-reading my blog, and I have noticed that most of my entries have spelling and grammatical errors. I guess that's because I type as I speak in my head, and I sometimes skip words etc since I can't type as fast as I can think. Hmm. Or maybe it's because I haven't fully grasped the English language, even though my parents spent a fortune so that I would (along with a solid education).

I have been training and climbing quite a bit lately, I'm not sure why, I think it's because I was fed up with being rubbish at climbing. My fingers are getting pretty strong, thanks to my training. Basically, I just hang off a small edge at varying arm angles, whilst holding a bungee cord in the other hand (which is attached to a bar). I can now do one armed pull ups on either arm - I performed the feat in front of a witness, who was clearly in awe and very impressed.

I was going to write something interesting, but I have forgotten. I might write something tonight. I can't right now since my typing is making a loud noise and my boss is looking directly at me. I'm pretending to write an email (I'm trying to looking engaged and occasionally I nod).

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 My boss has left work so I will continue writing. I still don't have anything to write about, so here are a few photos.
 

 This is my chin up bar and fingerboard at my parents home. I get strong by hanging off it.

 These are some of my friends: L to R, Katie, Jez, Tom, Francis, Alex and Nick. I like them. Looks like Jez said something funny, since Tom, Francis and Alex are smiling. Those guys, there's always laughter when I'm around. I guess that's because I'm there to witness it. I assume there's also laughter when I'm not around, I just can't hear it.

 These are some of my northern climbing friends: L to R, Rich, Ned, Nacho (not really a friend, I've only met him once (that evening)), Alex, Chris and Nick. I'm the worse rock climber out of the group, and they made it clear that I understand that. Fortunately, I had the best hearing and the most potent wit, so I made up for my poor climbing skillzzzzzzzzz blluuuuuudddd.

 These are my new shoes. I tried to get my parents dog to pose with them, but she refused (she's a panicky little thing). My parents cat 'Rollo' is in the background, my mum deliberately overfeeds my cats so that they don't threaten the birds (an obsese cat is a lethargic cat).

 This is me, looking like an utter dweeby chump on my friends motorbike. I don't ride.

Here is my niece, Georgia. She's a funny child. I'm her favourite uncle.

Punching

I had a big family gathering the other weekend, mostly the Abbotts (rather than people from my mothers side of the family). It was a good day, it was nice to see my nieces Grace and Georgia. They like me more than my brother, I think that's because I'm a fun person and I also helped raise them from when they were babies. I had graduated from uni when Grace was born, so I was unemployed for a while, so I was around a lot to help look after her. And when Georgia was born, I was working contracts with the BBC, so I was again, unemployed a lot. They're a funny duo. Tracey hosted the event, she's a kick boxing instructor, which I found interesting since she's rather short. Well as Yoda once said 'Size matters not, judge me by my size do you?'. Hmm, I'm not comparing Tracey to Yoda, except they are both quite short (Yoda is very short). Tracey isn't green or fictional. She has a body bag thing set up. Hmm when I write 'body bag', I should have written 'punch bag', I guess I could have deleted that and you'd have been none the wiser, but I felt that I would leave it in - in the interests of not ruining my stream of consciousness prose. So she had this punch bag set up and I start punching it (without gloves) and then a crowd started forming (This happens a lot with me, because I'm generally the most interesting person in the group, people stay near me in case I do something interesting. Or if they're not near me and they hear that I'm doing something interesting, they all go 'Oh cool, Will is doing something interesting, lets see!', even if they're in mid conversation with someone else)(That was of course not entirely true, Tracey and Nick (my cousin) had recently bought the house so we were all on a guided tour of sorts and when I saw the punch bag, I was immediately fixated and that stopped the tour, so when I said that a crowd had formed due to my interesting personality, I was slightly distorting the truth - a crowd was already there, due to the aforementioned guided tour.)

So I started punching this bag, and then Tracey came over and said 'Hey Will, put these gloves on'. I complied because my knuckles were hurting (it made me think about bare knuckle fighters and what a painful life they live). I put on the gloves and started punching away. BAM BAM BAM, 3 hit combo. It was like I was born to punch things. Everyone stood in awe and Tracey said 'Wow, you've got a good punch!'. My dad just shouted 'SHIT! He's a natural!'. I heard one guy in the back whisper to his friend (I heard due to my super hearing) 'Christ, is that guy a professional?', and his friend replied 'I don't know, but he should be, with punches like that'. That didn't happen. The punching of the bag did, and Tracey complimenting me, but not the guys whispering, or my dad saying 'SHIT! He's a natural!'. Anyway, it turns out that I'm quite good at punching. I think it's because of my climbing. It's made my back, core and arm muscles rather powerful, which are vital for a good punch. I always wondered about how my climbing what help my combat abilities, I used to think that being a climber, with a strong upper body would assist me in a fight. Turns out that it does, I can punch very well. Tracey said that I could have a lesson with her, to learn kick boxing. But I declined since while my upper body is strong, I can't say the same about my legs. They're like chicken legs.



If you want to see what my uni life was like, look here:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=8B5D2DB1D7AB99F8&id=8B5D2DB1D7AB99F8!110&sc=photos#cid=8B5D2DB1D7AB99F8&sc=photos

Here's a photo of my brother (James), my sister (Lucy) and me at the family reunion thing I mentioned earlier.

More junk mail

For some reason I keep on getting emails from women in Eastern European countries, who are trying to form an intimate relationship with me. I don't reply to the emails since I was always told (by various people), not to reply to junk messages because then 'they'll know you have an active email address and so attack with vigour!'. I don't know why I put that in quotations, it was ages ago that 'they' warned me about junk mail and I have long forgotten the exact words they said.

Good day, my name is Milana I live in Azerbaijan.

I'm kind, caring and interesting girl. I'm very lonely in my life. I want to find good man to spend all my life. You can see my photo with this message.  If you free and don't have relations with other woman and you also lonely then send me the message. I hope you will like my appearance and I will get the answer from you. Then I would tell you more about me and will learn more about you. Please write to me at my private e_mail: mstodich@yahoo.com

I'm looking forward to your letter. 

Milana

A lack of grammar seems to be a recurring theme with these emails, but I guess I'm being far too judgmental since I only know English, let alone French or German (which were taught at school). I used to know quite a bit of French (never fluent though), but it's been a while since I've had to use the language properly. It must have been hard for Milana to learn to English, considering the educational facilities in Azerbaijan, which I assume aren't something OFSTED would consider 'great'. But she did write a fairly understandable email and for that I commend her. She also did attach her photo (unlike the other girl) so she has proven herself to be an effective computer user. Milana is definitely better than the last girl.

Junk messages

Sometimes, I get interesting junk messages, this one is particularly good -

Hey my friend. It was nice to see your profile on dating site. I'm 28 years young woman, sporty, slim and family orrinted woman, looking for serious man for family creation. If you are interested in serious relationship, feel free to e-mail me at: angellonely@ymail.com

I will wait for your answer. 

Here is my foto in attachment, hope you will like it Have a good day! Hopefully, your nice friend!

What a charming lady, I particularly like how she used the words 'family creation' - romance is not lost on this young lady (28 years young). Though I was disappointed that she didn't actually attach any 'fotos', which she said that she did. Well, this is certainly a knock to our relationship - she wants to create a family, yet can't even attach a photograph to an email. What hope does she have for raising a child? Or perhaps she expects that I look after the child, whilst she goes about her day, shopping or doing hobbies. Though, even those tasks require a modicum of intelligence. I first thought that perhaps English was not her first language, due to the numerous grammatical errors in her email. But I now think that she might just be really dumb. Hmm, can people with severe intellectual disabilities operate computers? Maybe she had help, in which case, her helper was also retarded since he allowed the aforementioned grammatical errors to be uncorrected. Either way, it's shoddy work and she will be waiting a long time for my reply.

Things

I'm not really keen on writing blogs to showcase what I've been doing lately or write about any achievements - i.e. see Jon Partridge's cringey blog... I generally write when I have something interesting to write about. I did have something interesting to write about, but I have literally just forgotten it. I thought about it in my head, haha yeah Will, that's pretty funny, you should write about that in your blog, your blog is becoming a great way to show off your brutally good wit and stuff and bla bla bla I'm really thirsty now so I think I'm going to get some water. The bit at the end actually happened, I'm sitting at my desk with a cup of water. I sometimes find it hard to focus and my mind wanders a lot. So anyway, I forgot what to write about. I think in future, as soon as I think of something to write I just need to quickly write it down and then I have something to jog my memory.

I think this whole short term memory/attention span problem is a recurring theme.

I have re-read a few of my previous entries and I'm shocked by the number of spelling and grammatical mistakes I make. I think it's due to my stream of consciousness style of writing. And maybe also my dyslexia. Nick doesn't believe I have dyslexia - 'You're not a retard Will, you can read, write and spell'. He just thinks my mother was a hypochondriac and put this condition upon me. Hmm, that doesn't really explain all the tests I had when I was a child that showed that I did have mild dyslexia. And also, while I am a very good reader and writer, you get me dictating and I'm fucked. Hmm, actually I guess I'm not that bad.

I got a bit side tracked and started reading about dyslexia on Wikipedia, and then onto intelligence and IQ. It seems I that I could have applied to join Mensa when I was 9. I don't think I really knew anything about Mensa at that age, and maybe my parent's just weren't bothered (they probably didn't let me join the club order to prevent my siblings from getting jealous). When I was 9 I had an IQ test (I had a lot of tests when I was young, along with my brother (who also has dyslexia)) and I scored 136 using the Stanford-Binet test, which works out at 154 on the Cattell test (Ones IQ number varies depending on the test) - Mensa has a minimum entry of 148 for the Cattell test (130 for Stanford-Binet, I have just read). Hmm actually I did think about joining Mensa when I was at uni, but couldn't really be bothered because of the hassle of taking another test and all the paperwork. And at that point in my life, I used to have panic attacks during exams.

And also, I'm not overly sure what happens when you join Mensa. Maybe you get preferential treatment during an apocalypse (like being allowed into a governmental retreat or something), or you have monthly get togethers where you chat about clever things. I think I would be rubbish at those kind of events. If someone said to me 'Greetings Will, my name is Marcus, what's the square root of 20124?', I'd really struggle. Actually, I wouldn't just struggle, I'd reply 'Fuck knows, I'm shit at maths'. And then it get all awkward and people there would start muttering about who let me in. Hmm, I don't think I'd openly swear that at the chap, my innate politeness and anti-confrontational attitude wouldn't allow that to happen. However, if they asked me some general knowledge questions like where did Napoleon die?* Or what was the primary armament of the P-51 Mustang?*, then I'd probably do reasonably well. I would probably get bored quite quickly and also get tired, unless there was a chair. A good spread would be a plus too. I used to be a factual bookworm when I was younger, I had loads of books like factfinders and encyclopedias. Never in a weird, geeky way, like sitting in the library reading, I just used to enjoy reading about facts when I was home from school. This is probably why I FUCKING LOVE WIKIPEDIA.

If anyone reading this ever sees me in real life, please ask me a general knowledge question - I really enjoy talking about facts and stuff.

* Napoleon died on the island of Saint Helena, in exile after losing the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
* The main armament of the Mustang were 6 M2 heavy machine guns, which fired the 12.7x99mm bullet. It was a good plane until the jet age rendered it obsolete.

America

I've taken quite a few photos of Hueco and the local desert - it's a cool place. I have edited the hell out of the photos using Lightroom, so much so that I doubt the word 'photo' really applies to them - maybe 'pictures' is more appropriate.

You should really listen to Cortez the Killer by Neil Young before looking at the photos:

Eating is a great way of passing the time

I'm in America and as such trying to eat a lot of American food. The variety of food here is mental. There's so many different franchises. In England, it's about the big three: KFC, Burger King and McDonalds. Here, it's more about the big 48. Mental. I've been having some weird dreams here too. Last night I dreamt that I was caught up in a zombie uprising. Hmm. Not really an uprising, since that denotes that the zombies were originally second class citizens who had finally had enough of being down trodden by regular humans and had finally rebelled. I guess a more accurate word would be 'zombie apocalypse'... Set in a school. In the dream I was wondering around the school (I was a pupil there so my presence was perfectly legit). I was in a first floor room (with a adult man (again, perfectly legit, he didn't have any sexual intentions towards me)). I looked out of the window at the various class rooms, which had small children in them, then I saw a load of zombies running loose and breaking into the class rooms and going mental. They started eating and attacking the children. My first thought was 'SHIT!'. I started having panicking (perfectly justifiable, given the situation). I was running around thinking 'I need a fucking weapon, what the fuck am I going to do? Shit, I'm fuck. Ahh fuck'. After trying to formulate a plan, I looked out of the window and I saw that the zombies had finally seen me having a panic attack and so had made a concerted effort to eat and kill me. My advantage was that I was on a first floor room, so it was really hard to get too (weirdly, I noticed that there were no stairs or anything nearby, in hindsight I did wonder how I got up there in the first place, but due to more pressing matters, I didn't really take it on board). The zombies were trying desperately to climb up and kill me but it was in vain. Then the other man in the room with me decided to become a hero and jumped out of the window to kill zombies. He swiftly died. By this time in the dream, I was becoming aware that I was dreaming, but not aware enough to actually control it. Somehow the zombies had figured out how to pull the floor down (this is where the dream got really weird, because the floor of the room became like felt and was getting pulled away by the zombies, I was holding onto the sides and the rafters, and all the zombies were trying to jump up and grab me). When the floor turned to felt and was getting pulled away, I finally had enough. I shouted 'Ah fuck this' and got frustrated and annoyed so I made myself wake up.

Dreams are weird yet really fun.