Getting Back on The Hobby Horse

Pffffffft... Pffffffft!

Excuse me, that was just me typographically speaking (If indeed you can speak typographically, clearly this is oxymoronity of the highest order) blowing the cobwebs off from this old blog of mine. It's been almost a year since I last posted anything on't'Internet, and even that was to bemoan the fact that I had apparently forgotten how to type in paragraphs.

So why then have I returned to this dusty and somewhat forgotten corner of my own Internet world?

The answer, put simply, is Twitter.

Twitter is something I signed up to almost two years ago. Having been invited to join in the fun by my good friend and long time MySpazz cohort Douglas. I can recall spending a bit of time configuring my profile page and tweaking bits and bobs. I think I may even have tweeted a grand total of four times.

However, I was lost and suitably underwhelmed by the experience. At that point in time, it just didn't cut the mustard as far as comparing it to the interactive experiences I had gained from being on MySpace and even Facebook. So inevitably I abandoned it. Almost immediately. I just couldn't understand it and at that time, not even Stephen Fry was making the waves he eventually went on to do. From that point onwards, the only contact I ever had from Twitter was an occasional mail update letting me know I was being followed by a Spambot or three.

So, how then did I come to be reunited with Twitter and ultimately this blog and er, typing in paragraphs?

Well I'll tell you. Or at least I'll tell myself, as quite conceivably, I'll be the only one who'll be reading this guff. The answer to the above question again is simple. Technology. Or I suppose more accurately, jiggered technology. The "jiggered technology" in question was my old Zen Creative Mp3 player. Sadly it died a miserable and ignominious death, having leapt like an electronical Lemming from my top pocket to the cold hard, unforgiving ground.

This may seem like an unlikely happenstance to bring about my reunification with both Twitter and blogging, but bear with me.

Now bereft of an Mp3 player, clearly I had to seek a replacement. Having had the Zen for what seemed like an eternity, and also some loose change wearing a hole in my pocket, I managed to convince the missus that an iPod Touch was clearly the only sensible replacement option.

Okay, so I know I'm late to the party in the technological gadgetry stakes, but firmly believe in the old if slightly amended adage "if it ain't broke, don't seek to resort to wanton, rampant consumerism to unnecessarily replace it". In any event, I was blown away by the veritable box of magical tricks the iPod turned out to be, having entertained myself with adding the vast majority of my CD collection to it and rating the songs. Playing Angry Birds and being able to watch videos in the palm of my hand on the bus home... through this sleek little beast I was finally living in the future parts of my childhood had always wanted (especially the pocket TV aspect).

Having gone on an App adding frenzy, inevitably Twitter was eventually added, and BANG, that was it. Suddenly, held in the palm of my hand Twitter made sense to me. I know I'm not alone in this as a number of friends have expressed similar views.

The thing is, the old MySpace blog withered on the vine as I, like so many others made the mass exodus to Facebook. Facebook was an entirely different beast to MySpace, and the truth of it is, having a bunch of former school friends, work colleagues and relatives metaphorically prying over my shoulder into my more extensive musings did not appeal. So there just didn't seem any point in musing any further.

Twitter on the other hand has given me a new lease of life. I am enjoying the relative anonymity, meeting new, entertaining and interesting people. I relish the challenge of reigning in my notorious grandiloquence to 140 characters and attempting to both get my point across and make it entertaining to read.

So in many respects I am reminded of how I felt when blogging on MySpace was fun. It has also caused me to start thinking similarly to the way in which I did back then. A part of my psyche that has lain dormant for far to long feels as though it's been kicked back into gear again and for this I am thankful.

I have no idea whether this means regular blogitudinalism or not, but I suspect I may be able to rustle up a word or twelve now and then and post it on here. Who knows, I may even be able to use Twitter to let folk know when this occurs.

Luv'n'Cuddlz

TheBlogtometrist xx

Breasts Banality

This morning, bereft of any entertaining reading material to help reduce the monotony of my daily commute, I decided to put this time to good use. Choosing to indulge in a bit of mobilular phonical housekeeping (yup, them's proper words thems are) having noticed that the scrolling bar on my sent and received text messages was minute to the point of being infinitesimally small.


I find it can be quite interesting, trawling through old text messages, as they tend to provide a wee textual snapshot of where I was and what I was up to, and in some cases, how drunk I was at the time of sending each text.

So I found I rather enjoyed my administratively minded walk down this textual memory-lane, having forgotten exactly when, many of the various exchanges relating to social gatherings, gigs and beer festivals had taken place across the course of the year so far. It may not surprise you to learn that my verbosity cannot be confined by the limitations of space allotted to SMS messaging. Indeed, I seem to relish the challenge of filling up as much space as is possible to ensure value for money is gained... although admittedly, I will on occasion, sink as low as to use the mangled bastardisation of our language that is TXT spk... I never feel good about this, but sometimes that message just isn't worth spending an extra ten pence upon.

Where was I?...

Oh yes, texting and that... ahem...

During the dredging of my text messages, I happened to notice a particularly alarming trend. Sprinkled intermittently amongst my more frivolously friend based forays in textuality were a good number of messages sent to my good lady wife... Now you! Texts to the wife wasn't the alarming aspect! But rather, the content of these messages. You could be forgiven for imagining that these were heartfelt personal paeans, declaring my undying love for the darling dearest mother of my beautiful child. Or even that they were saucily centred, sensuously sexy, suggestions of lascivious seduction, you could be forgiven for imagining that, but you'd be wrong...

Depressingly, more often than not, they were largely comprised of discussions concerning food, usually about what would be for that coming night's tea-time. And an unhealthy amount of them related to my apparent obsession with chicken breasts, and in particular, their subsequent placement either in or out of the freezer, depending upon the position of the aforementioned chicken breasts in relation to either their levels of frozenness or their approaching of a best before date.

Clearly, this is yet another dizzying milestone in a life that squarely refuses to accept the imposing boundaries of its own mundanity, seeking to leap ever grander heights of banality with each passing year...

Chicken Breasts?! Bloody Chicken Breasts?!

I Should've Known...

... I'd never be able to keep this blog a day nonsense up. Not that much happened yesterday anyway. I took back control of the weekly shop. Saving pennies and ensuring we weren't left scratching our heads wondering what the hell we were going to have to eat. The missus always seems to make a good job of having enough for two meals and then there's nowt for the rest of the week.

We took Olivia and her friends out yesterday afternoon to feed the ducks. On our way to Morpeth, it did indeed seem like nice weather for ducks. Luckily it held off and we remained perfectly dry for the duration. I made a rather tasty lamb hotpot for dinner and then before hitting the hay last night, I cobbled together a mean spicy tomato pasta sauce.

Today, for the first time in what seemed like an age, I cycled into work again and by the time I got there, I was well aware of the two or three week gap in my cycling schedule and suffered quite badly at the seemingly steepest hill in the area and I did it all with a gammy toe...

... yes, perhaps a blog a day is only ever gonna be a yawn fest eh?

For The Love of Waffle

Foolishly I agreed to work overtime today, 9am - 1pm. It had already been a long enough week without adding to it, but how else am I gonna bank roll the child's seemingly continuous attendance at Birthday parties?

Truth be told, it wasn't all bad. In fact it was better than going to work on a normal day. No stress related phone calls from unrelenting morons, no goon-like colleagues to put up with, double time and best of all; I got to tackle the work whilst listening to the radio.

Long ago, in the days B.C. (before child) I used to regularly enjoy listening to the radio on a Saturday morning whilst happily going about the household chores, unhindered by requests to do this or come and play with... such and such.

I tend to enjoy the banter of radio DJs that speak to me on my level and appeal to my sense of humour. Therefore Jonathan Ross has always been a staple feature of my radio diet. Today I took along my DAB radio to listen to Adam and Joe on 6 Music, having recently become addicted to various BBC podcasts. Everything was going swimmingly until Donna came down to join us from reception "What's this crap you're listening to?" she demanded to know (presumably not caring to know the answer) "Don't you listen to anything decent, like Galaxy?".

I chose not to rise to this and to save having to listen to either her complaining or dreadful dance/"R&B" tunes we compromised and selected a slightly less torturous commercial station to listen to. "I can't stand listening to all that waffling on" she said "I just want to listen to the tunes". "That's funny, 'cause I can't stand to listen to an endless stream of poxy adverts" I retorted petulantly.

I came to realise that by downloading the podcasts, I'm actively seeking out "the waffle" mind you; a bit of witty, senseless banter is always more likely to help me of to the land of nod than any old trancey dance shite.

I don't know, the youth of today...

An Interference?

Pfoooffff! That was a close one! 9.55pm and I almost forgot to adhere to my post a day, self imposed blogligation.

Well it's Friday (thank Crunchie, or just Cadbury's in general) and it has seemed like a long hard slog of a week. This is most probably down to the fact that I had two short weeks brought about by the advent of early Easter, followed by a week in which I only actually entered my work's office for one day before spending the remainder largely at a beer festival (I really must finish that blog).

Today, work provided another shining opportunity to subject myself to yet more toil and dejection in the pursuit of careerist advancement. This time, I shall be throwing my proverbial hat into the proverbial "Future Leaders Scheme" er... ring.

So it's back to the drawing board and filling out more forms for me then. This may interfere with web time and my regular posting, as it has done in the past, but I'm gonna try to keep this blog going. Indeed, the 200 word discipline may even come in handy as much of the form I have to complete requires 250 max words per example.

As it turns out I'm gonna need an extra fifty to finish this bad boy... Now where's my works spiel lexicon list gone?

Motivated, Tenacious, Strong personal commitment, Capacity to succeed, Strong leadership qualities... er, er... gi's a job! that kinda schlock.

Surely that should see me right? Right?

An Hairxperiment

Bless my greasy heed! Seven days in and still not the faintest drop of shampoo has touched my scalp. What’s that? “Scruff!” I hear you cry? Well that’s as well as may be and you’re entitled to your opinions, but I reserve the right to conduct hairxperiments under my own steam.

I’m sure you’ve heard that your hair can wash itself. I recently heard an enthusiastic strumpet ruminating on the merits of (self washing hair) on the radio. This plucked at my intrigue glands, being an armchair eco-warrior I figured I could enjoy saving the planet whilst simultaneously neglecting my follicles.

Last Thursday I purposely had my barnet sharpened. I figured that the shorter my hair, the less conspicuous my lank locks would appear. So far this has proved successful. Currently my hair looks like it has simply been adorned with hair slap. I suspect eventually, I may begin lying to people and stating that I’ve started using Brylcreem as a means to excuse the greasiness of my bonce.

I must now try to hold my resolve and not wash it for a further 35 days to see the results. Hopefully I will avoid attracting a small swarm of flies.

Scaling New Weights

Thrilling household news! We’ve only gone and purchased a new set of baarfroom scales ain’t we? Well, it’s thrilling to me at any rate… alright, maybe thrilling’s not the word… I’m buggered if I know what the word is. It’s probably more like two words… Mildly pleased. Yes, that’ll do, I’m mildly please to be the proud owner of a new set of bathroom scales.

We were forced into this latest acquisition as the old scale was a habitual liar. Of course this (quite literally) swung both ways, as it would on an almost daily basis, fluctuate its dial readings by up to half a stone either way. Obviously the weighty oscillations became too much for us to bear, exuberant jubilation one day, inconsolable desolation the next.

Whilst bought for better accuracy, the scales have also been purchased as a motivational tool to help the missus shed some of her heft. Having recently had problems with a slipped disc she was advised that losing some excess would prove to be great help, plus she has a 10km sponsored run to do sometime in June.

Whether they’ll make any real difference, we’ll just have to wait and see.