Look into the chaotic and frankly alarming mind of a 19 year old writer.
Just don't look too closely.
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I am a 17 year old student at Sixth Form. For those who don't know what this is, just imagine going to school for an extra two years after you leave. Like college, but not. Simple!
I live in Derby, UK.
I want to be a writer, so tell me what you think by E-mailing me.
Plus, get in contact! "Tag" a message onto the board.
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Sunday, July 18, 2004
Hey, I'm back! I must say, I'm very impressed. It's almost exactly NINE MONTHS since I last posted here, which is almost double the previous record! How exciting!
So, what's new with me? Well, let's see...
To cut a long story short, I am now unemployed. But before you get too upset for me / send petitions to governments etc, I should point out that this is largely due to my health. You see, I have a nocturnal form of epilepsy, for which I have been taking medication (something that no doubt confirms many of your suspicions) since I was 13. The tablets don't agree with me though, and I have spent years feeling extremely tired and lethargic. The first tablets - "Carbamazepine" - controlled the illness but made me feel rubbish. The second tablets - "Lamotrogen" - made me feel rubbish and didn't control the illness. And so I find myself again changing medications, this time to something called "Topamax". I am almost two weeks into the changeover, but it takes nearly three months all told to complete it, so you can probably expect a lot of exciting tablet talk in the near future. Tomorrow I have to increase the new tablets from 25mg to 50mg, so goodness knows what will happen. One interesting side-effect promised by the leaflet that came with the tablets is weight-loss of all things! I particularly like the advice it gives in case of losing too much weight: "The amount of food being eaten should be increased." Must eat... third... Big Mac...
Further epilepsy updates to follow. Try to contain yourselves!
Yesterday I watched Brief Encounter for the first time, and it was frightfully good! The plot seems a little basic to hear - a housewife on her weekly trip to town meets a dashing married doctor, and over the ensuing weeks they fall in love. However, she is constantly burdened by guilt, and eventually she ends up back in the arms of her husband. Sounds rubbish, huh? It was brilliant! The acting was great (although I couldn't name any of the actors), the dialogue was lively and intelligent, the music set the mood perfectly, and the whole thing was directed and written very cleverly. I recommend it to anyone, especially those who are tired of the same old Hollywood rubbish and like a good old English accent! In case you're wondering, the fact that it is a happy ending by no means makes it a soppy ending...
In case you haven't worked it out yet, the reason that I am "blogging" again is much the same as before - to get my writing read, although I must be some kind of sadist for wishing to put anyone through that kind of pain! So, as before, if you read this then please let me know about it. I don't know whether the link on the side bar actually works, but if not my E-mail address is simark1931@hotmail.com
I've just found a site called "Blogwise", which seems to be some kind of Blog directory (in fact, that's exactly what it is). Anyway, I've just submitted this junk heap to it, and apparantly I'll have to wait about 20 days before it gets added - if it does! But if you've just found it via Blogwise, then welcome and I hope you'll stay and have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.
You may have to supply your own tea and buscuits...
I should warn you that we could be on the verge of an exciting move! I'm looking at moving to Bravenet, which is pretty stupid considering I just submitted this Blogger address to Blogwise. Oh well. Hang on to your seats!!
Just before I sign off, I would like to point out that I am well aware how stupid I must look talking as if I have a readership of millions when in fact no-one reads it at all. However, since no-one is looking, that hardly matters, does it? Much like picking your nose, or breaking out some disco moves.
Anyway, that is all for now. I am off to Bravenet to see about this transfer. Till then,
seeya!
SIMARK
6:00 PM
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
I've just looked at my blog for the first time in ages and realised to my surprise that I haven't updated it in 5 months! Ahem. Some cynical people would say that I've just been too lazy to write anything, but naturally I couldn't comment.
So much has changed since last we met. I have lost two stone in weight (28 lbs for you crazy Americans), left school, got two A-levels, worked as a temp at a warehouse, worked as a temp at a fireworks factory (but they let me off...), and am currently working as a temp at an IT company called Logica CMG. I've been here two weeks now, and it's currently 11:26 on Tuesday of my third day.
I also have a cold, so I'm really enjoying that. The problem is that I am a temp, so sick leave isn't paid, which is why I am here while being ill.
I've just been told to get to work, so I'd better do that...
Later
simark
10:29 AM
Sunday, May 25, 2003
Do you hear that? It’s the rumbling sound of history. Really it is. The reason for this is that, after a vacuum of nearly two months, Don’t Look Too Closely is back! Woo hoo! Except, of course, any readers that I had have probably all cleared off because nothing was happening. Oh well.
The reason I stopped writing was that I decided that no one was actually reading it, which really put a dampener on it. I hear that some people view their writing as their baby – hard to let go. I'm the reverse, and need to know that someone’s reading it to find any motivation. However, one of my friends recently told me that he had found the address and really enjoyed what he read. Thus, I’m going to start up again, and hopefully people will start to catch on.
Well, a lot has happened since last we (ok, I) spoke, not the least of which being that my time at school is OVER! That would call for another ‘woo hoo,’ but unfortunately I don’t have a job so my current prospects look like being unemployment. Unless I can get some writing published, for money. Should that happen, I might be able to get some leeway with Dad about getting a job. Admittedly, that doesn’t look too hopeful either, though. A few weeks ago I discovered that I hadn’t even made the last ten of the local short story competition, which wasn’t very heartening. I have written a poem recently though, and it goes like this:
DANGEROUS DRIVING
Oh dear oh dear,
My best friend’s dead.
A Jaguar ‘X’ Type fell on his head.
I didn’t want that to happen, you see:
The person driving the ‘X’ Type was me!
It was the world’s
First flying car.
It went really high and went really far.
But despite being so shiny and sleek,
There was a slight problem with the landing technique.
Around the crash,
Horror abounds,
‘Cause on that car I’d spent thousands of pounds.
And let’s face it: it’s my friend’s fault he’s dead.
I've never seen anyone with such a huge head.
Don’t get me wrong,
I really am sad.
My best friend’s life always seemed to go bad.
Mind you, his end could have been far more sorry,
If he’d been there for my teleporting lorry…
Well we can but try our best…
In other highly exciting news, the camp highlight of year – Eurovision – was on last night. Most of the songs were awful, most of the costumes were worse, the presenting was absolutely dire, and the voting was almost entirely political and based on anything but the music. But who am I to judge? The UK entry was out of tune, but even so it didn’t deserve the zero points that it got! The entire evening would not be endurable if it wasn’t for Terry Wogan, who’s highly humourous commentary help to keep it all in perspective. This is the same man who nicknamed the presenters last year “Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy.” I suppose you had to be there, again.
Now for an update on my book - buying. Today I was in WH Smith’s (a national retailer of anything on paper) and found a new James Patterson book reduced by almost half price. In my excitement I attempted to buy it with my Solo card, only to discover that the shop doesn’t take Solo. This was a great surprise, and undoubtedly you too are in a state of shock, but fortunately Dad was around to use his credit card. And people say my life isn't exciting.
On Friday I went to see The Matrix: Reloaded at the cinema, and it really was a strange experience. There is so much action, and the plot twists more often than a politician in question time, that I came out really unsure what I thought of it, because so much happened. The obvious thing is that you HAVE to have seen The Matrix to stand a chance with this one, and even then some might struggle. I think I got most of it, but I think we’ll only know how good it is when I’ve seen the third one because then it will become clear whether the contortions and confusion were to good purpose or not. The special effects are absolutely terrific, and I don’t think there was any point when I fully lost interest. There was a rather unnecessary mass party scene that took far too long, but apart from that very little was wasted. In the opinion of your humble writer, the dialogue is better in Reloaded than the original. Mind you, that doesn’t take much. At 160 minutes, it’s one of the longer films I've seen this year but it seemed to go much quicker than that. I’d recommend it to anyone that’s seen the first Matrix. So there you go.
Hmm, what else has happened today? Can't think of anything, so I’ll call it a day. Sorry it’s gone on so long, but thanks for reading!
Seeya
Simark
6:53 PM
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Hello again. The first thing I’d like to do is say sorry for yesterday’s rather glum post. I’d also like to point out that I wasn’t implying anything about Mum, such as that she was looking for money or something, but was merely mentioning it to get it off my chest. Hopefully that’s sorted!
The other thing I wanted to bring up was my new feature for the site. I must thank the writer of the ‘Laura Marie Show’ blog – also on Blogger – for showing me the tag message board thing that I’d never heard of before. Actually, she’s never heard of me before, but I was browsing the opposition earlier and stumbled across her message board, and followed the link to the providers, whereupon I got my own. So thanks, er, Laura Marie (?) for that. Now you really don’t have any excuse to not contact me, since this takes about two seconds. SO GET ON WITH IT!
Meanwhile, you’ll be delighted to know that I survived my two English lessons despite great boredom, and a great risk of spontaneous human combustion on my part. Yesterday we discovered to our mortal horror that we shall take a mock exam after the two week Easter holiday that starts on Saturday. This exam involves taking an anthology of related texts and answering a highly unoriginal question on some of them. This particular anthology is on the subject of monsters, but shockingly contains no Monsters Inc related texts. Interestingly, the plonkers at AQA (‘Assessment and Qualifications Alliance’), who run our exams, included an extract from the Bible book of Revelation, of all things. The extract is about the dragon that most people know of, but surely using texts from the Bible could cause problems with those of us who consider it a divinely inspired text. I don’t believe that Revelation, or indeed any part of the Bible, is fictional and shouldn’t be analysed as a literary piece. The point is that there is much more to it than why certain words are placed in certain places. Having said that, though, I’ll probably use that extract because I know a lot about the Bible and so can talk about it.
But moving on, because I just realised I was running the risk of talking about my lessons, which doesn’t bear thinking about. As I said yesterday, following the lessons I had two free periods, and these too were about as exciting as watching dry paint crack. The good thing was that, 6 or 7 weeks after I bought them, I finally got round to using my earphones. People at my Sixth Form have been bringing CDs and earphones so they can listen to music since we started last school year, but it takes me a while to catch up. But with my ‘Best Air Guitar Album In The World… 2’ and ‘Justified’ (that’s Justin Timberlake!) albums, it was worth the wait. Of course. My biggest problem was that, forgetting myself and unable to hear my voice due to excess music, I did tend to start loudly singing along with the songs and boogying on down with the beats. Amazingly, I wasn’t suspended.
Sorry to distress you further, but I have to go back to this morning’s first lesson, because I've just remembered something. In a completely on topic discussion, yesterday’s Budget was under debate. As usual, taxes went up in several areas, including (as usual) cigarettes. One of my student colleagues pointed out that tax had gone up for “something that hardly anyone pays – road tax or something.” Don’t forget: the young of today are the statesmen and women of tomorrow.
In another sector of the classroom, but on a related matter, two girls were talking. “Why don’t they put tax on things that everyone buys,” she suggested, reasonably. “Like toilet roll,” she continued, rather losing that reasonableness. Can you imagine if there was a tax specifically on toilet roll? People could just give up using it in attempt to save money, and the results of that would bring any government down. There could be strikes similar to the petrol ones seen not too long ago. Our supermarket shelves could stand barren, where Andrex and Charmin and economy own-brand used to take pride of place. The country could go into meltdown! Or maybe prices would just go up a bit, and people would complain a little. Yes.
At this moment, Celtic (from Scotland) are playing against Boavista (from Portugal) in the UEFA Cup, which you may or may not know is like the second biggest European trophy in football. At the moment it is 1-1, but I suppose that is unlikely to be of interest to you crazy readers.
I'm desperately trying to think of something else to say, because I invariably only remember such things when I have just come off the computer and it is too late. I then forget about them in time for my next post.
Oh! I remember something! I have two weeks of holiday, starting Saturday. After the first week, I am supposed to go and stay with my Grandparents in Norwich for a week, but I don’t really think I want to go. However, I told them ages ago that I would be there. What should I do? Perhaps if I faked my own marriage, I could say that I am on my honeymoon when I should be there. It’ll work, I’m sure.
Later tonight I look forward to Britain’s Fattest Women, a serious academic program about a serious subject, then. The strangest thing is that from what I've seen the women aren’t even close to being the fattest women. Sure, they are the size of small cottages, but they’re not the largest. Tonight’s freak show focuses on Britain’s one and only female sumo wrestler. As far as I know, she’s Britain’s only sumo wrestler, period! I will of course give you a full run down on the show tomorrow.
In relation to that, I shall end today with a quote from the fantastic show The Simpsons, which is even funnier than Tazmania. No, really! Anyway, Homer is having a photo session done with very little in the way of clothes on, and the photographer comes out with a classic line.
“Please don’t talk, Mr Simpson – you’re making your body ripple.”
Seeya
SIMARK
7:51 PM
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
For some completely unknown reason, I have decided to write an add-on to today’s blog. Firstly, I want to make known the injustice that I have suffered this evening. My pillock of a brother forced me off the computer so he could do the coursework that would take him until Kingdom Come, only to decide 10 minutes later that he doesn’t need to do his coursework at all. He then proceeded to spend 4 hours on the computer playing games. Meanwhile, I watched an old episode of Friends (as you may have guessed these are common here on British TV) and had my overgrown hair cut. Theoretically I should now be able to spike it, but in an effort not to upset my more conservative readers I shan’t go overboard with that. In an extremely weird twist, I also discovered that my mother is engaged. Time for some explaining.
I haven’t told you this, but I am not the product of a perfect traditional family. Well, not anymore that is. Last August, my Mum moved nearly 200 miles to a town called Ipswich, and my parents divorced for reasons that would be better off left private. Although technically Mum had every right to move, I always had the worry that there was more behind her disappearance than met the eye. I don’t want to go into the details but, having been rejected by one potential suitor, she has now got engaged to another. This was what I had expected, but it just doesn’t seem right, considering she was married for nearly 25 years and only really met this man 8 months ago. I know that you the reader doesn’t want to read things like this, especially since it’s sort of depressing and not related to you, but I have to vent my feelings somewhere. I don’t want you to start making judgements about my mother, because you don’t know the details. In fact, I don’t know all of the details because I don’t really keep in touch with her. Oh well, I feel a little better now that’s off my chest.
Tomorrow is yet another boring day. My only two lessons, both of which are English, don’t offer much hope. The first will not be attended by our teacher so nothing will get done. The second is ANOTHER lesson in which we are going to compare texts. I can't cope! Well I can really, considering I get the rest of the day off…
As you may have noticed, the counter on this site is rising slowly. Very slowly, in fact. However, the fact that it is rising is good, because I hope it shows that people are coming back. If you are a regular reader of my ramblings, please let me know. As stupid as it sounds, just a word or two letting me know my writing is being enjoyed will be fantastic. And let your friends know if you enjoy it.
I think I’ll go to bed now, for more fun and dreams. Tomorrow is one of only two days in my week when I have to get up first thing. The problem is that two is too much!! Trust me, it is…
Again, e-mail me with anything you want. I look forward to it.
Seeya
SIMARK
9:28 PM
First off, I must apologise for my obvious absence yesterday. As my brother would say, and indeed he often does, “reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” I'm sure many of my devoted fans were desperately worried for me after my headache on Monday. Perhaps I’d gone into hospital. Perhaps I’d gone… somewhere else. Or, as my brother subtly pointed out on Sunday, perhaps I had a brain tumour. Fortunately none of these was the case. I was a bit unwell though, and although I went in for my single lesson (Computing), I was off school for most of the day. When I got back, I felt tired and so I went to bed. After that, I watched an amazing football match between Real Madrid and Manchester United on the television. Therefore, between all this I had no time or urge to go onto the computer, so sorry again. This blog will just have to be doubly long.
Regular readers will know that in my last post I pointed out that more journalists would be probably be injured or killed in the Iraq war. Sadly, within a day of that prediction an American tank fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, where all of the “Western” journalists were staying, and killed some of the journalists there. I can't remember which nationalities they were but, as horrible as it is, I wasn’t affected by it so much because none were English. Fortunately, I think the death toll was quite low. Also, there was what appeared to be good news from Baghdad this morning when the crowds all started celebrating the apparent end of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Along with many others, I hope this means the war will be over soon.
I've just heard that FIA, the governing body of Formula One, is considering changing the results of the extraordinary Grand Prix that I mentioned on Monday – as if it wasn’t enough of a farce. From what I hear, Jordan driver Fisichella may be declared winner after all. On top of everything else that happened, there appears to have been a timekeeping discrepancy at the race, suggesting that Fisichella had actually completed two laps as leader rather than one. Because the rulebook of Formula One says that the results should be based on standings two laps before the red flag, this would put the Jordan driver in first position. I personally love the Grand Prix, but there is no getting around the fact that this is ridiculous, and I still wonder if the race should ever have been allowed to go ahead. However, that is an old argument so I’ll go no further into that.
Still on sport, the above mentioned football match in the European Champions League was one of the best I've ever seen. For the uneducated among you, Real Madrid is undoubtedly the best team in the world. Imagine the football version of the Harlem Globe Trotters, and you have an idea how good they are. As I said at the time, due to no one else saying anything interesting, this was the kind of match that converts non-football fans. The score was 3-1 to the Spaniards, who made the best team in England – Manchester United – look positively average. I won't bother trying to describe the goals, because if you are interested you’ll probably see them on the News if you haven’t already, but they were fantastic. As ridiculous as this sounds to a well-qualified football expert like myself, Man Utd could easily have lost by five or six goals. My, that sounds ridiculous!
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Why, Simark, haven’t we had an I’m reading War and Peace update recently?” I’ll tell you why. I HAVEN’T READ ANY MORE OF IT! Now get off my back, you insane people.
In my bedroom, I was shocked to discover just how dusty the windowsill shelves are. True, they haven’t been dusted for the best part of 10 months so I shouldn’t be surprised, but it hadn’t occurred to me. So I dusted them. That’s a true story.
I get the feeling that this blog is running away from me rapidly, so I may have to finish soon. Also, my brother keeps nagging me because he left all his coursework until the last two days and wants to get onto it. Well, he can wait. Of course.
This calls for a “D’oh”. I had plenty of things to talk about earlier, but I can't remember any of them now. I’m like this on the telephone, but writing should be easier. Actually, that reminds me of something I wanted to say. I don’t know what it is like for you the beloved reader, but I am completely different as a writer than in real life. In normal speech I am low in confidence and tend to talk unclearly. However, in writing I am as confident as anyone. If you are interested, which you obviously are, this is the reason why I like writing because I have lots of ideas but don’t have the confidence or speed to communicate them in speech, whereas I am in writing.
I've really lost track of what I'm saying now, so I’ll end it here.
Seeya soon
SIMARK
4:52 PM
Monday, April 07, 2003
Today finds me at home, due to a continuation of the headache that struck over the weekend and left me feeling less than ready for the 40 minutes walk that it takes to get to school, especially considering that my timetable means I do that walk twice in two hours. Please don’t send me all the ‘get well soon’ cards that you want to do, because that would doubtless bring the entire postal service down. Of course.
More on that later, but first I feel I have to mention two events yesterday that really shocked me. This blog is not political, and I try to keep neutral, but a “friendly fire” incident in North Iraq yesterday shook me. If you don’t know the details, an American plane bombed an American and Kurdish convoy, killing at least 10 people. Travelling with the convoy was the superb BBC reporter John Simpson, who is something of an institution here in Britain. He has reported from all sorts of war zones and won all sorts of awards, but in the attack came within 10 meters of being hit by a bomb. According to his report, he would have had a chunk of shrapnel in his spine had he not been wearing a protective jacket. His Kurdish translator lost his legs, and then bled to death. I, along with millions of other Britons, sat in astonishment as his report was played on the 10 o’clock news, showing (with the camera covered in the cameraman’s blood) the bodies of several soldiers. In the background, Army vehicles could be seen on fire with their horns blazing. It struck me that this was just like a Hollywood war movie, except that these bodies really had been people. Within minutes of the attack Simpson was on the BBC’s News channel reporting what had occurred, like the true professional that he is. I know that each death is as tragic as the next, but somehow the realisation that someone so well known and loved came so close to being killed, especially in such circumstances, was really appalling to me. Simpson would not have been the first journalist to die in the war, and his translator probably won't be the last media worker to do so, which makes me wonder why so many of them are in the war zones. Whenever the reporters in the centre of the zones or with the Army report, they can rarely give many details of what is happening, or where it is happening. Should they really be risking their lives for this? I can't answer that, but I just hope that deaths are kept to a minimum while the war continues.
Earlier yesterday, I had again been quite shocked. Of course this is less important than the Iraq war, but the Grand Prix was in itself quite brutal. The other day, I joked about wanting crashes to happen, but this race was a complete disgrace. The track was covered in water, with some sections even having “riverlets” running across them. Rain had been pouring for most of the time coming up to the race, and yet the director decided to go ahead with the race after only 15 minutes delay. This seemed really ridiculous to me because they had to use a safety car for the first few laps, after which it was brought out a further three times before the race was stopped after 55 laps. By that point, no less than 14 of the cars had retired. To my knowledge, 13 of those retirees had crashed, with six accidents occurring on the same corner. In addition to this, the car of eventual runner-up Giancarlo Fisichella pulled up on fire during the post race chaos. The race was stopped after an horrific crash involving 21 year old Fernando Alonso, who went straight into the debris left by another accident that had happened to Jaguar’s Mark Webber. While Alonso limped out of his car and collapsed on the roadside, the Jordan team were leaping in the air, wildly celebrating what they believed to be a first ever win for them and their driver Fisichella. There then ensued several minutes of complete confusion in which claims and counter claims were made as to whom had actually won. The Jordan driver had been the last leader to cross the start line, but McClaren were adamant that their man Kimi Raikkonen should be crowned victor. As it turned out, the result was based on standings two laps before the stoppage, meaning that Raikkonen got a second consecutive victory. However, no one seemed to care what had happened to the young Spaniard who was slouched next to part of the wreckage of his Renault. The medics strapped him to a stretcher and took him to hospital, where he was eventually released with minor bruising fortunately enough. It just surprised me that many of the people who were there, and especially the Jordan team, were not worried about the driver that had just suffered such a disastrous accident. This was Jordan’s 200th Grand Prix, during which they’d never won a race, but even so a “win” is hardly worth much celebration considering the circumstances.
Perhaps the most bizarre thing about the race was that three of the drivers in point positions – Fisichella, Alonso and Webber – were in fact out of the race at the end. According to the commentators on ITV, Brazil is usually very wet around this time of year. This made me wonder why the Grand Prix is always held at this time of year, since it is obviously so dangerous. Again, I don’t know the answer but there must be some way of making F1 safer and more of a sport than it is, and thus more entertaining.
And on to lighter matters. I know a lot of the above is very deep, but I just had to write about that. I should point out that I have just noticed that the links I have been merrily inserting don’t work. For some reason the web page is adding “simark.blogspot.com” to the front of each link, but I have no idea why. I shall try to work it out if I can.
I would like to say hello to Peter from Australia, after his nice e-mails about the blog. Like I've said already, it’s great to hear from people who enjoy my work and I’d love to hear from anyone who reads my work. In case the links decide not to work, my e-mail address is simark1931@hotmail.com so don’t hesitate to get in touch.
I must also say congratulations to the Leeds United team, who I am sure regularly read this blog. If you don’t know, Leeds won 6-1 after spending most of the season losing pathetically. Good show, old boys!
In personal news, I got an E-mail back from my local newspaper editor. I don’t think I've mentioned this before, so I’ll explain. In an attempt to find writing-related employment I E-mailed the editor of the local paper. He E-mailed back to say that they don’t do mentoring or any such thing, but did offer me the chance to go to a work experience thing at the newsroom. So now he’s offered to put my name through to the people who arrange work experience for me. So I could be a journalist type person! I am as excited as you probably imagine…
As for the state of my health, my headache appears to have cleared up for a while at least, so I'm happy now. Mind you, at one point today I did commit the horrible sin of… watching daytime TV! I know, I should have warned you before coming out with such a disgusting phrase, so I'm sorry. Frankly, watching some of the things on during the day I'm surprised more unemployed aren’t scared into getting a job. On Killroy, one could view a group of people talking of how they choose which person to have relationships with by reading their Horoscopes. Later on, at lunchtime, came the kind of show that I thought had died out in the Fifties. Called Today With Des And Mel (‘Des’ being Des O’Conner and ‘Mel’ being Mel Sykes), this programme is so cheesy that its audience mainly constitutes mice. A man sounding worryingly like Alan Partridge does a voice-over before and after the commercials, telling the viewers what and who is coming up. If you are unfamiliar with Des O’Conner, then you haven’t missed much. He is the kind of presenter that would say, “See you after the break, we’ve got a great show for you, it’ll be a lot of fun, see you then, bye, tell your friends, it’s going to be great, we’ll be right back, back in a minute,” when most presenters would say, “Back in two minutes.” Watching this, suddenly school didn’t seem such an unattractive proposition…
By the way, I know I plugged the Opera browser yesterday but I have to give it another mention today. It really is fantastic, and it gets better as I get more familiar with it. Go to http://www.opera.com for more information.
Well, I'm worn out now. This is the longest post I've written so far, and I hope you forgive me for the heaviness of some of it.
Sadly I can't think of any new jokes. True, that hasn’t stopped me before but today I’ll leave off!
Seeya soon
SIMARK
4:48 PM
Sunday, April 06, 2003
Well, today is Sunday, meaning that I do even less than normal. Mind you, I do have to be at a meeting at 10:00, so my alarm duly woke me at 8:00. The considerable blow that such an event causes was somewhat softened via Tazmania, which is my favourite cartoon. True, I'm not exactly an expert on cartoons but this particular one is really funny. My favourite character has to be Mr Tasmanian Devil (Taz’s father). He is just hilarious, and can often be found drinking a ‘glass of O.J.’ or saying “Blah blah blah, yackety schmackety.” For some reason I find this highly humourous. I suppose you had to be there.
Meanwhile, today is the big day for boating fans all across the country. All three of them. Yes, it’s the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race or, as it is known to the hardcore fans, ‘The Boat Race’. Personally, I can't see the attraction of a competition in which the same teams always make the final but that could just be me. For those of you not in the know, ‘The Boat Race’ is a yearly event held between probably the two most posh Universities in the country: Oxford and Cambridge. True, the event has been going for a very long time, and this is the 149th since it began in 1829. But do the people of Britain and indeed the world really want to see the same race every year? I can understand why people who are at, or who have been at, the Universities involved could have a passing interest, but that still leaves 99% of the population with no reason whatsoever to watch. And if you are not in Britain, then you may well not have heard of it in the first case, meaning that the last paragraph wasted a few seconds of your life. For this I apologise.
As I mentioned yesterday, there are a few nice features that I added to this website now. However, I forgot to thank the nice people at Bravenet for allowing a skinflint like me to use their cool stuff. I also would like to point out that I know that the audience that I have hardly needs a forum, but I can be ambitious can't I?
And now on to my favourite moaner subject: music. Or rather manufactured music. You may have heard of Kym Marsh. If you ever saw the original Popstars then you probably know her as one of the members of the awful Hear’Say band that was the result of the show. Within a year or two the band had split up, but even before then Ms Marsh had cleared off. You might feel sorry for her. You might cry for her. You might starve yourself for a month for her. If you’re that way inclined, you might whip yourself vigorously. But whatever you do, don’t buy her new single. No-one deserves that much torture! Throughout time, very few musicians have excelled at everything. They might write superb lyrics, but not quite be so good in performance. They might have a superb voice but not be quite so good writing. Indeed, as in the case of the great Elvis, they might not be able to write songs at all. Sadly, Kym Marsh falls into this last category. Her voice is actually rather good, but whoever is writing her songs should be sacked. Take for instance this pair of lines: “Tell me if I’m talking way too much / Or tell me if you want to keep in touch.” Wah? Or how about, “Tell me if I’m a bit too much / Or tell me if you want to keep in touch.” As my dad said, there are only so many words that rhyme with “uch”. Mind you, Marsh has lost some weight (the great Lorraine Kelly described her as gorgeous, although that seems to be a generic, and rather jealous, term of hers to describe anyone of the thin variety) and is thus bound to do better commercially.
Back in my life, and today I downloaded a browser called “Opera”, who’s website claims it to be the “fastest web browser in the world.” It’s definitely better than Microsoft’s crummy (that’s a technical term) effort, which is much slower due to all the excess features that nobody uses. If you’re interested, visit this site. The free edition has adverts, but still allows you to block all those infuriating pop-up adds. The priced edition costs you, of course. As you can guess, I took the free one.
In about half an hour the Grand Prix starts. This one is from Brazil, so I could say it’ll be a hot race. No? Ok, I won't then.
In other news, my team on the Manager Zone game drew 4-4! That mean’s I've played 2, drawn one and lost one. Yes, I really am that good.
This morning I tried a type of croissant that comes out of a foil tube. You just put them in the oven and hey presto! Croissants! And they were delicious as well. Here in England you can get them from most good shops – made by Sarah Lee, although I cannot confirm that she will make your croissants herself.
My dad has just experienced great pain in his hand, due largely to his placing it on a hot ceramic stove. OUCH. Therefore, I would like to strongly recommend that you do not try said action. If you really must see how hot it is, put a pan of water over it or something. Or buy a gas cooker and avoid the problem completely!
As promised, I’ll close with another classic Chris Moyles joke. These aren’t just Chris Moyles jokes of course, but I heard them there.
“My flat is so small, the mice are all hunchbacks.”
“My flat is so small, I put the key in the door and broke a window.”
It doesn’t get better than this. Maybe except a chocolate house.
Please let me know what you think of everything, and sign my guestbook.
Seeya
SIMARK
4:56 PM
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