Holiday Entitlement

As a casual worker at the museum, I was informed this morning that I am entitled to holiday pay. My initial thought was a resounding yippee! Money for doing bugger all is always good. However upon trying to decipher what the hell the conditions of this payment are I was left feeling rather bewildered. Working for the Council has both advantages and disadvantages - the main problem being that bureaucracy extends to all levels, even catering.

Seriously the letter is written like a solicitors case file. I'm sure I'm entitled to a whole load of money but how much I think will remain one of those mysteries, filed away with aliens and pixies.

I'm hoping my boss will shed some light on it. Would be lovely to get some dosh before Christmas.

Fishfinger Sandwich Anyone?

I'm not entirely sure when it got to the point were fishfinger sandwiches were considered a delicious cuisine. Maybe I missed the memo on that one. However, according to my housemate it is tres bien. I believe that remains to be seen and since it's something I will never try... well it will never be seen.

She's in a slightly more diabolical financial state than myself and was rather impressed by the fact £3.00 at Sainsburys buys five packets of fishfingers and a loaf of bread. Apparently this shopping trip will keep her going for the next few weeks. I raised a brow at this.

It wouldn't keep me going for an hour.

And I would rather eat gravel. Fishfingers are like eating boiled bones.

It got me to thinking about the weird things I have eaten as a student. Mash is a staple food. Seriously, its fluffy goodness that comes in powder form. Excellent. But my menu has ranged from rice with ketchup in to tinned curry on toast. Not so weird when you consider a friend of mine who tried to make a cooking sauce using milk. Not only gross but highly ineffective. It tastes rank. Don't try it.

It's nearly as bad as a girl I knew who dipped toast in hot chocolate. This wasn't a poverty thing but a taste preference. Either way, it still turns my stomach a little just thinking about it, but then I have put soup in a tortilla before. Not quite Mexican, and incredibly messy, but still, it did the trick.

Stereotyping.. Redneck Americans...?

Well what prompted this was a link I was sent about a TV quiz show in America, staring Kelly Pickler from American Idol.

Its one of these wonderfully droll programmes about whether or not a 10 yr old kid is smarter than an adult. So I dutifully watched the video and laughed a lot. The question was... 'Budapest is the capital of what European country?"

Naturally, before the woman had answered, I muttered 'Hungary' under my breath. Simple question, easy answer. But the woman was clueless. Her initial undoing was when she said, '...I thought Europe was a country." Ooook, so that really made me laugh. She then dug herself a bigger hole by saying '...I know they speak French there... I wanna say is France a country...?"

I proceeded to titter for several moments, watched the end of the clip and then scrolled down to see what the comments were. I have to say I was a little shocked by the response. Ok, so clearly the woman is uneducated but even so the comments were awful. Three pages worth of America bashing, slandering of 'redneck' Americans and so forth followed.

It got me to thinking - as things often do - and as always I intend to share my opinion, whether or not it is wanted.

Her ignorance is not the only ignorance here. Naturally the Hungarian's were pissed off that this woman didn't know where their country was but even so, their responses were somewhat uncalled for. Not every person from the United States is stupid, nor are all southerners rednecks. Do they not have some of the most prestigious universities in the world over there? Stanford, Princeton, Harvard? Surely the people who attend these places have an IQ higher than an amoeba.

It is no different from saying all Brits talk like the Queen and drink tea all the time. It is that kind of stereotyping that leads to half the problems in the world these days. Clearly the woman needs to go to school or at least pick up a text book but these stereotypes are as stupid as her thinking Europe is a country.

Here is the video anyway.

Technology...

Technology and old people.

It should seriously be a comedy on the television. There is nothing quite so funny as watching a technologically incompetent person trying to work any electrical appliance, ranging from remote controls, VCRs, DVDs (or CDVs as they have become known in some households), sky TV, and my personal favourite, Mobile Phones. There is actually nothing in this world to compare to the humour that can be achieved by watching a techno-phob trying to text someone. It goes beyond the pale of good comedy value and right into the side splittingly hilarious.

Even more amusing is watching them trying to decipher what text language actually means. You are forced to wait for a week for a reply because they cant even remember how to open their inbox and you end up with a reply a month later saying. "What does that mean? Will you be back for tea or not?", at which point you're cursing yourself for not ringing them and wasting a text message.

However, that said, even when you do ring them, you have to do it about seven times whilst they try to remember which key is the one that picks the phone up (hint for those who don't know, its usually the green telephone. Don't branch to phones that don't have this key, you're only making life hard on yourself).

The best thing i have seen is the military operation that is trying to record something off the TV. Whether its some shitty documentary or some crappy film made before you were even a twinkle in your parents eyes, I'm almost distressed by the amount of effort that is going into trying to commit that heap of shit onto tape when really it shouldn't even be broadcasted on TV in the first place. But that's another story altogether. Either way, it is almost frustrating to the point of wanting to rip your own arm off, frustrating.

Step one is as follows:

Locating the subject matter

This is basically the stage you and I would call finding the correct channel you wish to record. Even this simple task can prove a mission in itself, resulting in cursing and hurling of electronic equipment.

Step two is the more complex of the stages, what i call the:

Getting the subject on the radar.

This step proves the most difficult for techno-phobs who feel the best way to do this is to push every single button they can on the controller and hope something happens. Even if the tape only rewinds, it is seen as a great victory for them.

By step three the techno-elite have taken the remote and set the video up to record, fearing that the techno-phob actually will blow up the video player by trying to manually rewind the tape with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

But anyway, moving onto my personal favourite. The PC.

For some reason this simple piece of equipment flummoxes even those with a basic knowledge of technology but it is by far the funniest of all the technologies to watch. Most people over 45 think that surfing the World Wide Web has something to do with an Australian sports tournament... a common misconception amongst the technologically inept, to whom address bars and double-clicking means nothing.

The funny thing is that whilst these people are squinting at the monitor, and typing one key every three days, in classes around the world, ten year old's have mastered the web and are using it to look up their homework for school and when you tell them this all you get is a "we never had all this stuff when we were kids", well no, that is true, but i never had a DVD player or used one til i was about 19 and i can still use it. I have not disappeared into the black hole of "i cant use anything with more functions than a Biro"

Still this age of technology is coming thick and fast and i often wonder how the techno-phobics of the world will fare in this new age of electronics. Every week some new appliance comes out and with more functions than you would ever physically need or want. Mobile phones will soon not only be able to take photos, videos, play music and games, sooner or later they will be able to pick up your laundry and wipe your arse in the process. I shiver with anticipation at the thought of what cruel devices companies can come up with next to confuse our middle aged compaderates.

Remember techno-phobs, technology is not something that happens to everyone else! It can happen to you too!

No Smoking Diaries: Day Eight

Day Eight (and the intermittent period)

Smoked: 0
Pints drank: ... would u believe me if I said 2 units?
Rants: 3
Of which rational: 0
Calories eaten: Equal to a small cow

Ok, so day eight. I missed a couple of days out because as weird as my behaviour is, the intermittent period was just me moaning about fags and ranting.

But yes... day eight. Strange that I made it here at all since I've spent all week with what I call phantom fag syndrome. I keep thinking I'm either smoking one, (and its so goddamn real i can even feel myself inhaling), or I'm reaching for my packet to have one.

Its strange.

You would think that after a week it would all be out of your system but I could quite easily pick up a pack of tens right now and flame through the entire lot in about 2 hours. But then I am still on patches and to be fair I keep forgetting what I've got on so the other night i went to work with two on from that morning and then I put another two on before I went, forgetting about the original two. Its no wonder I'm daydreaming cigs. I'm probably bloody OD'ing on nicotine substitutes. Although to be fair i haven't seen hide nor head of a pink elephant so i figure I'm doing ok.

The strange thing is that even though I haven't smoked in 8 days I'm waking up most mornings and i feel like I've been on a night out and smoked 40 in the space of 4 hours. Its really bizarre. Hopefully that will pass soon. Fingers crossed.

The worst temptation was going to the pub. everyone who smokes will understand this...
pint and fag.

It's like the strawberries to cream... the horse to the carriage... and other equally cheesy shit that fit together that i cant be arsed to think of.

My point is that should have been my biggest test. To drink, get drunk and not want to buy cigs. I tell you it was damn damn damn hard. We sat in no-smoking so that was a little easier but the friggin fag machine is in the no-smoking section!

GO FIGURE?!

Were the logic in that is, I do not know. But, ah, that damn machine was taunting me all bloody night, looking at me with its neon lights shining the way to my brand. It was difficult not to run over, whack my dosh in, light up and run. I was drawn to it like a stupid moth to a liquefying flame. But I resisted. That was on Monday I think... hmmm...

By Sunday (which was last night) I had been the pub every day apart from Saturday (and that was only missed because i was working).

GREAT!

Instead of smoking I have now developed an alcohol addiction and also a pool addiction which is worse than the alcohol dependency (to be fair that was always there!)

Yes, a pool addiction.

Seriously this week I have spent about 20 quid on playing. It's daft but it keeps my mind off smoking and keeps my hands occupied with something that wont get my bar'd! Bah!

The only real difference I've noticed is that I seem to find money all the time in my purse, pockets, floor, bag... anywhere really. AAAANNND that I'm not choking my poor passive smoker friends to death.

Bad side of it is that I'm going to be 10 stone heavier for my holiday. NOT GOOD! I don't really feel healthier. I cant smell or taste better but i am having freaky friggin dreams still which for a person who rarely dreamed is FREAKING me out. Seriously. some are nice and normal(ish) well the pink one was the most normal. Make your own psycho-analytical B.S on that. But some are bloody horrible. I don't know what that says about my unconscious mind...

But anywho. Day Eight. No patches left today. Woke with a blinding headache. Lets see who cracks first.

Me or the world.

The World has like 60 billion years on me mind you, but whose counting...

No Smoking Diaries: Day Two

Day Two

Cigarettes: 0
Patches: 1 big fuck off one
Rants: 0... ok, 1... and a half...
Biro's Attempted to smoke: 4

Ok, so day two... here it is.

Woke up this morning so goddamn restless and agitated I could have thrown myself on the floor and thrown a temper tantrum like a four year old. Seriously, I nearly beat the postman around the head because he looked at me as I got the mail. In fact I growled something under my breath about him being a filthy pervert for ogling me in my 'house coat'. I think he was more disturbed by the fact I looked like a friggin' drug addict in rehab. My hair was wild and I had bags under my eyes that could have given Mary Poppins a run for her money.

Not a good look sweetie and a grand way to scare the locals.

Not a good start to the day.

Having consumed an insane amount of food yesterday (and yes it really was, I had 2 crumpets, 3 rounds of toast, 2 pasties, chicken, chips and beans, a fudge cake, a toffee crisp, 2 choc milkshakes, and half a bottle of Pepsi) I decided I would make a concerted effort not to stuff myself today. Replacing nicotine with food is NOT a good substitute but god I could eat my own hand. In fact I could eat your hand. Insatiable hunger is not good. Instead of killing my lungs I plan to become morbidly obese!

I'm not ranting today which is better but my concentration is on another planet. I'm pretty much off with the fairies anyway but I swear to god if I walk into a room once more today and forget why the fuck I went in there I will throw my foot up my own ass. Frustrating a frustrated person is NOT good. My agitation levels are reaching boiling point as it is. I seriously gave thought to running up and down the street and screaming at young children just to make myself feel better. I'm pretty sure its not an arrestable offence... like... 90% sure.

And if my destroyed lungs don't kill me first, boredom will.

Seriously I have never been so bored of everything. I start doing something and two minutes later I'm thinking what the hell am I doing this for. I was expecting to become highly motivated in order to keep my mind of smoking but truthfully I'm content to be surrounded by shit. I couldn't give a crap if my room begins to grow its own penicillin or if wild dogs try to eat my legs. Something to break the monotony will be appreciated. As long as its not too time consuming or requires a lot of concentration.

As I said my ability to focus on anything for longer than ten minutes has gone on vacation to the Bahamas for a month, hopefully it will find my sense of rationality and bring it back. Failing that duty free fags would be a bonus.

Ironically enough my arm is killing me today. Stupid patches are filled with lead, I swear to god. Maybe its a way of punishing you for smoking. I feel like Ive had a bloody injection. Its wank. AND its not taking the edge off.

I've also developed this weird ass habit over night. It's friggin bizarre but I cant stop sucking Biro's. Seriously I have turned ball point pens into pacifiers and am trying to smoke them as if they are cigs. Its insane. But maybe there's a career in that....

I'm joking!! dirty sods. Apparently my gutter filled mind is still in Costa Del Stoke and not stuck in customs somewhere.

I'm half debating getting into bed just to do something. Even if it is lying there counting smokes... I mean sheep.

Where the hell does that even come from?!?!

Who the hell counts sheep to sleep? That shit would just distract me. I'd forget what number I was bloody up to and the way I feel right now my image self would be eating the sheep as I counted them.

Count sheep. Bah.

No Smoking Diaries: Day One

Ok, so as you can tell from the title I have decided to give up smoking. Not only because of the fact five year old's can run circles around my decrepit lung capacity but by the first of July the Nazi's in charge of this goddamn forsaken hell hole have decided to put a smoking ban across the entire country. That and I was bullied into it by my sister, who decided just because she has no money that I should quit with her, despite the fact i HAVE money.

Also my parents, who decided to jump on the bandwagon, gave me a whole host of reasons as to why I should stop... none of which I remember due to the fact I was all comfy, warm, fed and full of wine. Which I guess made me more pliable... Perhaps its not really my own decision as a huge thump into line by the powers that be.

Anywho.... I intend to try and document my progress, mainly because it will be intriguing to read back, and also because I have fuck all else to do with my time now.

Day One

Cigarettes: 0
Patches: 2 (possibly three... give me an hour)
Rants: 1
Of which were rational: 0

Ok, so today is the first day of not smoking. So far so good. I stayed at my parents last night and luckily they had some smoking patches left over from when they quit so I nicked one and put it on.

Woke up in the morning, didn't crave at all... so far so good.

Or so I thought...

By lunch time I was ready to chew my own arm off. Seriously its like a persistent itch. I wanted one so badly I could have walked to outer Mongolia to get one. Well actually I would have got to the bottom of my road and my lungs would have given out, but still, the thought would have been there. So I whacked another patch on - two wont do any harm, right? You cant OD on nicotine???

Can you??

Surely its better than smoking 20? hmmm. Lets call a rain check on that one huh? Second patch is doing less than the first. I know this to be true because of the reasons mentioned below.

My first rant of the day came no sooner than three hours after waking up. I went on a tirade about the most menial pile of shit. So menial in fact I have no idea what it was about now. But in that moment I could have beaten someone with a large pointy stick. In fact, I was mentally building an image of how I was going sharpen said stick.

Its weird how it takes you that way. I mean, I'm not usually a moody sod, and after marfing on for a full ten minutes about only god knows what with both my parents and sister making something that passed for a listening noise, I stopped.

Realising I had just ranted my head off I was kind of in two minds. Play it cool and hope no one noticed my irrational behaviour or make a joke of it. I decided on the latter, purely because I think the people in the next town heard my aggressive handbag waving rant.

It's now tea time. Almost seventeen hours since my last smoke. I'm ready to stick another three patches on whilst smoking three fags at once. I'm twitching like I have something wrong with me and all I can think about is the sweet feel of a cigarette in my hand. People who don't smoke will never understand it. In fact it probably sounds insane to you. Christ, reading this back it even sounds insane to me. how can you possibly want something that is slowly killing you, right? but you that you can never know what it is like. Imagine being constantly hungry but never able to eat. You're half way to how I feel today.

I have no concentration, I'm twitching, I have a headache that feels like something is trying to claw its way out of my eyes, I've started trying to smoke Biro's, and I want to eat the entire contents of my fridge, next doors fridge and in fact most of my street. To make matters worse I keep rubbing my patches (now in plural) in a vain hope that doing so will release more nicotine into my blood stream. So far its not doing jack shit and it just makes me look a little too 'special' for comfort.

Anywho, that's all for today. I'm going to try and find something material I can pretend to smoke

Stephen Lynch-berg-miester

For my 23rd birthday I went to see the wonder god that is Stephen Lynch at the Liverpool Royal Court. I'm fairly certain I have mentioned this name to everyone I know at least a hundred times. If not, I will rectify the mistake as soon as possible.

The man is a musical genius. Voice of an Angel, mouth like a pirate. I love him, and I love his songs.

I am a big fan of inappropriate humour, and Mr Lynch is the king of this. For those of you unfortuanate enough not to have heard of him, check his MySpace.

Don't we look happy?

Emo's... emoo's...

I wish I could take credit for this rant. However it was posted on a bulletin on Myspace. Even so, it's still pretty impressive.

I wonder when people will realize that the "scene" has become homogeneous. It's full of 14 year old girls with uneven bangs, black and white striped shirts, and tattered low-top black Chuck Taylor?s, who swoon over homosexual kissing and pathetic whiny lyrics and overuse the symbols.

Their favorite quote is, invariably, "The truth is you could slit my throat and with my one last gasping breath I'd apologize for bleeding on your shirt" because it like, so totally describes their relationship with that one HAWT sophomore who totally ripped their hearts out when they were like, SO in love with him.

Their favorite type of music is, of course, "emo, screamo, and hardcore", three terms which, in their minds, invariably include the bands Taking Back Sunday, Thrice, and Hawthorne Heights.

Their AIM screennames often include x's, the words "electrikk", "disaster", or some play on their favorite song from their favorite band, you know, the one they saw on MTV like a couple times, but shouldn't be on MTV because they're like, way too emo for that.

They take hundreds of black and white pictures with way too much contrast of themselves looking plaintively down at the ground, pointing a gun made of their fingers at their heads, or kissing the camera while displaying their expert application of lip gloss around their labret piercing and the thick dark eyeliner that circles their eyes.

They embrace the "dork" that is inside their polished, fashionable exteriors by writing in their LiveJournals or Xangas about how they and their friends had an 'N Sync sing-a-long at one of their sleepovers because, remember, 'N Sync is soooo not popular anymore and they like, sooo wouldn't follow any of the fads of today, so they embrace the fads of yesterday.

They adore "retro fashion", meaning anything from the 80's, because they totally used to wear neon colors and big beaded bracelets, even though they were born in, at the earliest, 1988 and remember jack shit about the fashion and culture of the 80's.It's full of "emo boys" who often are difficult to differentiate from "emo girls", who have meaningless tattoos even though they're 15, smoke a lot of cigarettes, drink a lot of hard liquor, and are in some shitty band that plays a couple of gigs in someone's basement because they're "too cool to go mainstream" when really, they just suck.

They weigh roughly 90 pounds, wear girls' jeans that hug their asses in just the right places, belts buckled somewhere around the side of their right leg, tight striped 80's style polo shirts or band t-shirts, and skater shoes, even though they don't skate because that's soooo lame.They write awful poetry about the dark abyss of their souls and how the gun is pointed at their heads, the trigger poised to blast away the bloody memories of a failed romance.

They cried when Blink-182 broke up, and they have a secret obsession with Avril Lavigne because, like, she really IS kinda hot even though her music totally sucks.They spend more time at the mirror than their female counterparts do, making sure that the long black shock of hair at the front of their heads lies covering one eye just so, that their lip piercing is perfectly placed so that it looks hot when they kiss other boys, that their pants are the right degree of tightness so as not to exude gayness.

Emo boys and girls often use the suffix "Xcore" to describe themselves, using a number of adjectives or nouns to accomplish this task. This is a play off hardcore music, or "hXc". Some of these descriptive words include "fashionXcore", "retroXcore", or even "yournamehereXcore."

This way of speaking is retarded or nonsensical to everyone else except those "in the scene", but it totally doesn't matter because they're too nonconformistXcore for anyone to truly understand their "scene".

They couldn't name a Sunny Day Real Estate or Rites of Spring song if it came up and bit them on their Gap Jeans-clad asses, and they claim to like the Smiths because Jesse Lacey of Brand New said they were cool.

Sure, they listen to some new "hardcore" bands, but they're all pretty much the same five bands:

1. Taking Back Sunday

2. Senses Fail

3. Thrice

4. Hawthorne Heights

5. Story of the Year

To these promising young firecrackers, music takes a backseat to fashion in their scene of choice.Emo girls just want to kiss emo boys, emo boys just want to kiss other emo boys, and they all want to wear tight pants and take lots of pictures of themselves.

End of story.

Saint Valentines Day.. The Alternative View

I've never understood the whole priniciple of sending cards with hearts on. Maybe I'm cynical but in my opinion men only give you flowers when they have done something bad. Either way the whole world gets hopped up on all the wonderful Hallmark love and run around like giddy teenagers for the day, overlooking the real facts of Valentines Day and why it should be abolished. These are just five reasons why I think it's pretty much bollocks.

1. its based around the martycism of St Valentine who was beheaded for refusing to deny Christ (and this has what to do with giving people cards with slushy messages in and crappy stuffed bears holding "I love you". St V was brutally murdered. it hardly speaks of love!)

2. It makes SINGLE people feel like shit

3. It makes guys in relationships feel even shitter because they not only have to think of original gifts for her birthday, and christmas he now has to pull the ultimate romantic evening

4. One day of the year you're supposed to show someone how much you care by giving them some shitty piece of card with some lame message in. what about the other 364 days of the year?

5. no one really sees it for what it is... a capitalistic commercialised pile of butt wank.

You guys buying into all this shit are the idiots who make the idiots who come up with this shit rich!

Greetings!

I am 22. I am a history student and I'm a gemini.

I don't hold much stock by horoscopes but people seem to think it defines personality. I'm not sure how it works but apparently being born in a certain month makes you predisposed to specific traits. That never really sat well with me. I'm a fan of the whole nature/nurture argument. I'm not sure that astrology holds the key to higher thinking.

I am also a geek.

I realise that in most circles being a geek is not a good thing. Geeks, nerds, dweebs... they were the kids in school who got the wedgies. Thankfully, I have never had a wedgie nor have I ever had my head flushed. I am still a geek however.

I enjoy a number of geeky activities. I love history. I love researching. I love museums. I love writing historical stories. Even worse I love writing Fanfiction. I most eyes that bumps me up to the next level. That makes me not only a geek but a nerd. I can live with being a geek, and I can live with being a nerd. I can also tell you I don't collect action figures. I have never watched Star Trek and I don't make minature models of space ships. Maybe this brings me down a level on the 'Geek-o-meter'.

I am also a TV junkie. I love TV. I love American TV. I love British TV. I love it all.

I enjoy a quiet drink with my friends. I love to dance - albeit in my geeky-shuffling-kind-of-way. I love cider. I love food. I don't care about love handles.

As a student, money is always an issue. For example this morning my breakfast consisted of bread with BBQ sauce. I would like to say this was because white bread and BBQ sauce is a taste sensation and not because I have run out of butter.

It would be a lie however.

I'm not entirely sure when butter became a luxury item... I used to feel special when I opened the cupboard and found jam. Those days are long gone. The bread line looms ever closer.

I think I have about twenty quid to my name until I get paid next so butter is off the menu for the time being. It should make things interesting in the meantime.

I work part-time in a museum cafe. It's about as close as I manage to get to culture these days. My finals are looming on the horizon like a black cloud of doom and I have more work to do than there are hours in the day. Yet I have wasted the whole of my day off writing crap on blogs.

This is what we call 'being a student'.

I have been known to spend my last ten pounds in the union rather than on food. To normal people this seems bizzare. To me it seems like the obvious thing to do. It's often followed by groans of regret and hunger. This is justified by saying 'you're young, you only live once'. It's amazing how many times I have used that phrase. It's also amazing how many times I will still spend that last tenner on drinking.

I think, perhaps, I have painted Studenthood in a bad light. It is not all doom and gloom. Days are for sleeping, nights are for talking. Bad films and game consoles are the activities of the average student. I have mastered several games on the Xbox and the playstation. I also live by the Sims. I have more free time than I have ever had in my life -even despite working and juggling my course - and I have met some of the most unique individuals in the universe.

For now, that is all I have to say - after all this was only supposed to be a greeting.

Amy x