I am incapable of coming up with a witty title about Jersey Shore

It’s best not to immediately judge people, lest you end up looking like a complete plumburger. While some twots look like twots from the twotting outset, there are people who can lure you in with niceness before overwhelming you later with overwhelmingly overwhelming twottiness. Anna. Then there are other types that I can’t be bothered listing because Rude Tube is on and apparently I’ll watch this where I won’t watch them on YouTube, where they are, and where I can watch them at a time that suits me and without ad breaks. Though with adverts. Anna.

Anyway, the point here goes like this: I had not seen Jersey Shore, the MTV “reality” show about a bunch of New Yorkers who apparently pretend to be from New Jersey for some reason or another. I had heard about it from others and I had seen the South Park parody of the show and its motley crew, but not actually seen it. Today I saw it. I realised the South Park episode wasn’t a parody. My life has been, once again, changed.

It has been changed in that I am now willing to judge people based on less than an hour’s worth of watching them. I do not care how falsified the show is, how staged events are or how much they are ‘encouraged’ by the production crew to behave like this – I dislike these people quite a lot. Almost enough to want them to die. I mean, I don’t, as I did raise a smile about once so they’ve done enough to live. But to see people who are so monumentally awful it’s impossible to actually parody them is… well, it’s something. And this is a show that has something like three series under its belt now.

Though I suppose this is a world where 5.5 million people have watched a woman wobbling her tits on YouTube. According to Rude Tube.

Take the serial killer test

Have you ever thought you might be a serial killer? Or could be? Or would be? I remember once, as a child, pulling the wings off a fly. This means I have a history of cruelty to animals. I hit my dog once or twice, too, though I always apologised afterwards. Still, the history is there, just as it was with all the real life killers of many – they all started out setting fire to geese, launching beagles out of hammocks into walls and harassing albino gorillas. Therefore I am exactly the same.

Also, we’re watching Criminal Minds as I write this – it’s like CSI, only not incredibly shite (just mildly shite) and starring Fat Tony from The Simpsons. The serial killer in it was just standing over one of her new abductees. I thought to utter: “hello, my pretty”. The serial killer then said something like: “hello, my pretty”. This, added to the animal torture I took part in as a child, has convinced me I am a serial killer in waiting.

Plus of course we cannot forget that I have murderous rages every now and then, resulting in the death of one or more people over the course of a couple of days with ritualistic or sexual overtones behind the events. That’s the third reason I think I might be a serial killer. Brutal animal cruelty, saying the same things as TV serial killers and actually killing people. I worry for your safety.

N.B. Above may be a joke/not entirely serious. #iamspartacus

Zurich – the ultimate review (7/10)

Stepping out of the 4×4* into the tight, cobbled back streets of Switzerland’s biggest city** is one thing, but when you step out and there’s a light dusting of snow covering everything – that’s when you know this place is somewhere special. Unfortunately that’s ‘special’ as in ‘massively retarded’, and not special in the sense you all foolishly assumed.

I mean, what would I find alluring about a beautiful, clean, safe and even-more-beautiful city in a country that isn’t run by David Cameron? Nothing, that’s what. If you said “something”, I hate you because you’re wrong and more MASSIVELY RETARDED than Zurich itself.

One thing – and only one thing – I will say going for the city is that I never felt like I belonged. You know those annoying times where you go somewhere and it just clicks? The kind of place you feel like you should have been to a long time before and want to stay for a while? Yeah, none of that here, thankfully. I find it tends to ruin my ability to blindly react to stupid, pointless and thoroughly bewildering (in the bad way) beautiful surroundings.

So all in all, this is one of the worst places I have ever been in my life. If I have to go back again at any point in my life, it will be too soon. It will be too soon and I will want to die. It will be too soon, I will want to die and I will probably go on a hammer-killing spree. Consider yourselves warned.

7/10

*Necessary, owing to the winding mountain roads coated in snow. Unlike in Bournemouth/London/Leeds/Manchester/etc. Cocks.

**It might not be, I haven’t bothered checking or even asking the girl from Zurich sat next to me.

Being somewhere doesn’t make you FROM somewhere. Learn from this, internet things

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it already, but I’m in another country. While this country doesn’t belong to the EU, it does sit in the middle of the continent known as Europe (as well as being involved in the European trade something, or something. I forget). Basically, it’s Foreignia. Not England. Full of people who use languages I don’t understand.

But being here for a couple of weeks doesn’t mean I’m going to be here forever. It doesn’t mean I speak these stupid languages (STUPID), it doesn’t mean I live here, it doesn’t mean I’m never going home. In fact, I know exactly when I’m going home, I’m slightly better at speaking English after being here for just a few days and I absolutely am not giving up my British passport – it has a unicorn on the front, for fuck’s sake.

The reason I mention this isn’t because my friends or family are worried I’m abandoning The Queen’s own land. No, the reason I feel the need to mention it is because – apparently – all companies in the world seem to think I’m in Switzerland forever and I am never coming back. According to Google, I automatically want all of my results in German, even after I change the language settings for the thirtieth time (I’m too lazy to actually type .co.uk in the address bar). That’s quite annoying, but I can live with it, mainly by engaging in the solution buffered by parenthesis in the last sentence.

But the other things are genuinely annoying. Steam, the wallet-rapist, is midway through its Christmas sale, offering games I want (but will never play) at stupidly low prices. Now let’s ignore the fact that it tries to charge me in euros, which actually make the prices a quid or two more than God’s British Pounds. No, what annoys me here is I’m apparently just not allowed to buy things thanks to being in another country. Makes… sense?

The one that really annoyed and confused me, though, was O2. I have been looking a fair bit recently at upgrading my phone, as my contract is up soon – I’ve mentioned it about 89 times before. As such, I went to the site this evening and tried to look through the shop to see what’s on offer. “You’re not in the UK, so piss off” was the basic response. Unperturbed, I entered my login details and went through the upgrade button to get my upgrade code so I could browse the mega-super-personalised options (that definitely aren’t the same as everyone else’s). Seems even being logged in with the system knowing you are a UK resident holding an existing contract (with the company you’re currently using the site of) means a complete bag of shit-faced nothings in the eyes of O2.

In the grand scheme, it means very little. But right now, it’s bloody annoying.

Dogdogdogdogdogdogdogdog

This is my pooch*. There are many pooches like my pooch, but this one is mine. He is unique. He is an idiot. He sits down like a dickhead. He hasn’t yet realised that his now-adult teeth hurt a bit when he play-nibbles you. He enjoys to steal things from bins and then run away from you when you try and get it out of his mouth. Generally speaking, he is brilliant.

I joked before I got to Swiss that I would want to steal Anna’s six-month-old puppy Alfie, even if he is named after an Eastenders character. It was, of course, entirely non-serious and based on the fact that I want a dog – nothing based in reality.

Then I met the little bastard. We’ve just spent the last half an hour getting up and stopping him from rooting through something or eating something he shouldn’t be eating. It’s annoying, but it’s also hilarious because he’s a cute puppy and so can get away with anything. Possibly even murder.

But if that doesn’t appeal and I just sound like a puppy apologist** then try this: this morning he didn’t know what the command “paw” meant. Now, after a fair bit of repetition, some grabbing of the paws, a fair bit of arm and hand nibbling and hilarity (in the shit “aww, isn’t he funny!” way) we had done it. We had taught a living thing how to do something. At one point it could not do what we wanted, and now it could. This is a good feeling.

On the other hand, he keeps on farting and it smells bad. Hence, dogs are shit. Literally, in some ways.

*For the next week and a bit.

**I am one.

Perfect record: not ruined. NOT RUINED

As I am quite literally perfect in every way, it came as something of a surprise that I had actually made a mistake in my preparations for coming to the continent. What must have been going through my head when I realised I had actually made a mistake – on Christmas Day of all days! – is beyond me. Well, it’s not, because it’s my brain so I know damn well what was going through it.

Anyway, on coming to this land of Swissers, I decided it would be a good idea to bring with me a plug convertor in order to be able to plug in my electrical equipment and charge it up so it doesn’t run out of battery. Like this Tiny Laptop is going to in about 40 minutes. Would you believe it, but when I went and got the convertor out of my bag, it turned out to be an American one. THE HILARITY.

Obviously as I’m such a jet-setting, go-getting motherfucker of the highest order it hadn’t occurred to me that I might have been picking the wrong one up. What this means is that I actually didn’t make a mistake in any way – it was just a matter of course, or even an inevitability. It was not a mistake on my part, and therefore it means I am still absolutely perfect in every conceivable way.

And you thought you’d get an entry about Christmas today. Hah, losers. It’s 3.30am here, I’m not about to entertain or amuse you with reasonably well thought-out entries here. Perish the thought.

I’m wrap, wrap, wrap wrap wrapping

You’ll have to excuse the lack of hilarious Photoshopping from the next week-and-a-bit’s worth of entries, as I am on Tiny Laptop for the foreseeable future. Instead, today you can have the image of where I am right now. It actually bothered to snow this year, whereas last time around it just rained and I refused to believe snow was possible in Switzerland. A fair belief, I think.

Anyway, watching two numbskulls wrap presents right now has just reminded me of my utter lack of ability when it comes to wrapping things. This isn’t something I was ever trained for, nor is it something I was told would be a skill I needed to master for later life. Yet it pops up at regular intervals – while evidently not as often for me as I am deeply selfish and uncaring, so don’t dish out as many presents as others. Nevertheless, I do happen to think that maybe present-wrapping should be taught at school so we all have a stronger grasp on how the shit you’re supposed to do the edges without it looking like a shitheaded moron tried their very worst to vaguely attach some crinkled paper to a box of something.

I mean, it doesn’t help that I have all the artistic acumen of an insane genius who both isn’t a genius and has no hands. Though having said that, I’d probably be far better at wrapping presents, or any other things that require care, attention, or steady hands if I had no hands.

That may be a lie and/or a massive exaggeration. Who knows, I’ve been drinking in this winter wonderland.

Play magazine, and all that

Today’s entry veers dangerously close to some kind of marketing, or even sounding like I’m a Company Man – those who know me know this is nonsense as I hate everything. If anything, it should mean there’s a greater impact behind the words* as it shows I do genuinely have a place in my heart for this sheeit.

See, today the 200^th issue of the magazine I write for, Play, has been released. This is actually quite a big thing in the world of gaming magazines, as there really aren’t too many that have lasted this long. It’s such a transient, fickle business that what seems popular enough to have a magazine based on it one month will have fuck-all interest in it by the next week. So yeah, 15 years is a decent effort. In fact, I think there’s only a few gaming mags out there now that have hit this mark.

Anyway, this does matter to me beyond boasting on behalf of Imagine Publishing. I actually used to buy Play every month – I bought the first issue, back in 1995 whenever it was, a tiny 12-year-old with the hopes and dreams of a nation on my shoulders. Either that or I just wanted something to fill the Amiga Power-shaped hole in my heart, and a magazine edited by Dave “Games Animal” Perry seemed perfect for task. It wasn’t, but I still liked it.

The mag was genuinely one of my favourites through that point of my life, and up to a certain point, which I don’t know, I would buy it every month. I even had a subscription at one point. And a letter printed. I’m so fucking cool, bet Anna can’t wait for me and my cool to arrive later.

Anyway, that’s why it means something to me – if not a life-changing amount, but something. I went from loyal child-reader, to not reading, to loyal subscriber and idiotic letter-writer, to not reading again, to writing for it and helping make the 200^th issue. Which is nice.

Go buy it! Or something. I’m well good at advertising, me.

*Hahaha, twat.

Schooool’s (“work’s”) out for summer (“winter”)

I finished work today, at least until early January. It’s weird that even at my old, old age the process of having a last day for a while still conjures up the exact same feelings I had when similar situations would arise at school.

It’s nothing mental, weird or even major in any real way, it’s just that strange feeling at the back of my mind that I associate very deeply with breaking up for whatever holiday at school. I feel I should go around and say goodbye to everyone, wish them happy whatevers and some other platitudes. But then when it comes to it, I just don’t bother. It isn’t out of rudeness – at least not intentionally – it’s just I either forget or my brain asks ‘what’s the point?’ so much I just cave and listen to the squelchy mushball. Exactly what always happened at school and exactly what happens at work too.

Weirdly, I never had these issues in my mind when at uni, but that’s probably down to the fact we always went out. So we’d just go out again, only this time claim it was to say our goodbyes. In fact, I remember a time where a male friend broke down in tears because we were going home for the summer. Definitely wasn’t me. No, really, it wasn’t.

Seriously though – it wasn’t.

I have a headache, so this is a short one today. Also I Tweeted something about a Frankie Boyle-based entry today, but I can’t be bothered thinking about him. It angers the blood. Though not because he made a joke about Jordan’s kid.

Oh piss off, weather

I do wish there was a genuinely accurate manner with which we could predict the weather – something that wasn’t about as accurate as guessing, or only marginally more accurate than forever saying “tomorrow’s weather will be the same as today’s” (both true, the internet told me so). While it would be nice to know that in four years time it will be 23 degrees on the 17^th of June, that isn’t what concerns me right now.

No, what concerns me is getting to Gatwick airport and seeing that they are still running flights, and not intermittently cancelling the route I’m supposed to be flying on Thursday. I keep on checking the weather for some clues as to what will be going on in the area that day, but I know it’s pointless. On average (again, internet), weatherpeople get their predictions right 30-40% of the time. I am no longer a gambling man, bar the brief foray back to the glory days with fake money at work’s Christmas party, so those odds don’t really appeal. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a 60-70% chance the prediction that it will be ‘partially cloudy’ and ‘between 0 and 1 degree through the day’ is utter bollocks.

But I went through this exact same thing last year – I ended up getting lucky, my flight was delayed by about an hour but I got to my destination (the same one again) and shitloads of other people had their flights cancelled. It was similar weather last year. I was catching similar trains, going to the same airport and blah de blah. Probably the only things different are I’m fatter now, I let the hair on my upper lip grow for some ungodly reason and I have Tiny Laptop to entertain me.

So yes, TL;DR: I really bloody hope Anna’s flight tomorrow gets her home okay, and I really bloody hope my flight on Thursday gets me out there okay.

I don’t much care if it knobs up on the way back. Extra holiday!

This isn’t an interesting blog, I’m aware. I couldn’t actually think of anything else because I’m worried. Stupid brain. I do not like uncertainty in these kinds of situations.