Bored on the Train

The only reason I pick up The Metro on the way to work is because of the feature called The Good Deed Feed.

If you've never read it, I feel I should tell you that it quite literally makes my morning, because it is a collection of anecdotal thank you's to people in the general public of Britain who have offered another almost perfect stranger some level of assistance in getting where they were going or what they were trying and struggling/failing to do. 

I have my own actually: Thank you to the man in Barnes who lent Will his Mac so that he could find me. I think both of us owe you a pint. :)

Anyway, yes, keeping up the news is currently of little interest to me, because everything in the paper is 'this will kill you' or 'coalition split approaching' to be honest, we could have predicted that since next year or the year after is meant to be an election year. Here's the other thing: after a loss in their major voting base (students) Clegg and Lib Dems have got to do something to try and find the level of support they were meant to have at the last election before voters quite frankly bottled it and went for a safe option in an effort not to waste their vote.

I like not having to take life overly seriously. It's a nice change from worrying about things all the time. The ultimate expression of that recently was going to see Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friends in full costume. Walking through Richmond in stockings and suspenders with a mini skirt and corset is not something I would ever consider myself to do, however it was hilarious. Good night all round.

Dear Sunday

I've met my dream guy...(will's description of himself...) 

Brainless

Okay, so we are going to bipass the usual sorry i have not been posting in a while and since this is being written on my so called smart phone the result is going to be something like unintelligent badly punctuated drivel, but ah well, we will survive. unfortunately it appears i can neither capitalise anything nor separate things into paragraphs on here so apologies. im only using this because what i want to say is too long for twitter. cody wilson, the man responsible for making three dimensional guns available to anyone with a three dimensional printer, described calls for tougher gun laws against weapons usable to be detected by a walk through metal detector as an archaic way of thinking. who wants to point out that actually, gun control laws are the fairly recent point of view and his contraversial right to bear arms is the view that was written into the american constitution when the founding fathers originally compiled the document? surely the idea of needing a gun to protect yourself is more the archaic view? maybe im just archaic as well...

NaShoStoMo,

Any of you that have been anywhere near me in the month of November will probably remember that I turn into a coffee fuelled, pizza loving nutjob with essentially bi-polar levels of energy. For those of you who don't know why, it's because of the beautiful thing which is NaNoWriMo. Unfortunately/thankfully the calendar of writing competitions is not complete, i.e. there's not something going on every month, which is good because I could quite easily die of heart failure within six months if it did, but these are the ones I know.

January - NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month)

April - NaShoStoMo (National Short Story Month) + ScriptFrenzy (Dear Grant Falkner, you cannot kill that which we keep alive!)

June - Camp NaNoWriMo 1

August - Camp NaNoWriMo 2

November - NaNoWriMo!! (National Novel Writing Month)

December - NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month)


A few years ago, I made an attempt at Script Frenzy, but since I favour description more than dialogue, it didn't really work out overly well (I still keep the spirit of it alive though and believe that the competition should be continued for those who wish to participate.)

When NaShoStoMo was mentioned, I shyed away from it, thinking I didn't have enough ideas for short stories to complete one a day for a month, but since it's only 200 words (min.) per story, why not give it a try, hey?

So, instead of editing my novel today, I'm going to attempt to catch up with NaShoStoMo. 17 short stories in one day. Possible? I think so. :P

Manchester Part 3,

I was just in the bath thinking: "This has been a great trip home. I've had the chance to hang out with my friends a lot and there haven't been any sightings of..." and then one of the eight legged fiends ran across my bathroom floor. Naturally, I dealt with this like any adult: I screamed for my dad, who made sure that the five legged beastie went for a rather long swim down the toilet. Yes, five legged, because three of them came off when my dad bitch slapped it into the bath mat. (Washing that tomorrow.) Anyway, there was no way I was touching that, so my brother had the joys of doing that one. I really don't deal well with insects...

Other than that, today has been PHENOMINAL! After I don't even remember how long, I got to see one of my favourite girls in the entire world: Alice. :D

Most people would ask me if my brain had been scrambled when they got the text I sent her to arrange today, but she's on my wavelength, so calling her Dawkins and singning off the text as Hume - after admitting to becoming increasing sceptical of her continuing existence - was something pretty normal, so naturally I got an equally odd reply. The only tragedy of the day came in that she didn't trust her stomach enough to contain itself, and her excitment while we went on the big (technical terminology coming up) spinny, lifty merry go round style thingymagig which currently is taking up half of Piccadilly Gardens and ruining the grass, but thankfully, it appeared to be as much fun to watch me nearly poop my pants when I realised it went higher than I had anticipated. 

Anyway, as much as the social side of this trip home has been amazing, I have done little else other than procrastinate with some of the best mates on the planet. 

I will point out however that future posts of the blog/novel will be containing the label/hashtag blovel. :)

P.s. I love you guys!

Manchester Part 2,

Now that Craptop is behaving itself I can finally get this written, but first, a couple of moans:

1. The transport system in Manchester is a pile of ___________ (insert favourite profanity)
2. I think I need a children's Snuggie, since the sleeves are too far apart in mine 
3. My laptop sucks 

Anyway...since I've been back in Manchester, I've been meeting up with a lot of my old friends, and also running into people I haven't seen in years, which has been pretty odd, but ultimately interesting. Yesterday, I saw one of my old friends who essentially looks like he has a whole new face (it has been AT LEAST a year and a half, probably more like two years, since I've seen him though) and it was like, oh, hello beautiful. Interestingly though, I feel like nothing has changed. We still play video games together, I still suck at them, and they still - very accommodatingly might I add - set up the game in a different way so that it's almost impossible for me to lose. By the way, I love you guys! 

Today then brought about my very geeky side. Since the destruction of the blanket I have been OBSESSIVELY knitting to try and replace the patches that were essentially mashed and had to go in the bin, but that does mean I do things like knitting on the bus to town or in the cinema or watching the TV (or all of the above....guilty) I also hang around comic book stores and spend too much money on graphic novels, but if you've ever seen how beautiful The Watchmen and Kingdom Come are, you'll have to understand. 

Even better, Josh and I both proved our age (in our heads, somewhere between 62 and 90~) by sitting through another film, verbally tearing it apart and then admitting to having thoroughly enjoyed it. Jack the Giant Slayer and Warm Bodies (it's really odd that both films we've chosen to see recently have the same male lead) have both received the same treatment, but as I said, we really enjoyed them. 

Now if only I could find some time to edit that blasted novel!!!

P.s. CELEBRATING THE 1500 views!!! :) 

Camomile Tea,

So, currently I'm sat in my bed with a cup of camomile tea, half a blanket and a tub full of patches of wool. Am I constructing a blanket? No, I'm taking one apart.

I started making this "thing" when I was fourteen, which I always think of as not very long ago until I realise that I am in fact now twenty and no longer able to class myself as a teenager. Anyway. The bottom half is a bit scraggly to say the least, since I wasn't overly dexterous at that age, and I was pathetically bad at knitting. My short attention span is also evident since the patches are teeny tiny. Fast forward six years and they are all large beautiful, if not oddly shaped, patches.

So what was the problem?

My blanket was almost a fricking triangle. Seriously, the top was AT LEAST six inches wider than the bottom, sothe natural OCD like thing to do is take the whole thing apart.

Now, you may wonder why I'm telling you this.

I'm telling you this to describe the frame of mind that I'm currently in, because I feel that is more constructive than once again apologising for the lack of another of my novels on amazon. For those who care, okay, I'm sorry, but I'm getting on it. Honestly.