Falling over on ice and Scan tomorrow…

Well what an eventful day I’ve had.  Not only did I bump in to Ian B in Orca, after going to down to bookcycle to donate more money to this fantastic charity, but I managed to fall flat on my face this morning on some ice.  Come lunch time I felt quite weird so Sally insisted on me going up to NHS direct to make sure I wasn’t on the verge of having some sort of nasty episode.

Thankfully I was told to just take painkillers and make sure I didn’t start becoming dizzy or sick or confused.  Haha, I joked, I am always confused.  Seriously, I find life and other people very confusing.

Tomorrow I zoom off to the great smog to have a scan.  Not sure how I’ll get across London in 25 minutes, but I am sure I will one way or another.

I have been classified!

Chris Gower’s Dewey Decimal Section:
928 (Optional number)
Chris Gower = 3889975358 = 388+997+535+8 = 1928

Class:
900 History & Geography

Contains:
Travel, biographies, ancient history, and histories of continents.

What it says about you:
You’re connected to your past and value the things that have happened to you. You’ve had some conflicted times in your life, but they’ve brought you to where you are today and you don’t ignore it.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

The Great Gervais Question…

Why is Ricky Gervais funny? Discuss.

I am still trying to work this one out, in fact I have been dedicating excessive cranial resources to the matter.  It is something that comes up everytime I see him on television, read about him or if he is brought up by someone in coversation.  And frankly I am, befuddled beyond belief.

Last night, the man who bears some resemblance to a wet box of Quaker Oats (I am sorry but that is what he reminds me of) came up in the ‘100 Greatest Comedy Characters of All Time, Ever ever ever.’ or something like that.  The usual Saturday night ‘List Show’ format that producers become ever reliant on to fill up air time, wheel out some X list celebrities and have them pass ‘expert’ opinion on popular choices made by executives in a boardroom with interactive whiteboards, powerpoint projections and ponytails. No. Wait. I mean people, the ever fair ‘votes’ counted, of course.  We the people etc.

I digress.

I can’t remember what number he was, but David Brent came up in the top three under John Cleese with Basil Fawlty getting the top spot.  Great. But I can not even start to fathom what makes this man, funny.  So in some sort of analysis I believe there are three reasons that could possibly lead to a pleasurable reaction from this strange little man.

Reason One. The package.

Now. Look at him. Go on.  I think part of the reason is the slicked back hair, the teeth and the eyes of a man possesed with the spirit of a 13th Century monk.  He has a calm, collected but immeasurably smug aura about him that screams, ‘I am a smug man with lots of money and a personal trainer’.  That isn’t funny.  That’s sickening.  But in the right context, this could be funny aka, David Brent, who was mildly humourous, in the way that cphyllis is.
But then, everything is funny.  Take for example the ‘Aids Song’ in family guy.  Aids isn’t funny, it is a horrific pandemic that kills thousands each day and ruins lives, orphans children and keeps big biotech companies in existence.  But that was funny, it was presented in a ‘I can’t believe they’re doing this and getting away with it’ way, it was tasteless and insensitive but I laughed.

Reason Two. The writing.

Now, if one analyses the humour and comedy in ‘The Office’ or even ‘Extras’, you will find that Gervais and his band of writing elves produce really funny material.  Read the Office scripts and you will find yourself chuckling at the pompacity of Brents character, his ineptitude and this power crazed ego that fuels his actions.  It is actually funny.  But then watch it on telly and is it as funny? Not in my opinion.

The way it comes across visually is ruined by the smugness of Gervais and the aura.  Yes, David Brent was smug, but I am not engaged by his performance.  It looks dry and thin like a spray coat of lacquer.  Shiny and smooth like his slick-backed hair, but lacking in substance.

Reason Three. Popular will.

My third reason is seeming to be the most likely at the moment.  Just by the sheer will power of the popular notion that Gervais is funny, he actually stops being crass and pointless and takes on a humour that is unique.  It is the underlying polite nature of, well, everyone, that makes him popular.  No one actually finds him funny, but you feel you have to find it funny as everyone will stop liking you, expel you from the Badminton Club, withhold your subscription to Esquire, scratch ‘Get a sense of humour’ in to your car door when you suddenly let slip at your christmas party, in a drunken haze I might add, that Ricky Gervais is a funny as a tax man in Jongleurs. Or Jimmy Carr.

The conclusion is, although I hold nothing personal against Ricky Gervais (he might the most sweet natured kind man ever) I don’t find his work, or his performance funny.  And in fact people should just stop pretending to like him and lead a revolution against this popular conception that he makes everyone laugh.

Yes, there are plenty of people who do genuinely like his work, but I am not one of them.
OK, I am sorry.  That was 100% pure home grown, mountain reered, organic rant.  Ranting is acceptable, but if it is shallow and pointless, just like that was, then it rather ruins the feel of the entry. 

I was gutted to discover that I have lost my Civilization 4 disc, with all expansion packs on.  I tried installed Sim City 4 in to the computer, but again, this is going wrong as it keeps crashing.  I have looked on various forums and the solution seems to be turning off the hyperthreading function, which sounds ominous, so I am just going to pretend I didn’t read it and try and save it regularly.

I am having a pokerless day today, as I have been playing a lot of it recently and I am starting to lose the will.  Last night I was on the final four tables in a 50$ Freeroll that Ultimate Bet runs every hour, and I just lost interest and went All In with a 7d4h which is nearly the worst hand you can get.  Anyhoo, we’re going christmas shopping this afternoon as the days are counting down slowly to good ol’ Christmas.

Head update…

Well, my head is still on my shoulders.  It’s a positive thing when you wake up in the morning to the pleasing sensation of a cranium, bobbing up and down on your neck.  Seriously, I have stopped taking paracetemol, which normally means most of the skin is starting to heal.  I do have to take Ibuprofen now and again as the skin is very tight around the staples.  Sleeping is still a bit weird, as my body clock is still all over the shop.

So, off to see my GP on Monday with some idea about when I can go back to work.  Am I really desparate to get back?  Kind of.  I enjoy staying at home and playing poker/wasting time, but at the same time I feel pretty useless.  When I came back to work after my last operation, I ended up feeling constantly lethargic which ended up making me worse as I was at work and stressing about stuff.

So this time I am going back part-time for a bit, and will hopefully find it easier to get back in to the swing of things.  Not that I swing, dancing or any other sort of shinanigans.

The Career

I hear by declare that I am no longer going to moan about my job.  I have decided that in fact I am going write myself a career literally.  It might take years but in September I am attending a course entitled ‘An Introduction to Freelance Journalism’ so hopefully this should give me some direction as to where I want to go.
Although my plan to get promoted at work has gone tits up again, I am not that bothered as I am ready to concentrate on setting goals.  I am still trying to work out what those goals are but they are going to be connected with my health and my fledgling career.

It’s nearly the end of the day, a day full of book withdrawing and query clearing goodness which will hopefully be finished tomorrow

Off to Argos, my granddads and my mums and then to pick up Laura!  And then possibly some writing or reading tonight

Have you seen?

The article in G2 today? I was going to shove a link on here and link you to it but I’ve lost it.  Oh well.  It involved a funny article under the heading of ‘TV Last Night’ and involved skinning kittens and Masterchef.

These days I am concentrating on flexing my literary muscles by writing more and pretending to read books that’ll hopefully turn me in to a decent writer who can churn out articles and wotnot.  However, my ability to use punctuation and spell properly has rapidly deteriorated to such levels that a manager at work had to explain the difference between various apostrophes I had managed to misplace in my magnus opus Health and Safety Review 2008.  If my wife had seen this, the Grammar Terrorist, I would have had a fatwa put on my head.  Only a metaphoric one.

Will hopefully be going to Wondermentalist on Saturday night with other people of like minded dispositions.  Might get pissed afterwards on a Schnaps and make a tit of myself.  I find planning these sorts of things helps, just so you can justify any stupid actions with the helpful thought of “oh I planned to do that”.

I have to wear reading glasses.  Only to read stupidly condensed text though, computer screens seem to  make my eyes go weird and certainly book text makes the whole thing go up the shoot without a hot potato for lunch. And if you miss that you’re a square care bear.

A Month in Review

Good evening, well its 2:08am so I guess it’s a late good evening or even a good night.  Anyway.

The last month has been incredibly busy for me, so much that I have not really had the time or the inclination to get down to some serious blogging.  I have not really been able to concentrate properly on what to write, and for a majority of the last month I have either been moving house or getting married or celebrating christmas.

Writing becomes harder the less you do it, but as soon as I get myself back in to order I can return to my normal habits and routines.  I can’t wait to re establish a new normality, our new house is really nice and I know that I will settle nicely as soon as the boxes have vanished and we can really feel like this place is ‘home’.

Laura and I want to thank everyone for their kindness and generosity throughout our month of hell.  And my God has it been hell.  After living with Laura’s mum for a week, we finally move in with carpets and rude removal men.  Then the solicitor hits us for a further four hundred quid for rent and service charges, contested it but he isn’t budging.  So we are poor, skint and now ill.  Just after christmas and the marriage, Tom gets the worlds worst case of the flu and then Laura gets it.

The motivation has started to wain so I will moan more tomorrow.  I am still alive.

Development Day

Hey hey, its a wonderful day, its development day, hooray!!

No…its not.  It’s all pointless.

I had a voice in my head talk to me today.  Either this was some sort of ESP from a passing alien spacecraft, or the onset of some interesting and intriguing mental illness that will see me try and fly through windows.  But it told me that I HAVE to write more.

So be it.

Test (Scamming America, the Official 9/11 Cover Up Guide)

Scamming America, the Official 9/11 Cover Up Guide

The story of Facebook

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/09/ff_facebook?currentPage=1

Ever wondered how it started? where it’s going? Facebook has redefined social networking and this article gives you a greater understanding about how it was created, why it was created and where it stands in Net folklore..