Eating (this stuff) is cheating (as is putting in half-arsed efforts)

Cheating is an interesting concept. Not the kind where your significant other decides to be a complete dickhead/coward/evil twat. No, that’s not interesting. That’s just bad. Nor is cheating in MY FAVOURITE THING EVER (videogames, of course) that good, because all you’re doing is ruining it for yourself. Unless it’s big head mode or something, in which case go wild.

It’s the little cheats – the times when you feel like you’re letting yourself down by doing them, but you see no other way of getting around it. I’ve done two.. three.. four in the last seven days – all related to The Most Boring Subject In The World, my losing weight thing. I have twice done a far shorter workout on EA Active than I was supposed to, first because I had just got back from playing football and second because I had been in a meeting all night (tonight).

The second cheaty thing is far less forgivable, as it involves personal choice. Being hungover, tired and drunk as I was on Sunday night, I couldn’t be bothered cooking and I had the drunchies. Hence, I got fried chicken. Not exactly what you’d call health food. Unless you were a complete moron or WANTED TO DIE. Then today, again at the meeting, I didn’t say “no, I will opt out” or “I have brought my own, good food”. No, of course I immediately pounced on the opportunity to scream “CHICKEN KEBAB!” as fast and as loud as I could.

So, actually, this isn’t the little cheats you allow yourself. This is being a willpowerless twerp who falls off the wagon as soon as he gets the smallest excuse. Ah well, back on the health juice from tomorrow. By that I mean heroin, naturally.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: it’s time to change the world

Alright, my mind is changed. Well, not changed. That other thing. Made up? No, it was made up before. My mind is… decided upon the same thing it was decided upon before? Yeah, that sounds about right, though it doesn’t exactly slip off the tongue. “But what is it that your mind is decided upon that is the same as what it had decided upon before, Ian?” I hear you scream like the irritants you all are – I will answer.

It is, of course, climate change. See, I can safely say I was dead against it. Just like killing dogs, deforestation, being impolite, littering, war, cot death, cancer and lots of other things, I am dead against climate change. I think it’s a shit, and I think we all need to use hemp-powered gyrocopters or something in order to try and at least slow this planet’s inevitable decline that it is so clearly on a path to right now.

I cared about this and I still do care about this, but an article I’ve just read means I’m going to have to double my efforts. We will lose a lot if we continue in the way we are currently going – polar bears, trees, a fucking inhabitable planet – lots of things. But worst of all, we might lose our ability to produce as much speciality coffee, thus making said speciality coffee more expensive than it already is.

There are some things I can put up with, even pretend to accept. I have allowed injustices to go on under my nose through apathy, exhaustion or even cowardice. But this? This I will not stand for. You may take our polar bears, but you cannot take our affordable coffee from rural South American regions.

The fightback begins today. Join me in my quest to single-handedly eliminate climate change, and we can have a coffee to celebrate when we’re done. Hopefully.

[Here’s the story I was on about, if you care]

It’s not gonna be okay, but it’s okay*

Seeing as you spend so much time in your own head and body – I’d say most of it, depending on your selection of recreational activities – it can be hard to notice when something about you has changed. Comments can fly at you, telling you that you’ve changed in whatever way, but they can just keep on bouncing off your face, not even going into your cheesebox.

Unless your mum tells you that you’re fat, naturally. Then you hear it and get a bit upset before comfort eating yourself into oblivion. Or Oblivion, depending on your selection of recreational activities**.

I have been being told I have lost weight by numerous people for a while now. I know I have – I’ve got the numbers to back it up – but I didn’t see it on my body. Suddenly, today, I did. No idea why, it just clicked. Then something else clicked, again in a weird way.

I feel okay. I don’t feel great, I’m not exactly jumping for joy and there are things in my head that can still bring me down if I think about them too much. But I’m doing okay. And I realised this about an hour ago, while listening to Lucero.

If I’d listened to Lucero a month ago – even a week or two ago – it wouldn’t have been the most pleasant of experiences. To be fair it never is, as they’re thoroughly depressing when they want to be. But you can usually garner some enjoyment from listening to them, and this is something I haven’t been able to do for a while.

Now I can.

Things are okay.

(Having said all that, The War has just come on. I think my heart is about to explode.)

*If you get what song this is from and you are not a nerd: well done.

**If you get this joke and you are not a nerd: well done.

I hate you, but I cannot leave you

I attempted some time ago to give up on reading comment threads on the websites I read. In the world of gaming it’s a bunch of over-entitled, immature numbskulls of the lowest level; idiotic, homophobic, sexist and even sometimes racist, as well as the usual, expected hyper-aggression syndrome they all seem to suffer from. I mean, it’s not exactly a nice place to be, reading through them.

But then you’d think it would be different elsewhere. Nah. Not even my beautiful Guardian (*adjusts organic hemp slippers*) is safe from these twits. They’re everywhere. So I decided I would stop it. I would read an article*, I would leave it at that, I would move on. It would be safer, and I wouldn’t find myself spewing pure, flaming rage at a computer screen while my workmates look on, perplexed.

It would be better for me, basically.

Naturally I haven’t been able to stop reading them. Naturally once I’ve finished reading an article** I continue to scroll down the page and absent-mindedly start reading whatever semi-coherent refuse has spilled out of the so-called brain of the twat who has just been given access to their first ever keyboard. I cannot think of a time I have read through a comments section without ending up angry or  otherwise sorely disappointed in the human race.

I know it’s not indicative of the world as a whole – the idiots do tend to shout the loudest, after all. But it’s still there. It’s still irritating. And even though I promise to myself a thousand times I won’t do it, I still end up reading them.

Though I suppose without them we wouldn’t have the likes of Speak Youre Branes and its ilk.

*”Look at funny animal pictures”.

**”Watching a video of a man falling off a thing”.

Ignore – this is terrible

Quick one – too tired to bother any more.

I am now about six weeks through some workout stuff and eating right and shite like that, and I have lost weight. Which is nice. I’ve found it’s something I’m talking about a fair bit, either because it’s something I’m doing a lot of or because I’m quite proud of myself for blah blah blah.

Looking at my sweet bod every day, it’s hard to notice any major difference. Then I looked and saw it was different and oh my god I am not writing anything interesting at all. BORING. BORING BORING BORING. Yet I’m still going to keep this in the blog. Not even sorry.

I did just have fried chicken though. OPPS. It’s all going to go wrong soon, I’m sure.

T’would appear all of the comedy has been stolen from this entry. Darn.

Dear The World,

I am going out in a bit, but as my landlord ignored my request for a key to my room* I cannot lock my door. While there is a locked front and back door to the main attraction known as ‘the rest of the house’, it would still prove pretty easy to breach the defences of my room once these hurdles have been overcome. As such, I have one simple request to make: please don’t take my stuff.

I’ve just looked around and realised how much shit I have of value within just a metre or two of where I’m sat. It’s a reasonable amount, even when taking into consideration how much value my iPad has lost since the Absolutely Necessary Hardware Revision 2.0 came out (also: since I’ve touched it with my gammon-fingers).

I don’t really have any deep, meaningful connection with this load of stuff. I just don’t want to go through the hassle of having to re-get it, or having to hunt you down and beat you to death with your own shoes. In essence, I’m asking you don’t steal from me for your own good.

To be fair if it does go I’ll not be all that unhappy. It can be replaced, after all, and people will be sympathetic towards me WHICH IS ALWAYS FUN. All I’m really bothered about is my work and photos – so leave the laptop, or at least take out the hard drive and leave that instead. Deal? Deal.

Yours eternally,
Iaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan

*Admittedly I only asked him once, a year ago.

What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine too

How long has to pass before you can actually claim something as ‘your thing’? I don’t mean actual, physical property. I abide by the rules of finders keepers, after all, meaning that Audi R8 I found parked around the corner is now mine. I mean, who would leave such a nice car parked in such a public place as their driveway? And why would they lock the thing if it’s only going to have breakable windows on it? And why bother with a keyed ignition system if it can be hotwired? Mere technicalities to try and stand in the way of a perfectly legitimate system of taking things for yourself.

No, I mean ‘things’ like – for example – the aftershave I wear. It’s Hugo Boss… the Hugo Boss one. It has no special name, as far as I’m aware. I’ve been wearing it exclusively for years now, but that’s only because my brother used to (might still) wear it, and as such it’s what I stole from him. When did it go from me copying my brother into being the scent I drench my neck in? A year? Two years? Ten? Regardless, I’m probably going to stop using it after this bottle is done, what with finding out Hugo Boss made the Nazi’s uniforms and all.

Another example – I am in love with the band A Wilhelm Scream, but I did not discover them myself. In fact, it was my friend Tom who said to me “listen to this, I think you’ll like them”. They are now pretty much my favourite thing that does or doesn’t exist. But I can’t call them my discovery, and when did they become my ‘thing’? I think they’re very me, but are they mine?

I AM SO CONFUSED.

Anyway, I am now going to the pub. Which is mine. MINE MINE MINE.

My contribution to the world of wrestling characters

I’m 27 and I still watch wrestling. Wanna fight about it? Anyway, it’s terrible – really, it is – but I still love it. The best thing about it is the breadth and depth of the characters we find in wrasslin’ across the world. They’re always so deep, so well fleshed-out and the kinds of characters you just couldn’t find anywhere else. They’re too complex.

But to challenge myself, I have decided to invent a few characters and offer them up to the wrasslin’ organisations out there. Free of charge, I just ask that I’m credited with the invention to feed my burgeoning ego. I’m not sure I’ll be able to really hit the heights that wrestling characters have hit in the past – I’m simply not smart enough – but I’m going to give it a go.

Name: Doctor Madsaneo
Taunt: “An apple a day keeps I’M GOING TO PUNCH YOU.”
Bio: You might think that Doctor Madsaneo is your friend, like all doctors are, BUT YOU WOULD BE WRONG. Why? Because he is mad and he is insane and it will make you go ‘oh’. MADSANEO. They never see it coming.
Finishing move: Socialist healthcare (N.B. will be popular ‘bad guy’ finisher to 95% of your audience)

Name: Badolf Gitler
Taunt: A Nazi salute but with his left hand (N.B. will be popular/imitated taunt with 95% of your audience)
Bio: Modelled after.. umm… Charlie Chaplin… yeah… Chaplin… this BAD DUDE comes to the ring in military garb and waves a flag that’s from another country. Basically that’s enough to make everyone in the crowd hate him, as they always – rightly – despise foreigners.
Finishing move: Gunshot wound to the head (N.B. could prove tricky to fake in live shows)

Name: Andrew Merican
Taunt: A firm handshake, while maintaining eye contact
Bio: Representative of all that is Good and Right in the world, Andrew Merican would be ideal as a ‘good guy’ character. He would, like Gitler, carry a flag to the ring – only this would be the correct piece of material in whatever country he’s located in (also his name can change: Barry Ritain, Gerald Ermany, Austin Ralia etc).
Finishing move: The economic sanction (N.B. never works – always followed by excessive force)

Name: Eugene
Taunt: Pretending he’s an aeroplane.
Bio: Eugene has a mental illness leading him to behave like a child when he is in fact a fully grown man. He gets super-strength when he’s angry or upset though, so those ‘bad guys’ had better watch out! He is meant to offer the crowd a sympathetic character they can relate to and thus expand their minds when it comes to how they treat the mentally handicapped. Instead they just laugh at the ‘retard’ (their words not mine).
Finishing move: Hilariously copies opponent’s finisher (N.B. will be laughed at by 95% of your audience).

I reckon that’s enough to net me a writing gig at the WWE.

N.B. One of these is actually a real character. Just put it in there as a test for y’all.

HAHAHA THAT SONG ABOUT GAY BAR HAHAHA

Just got back from a big gay club full of the gays. Managed to avoid catching the gay – it’s because I wash my hands in the toilet, obviously – and I’m now here to report on how I haven’t immediately died of Massive Gay To The Head.

See, even though I grew up in a small town where the gays were routinely shot on sight, I still managed to spend my 18^th birthday in a gay bar. The only gay bar in Rotherham, as far as I remember. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I got with my girlfriend (not a gay in drag, miraculously) on that day/night/gay and fun was had by all. Plus, if I remember correctly, I stopped a big gay fight from breaking out. It was Rotherham, after all.

There’s no point to this, I’m a bit drunk and really should be asleep by now. I’m just upping the word count now. Safe to say, I like gay clubs and pubs. In ‘normal’ places you’re confronted with barely-developed apes who want to punch your face off for being alive. In the gay places you’re confronted with barely-developed apes who want to bum you. While you can turn the latter down, should you want to, you can’t turn the former down. As such, as long as you’re not on a mission to make all the ladies love you* you can have more fun in the gay haunts.

And there we go.

*As I clearly am EVERY NIGHT OF MY LIFE. Sigh.

God Damme

Religion – ooooh, controversial and all that shit. I may have mentioned my feelings on the matter before. I’m not going to rant and whine about it. I’m just going to ask a question (or two) that struck me after it was brought up by none other than Jean-Claude Van Damme.

See, he was blabbing on about when he suddenly became mega-religious or whatever. Part of it he said he prayed to become an action movie star. Second he put his success down to God. You can probably see where I’m going already.

First, who the hell would believe in a deity that exists to make your career choice come to fruition? What kind of selfish prat would abuse their ability to pray by asking their lord – all powerful as he/she/it is – for a good job, or a safe day, or some nice food, or a comfortable hammock? I genuinely don’t understand how people of legitimate faith can hold these kinds of beliefs. Praying for someone’s safety, good health or whatever – fair enough. It’s all bollocks, but fair enough. Praying so God will give you a shiny new red bike? Get fucked. That’s not what your god is there for.

Second, putting your success down to God – or any of the rest of that lot – irritates me immensely. It wasn’t God that made Van Damme good at martial arts – it was training. It wasn’t God that made Kaka good at football, much as he claims it is – it was practising kicking a can around on the streets of his shanty town, or whatever. My insanely brilliant writing ability isn’t down to God – it’s down to ripping off people much more intelligent and skilful than I. To put your success; your ability down to a higher power is to belittle yourself entirely. And what’s the point in that?

Anyway, Cyborg is on. I like Cyborg.