20 Dec 2009

Snow Time for Jokes

It's 10am and I'm in a warehouse. I had to get up at 7.30 this morning to be here in time to sit around for hours waiting for a lorry, and the overarching theme of the day so far has been what the fuck is the point in mornings. I appreciate that most people will see them as a necessary prefix to the day and all the disappointment that will contain, but for me they just seem like evidence of us wanting to punish ourselves. What kind of people have we become when we think, 'right, brilliant, it's dark and cold, what I really want to do is leave my bed and spend the next ridiculous amount of hours standing.'

Not that I have spent any time standing yet, come to think of it; my day so far having consisted of rolling out of bed into shoes, a hat and a car, before transitioning gently into another chair facing the internet in my friend's office. Thanks to the ice, I haven't even had to use my legs. I've just glided from one reclined position to another twenty-six miles away. Indeed, the only exercise I've had so far today is craning my neck to shout at reality-impaired four-by-four drivers who seem blissfully unaware that their cars are the most equipped on the road to cope with icy roads, and yet who seem to feel the need to slow to five miles an hour at every fucking roundabout, corner, and child in the road. If someone like me, who essentially drives what is a cigarette tin on wheels, is shouting at you to hurry the fuck up, there is probably something seriously wrong with your driving and brain function.

Go faster.

Not that it wasn't fun driving past broken down and broken spirited motorway users on the way here. Oh, it was. We delighted in the white, middle class 'nightmare' of today's life losers like they had personally slapped our children. It's the pseudo-drama of it all that makes it so amusing. It's snowing, one of England's most rarely observed meteorological phenomena, and it's fucking beautiful. The world, right now, looks like some kind of lovely meringue, yet people moan about the several hours that stretched out their commute to work. Well, who the fuck cares. I think it's funny you hit a tree. I've read several apocalyptic articles this morning about the terrible time had by thousands of motorists who had to sleep in their cars overnight. I did this last week for recreation. Sure, you wake up Z-shaped and feeling like you've been catching lead hammer rain with your body all night but it's entirely sensible. Once you've realigned the few dislodged vertebrae that have migrated to your elbows and levered the handbrake from your anus, it's actually rather bracing waking up in a car. It reminds you of a time when we didn't have houses, or electricity, or central heating and we all lived in our cars.

If you don't like it that much then you shouldn't be driving in what, quite frankly, are hilarious driving conditions. What other time of the year can you car-kiss perfect strangers like they're your best bumper buddies and get away with it? It's brilliant, although I appreciate it might be more fun when your car is worth the same amount as a tin of tuna rather than, for comparison's sake, a tinned tuna factory. Oh, you've got a nice car? Well, that's your fault. Nobody made you choose a car that you care about more than a second child in China. Yes, you've got seat warmers and working doors but you've also got a time bomb of a heart murmur that's aggravated every time you worry that someone's going to scratch it with their pointy trousers in Sainsbury's car park. If my car was stolen, I'd be more upset about the biscuits I'd left in the glove box.

No sign of the lorry yet so I'm going to ask if I can drive the forklift. I want some practice before I go out crashing tonight.

By the way, I drive this hunk of fun:

Two lessons here: 1.) Don't leave your car keys on the pub table. 2.) Don't have friends.

15 Dec 2009

Flirting with Technology

As a first post, it's hard to avoid the trap of explaining why I even have a blog. I know everyone's got one these days, but I'm of the general opinion that the majority of people shouldn't have keyboards and fingers, let alone blogs. There is something very self-satisfied and arrogant to writing a blog, I think. You're essentially saying that every computer-owning, internet-connected individual in the world needs access to your opinions on Nick Griffin and Twilight, and they need them immediately. The problem is that there is no quality control, so the internet - the wonderful, beautiful internet that we use for so many, amazing things - is getting clogged up by this sticky residue of moron, like clumps of hair in a plug.

So why am I pushing through a barrier of self-loathing and continuing to type? What makes me separate from the collective hive of fuckwittery that is the 'blogosphere'? I'm a white, middle class, heterosexual male, I've not exactly got Unreported World on my doorstep and a special badge for parking. My views aren't exciting. I'm not into racism and I like cucumber. That's about it. In terms of a unique selling point, the best I can offer is that I know how to use a comma. Therefore, I suppose, this blog is simply an excuse to 'keep my creative juices flowing' like the saliva from a stroke victim.

However, this does not mean that I am a 'blogger.' No, no, I am still a real person, which in this instance will be characterised by the fact that I'll probably get quickly bored of this new interactive trend based on my previous flirting with new technology. For example, I have one friend on MySpace. If you invited me to Farmville or Werewolves vs Vampires on facebook, I judged you. Not to be harsh, but I did. It was an impulsive reaction like the split second choice to buy a comb from a shop rather than, for example, a scratchy, bearded man who lives under a bypass. I'm not saying it was right, but in my subconscious I decided you were less of an important human than the rest of us. And I don't tweet.

In fact, I joined Twitter in its early days to find out what all the jazz was about. I didn't get it. I started 'following' Stephen Fry as that seemed like the thing to do and found out something trivial like he'd eaten a cake. Great. I promptly logged off and carried on with my life. I logged back on recently to find out I had 9 followers. NINE! Christ, when Jesus was alive, he only had the Twelve. I'm three quarters of my way to the Son of God's level of worship without any of the miracles. I haven't even sneezed on my keyboard, let alone posted a tweet. I imagine if I did, my nine mentally-unassessed anonymoids would masturbate all over their own faces and hair with ecstasy, dazzled in a mist of euphoria and incontinence generated by that first contact.

When you actually stop and think about it though, what I actually possess is an incredibly, almost infinitely, powerful tool. I can get a message, instantaneously, to nine people somewhere in the world that I've never met before. That is an interesting power, and I'm sure I have some opinions on it but now I'm bored of typing and want to go lay in hot water and quietly hate myself for actually writing a blog. Bye, World.