I love my Hat

I have a hat.

It's a very nice hat, well, a beanie technically. It's black and made of something that for the sake of argument I will say is wool, and it has a little label thingy that sits over my right eye.
That's it, nothing showy, nothing expensive or special, but it does do a very good job of covering the top of my head and if I'm honest, that's all I can ask of a good hat.

I have had it for so long that I can't even remember where I bought it, but in my own time honoured tradition, I bought it because I lost the hat I had before. I never go out shopping and see, say, a pair of sunglasses, and think "hey, you know what? I already have a pair, but these would look much better at the beach, ooh, and those would be good for when I'm rock climbing, I'll get them all." If it does it's job, and doesn't need washing too often, I'll just have one at a time thanks. In fact I'd probably only have one pair of pants if they didn't need washing so damn regularly. (not due to me making them unwearably dirty due to some deviant fetish, I just like clean pants)

My hat has been all over Europe with me (it can't go on it's own, obviously. It doesn't have it's own passport), it has ridden proudly atop my bonce as I skied down various mountains in Soll in Austria, and hob-nobbed with the hats of celebrity skiers in Val D'Isere in France.
It has sat in my bag while I drove the 1800-ish miles from Calais to Alicante in Southern Spain, taking a beanie to Spain in August may have been a slightly ridiculous idea, but you never know...
Closer to home, it has watched from the beach as I learned to Kite-surf on the Isle of Wight (with considerable success I might add), and it has stubbornly refused to leave my head when I rather embarrassingly found myself the owner of an MGF convertible and decided to go down the motorway with the roof down. In March. At night.

My hat has climbed nearly as many walls as I have, I may take my jumper off, and maybe my t-shirt too, but most of the time the hat stays on. (it doesn't go as far as that Tom Jones song though, you filthy minded people)
It keeps me warm in my car while the heaters stubbornly refuse to live up to their name, it deflects all the great British weather if I ever make the mistake of walking anywhere.

My hat has been soaked in snow, rain and sleet, it's been wet and dried so many times it has lost all elastic properties, it has been covered in oil, grease and anything else that drips off the underside of a car, and it lived with my unwashed hair for over 4 weeks when I tried to see if my hair would clean itself. (it didn't)

But it is still looking good (for a given range of 'good') and it still does what it is supposed to do, plus it's really comfy too.

So I love my hat, and I wanted to let you know.

That is all. Ta.

Epiphanifanot

Erm, well that didn't work then did it.
Even if I have decided I can write short posts, I still can't manage to make it one-a-day apparently, rrrubbish.

Pah, well I have been spying on you lot, and it turns out I've had less than 200 visits since I started the blog, so it's not like I'm disappointing millions with my lack of posts. Oh, yeah, and I know where you all live, so keep reading my blog or I will come round and jab you in the eye, apart from the 3 people from the south-eastern U.S, you are pretty much exempt from any visits from me unless I win a substantial amount of money any time soon. But come back and read again anyway.

In other news, I spent yesterday sat on the roof of a van, in my socks, using a heat gun to warm up my icy cold toes. Who says signmaking doesn't introduce you to new experiences.

I also saw Rachel for the first time in 3 days, yes, 3 DAYS! I missed her loads which is really sad I suppose, but i'm really chuffed that we like each other so much that 3 days apart does feel like far, far too long, it's great! It may be the honeymoon effect, but i'm loving it so nerr. We had a fantastic evening, dinner, friends over, wine and dvd's, and then a bit later we, well, you know what I mean, and yes, it was incredible. Snigger, giggle.

Oh yeah, I will do a post soon about my upcoming career change, or distinct lack of it thus far, so prepare yourself for some serious procrastination.

Epiphanifany

Hey, you know what, I just realised something, I still might manage this one-post-a-day malarky, because I've just read this: http://kitchentable.blogspot.com/ (I still don't know how to make that come up as a clicky linky that shows a word of my choice and not the actual address, leave a comment and tell me how, you smart, smart people, you.) and it seems you really don't need an incredibly long post about a definite subject every day, you can sometimes make it short (check Monday, Jan 15th) and still make it well worth reading and in this case, very funny.

So I'll do that, short posts, if I have no time for a long one, and if I can come up with something decisively truncated and witty. And it starts here.

Better stop writing then, erm right.

Uh, bye.

Monkey Bath

This is something I have done for a while, but never realised it had been given it's very own term until now.

Picture the scene: (play along at home, delete as applicable)

Dandan gets home from work/the pub/climbing, all sweaty, and possibly aching too from all the exertion and effort he put into making signs/drinking JD/dragging himself up walls.
He is such a committed employee(ha)/drinker/climber that after putting in so much effort he is in dire need of some relaxation.

He can't afford a massage parlour/sauna/'special' massage parlour, so his only option is to run himself a nice hot bath, and hope that it will suffice instead of the massage/steamy room of sweaty hairy naked guys/immigrant girl stealing your wallet when you fall asleep. (according to a, er, friend of mine, anyway)

So he turns on the taps, puts the plug in (usually after wondering why the bath is not filling up after ten minutes worth of steaming hot water has headed down the drain) and waits for it to fill up.
Perhaps he adds a little bubble bath/bath salts/er, something else (I may be a modern man but I can't name 3 things you could add to bath water, unless you include bodily fluids) to make the experience a liitle more foamy/fragrant/um, if it involves adding bodily fluids, it would make the experience a little more brief, thats for sure.

He takes off his work uniform/jeans and tshirt/bear suit (that genuinely happened once, I swear) and checks the water, perhaps adding some more hot water to make it nice and steamy.

Then, with the work/pub/climbing done, and the making signs/drinking JD/dragging himself up walls finished for another day, and with no massage/sauna/'special' massage in sight, and the bubble bath/bath salts/fluid of dubious origin added, and the work uniform/jeans and tshirt/bear suit well and truly discarded, he climbs gently into the hot, steaming bath, and says:

"Ooh, ah, ooh ooh, ah ah ah!"

And that my friends, is why it is called a Monkey Bath.

Good Intentions

Look, right, this was never a new year's resolution to start writing this blog on a daily basis, so the fact that I have been very slack recently does not mean I have typically failed in upholding a resolution within the typical timeframe. (i.e a few days)
The fact that I started it on the first of Jan was just lucky more than anything, and now the fact that I can't seem to manage a daily post just means i'll have to adjust my aim a little bit, I haven't failed at anything!

Anyone see the defensiveness creeping in a little here?

Well, I did intend to write this daily, or at least end up with an equivalent post count (two in a day if I miss a day sort of thing) but it seems I underestimated how busy my life is now, and it turns out there is absolutely no way I can do it.
I am a little disappointed with myself, because a kind of daily diary would have been cool, but then again if it meant having posts like "at work, on lunch, ham and cheese roll is nice, some signs fell down today, i'm off to the pub tonight, gotta run, busy" maybe it's all for the best.

The whole point was that each post would not only interest me if I read back through it, but might keep other people entertained too, so I need a decent amount of time to sit down to write each post, and I really can't find the time in every day.
I'm not losing interest in writing the posts at all, it really is a case of getting a chance to do them. I would like to say it's because I'm such a hard worker and I work every hour in the day, only stopping to sleep for 20minutes when my vision starts to fade, but in all honesty it's because I'm having too much fun going out and enjoying myself.
Hang on, that's a great reason for not being able to post, why am I feeling guilty about it?! (ok, maybe not guilty as such, it's not exactly like I have a 'public' to let down, but I do wish I could do this daily.)

So it looks like for the forseeable future, posts will come at about a 2-3 a week sort of rate, obviously if I can post more I will, but I'll try and make it that many at least.

Thats it for now, strangely enough, i'm off to enjoy myself, so I can't write any more, sort-of-normal service may or may not resume next week. Ta.

Blimey McCrikey

That was a hell of a weekend.

erm,

that's all I was going to say actually, sums it up quite nicely I thought.

Alright then, i'll give at least a little bit of detail, but don't ask me to list all the drinks I had over the weekend, it's not big or clever. Well, the list would be big, and I would need to be pretty clever to recall the whole list, but just don't do it kids.

Ok, so I made it to my brothers gig on Friday, which was pretty good as it turned out. I managed to get Rachel to come with me, since she dropped out from attending somebody's leaving do. (which turned pretty messy itself but that's another story entirely)

I've never been to a hardcore gig before, and i'm not sure what I was expecting but I was suprised by the good atmosphere and lack of attitude. Yes, there were people furiously flinging their limbs at each other in a mosh pit at the front, but most people made sure they didn't intentionally twat anyone too hard, and would even help each other up in the likely event of someone falling over. This strange voilent-but-considerate approach may have been because of what happened if you did go a bit over the top.

Example: A tiny chinese girl kept running into the mosh pit and then would run out screaming when she got nudged about a bit, which doesn't immediately strike me as the smartest thing to do, but still didn't justify some guy smacking her in the head. I'm not entirely sure what happened next but it involved a lot of large sweaty men in black t-shirts all forcing their way in the same direction at once, and I didn't see the bloke until an hour later when he was at the bar asking for ice to put on his seriously swollen face.

So it was strange to spend half my time trying to listen to the bands and half my time keeping an eye out for badly aimed moshers headed in mine and Rachels direction. (I'm not for a second saying I was protecting Rachel, i'm pretty sure she would have done a fine job of that herself, but I may have extended an arm to cover a little more than just myself a couple of times.)

The choice after the gig was to join Laura and LOTS of other people at a club, in celebration of Laura's birthday, or to go home and make head-pillow interaction as soon as possible. I was knackered, having been out till 3 on Thursday night and up at 6.30 for work, so I suggested we head home. We had a quick vote, cast some ballots and had a recount, but it was unamimous so no enquiry was needed, we were off to bed, hurrah.

As it turns out, Rach was just as tired as me, but she said if I had wanted to go to the club, she would have gone, and once there would probably have drunk everyone under the table and stayed out until 5am, her social powers amaze me constantly, as do a lot of things about her, but I digress.

If you don't include the bit after midnight when i was still awake (what was I doing at this time? I'm a gentleman, use your imagination), then saturday started kind of early. Rachel had to get up about 10am to go and pay G.N.P. sized amounts of money for someone to cut her hair and make it a slightly different colour, (it looked really good though I must admit) but after waking, I found out my presence was not required, so I did what any sensible person would do, I went back to sleep. Good thing really, if I had known what was coming I would have tried to get even more sleep.

Cue 13, yes, Thirteen hours in the pub.

I got to Goblets at 1pm for lunch for Laura's birthday (She doesn't seem to think a birthday is enough, so she had a birthweekend instead), and left The Dungeon at 2am when they kicked everyone out.

I did have an awesome time, I do wish I could remember a little more of it, but I ended up with a smile on my face so thats all good. I do know that I spent in excess of £60 on Jack Daniels, this would usually cover my quarterly alcohol intake, things they are certainly a-changin' around here!

I also remember telling a friend of mine that our 12-odd year friendship had been based on the fact that when on a coach trip at school, if I turned round in my chair and leant over the back to talk to her, I could spend the time looking down her top at her cleavage. I was sure she already knew this, but apparently not, whoops.

Sure to follow the best traditions, Birthweekend girl Laura was absolutley battered, and at one point accepted a drink from a guy on crutches who must have been at least an octagenarian. She thought he was a stripper hired for her birthday, I have no idea what he thought, but he used his pension money to buy her an archers and lemonade.

I did some hardcore socialising, which all went pretty well, I even spoke to Rachels ex, (you remember me saying it was complicated?) which I was actually really nervous about, and I was hoping desperately that he would like me, or at least not think I was a complete nobhead. Well I can only thank Mr Daniels for getting me through, because I have no idea what I said but it seemed to work and we had a brief, slightly awkward but positive conversation, phew.

Doug, my joke nemesis, was there, an occasion that I had been storing some cracking gags up for, but Mr Daniels struck again and I forgot them all, so I made sure I kept the conversations very serious indeed.

"Politics eh? tch." stuff like that.

There's more i'm sure but it comes back to me in flashes like amnesia after a particularly bad car crash, it's by no means reliable.

Sunday.

Starts like this.

Ow, fuck, ow, fuck, ow ow ow my head, argh ow thinking too loud hurts ah thats better, ahhh even better. bugger this i'm going back to sleep.

I didn't get to go back to sleep however, you know why? I had for some reason agreed to help Rachel move into her new flat, and the new resident of her current room would be moving in in 4 hours. Oh, that's why she got herself a nice strapping young boyfriend then. Dammit.

I definately do not suggest lugging chests of drawers up and down stairs to get rid of a hangover, and I will not lie and say it is enjoyable in the least, but i'll tell you what, it bloody works.

Oh did I mention the moving van fell through, so we had to move everything in the back of a Seat Leon, mmm, spacious. I even had to go and help fire up a soft-top series 2 Landrover from about 1960 in order to move the larger items. The owner of the Landrover is a guy called Jesus John, as he is precisely as quirky and eccentric as the name might imply, hence owning a 40 year old farm vehicle, among other things. It was an experience though, i'll say that.

It all got sorted in the end, thanks mostly to Rachel knowing a lot of people and being charismatic enough to drag them out of bed on a sunday morning to help her out, (have I mentioned how amazing she is?) thats a rare skill.

Laura hadn't finished with us yet, and it was off to The Bridge pub for a posh birthweekend meal in the evening, dress code was optional, but most of us got suited up, possibly because of a suggestion I made on Saturday night, sorry everyone. (I said a lot of things on Saturday that I have forgotten that i'm sure will come back to haunt me in the next few weeks)

The meal was great, I can thoroughly recommend the lamb cutlets.

Um, Rach actually paid for my meal, ostensibly as a thankyou for helping her move, but I admit I was incredibly skint myself, but I do still feel bad about that, I have no problem giving money away but hate to take it, so I may have to repay the favour in a typically Dan fashion sometime soon.

Erm, that was about it I think, it was eventful by my standards, but I would say pretty eventful by most people's measure, right?

Well regardless of where it comes on the official eventfulness scale, I had a stonking good time, even the hangover and the moving were ok because it was with Rachel, and I enjoy every moment I spend with her. (read the previous post, I did warn you)

We've not known each other long, but have become very close in a very short time, which amazes me constantly, it seems she genuinely likes me as much as I like her, who'd have believed it?

Oh yeah, this weekend got well and truly topped off in style. I may have heard good music, spent time with great people, in great places, eaten good food, laughed and laughed, but it still got beaten at the very end.

On Sunday night, Rachel whispered those three little words into my ear for the first time.

Catch-up

(Just to let you know i am posting this today but I wrote it last week, but never had time to finish it, things have been, er, busy to say the least, but this one should be dated the 12th January I think)

So much for sticking to a single particular subject for each blog, thats went out the window pretty fast. I've got all sorts of stuff I want to write a little bit about, but nothing that is really enough to justify it's very own post, so you get a mixed bag today. I warn you, get your sick bags out because it may include some vomit inducing romantic mush about Rachel, i've been really good not writing too much about her, but I just want to so I will, nerr.

First of all, I'm sorry.

Missed out posting on another day yesterday, doing this daily isn't as easy as I thought it might be, turns out I genuinely don't have the time to even write a tiny short post some days. I'll try and keep it as regular as possible, but i'm sure as hell not going to start saying "Come down the pub tonight? No, sorry, I have to write my blog". Perspective, people.
Taking that into account, I may miss out a post or two this coming weekend, as it is my friend Laura's birthday and she has organised festivities for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, if all goes well I won't see my bed for 3 days, let alone my computer.

I'm kind of double booked tonight, as well as kicking off the birthday celebrations, I am supposed to go see my brothers band (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=41012374) tonight, but through an incredible series of coincidences and people being generally flaky, I don't actually have anyone to go with. My brother will be there obviously, but he may well want to concentrate on hitting the drums with his sticks rather than standing next to me with a pint saying "Gosh, these guys flipping rock" or whatever it is you say at gigs. Although seeing as his band are a 'hardcore' band, I doubt you get the chance to say or hear much else at all while they are playing.
I'm not ready to be the lonely bloke stood in the corner pretending to really concentrate on the music by vigorously tapping a foot and staring into the middle distance, carefully avoiding any direct eye contact, so I may have to give this one a miss, sorry bro.

I went out with a bunch of people last night to Goblets in Southampton and then we headed over to the Dungeon afterwards. People present were Rachel (of course), Laura, Bec, Smif, and a guy called Penfold. It was a good fun evening in general, although as usual it went on until about 2.30am, and now I am quite predictably shattered (I hope i'm not the only one).
I can't help feeling also that I may have had a very lucky escape last night.
I was the only dope not drinking (as I live further out than everyone else and I have to drive), which meant that when we moved from one bar to the next, I was asked for a lift. Normally this is fine, but unfortunately last night I was lumbered with my work van, which I thought would put people off, seeing as it only has 2 seats and a big empty space in the back.

Put them off? pah, they thought it was a great idea.
I felt like an immigrant smuggler, hustling this line of people out of the back of a white van outside the bar, and we also found out that a smooth van floor plus no seatbelts combined with my dodgy braking will result in someone banging their head. (sorry Bec)
I even ended up taking a couple of people home later on in the same fashion, I made them get out the side door, as at least it looks less like I am depositing Polish workers at the side of the road that way.
The lucky escape came once I only had one person left in the van (in a proper seat and everything), when I started to get tailed by a police car. I realised I had been kind of cruising along at about 40 in a 30 zone, what with it being the middle of the night and dead quiet, so the policeman pulled me over. Thank christ he didn't see me dropping the last people off out of the back of the van, anyone know the penalty for carting people around like luggage? i'm sure it's not nice.
I just got checked out and breathylised and warned about my speed, but I was very aware of what could have happened if I had been spotted by him about 2 minutes earlier.
Lucky espace indeed, sorry guys, I don't think I had better sardine you in my van anymore.

My bet with Rachel has come to a very early end, as when I met up with her last night she was sat in the pub smoking! Well, it means no peircing for me, which is kind of a relief, but I would have gone through with it for the crack anyway, nevermind, I'm sure I can find something else to bet her soon.
Which brings me neatly to Rachel. Ah, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.

RIGHT. Im going to have to stop you there, this is where I ran out of time to finish this blog, so I will continue it on a new post later today. Huge apologies to those who wish to read about how wonderful and amazing Rachel is, trust me i'll make up for it in the next post (i'm setting the keyboard to 'mind numbingly gooey and luvvy-duvvy' as we speak).
So thats your lot for now, apologies again for my lack of posting, but if you had the weekend I had, you wouldn't have posted either. :)

Job Offers

Yesterday:
"Alright Peer, how are you?" says me.
"Ah, my favourite Salisbury Signmaker! How are you doing Dan?" Says Peer.
"Actually, I won't be a Salisbury signmaker soon, i'm leaving"
"Really?"
"Yeah, probably at the end of this month"
...
"Want a job?"

And I had basically the same conversation about a month ago as well, just replace the name 'Peer' with 'Jason', and change location to another local signmaking company, but the jist is the same.

Why does everyone who knows me within my profession want to offer me a job?
I can only guess that they think I would make a good employee, and I really am loathe to contradict them, but I genuinely think I would disappoint them considerably, and I swear this is not generated by some false modesty on my part.
I have good communication skills, which means I generally get on well with people I meet, especially in a professional situation, where my total inability to be intentionally rude or disrespectful to people really comes to the fore, and I'm guessing that this positive appearance comes across as a sign of how I always conduct myself.
Be nice if that were true.

I work to live, rather than a lot of people (my dad included) who live to work, or so it seems, and I think if people realised this about me, I might not be quite such a hot employee prospect.
I'm not saying i'm a lazy person, (I can't be arsed to) but I sure as hell wouldn't work if I didn't have to. I want to spend my days doing something I really enjoy, and while i'm sure there are jobs like that out there for certain people (the less said about these people the better) I tend to find the enjoyable jobs are the very, VERY badly paid ones.
I will furnish you with an example or two: I love bar work, and can think of worse things to spend your 40-odd hours a week doing than listening to music and meeting people, after all that is what I choose to spend a lot of my free time doing anyway! But bar work isn't exactly a lucrative career with great prospects. Don't even start the sentence "but you could manage a bar and get paid more" because then you aren't doing bar work, you are managing, which as far as I can tell involves making phone calls, looking stressed and staring intently at sheets of paper. Possibly in an attempt to change them into other sheets of paper with slightly more pleasing things written on them, I don't know.
That's straight back to the un-enjoyable job scenario.
I do a lot of sports, and I think teaching one of those for a living would be pretty cool too, but again, especially if you haven't spent 4 years getting a teaching degree, (I haven't, last time I checked) you won't get a decent wage for doing it.

It's not that I am money obsessed, but I have managed to generate for myself at least the national average of debt per head (about £12,000 I think, exluding mortgages) that I need to attempt to pay back, and I seem to manage to enjoy all the most expensive hobbies, fast cars being the main one. I need enough at least to keep these things under control and then have a little spare change to live on too.
So I'm aiming to do jobs that pay reasonably well, and it's such a shame that these jobs aren't much fun. I say aiming, as my current job as a signmaker involves working for my dad, sort of as a partner in business and so I have not actually recieved a proper wage for over 3 years now.
Maybe it is because I resent working so hard for so long and getting nothing from it, that I think I would be a bad employee, if I actually recieved some money in reward for my work, I might be more positively disposed towards the job, it's just I can't remember the last time that happened.

All sorts of stuff is going on in my life at the moment, having to get a new job being only one of them, and it means I still genuinely have no idea what I am going to do, despite the fact that I may be less than 20 days away from the dole queue. It's a good thing though, I feel kind of free, and feel like I could do everything, and although I may soon get desperate for anything, right now it feels good.

Man, what a ramble, what I am trying to say is I don't know what I want to do for a job, but i'm getting more sure of what I don't want to do, and it involves anything that I don't enjoy. Now I just need to figure out how I can do it while still generating enough money to get by.
Damn this living life to the full thing can be tricky. Bloody money.

Sorry for the lack of humour in this post, it got away from me a bit there, but it would be a shame to bin it now. This post was also brought to you whilst trying desperately not to go on and on and on about Rachel instead of discussing anything else, believe me it's been hard. (She's amazing, ok i'll shut up now)

Blog Laxative Day

Yes that's right, due to some sort of web maintenance going on yesterday, I was unable to keep up my 100% daily post record, (admittedly only an 8 day streak so far, not exactly going to win me any awards) and I felt a bit verbally constipated. So I have metaphorically supposited some Blog laxatives and I'm hoping that when they kick in I will (again metaphorically) poop out a couple of extra posts today.

This post was supposed to be written yesterday, and all it was going to say is as follows:
Me and Rachel are officially 'a couple', I'm so so chuffed! No more single life for me, I reckon I've had my fair quota of time spent being single, I just hope to all that is good and right in the world that I dont fuck it up (start your stopwatches please). Did I mention I am very, very happy about this? Very happy.

More exciting post action later on, stay, er, tuned.

A bet I may regret

Rachel wants to stop smoking, which is fair enough and something I would like her to do too, 'cos I'm a non-smoker but I would never actually nag her to do it. (much)
I would however be willing to give any positive help towards getting her to stop, like rewarding her when she doesn't smoke, or just being generally nice to her when she turns into a nicotine starved psychopath.
Well in the spirit of competitiveness, it has turned into a bet.

In fact it needn't have become a bet at all, but red wine and jack Daniels can make all sorts of things sound like a good idea at the time. It started with Rach and her friend Doug both deciding to quit smoking at the same time, (as of today in fact) and the forfeit for either person smoking again would be to clean the other persons flat for 2 months.
This in itself seems to me like a very good reason never to smoke again, but of course I had to add something to the deal, I would say it is because I want to help Rach stop smoking any way I can but I think the truth is I was a bit pissed and thought it would be a really cool thing to do.

I don't have any vices as such to give up in return for Rachel not smoking ('body' 'temple' and all that), so it has now worked out that if Rachel can stay off the fags for 1 month, I will get a piercing of HER choice.

er, argh.

I don't have any piercings, I'm more of a tattoo kind of person, even though I don't like needles or anything kind of surgical related (how the hell I managed to get a huge tattoo across both shoulders I will never know), and the thought of someone stuffing a big steel spike through me really makes me want to go and get foetal in a dark room somewhere.
So she only has to go 30 days with no cigarettes, and then I have to have a metal bar inserted in my body forever. Damn you Jack Daniels. Well, a deal is a deal I suppose, and I think it is going to be my tongue that gets the stabby treatment, so it could have been a lot worse, and it's not going to be visible unless I spend all my time doing Gene Simmons impressions.

I'll keep you posted on Rachel's non-smoking progress, and keep a countdown going until Piercing day (henceforth to be known as P-Day). I'm not especially looking forward to it, but hey, these things keep life interesting I suppose.

I've met my Nemesis

Boy, that one got your attention didn't it? Well if it did, prepare to be severely disappointed, it's not as exciting as it sounds.
I really sell this blog sometimes don't I?

I went out for a meal last night with the lovely Rachel, and her friends Doug and (excuse me if I spell this totally wrong) Kirshteen to an Italian place in town. A lot of things about this were very odd to me, as I will now explain: To start with, it seemed really strange to be invited out with Rach as if we were a couple (which we technically aren't but we spend a lot of time together, oh look, it's complicated, just shut up Dan) to go and have dinner with another couple, having been single for a long time, that in itself was a bit odd.
Also, socially, I'm pretty immature, I only really got into spending social time at pubs when I was well over 18, instead of most of my mates who would flash their best fake I.D's to try and get a pint years before that. (I say 'best' fake I.D's in the loosest sense, there is only so much you can do with Microsoft word and a selection of felt tips) Took me a long time to stop wanting to go down the park and drink cider on the swings then go to MacD's for a McChicken something-or-other. I've never really been in a social circle of people who go out for meals for the hell of it, so even though I'm 24, it was kind of a new thing for me in that sense too.
If I'm honest I felt really cosmopolitan with my glass of wine in hand and contributing to the polite conversation, ooh get me, I'm like, a proper adult and everything.

So while it was a bit odd, it was all good, and very enjoyable, I can thoroughly recommend the 'Pollo Napolitana'.
And then it happened.
Near the end of the meal, I was reminded of a joke I knew, everyone seemed to be having a good time, so I thought throwing a decent joke in at this point would be ideal. I seemed to temporarily forget my uncanny ability to turn even the funniest, most apt joke into something that could get a groan out of a house brick, so I launched into it with both barrels.
I won't bore you with the actual joke, it had a desert island and Kylie Minogue in it, but anyway it actually went down pretty well. (ha, you thought it was all gonna go tits up at this point didn't you?)
Then Doug immediately counters with a joke that my joke reminded him of, which was also pretty decent and got a good laugh out of everyone.
"Hmm" thinks I, "these jokes seem to be working, I'll tell another one", which I did, and was then immediately countered again by Doug telling one of his own. I told another, he told one back, and again, and again. I was starting to sweat, there are only so many half decent jokes I can recall at any one time, even though I have always been proud of my large mental collection of dodgy humour. Before long, I missed a beat, and Doug told two jokes in a row, I just didn't have time to think up another one. I tried a few really bad old classics to rejoin the pace ("what's got two legs and bleeds" that sort of thing) but I never really got back in the game. They kept coming, I'm not saying they were all good, but I had to just sit back in shock. I even experienced the classic 'waitress catching the last line and looking confused' scenario, just as she came to clear the table, Doug finishes with the punchline; "I don't know, something about a job" and we all burst out laughing while the nice lady looks a bit awkward and then legs it with the plates, I felt like a right urbanite idiot.
The jokes kept coming after we were out of the restaurant, I put a few in for good measure but there was no way I could keep up, and my heart wasn't in it anymore.

So that's it, I've met my nemesis, or at least my bad joke nemesis. Never did I think another person could remember and re-tell more dodgy jokes than me, and now I find out I'm practically a rank amateur, my sense of humour was verbally beaten to within an inch of it's life.

I'm off to read the great big puffin joke directory, and then scan through Roger's Profanisaurus.

No sleep 'till, er, Southampton

I've changed a lot of stuff in my life lately from a social point of view. I'm going out a lot more with a whole new group of people, and in response I am having a lot more fun, somehow without really spending much more than I did before. OK, so what I have actually done is kind of made a whole new social life that is fast squeezing out the old one, but generally it's all good.

One consequence of this new way of doing things is that I am getting considerably less sleep than I used to, and I just can't figure out why that isn't bothering me.
I've always been a 'the more sleep the better' kind of person, for most of my life I didn't even realise weekends had an A.M, and all of a sudden I'm going out, having a few drinks, staying out till the early hours or going back to Rachel's (which tends to involve lots of fun stuff but sleeping certainly isn't on the cards), getting 3 hours sleep and then strolling off to work the next day without any bother. And the scary thing? I've done it several nights in a row for several weeks now and still it doesn't bother me.
I would have expected to find myself hibernating every weekend to catch up the lost hours, or contracting a kind of induced narcolepsy and falling alseep at work, to be found slumped over the bench, dribbling slightly on some half-made signs.

Admittedly I have taken to having the odd 'nap' here and there, where before maybe I wouldn't have done, and due to it being such crappy weather outside I may have cancelled climbing a few times in preference of a more relaxed activity (involving as much laying horizontal as possible instead of dragging myself up vertical walls by my fingers). Also I do feel a bit tired at work sometimes, but that's all to be expected, and the fact is I genuinely didn't think I could even survive living with this little amount of sleep for any long period of time. I thought it would drive me a bit nuts. Maggie Thatcher got by on 4 hours a night, and I thought maybe that was why she is so mental, but it seems it's not. Turns out she'd be mental even with 8 hours under her belt every night.

Plus side is that I am spending more time having fun than I am just snoring and dreaming about flying monkeys and being a vampire and stuff. Which is kind of fun in itself I suppose, but doesn't beat real life, well, most of the time anyway, i'd love to be a vampire.

We shall see how long it lasts I suppose, maybe I am unknowingly pushing myself towards some disastrous mental breakdown caused by spending too much time being conscious and having to put up with myself. Perhaps my brain needs more of a break from being me?
Pah, I doubt it, and besides, you never know till you try, in the meantime I'm having a great time squeezing in that little bit more fun every day and i'm not stopping that until I have to.

Plenty of time to sleep when you are dead, right? Thats a little extreme, but i'll try it Maggie's way for a while.

It's all good, thankfully.

Well thank 'a non-specific diety' for that, i'm all cheerful and ready to face the world again.
Not that I would like to try and face the world in a literal sense, it would probably involve me being quite far out in space in order to face it all at the same time, and space travel doesn't quite have the safety record that it should, i'll keep my risks below the 'high chance of death' threshold for now. I'll just face the bits of the world that are pointed in my direction, that should be do-able without risking life and limb.

But anyway, as soon as I think of something interesting to write about I will slap it down in another searingly witty post, so it's all good, thankfully.

Keeping it daily

Erm, I'm trying to pick something that happened or occured to me every day and write about it on here as a little sample (I was going to say 'vignette' but realised i'm not a complete ponce) of what is going on in my life whilst still sparing you all the boring details. The main point of it is that I want to keep every entry light-hearted, and humourous (depending considerably on your sense of humour I suppose) so that you can kind of know what to expect from the blog every day, instead of the mood of the writing becoming a bit of a 'throw a six to start' affair, depending on my current attitude.

The main problem with that right now is that I am slightly on the low side of the scale, making it quite hard to write my usual sparkling, shiny stuff (well, i like it anyway) so I think the best thing is to just not post. Yes, I know, I am currently posting, boy what a paradox, but it kind of serves as an explanation for future lapses in regular posts. Or something.

I don't want to write rubbish moany stuff or anything like that (hence complete lack of explanation for why i'm not in too good of a mood), I want to keep it happy, so i'll hold off until my usual smiley countenance has been restored.
Won't be long I promise.
Well, I hope.

Big Managerial Decisions

Should usually involve me along the way somewhere, i'm sure. What with me being a director, i'm pretty sure there is something somewhere that says I should probably know about things going on in our small company, like buying new stationery, or maybe changing the colour of the invoices, stuff like that.
So turning up for work yesterday to find a new staff member floating about the place looking faintly nervous came as something of a suprise.

Hmm, more history required here I think, this might happen a lot until I have posted here a few more times, so bear with.
I started a Signmaking Franchise with my dad about 3 years ago, we are kind of partners, although he put almost all the money in, and he does the managerial bit whilst I let my creative genius (ahem) run amok amongst the signs. Unfortunately, even though I can sign the cheques just like my dad can, his alpha male style persona has put him well and truly in charge, and my general lack of respect for a man who I have seen cleaning up my sick (I was very young I promise) and watched while he managed to hammer a nail into his own foot, means I have been getting a little tired of it lately.

I'm planning on buggering off to new and better things (not to mention higher paid things, don't start me on the money situation, you try living for 2 years on £400 a month, I have t-shirts I still wear that are so worn you can see through them and the last time I bought myself a techy boys-toy gadget it had the words '16-bit' proudly displayed across the front) and this new guy is the first step towards that, someone to replace me so that I can leave.

It would have been nice to be told though, it's one step away from turning up for work and finding the locks changed and all the staff laughing at me through the window, and I swore to myself i'd never let that happen. Again.

But anyway, turns out he's a nice guy, his name is James and he's only 17, fresh out of college, and he seems pretty bright. I'm waiting for our salesman Mike to come back from his holiday on Thursday, start hilariously referring to him as 'Jim-bob' within five minutes of meeting him, and hoping this will irritate James enough for me to convince him to crack Mike's head open with a large aluminium sign tray. Believe me I have wanted to do it for years but i'm too pretty for prison.

So if I can train the guy to do what I do and he is good enough at it, then pretty soon I can go get another job, work for someone who I haven't seen wandering around the house in his pants, and start seriously getting on with my life.
Let's just hope James is as good at drinking tea, producing enough work to keep the boss happy but allowing him to secretly surf the net all day, and generally staring into space instead of doing anything productive as I am. Good luck my friend.

Just goes to show

You never can tell.

Turns out yesterday did get a damn sight more interesting after I finished my first blog post, Rachel got back from her New Years in Amsterdam and invited me over. I can live with being proven wrong when it's for something nice like that.

Sorry, a little background would probably be handy, Rachel is a girl I met a couple of months ago and we are now in a kind of relationship but it's, er, a bit complicated. Complicated in the sense of you really, really wouldn't want me to explain, it's not half as exciting as it might sound, it wouldn't make good blog fodder, trust me.
We are just spending a lot of time together and getting to like each other (quite a lot really), and I promise you'll be the first to know of any developments. Ok, I hope i'll be the first to know, or maybe the second to know, but you are next in line I promise.

I promised myself I wouldnt use this blog to go on and on about Rachel, even though I really would like to and could probably ramble for pages and pages, so I won't. But she is great.

So, yesterday, Jan 1st, in full, in a truncated 'bridget jones' style set of sentences. (this will not be a regular thing, there's plagiarism and then there's just plain copying)

Woke up, regretted it, went back to sleep.
Repeat above 4 or 5 times.
Woke up, discovered hangover miraculously faded to a dull throb, daylight no longer caused temporary blindness.
Mooched.
Had some food.
Mooched some more.
Possibly more food at this point.
Wrote first ever 'Aimless Dandan' Blog
Got invited over to Rachels, instantly erasing all remains of hangover and somehow making the thought of work the next day seem considerably less depressing.
Hey, i'm a gentleman, this isn't 'boy with a one track mind', you dont get any details of this bit.
Got back home about 3am, not even vaguely tired.

That was it for day one, not too bad in all, certainly picked up towards the end too. Check back tomorrow to find out how I managed to employ a new staff member without even realising it.

Ta.

As good a time as any...

Hi.

Thought I would start one of these here blog things, see if I can manage to write anything that someone might actually enjoy reading.
Ok, thats not strictly true, I've been writing a blog on myspace for a while now (no, i'm not going to link to it) but I thought maybe starting one on here might get a slightly wider (and slightly more random) audience, 'cos yes I am a bit vain and self-obsessed and want people to read what I write.

Well thats great that is, I've started off with a bit fat lie, damn. Well, I won't worry about it if you don't.

Ok, I'm no proper writer, I learnt english up to g.c.s.e and thats about it, so i'm going to spell stuff wrong, and I'll almost certainly abuse puncuation marks no end, but i'll do my best, honest.
This is more than likely going to be a bit of a diary-style blog, just letting you know what I get up to on a daily (or not so daily possibly) basis. I'm a Signmaker at the moment, I live near Southampton, so my daily activities aren't exactly front page stuff, but lets see how I get on anyway.
Saying that, if I feel like it, it could include anything, so don't rule out seeing short stories, those incredibly self indulgent 'net circulated questionnaires, or even poetry. (actually, you probably can rule out that last one)

Like I said it's going to be a kind of diary, but I will obviously write it for other people (thats you, that is) to read, so it's not going to be full of deepest darkest desires and secrets, sorry. Might be alright though, you never know.

And it's just a bit of luck that i'm starting it on the 1st of Jan, well I thought about it a few days ago, but this way dates will be much easier to remember.

I won't write about what happened today, partly because it mostly involves recovering from last night, (that would be sleeping, clutching my head and trying to figure out where I got this huge bruise on my arse) and partly because it's not quite over yet and you never know, anything could still happen. yeah, right, it's not that I can't be bothered at all.

Back to work tomorrow, and i'll be sure to rattle off a proper blog, but give me a few goes at it to get my hand in, ok? ta.