At the third stroke, the time will be ..

Do you believe
In what you see ..?

I'll have to make this a brief one, as I have a seminar at 9am tomorrow (theoretically today). It seems that the strike action proposed for tomorrow has been called off and we get to go to uni and save our educations after all. Hurrah and huzzah.

Last night was a more drunken one than expected, causing me to inconveniently miss my 10am lecture this morning. I had to wake up about 8:45, to allow myself enough time to wake myself up properly and make the oh-so-tough decision to walk or get the bus. So, when my snowy, drunken self got home at around half 1, I went to set my phone alarm for said time. I don't really recall this part. Anyway, I woke up this morning to my alarm going off and looked at the time - 6:30. Brilliant, plenty of time left. So I went back to sleep, woke up again after a couple of hours, looked at my phone - 8:30. Stonking, I have an hour and a half before my lecture. Sweet. Then glanced up at my wall clock, which handily read 10:30. Huh? Shit.

Apparently when I went to set the alarm, I accidentally put the actual phone time back 2 hours, god knows how. Then, instead of fixing it, I just went ahead and set my alarm for 8:45. Of course, not ever remembering doing this, I thus woke up at 6:30 not realising it was 8:30. I kind of felt like the guy in Memento. I looked for a tattoo on my body somewhere that said 'You're a retard. You set your clock wrong last night. No-one killed your wife'.

So yes, the drunk mind works in mysterious ways. Particularly when cider to the brain has taken precedence over blood and oxygen.

James Christ and Associates.

I cheated myself,

like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I'm no good ..

If anyone ever says to you, "That Max Martin bloke is a pretty cool guy", then you can swiftly counter that statement with this piece of information:

He went to work, spewed hot chocolate down his white shirt when something made him laugh, accidentally set his tie on fire for the second time in a fortnight, left work wearing a jacket inside out, walked through snowy leeds in his converse, contrary to his many many past warnings, got in and played Modern Warfare 2 online for 2 hours. Then had a shower.

Hot damn, I love this game.

In keeping with this great image being presented of myself, I'm browsing the net at the moment looking for information on 'Denglisch'. I'm far too tired and unmotivated to give you a personal breakdown of it's meaning, thus: Wikipedia, I choose you! - "Denglisch is a portmanteau of the German words Deutsch and Englisch. Used in all German-speaking countries, it describes an influx of English, or pseudo-English, vocabulary into the German language through travel and English's widespread usage in advertising, business and IT . Synonyms are Gerglish, Angleutsch and Engleutsch."

This pastime gives me new reason to love the internet. It's the way that any search can be hijacked by something so brilliantly unrelated that concentration is impossible. One would think, that under the fairly non-assuming google search criteria of "effects of Denglisch", one would get fairly specific results. But no. Granted, I'm on page 10, but it's handily given me a news story dating from 2003 - ""Israeli archaeological experts said Wednesday an inscription on an ancient stone box suggesting it once contained the bones of Jesus' brother, James, was a forgery." This is from Yahoo. I've used 'search' on the entire page. It found the words 'effects' and 'of', but none of that all-important 'Denglisch'. For Christ's sake. And his brother James's, for that matter.

James? James Christ?

That's like discovering Doug Hitler. Or Brian Mussolini.

Different classes of strange people.

I need a gun to keep myself from harm,

The poor people are burning in the Sun ..
And they ain't got a chance, they ain't got a chance,
I need a gun, 'cos all I do is dance,
Cos' all I do is dance ..

Gorillaz are back again, yo.

I've just come across a story on BBC news about veteran Tory MP Nicholas Winterton. It seems, that in light of recent spending cuts, MP's are no longer allowed to travel First Class on trains. Or something like that, it wasn't completely clear. In any case, this smarmy twat has kicked out against this rule in such typical Tory fashion - that is, 'it's one rule for us and another for everyone else'. His argument had some decent ground at first - since he will now have to travel standard class - "I would not do work because people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction." Fair point. The whole illusion was shattered however when he added one of the most cringeworthy quotes of 2010: "They are a totally different type of people".

Credit where it's due in this case to Cameron's swift handling of the carryonsky - "A Tory spokesman said Sir Nicholas's remarks were "the out-of-touch views of a soon-to-retire backbench MP". Ha, bet he feels a twat now. Not even the Tories want you. Ha.

I say gas them, gas them all!

At the other end of the spectrum, I saw a bloke in Headingley today walking up past Sainsbury's with a can of Stella in his jacket breast pocket. Think about that. It's 8:30am. He has a can of Stella in his fucking pocket. You simply couldn't attempt to offend a guy like that. Imagine if you saw him with his kids, in a hypothetical situation, and you cursed loudly in front of them accidentally:- "Sorry mate, I didn't realise you had kids, I didn't mean to swe- you know what, you don't even care. You have a can of Stella in your pocket. Fuck it". Combined with his denim jacket and unkempt 80's pornstar moustache he made an impressive sight. Anyone who walks around in that getup just screams "I gave up a long time ago. Fuck off and leave me be."

This would have completed him

His morning routine must be great. Mine goes: 'wallet, phone, keys, pen, bag with notebook'. His must involve just slapping his pockets and going 'Wallet, Stella.. Let's go'. I also like to imagine he makes reference to it a lot in conversation, and says things at home like "Gosh darn it, where's my Stella .. Oh wait, it's here in my pocket! Right where I left it!"

I want the two people described in this blog to meet one day. On a train.

Traffic control

I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad,

I got sunshine in a bag,
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is comin' on, it's comin' on, it's comin' on ..

I'd like to draw attention to today's 'what I'm listening to'. I've only recently started listening to Gorillaz again, possibly some of the first songs I ever really appreciated. The one above is the intro to 'Clint Eastwood', which is simply flawless. Spotify it now, it's a stonking tune.

In today's lecture I'd like to let you in on the scary dangers of human herd mentality. I finished uni today at 1.00 and was making my way across campus to head home. As I neared the road, a huge herd of students came out and began walking across a gap in the road, even though cars were having to slow down and/or avoid them by the end. I stood politely however, as drivers were looking grumpy, and because I wanted to prove that I am a big boy and can wait for the green man.


It's a hilarious phenomenon though. If you're alone you stop, look, listen, if a car's gonna go where you're crossing, you don't move. But in a group, this doesn't happen. The bigger the group the better it gets; everyone just loses their mind and submits to the hive mentality, which just kind of says "go". As long as you stick to the middle, you're ok. The people around you are your buffers and it is they who will be squashed.

It pisses me off however on those frequent occasions when I too succumb to herd mentality. It's always at that critical moment of semi-daydream; "dumdeedumdeedum fuck me there's a car next to my thigh why am I in the middle of the road oh balls I've succumbed to herd mentality." This happens much too often. No more herds, no more! Although my herd mentality seems to kick in when faced with any herd bigger than 1, which doesn't bode well for my survival.

Bad hair day

We're caught in a trap,
I can't walk out ..
Because I love you too much baby ..

Yesterday was Valentines day, which meant I got to go to work and carry food and drinks to people who love each other. In another of my cunning cunning plans, I craftily booked off the daytime shift and got the evening one, to give me time to recover from what I expected to be a godawful hangover. But, as luck would have it, no such hangover arose and I worked for a measly four hours on one of the easiest shifts of my life. A very short shift, but just long enough for the last train to Leeds to go. Curse you, fate.

As such, I kipped at home and got the train back this morning. I'm not a fan of getting the train in the morning, because its always rammed between Sheffield and Huddersfield, and then between Huddersfield and Leeds. This morning though, I had the pleasure of a seat! Yes, a real seat, unbooked, untaken. As I approached, I thought 'isn't this great? I shall sit behind this lady who is taking her daughter to town for the day'.

Then I sat down properly and realised it was a guy with filthy hair. I'm gonna avoid being a hair fascist; I spend far too many days being a greasy minger, and have spent my fair share of time with a really crap looking curtainy mop, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. But seriously, this was something else. This hair had swine flu. It was so gross and greasy. There was dandruff as well. I didn't want to take my bag off my shoulder out of fear that some hair or a rodent would fall off this bloke's head onto it. I was almost tempted to recommend Head and Shoulders, something that would do a better job than the stuff he uses at the moment, which I believe is cooking oil or WD-40 or similar. It was so disgusting it was untrue.

This is not a substitute.

The little girl sitting with this bloke also had an annoying habit of touching it, much to my chagrin. Just kind of bopping his head with her fingers. I wanted to put her in a dishwasher. Shortly after, our hero broke out a bag of crisps for them to share, some of which the little girl spilt onto her seat. She brushed at it for a bit and then looked horrified at the mess of crisp debris. Young lady, you just touched a head full of hair that probably has frogspawn, SARS and parmesan cheese in it. Crisps are ok.

This was followed by what can only be described as the most pointless lecture of my life. It was like a Year 9 geography lesson. In preparation for a year in Germany, in which we interact with German speakers on a daily basis, our helpful preparatory lecture was on .. Austria. Fair enough, you might say - do the Austrians themselves not speak German? But this thing was actually about Austria - demographics and population and coats of arms and crap like that. The kind of material that may only ever be handy in a pub quiz, and even thats pushing it. It was silly.

Motherfuckin' snakes.

Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane
Shoulda been my name,
Mr Cellophane,
'Cos you can look right through me,
Walk right by me,
And never know I'm there ..

Having no memory of writing or posting that previous entry ("sprunk") is probably the best thing to mention first and foremost. That was a darn good night.

My thought process is in that skittish hungover stage, and the next paragraph and it's content are a a credit thereto: Every once in a while I'll walk out of the toilet either at home or at uni and get this awful feeling that I've left my fly wide open. You quickly realise that this isn't the case, but it's one of those few times in life of unparalleled fear, like missing the last step on a staircase. One never knows. Something in the vicinity of the toilet could have easily distracted you, like a flier about a charity, or a missing tile or an overly expensive condom machine. So yeah, if I share a house or a seminar with you and I saunter back with my nethers showing, give me a shout. Be subtle about it though.

I'm actually waiting for an Amazon order at the moment, not in the literal sense of peering through the curtains for a delivery, but sitting around patiently wondering when it'll arrive. In-keeping with all the fun things I do, it's a book by German author Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Die Physiker, or 'The Physicists'. It seems to be about 3 guys in a mental asylum, 2 of whom think they're famous scientists and one of whom actually is. And then the leader of the asylum steals some groundbreaking scientific plans made by the 3rd guy and plans world domination. No, seriously. That should be an interesting read.

In other recent happenings, I watched 'Snakes on a plane' for the first time. People have always recommended it to me, but upon actually seeing it, my initial reaction was more in the way of 'that was like having diarrhoea for just over an hour and a half'. Imagine if the big letter 'Y' in Hollywood took a big dump. This is the result.

If you haven't seen it, it's about a group of high school snakes who all vow to lose their virginity before spring break.

Sadly, that plotline would probably have improved it. It has all the emotional impact of Schindler's List, except instead of a little girl in a red coat walking through the mass execution of a Jewish ghetto, some guy has his cock bitten by a snake. Disappointment, guys. Nothing but disappointment.

Anyway, I'll round this off as I have a presentation to do for Tuesday. Vista continues its ongoing plan to thwart me however, as this latest version of windows seems to no longer have Powerpoint in its list of Office programmes. WHY?

Sprunk

Is the sound of man.


Too many sharks
cheese beefeater.

Ha ha! We are made of stars.
Is this a song?


Blank.
Endless caverns, a barren land.


I find a lot of the time I care far too much about unimportant things.

For example, less than 2500 pandas, that’s all we’ve got left in the wild.

I care.

I’m going to fail my uni exams, I reckon.
I care, but I can’t bring myself to work.
I lack motivation.

Dreadlock chainsaw golfclub earwax.
dolphinshark metatarsel megalodon.

Leoplurodon, Charlie.


Twas the night before something.

Tumultuous must have interesting etymology.


Stream of conciousness is easy.

Grim Fandango.




My god, I'm so drunk.

Sloths

In my dreams I'm dying all the time,
And when I wake it's kaleidoscopic mind,
I never meant to hurt you,
I never meant to lie,
So this is goodbye ..
This is goodbye ..

I realised today that my best friend looks just like a sloth. Man, how cool is that?

It has Anthony Hopkins!

I did my best to notice,
When the call came down the line,
Up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind ..

I've just realised that the last post had less actual 'post' than intro lyrics. Never mind.

We went on a messy one the other night with the German Society. Messy for two reasons, the first very good reason was that a fair few of us got absolutely trolleyed - Dora and Pippa, I'm looking at you - and some of our number were also drawn into removing shirts and waving them around. That one's for you Dave. The second reason was more of a literal one; the floor was really fucking filthy. My converse are pretty much grey, and my trouser legs are caked in black stuff. All in all, a pretty good night. I don't know if any of you have noticed, those of you who have ever been to Mission in Leeds, that the little brick tunnels you go through between each room and the entrance bit are covered in slime? Touch them next time you're in there, and then be ready to wipe all the gunk off your hands. It's pretty gross.

I also have a profound sense of having beaten the system, seeing as the ID I used shows me about 10 years old. It looks nothing like me.

Tonight in our house is Mexican night, formerly thought to be Mexican-and-baking night, but that fell through as nobody really wanted to bake. Instead we're wearing sombreros and eating fajitas and drinking a fair amount of tequila, which should make staggering out of bed tomorrow at 9am even more of a fun-filled challenge. I'm wearing the sombrero now actually, I enjoy it.

I've also just watched a trailer for 'The Wolfman', with Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins. It actually looks ok, I give it praise mainly for not being another of the crappy vampire flicks that everyone seems to be bumming at the moment. We could really do without any more of that for a while.

Yay! Anthony Hopkins

I think my rekindling of love for Anthony Hopkins is because they've been showing Hannibal and Red Dragon on BBC3 recently. If you haven't seen them do. They're bloody awesome. The Wolfman also has Hugo Weaving, which is always a plus point. Hot damn, that man can do some epic performances. I'll be hugely disappointed if he isn't granted a load of great one liners, like he was with Elrond and Agent Smith. And he better not die at the end.

Ketchup

Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Reeds driftin' on by you know how I feel
It's a new dawn, It's a new day ..

We had a rather scary lecture today concerning our year abroad. What with studying German and all that, in September I get thrown out there and have to live there for a year and be a classroom and assistant and things. But apparently there's a great deal of paperwork, such as opening a German bank account and 'registering with the police' that has to be done first, stuff that I'd probably find difficulty with in English. I don't feel nervous about it, I'm just painfully aware of the 'ignorant British mong' aura that's gonna surround me like the plague for 9+ months. To top it all of, it's a pass/fail scenario; I only get to carry on in 4th year if my employer likes me and if I do everything they say to a worthy level.

There's very little doubt that this blog will carry on right over the next year or so, but we've also been told we have to give regular updates about the year back to the University, so they can tell if we're emotionally fulfilled enough not to start losing it while we're away. This might have been a nice sentiment, except that the damn thing has to be in German. My lecturers are gonna be in for a poorly written treat every fortnight or so.

In other happenings, my attention was drawn by something on BBC news to google, where I searched for something that has always been an item of bizarre and macabre interest: suicide bomber/terrorist training camps. I've yet to fully grasp the notion of a 'suicide bomber training camp'. I like to think of that now old scenario; I forget who said it first: A guy with an explosives vest stands before a group of twenty-something hopefuls and says "Right guys, pay attention. I'm only gonna show you this once." There was an equally baffling headline, again on the BBC I believe:- 'Suicide bomber strikes again'. He clearly wasn't very fucking good then, was he?


The crowning video however was the general terrorist training camp, presumably Taliban or Mujahideen or similar. It seems fairly similar to your average army camp at first, bar the fact that everyone looks Middle eastern and there are some fairly angry beards going on. It's guys running obstacle courses, doing the monkey bars, crawling flat on their stomachs - all that stuff. But suddenly there are guys running along and jumping through hoops of fire. What kind of practical use will that serve? One can imagine Al-Qaeda getting their hands on some exclusive SAS training video which someone accidentally taped over with their visit to the circus.

"Jamal, I've obtained a top secret special forces training video! We'll need barbed wire, a decent obstacle course, a nice shooting range and a hoop that we can set alight!"

"A hoop, Rashied?"

"Yes, for us to jump through"

"We have to jump through a hoop?"

"Jamal, to have an army as strong as the Infidels, it's clear we need a burning hoop. If the British soldiers do it then so shall we. The video also says we'll need a couple of elephants, a monkey riding a trike and a novelty undersized car."

Stupid terrorists.