The freezing cold Tea bag tester

Some days are sent to test our resolve, sanity and basic human emotions, of this I have no doubt and I can attest to sampling many of these challenges over my life so far. I usually have a bad March and then a bad October, which being almost equidistant to one another means I can shore up the defences when the individual months mentioned above are approaching: this means cancelling any non-essential trips or appointments, ensuring I have some pittance saved to one side for emergencies that are bound to arise and trying to remain calm and collected in the face of an insurmountable Fate intent on disrupting everything around me.

Gaming the light fandango... pt 1

I am a moron. There, I’ve said it now. In fact I’m going to go a step further and state that I’m not only a moron but an ape, an arse, a clown, a cretin, a tool and ultimately, a twat. Indeed, there are many negative terms I could relate to myself without even becoming abashed at the brevity such monikers instill within our society because I accept that I am nothing more than an absolute pillock. And why, may you ask, am I reducing my very existence to the lowest of common denominators? Well it’s all because a life-long, crippling addiction - controlled for years via private solitude and introverted withdrawal - has suddenly raised its wanton head into my life again and in doing so, now appears to have cost me immeasurably.

GTA V Trailer: Read It and Weep!

The first look at Rockstar Game's newest GTA Sandbox world has finally arrived, so click the link above, jump inside and sample the pixel shaded trailer Elysium that is GTA V (that's 'Grand Theft Auto Five' to all non-gamers out there), which by a stroke of genius is accompanied by the opening instrumental music from the 1968 Small Faces song, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake! Surely 'tis a beast...

A neighbourhood in waiting... pt 2

As the din continued underneath, I stood listening for a few minutes frozen behind my front door, safe in knowledge that my unlit vestibule and the coats draped across its security glass camouflaged me from the noise-inducing cretins below. The same loud thudding that had awoken me seemed a little louder now that it had less brickwork to dampen its echo and through the wired glass I caught a few murky, distorted shapes moving around in the stairwell beyond: actual morons were in my midst.

A neighbourhood in waiting... pt 1

It was a low and dull distant thud that initially brought me out of my early morning slumber, where I was partly protected from the outside world’s intrusion by the yellow foam earplugs snugly fitted into my aural canals. I blinked once and then squinted at a point on my nearest bedroom wall, feeling the relaxation of the last eight hours of sleep rapidly dissipate as I awaited the arrival of another muffled bang.

Tick-Tock Tattoo and a case for wearing glasses

Every two weeks on the Friday, I’ve got the unenviable task of signing-on at my local Job Centre. It’s a place governed by streams of Liberalised red tape and populated with unemployed cretins and employed denizens who have an inability to crack a smile: if you attempt to lighten the mood with a little banter, they’ll glower at you as if you’ve just spat out a hate-filled Bernard Manning joke, regardless of whether you’re just someone trying to earn their next Job Seekers giro or you’re actually an out-of work comedian trying to get a laugh.

Smoking: uttering the dreaded 'S' word!

I used to adore smoking. Not having a joint or anything like that, just smoking normal, tobacco-filled cigarettes. There, I’ve said the ‘S’ word now and I don’t care: if anyone wishes to rain fire and brimstone down upon me because I dare to mention such a social travesty in our health-conscious, non-culture of the 21st century ‘Tweenies’, then feel free to cast your misjudged, self-righteous indignation my way, for I can take it! I’m neither embarrassed about nor regretful for the many years my body suffered at the hands of nicotine, tar and the many assorted chemical ills within each cigarette I interned.

Bad letter day…

My Postman is as blind as a f**king Bat and although his misreading of envelope addresses has never caused me a direct problem in seven years, last week this Elysium all changed and the effect has been affective, to say the least. It all started when I became aware I hadn’t received any mail through my letterbox for nearly a week and yet, I knew my quarterly bills should have arrived and added to my current money woes. Now, whether it’s my latest six-page BT bill full of hidden charges or it happens to be British Gas’ reams of electrical extortion matters not one iota: the simple fact is my personal expenditure is processed and sent out to me on paper, in order for moi to settle the debts as these monopolising conglomerates expect their pound(s) of flesh, regardless of excuses.

Subconsciously counting backwards

It’s a while since I last wrote about one of my dreams - see "Dreams of what lie beneath" for more details - and so by chance, I just happened to have had a very vivid and quite disturbing dream last night. This subconscious rumination’s origin seems to have been a letter I received in the morning post the day before, but which I’d put off reading for 24 hours due to the potential implications laid out within its organised font. I will forsake exploring what was in the letter until after I’ve explained the slumbered intricacies that I can recall for this blog entry, but feel free to guess as you read along from the imagery, metaphors and subtexts used in this story...

BT to TalkTalk and back again... pt 2

It had only taken 40 minutes before the reassuring sound of an actual female human voice - albeit one with an Indian subcontinent twang to it - reverberated in the handset I was holding. During this time, I’d avoided the judgemental gaze of people wandering past my stationary phone-box stance and had grown increasingly furious with each passing nanosecond I had to endure the swirling blasts of icy air from the gap at the base of the box.

‘Hello, may I help you, Sir?’ was uttered once again due to my belated response.

BT to TalkTalk and back again... pt 1

Over the last year or two, I have written a couple of times on this blog of my absolute hatred and utter contempt for BT Broadband - see "BT Broadband: welcome to the dribbling trickle" and also "BT Infinity: promises, promises..." for more details - and I have felt no need to rescind my original anger towards this shower-of-shit company in recent times. My boiling rage usually entails a rambling discourse from me in a thousand words or so regarding British Telecom’s inability to garner my abode with a decent internet connection in the year 2011. As a result, I have equated their RG45 cabling along my skirting boards to string, with their wireless Home Hub version 2.0 and my local telephone exchange as the two tin cans on the end of said string: basically, I’ve dreamt of tortuous and bloody assassinations due to dropped packets, a continually rebooted modem and a download speed circa 1998...

The last lettuce in the shop...

Just the other day whilst out and about, I thought I’d pop into a local supermarket to pick up a few essentials, so in I went, scooping up a basket from the double-door entrance as I strode inside. Almost immediately, I came to the refrigerated vegetable section and realising I was short of a decent lettuce, I started to search around in the four-tiered, shelved greenery: I found pre-packed Rocket leaves, tossed salads, loose Spinach and watercress’ of various shapes and sizes but no lettuces - iceberg, curly, Gem or round - were anywhere to be seen.

Between a rock and an unemployed hard place

It’s official: I’ve been unemployed for the last three weeks and so far, things are looking very bleak indeed on the job front, as most people will realise in the current economic climate of the UK. So I’ve had to endure the whole new claim for Job Seekers benefit debacle that one must undergo when tossed onto the heap of uselessness, which is much like a dumped dog that its owners don’t want any part of anymore, hanging around for scraps. Yes, that’s my role now in society: I’m a shit-heel mutt, scurrying about for handouts, losing its hair through stress and feeling outside normality...

Script writing means no blogging!

Well, I appear to have had a two week hiatus from writing utter dross for this blog and all because I’ve been typing more and more of my nonsensical slop into an half an hour TV script in the fingers-crossed hope of breaking out of my monotonous, poverty-stricken, soon-to-be-unemployed existence. I’d originally written the synopsis and ten pages this time last year, but what with life and its tendency to fling handfuls of cooling shit upon me, I’d never found the time to progress beyond the basic outline, until now.

Gruel and rhubarb? Yes please!

During a trip to my local Post Office the other day, as I queued laden with parcels in a never-decreasing line of coughing, sniffling and diseased people, I happened to overhear just in front of me two blokes speaking in hushed tones. The bloke speaking the most was in his fifties but was powerfully built and had sore-looking cuts and scrapes across his face and bald head; the other bloke was in his thirties and was listening intently, albeit with an increasingly astonished look adorning his face as the older bloke’s tale progressed. With a long wait ahead of me, I popped out one of my MP3 earplugs and covertly eavesdropped on their conversation in order to kill the boredom.

A dalliance with the demon drink... pt 2

So, with my now-injured brother G bumbling his way towards his girlfriend’s mother’s house and their New Year’s Eve family party, things were definitely beginning to unravel in his little world: he had head-butted and successfully smashed a bus shelter’s Tempered glass panel with nothing more than his skull and was now deliriously wandering towards his destiny. Now, my brother has very limited recall for the following account, although he does occasionally get a flashback occasionally of such horrifying clarity that instant suppression is required to avoid festering upon being such a f**king idiot.

A dalliance with the demon drink... pt 1

“It’s probably the most embarrassed I’ve ever been in my life,” replied my brother - I’ll call him ‘G’ for the sake of this story - when I asked him to elaborate upon an infamous New Year’s Eve night many years before in his debauched past. “It took weeks to piece together exactly what had actually happened, with the fragments people told me they’d seen me doing during the night and then remembering little bits here and there,” he said as we sat having a brew together, “and even now, I’m still not sure of everything that happened.” Well, the story is a classic example of overindulgence in festive spirit, alcohol abuse and the resulting mindless cretin this can create, so allow me to share this tale of woe with you over two parts...

Did Alisha & Nathan actually touch in Misfits?

Here's a little animation of frames taken from Misfits episode five, series two for all the fans out there who were wanting Alisha to touch Nathan but never got their wish to see what additional filth would sprout from his mouth. Below is the proof they actually DID touch, albeit unintentionally so and apparently without any effect whatsoever! Please click the image beneath for the animation:

The Boiling Rage: 2010 in review

Got this email through this morning from WordPress, so thought I'd revel in my own (pathetic) brilliance and let anyone whose interested (!?) to gauge my 'Blog-Health-o-Meter™'! Now, I know the figures aren't immense or mind-blowing but still, World Dominance isn't attained in a day, is it...?

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,900 times in 2010. That's about 4 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 42 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 56 posts. There were 104 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 8mb. That's about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was December 5th with 109 views. The most popular post that day was A tale of two Bicycles.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were bv.com.au, imdb.com, facebook.com, mail.live.com, google.co.uk and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for the boiling rage, ellie koning, windows 7 advert, parcelforce, and colin brazier.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1. A tale of two Bicycles April 2010
2. Windows 7 UK adverts: anyone for an anal lobotomy? Jan 2010
3. Zombies: it's all about the way they move... December 2009
4. Parcel Force? P*ssing Farce more like! July 2010
5. Halifax Bank's Radio Station: feeling a little queasy April 2010
6. BT Broadband: welcome to the dribbling trickle   February 2010
7. Walking and Dogs - ready for a workout?   May 2010
8. In eBay sellers we trust    June 2010
9. New MP3 player, new top 10    September 2010
10. I can't get no Enlightenment satisfaction    December 2010

Some of your most popular posts were written before 2010. Your writing has staying power! Consider writing about those topics again.

So, there we have the result of all my hard work: another year has passed in my blogging world, with another 12 months suddenly arriving to occupy me and it's yet another 52 weeks sucked from my very bones as I head towards the grave, dust and the Universal.

And you know what? I wouldn't change a f**king thing!

New Year's Day (unwelcome) surprise

I got a New Year’s Day surprise today from my Boss, who ‘phoned up to let me know that my eBay manager job of the past four and a half years is being wrapped-up by the end of the month, so I’ve got the next three-and-a-bit-weeks before it’s finished, done, over, kaput, ended, etc...