All entries for February 2009

Addressing the Questions Which Matter

A: When washing your hair do you shampoo your sideburns?

B: What about your eyebrows?

My answers are no and no but it’s always interesting to see what people do in the absence of precedent (I’m assuming this isn’t the kind of question which is commonly discussed).

: 20 Feb 2009 16:58 |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Untitled entry

Follow-up to A Midsummer Night's Dream from Kempez's blog

And suddenly she was there again, the girl in the red dress. I was walking home across the fields swinging a bottle of wine in my hands, and she said that it looked like a very nice bottle and enquired as to where I found it. “Two roads diverged in the alcohol aisle, and I took the one less travelled by”, I replied. She smiled that same enchanting smile and touched my arm but I don’t think she got the reference. And so we fell into step as we walked back across the field and she listened as I told her all about how I’m going to be brilliant one day and travel the world, she didn’t say much but she slipped her arm into mine. Then our paths did diverge, and she would not join me on mine, the girl in the red dress, nor invite me on hers. I’ve not seen her since.

: 17 Feb 2009 22:32 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Phones

I’ve just got three missed calls from a number in Bielefeld in Germany. Anybody?

: 16 Feb 2009 23:58 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Gambling

Writing about web page http://www.skybet.com/skybet?action=GoStatic&name=bet5get20free&play_temp=1&title=Promotions

So there I was on Friday night, home alone without any plans for Valentine’s day, cooking asparagus for one, and I thought maybe there’s something missing in my life. Some vital component with which everything would suddenly become wonderful. That’s right kids, the answer’s internet gambling.

It wasn’t anything I’d ever really wanted to get into. In fact it comes roughly between Christmas day swimming in the Atlantic and crack cocaine on the list of things which I really don’t want to get into. But there are a whole host of internet sites offering deals which seem too good to be true.

The offer I’ve randomly been drawn to is one on Skybet, you need to place a five pound bet of your own money on something with odds less than evens (I don’t really understand odds but I’m sure Wikipedia can help), and then they give you four more free bets. Which surely only makes sense for them if the average punter is going to lose twenty pounds in the long run plus enough to compensate for all those who take the money and run.

So this may be one of those pivotal moments when one’s life starts spiraling into chaos and woe, but surely 2/9 on Wales beating England on Saturday can’t be too bad? I’m sure I can give up after my four free bets…

‘Well now you’ve heard my sad story,
you can have another round of booze,
and if anyone should ever ask you,
tell them Kempez died of those gambler’s blues.’

Remember Kempez but ah, forget his fate

Alas, poor Kempez, I knew him well

: 15 Feb 2009 18:05 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Emails

Q: What’s more depressing than checking three email accounts but not having any new emails

A: Having three email accounts and receiving only an email advertising ‘perfect gifts for Valentine’s day’

: 12 Feb 2009 13:54 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Crossing stuff out

Does anybody know how to do the crossed out writing on a blog entry? I predict this comedic device would make the average blog entry five percent funnier. Which leads me (tenuously) to a quote from a trade unionist, I forget who, which my maths teacher once related to the class.

“They’ve offered us five percent, but five percent of nothing is still nothing. We’re gonna hold out for ten”

genius.

: 04 Feb 2009 17:42 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Classical drinking

Writing about web page http://proof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/the-tipsy-hero/

Hmmm, just a quick one to live up to this whole blogging once a week thing. Am mildly inebriated and short of inspiration, and so perhaps fittingly I’ll turn to an article I read yesterday in the New York Times about alcohol in The Odyssey (well not that fittingly, unfortunately I’m not actually on an Aegean island being enchanted by a beautiful witch or sung to by fair maidens from the shore, nor do I have a wife to return home to). It finished with a short quote which I thought rather good.

It is the wine that leads me on, the wild wine
that sets the wisest man to sing at the top of his lungs,
laugh like a fool – it drives the man to dancing…it even
tempts him to blurt out stories better never told.

I think we’ve all been there.

: 01 Feb 2009 23:00 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem