So it snowed

So I’m in the middle of a drinking binge and I open the curtains and… BOOM!… I get a face full of snow. It has been pretty cold, to be fair, but this feels a little early.

I best go top up my energy meters, just in case this gets worse.

My brother found my presents, which apparently the courier just left outside his front door. Unattended. Sigh. Our lives would be a lot better if these asshole companies didn’t put so much pressure on their workers.

Chilled workers = better customer service.

FACT.

I’ve stored away my homemade curry. There are two tubs in the freezer and one in the fridge. I’ll have the fridge one tomorrow, methinks. It’s a very dense curry, almost like stuffing or meatloaf. They say that, in one tablespoon of seawater, there are a million lifeforms. Well, in one tablespoon of my curry, there are a million ingredients.

Aroused? You should be.

Ok, well, I’m gonna go on my drunken way.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Dishy

Behold! This is my favourite signature recipe: Beef Mince & Paneer Citrus Sensation! I came up with it myself. The key ingredient is squeezed and roughly chopped lemons and limes. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard curry mix. Blows. Your. Fucking. Mind.

Anyway, yes, I’m getting drunk. I’ve blown off all those boring plans because I’m in so much pain. Had I slept well the other night, I would have been sensible, but my body chose not to adhere to this very simple requirement. So, fuck it, let’s get do the whole psycho-trailer-park-shit thing.

The dog downstairs is barking a lot, which means Angry Game Boy is reacting a lot. I’m a little stressed, but the cheap supermarket whisky is helping.

I’m gonna let the curry cool and shove it all in the freezer, if the freezer has that much capacity.

Pray for me.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Massive stripper titties

Goodness knows where I am in terms of my awake-sleep cycle right now. I believe I was still awake around 5 pm yesterday, then finally drifted off until around 9 pm. This means I’m technically sleep deprived, but my body has definitely had enough for now. Even though I, me, the person that matters, certainly has not. But, hey, what can you do?! I’m now really regretting taking booze off that grocery order, but maybe I’ll buy some in separately after the supermarket delivery dude has been and gone.

Saying that, I still need to complete my four-day blood pressure log, cook my homemade curry, pick up medication, ring for those blood test results, and maybe get some energy meter top-ups. Sigh. When it rains, it pours, am I right?!

Or… hear me out here… I could just blow all that shit off and just get wrecked after my groceries turn up in 6 hours.

My justifications for this “friendlier” plan are a) if I hand in my blood pressure log on Friday there’s a very real chance nothing will be done with it until Monday anyway b) I could cook the curry quickly in the morning and freeze all of it, as I don’t enjoy drinking on a full stomach c) I don’t give a fuck what the blood test results say c) that medication can and will wait and d) my meter levels might be ok for now.

So, yeah, I might just go with that.

If you’ve not experienced true sleep deprivation, then you can’t understand how painful it is. It has literally been used throughout history as a form of torture.

Of course, my weekly binge may not solve my sleep pattern problem, as the hangover may be so bad that I just end up oversleeping and find myself back where I started.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to get across is that me and my body are not getting along right now, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love you.

I really shouldn’t say “curry” should I? I mean, it’s a dish, not an entire cuisine. Oh I don’t know. I can start making it when I start drinking, let it cool down while I get more and more out of it then, hopefully, be mentally competent enough later to dish it all out into separate tubs and move them over to the freezer without any accidents.

Smash cut to my building being on fire.

What a laugh, hey?

Well, I’ve ordered those Bill & Ted movies, along with Season 4 of Rick and Morty. While watching 3 again, I realised that, actually, some of the show’s highlights are contained within that season. I think I just don’t like how self-aware Rick becomes. By the time the show gets round to Season 3, he’s gone from being a loveably eccentric grandpa accidentally putting his grandson in harms way, to being uncomfortably aggressive and constantly being referred to and referring to himself as “a god” and “the smartest person in the universe”. He also manages to get out of every bad situation he finds himself and Morty in, no matter what it is and no matter how lazily convenient the solution is. This makes him and the show less interesting, even though individual scenes are funny and interesting.

Infallible characters are just boring. This is a fact.

Regardless, the Blu-ray should turn up later on today, around the time I’ll have finished the 1-3 boxset. Fingers crossed the quality is retained/improved. I don’t want miracles, just good writing.

We shall see.

I began watching Innerspace yesterday. This is a film I probably haven’t seen since I was a teenager, maybe even a kid. It stars one of my favourite people and one of my least favourite people. The former being Wendy “Francine Smith” Schaal and the latter being Martin Short AKA Budget Robin Willians. I find Short’s frantic energy rather threatening, and his semi-comeback in the past decade has truly baffled and annoyed me. He’s always a major distraction and takes you out of whatever he appears in. I’m sure he’s a lovely person, but that sure doesn’t come across on screen.

Wendy Schaal is just amazing in everything she does, which requires no more explanation from me.

Anyway, back to Innerspace! Yeah, so, it’s an oddly paced film to begin with. There’s very little useful dialogue to speak of (no pun intended), to the point where it almost feels like a silent film. This actually works, as Joe Dante’s command of the language of cinema really needs no words to back it up. Things were getting a little more dialogue-heavy where I left off, I think as Short and Quaid's characters are having down-time and getting drunk. I like that Henry Gibson plays a likeable character for a change. He was rather typecast as a creepy, monosyllabic villain for decades, so his caring supermarket manager in this is actually a nice departure. I chuckled when I realised one of the villains is Vernon Wells, best known from Mad Max 2 and Commando. He’s also in Fortress with Christophe(r) Lambert, which is fun but cheap as fuck. Meg Ryan hasn’t done much in the film yet, but she’s always charming enough. Well, she was until she messed her career up by sassing Britain’s beloved Michael Parkinson. Bad move, sister. Bad move. Can you imagine someone from Britain going over to America and being a total dick to Oprah Winfrey?! Yeah, you think about that. 

Erm… where was I?! Oh yeah…

Basically, I just got too tired halfway though watching the film, so decided to try and call it a “night”, even though it was midday and the sleep thing didn’t end up panning out. Well, I’ll hopefully pick up where I left off after posting this, so I’ll let you know my overall feelings some other time.

Wow, that was a long ramble for something I’ve only half-watched. Isn’t life crazy?!

Oh those presents I sent to my brother have apparently been delivered, but he’s not said anything about them yet. Perhaps he’s waiting until he’s opened them on his birthday proper. Which is today. Well, later on today. I deleted his number from my phone, due to concerns over me emotionally drunk texting him, so I’ll have to wait for him to contact me. I guess I could email him. Hmmm, yeah, I might do that after proof reading this.

Does “proof reading” need hyphenating?! It sure feels like it does.

I’ve been getting loads of views on my old blog, The Whittling Post, this week. I do sometimes get spikes in activity, but what makes this interesting is the variety of countries and posts that have been viewed. I’m still shocked that I get more views on a blog I no longer update than this one. Take a look at this!

It’s a mystery. Perhaps they’re all spybots and I’ve unintentionally said something that threatens international security. Perhaps somebody’s posted a link to the blog on social media. Perhaps anal-probing aliens are tracking me down to burrow away into my sweet, tender behind. Only time will tell. Or not.

Right, well, I think I’m done here for now. I’ll let you know how the rest of the day pans out at… erm… some point. It all depends on what I decide to achieve*.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

*drink

My issues captured in one image

When did life get so complicated, huh?!

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

In a Sheffield minute

I suddenly realised, in the early hours this morning, that it’s my middle-brother’s birthday in a couple of days. In an effort to stop him pouting like a small child, I ordered him a case of wine and a posh bottle of whisky. All this will either shut him up nicely or, much worse, make him more vocal. Even though I think he’s spending a lot of time at mother’s house at the moment, given her rapidly declining health, I still sent it to his address. Basically, I was worried that, should my now mentally incompetent mother intercept the packages, she might get confused and either send them back and/or urinate on them. So who knows what’ll happen now. Hopefully I’ll be far too drunk and mentally incompetent myself by the time it becomes an issue.

Just after putting that order in I heard, through our paper-thin dividing wall, my next door neighbour, “Angry Game Boy”, screaming in pain. I could even hear him muttering to himself about maybe having to go to the hospital. What with me trying to be a better neighbour and all that, I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and shuffled across the landing to knock on his door. This probably wasn’t a helpful thing to do to someone with agonising knee pain, but he still managed to hobble to his door and confront me. I asked him if he was alright and did he want me to call an ambulance or something. He said no, stating that he thought it was arthritis or gout or something similar (odd for a young man such as himself), but I still offered to give him some cash for a taxi if he needed to go to his doctor. After thanking me for my concern, It pretty much ended there. He seemed to recover swiftly, and was back to going in and out of the building a few times an hour as usual. Still, it kinda left me shaken, as what with my ex dying last year, my uncle dying this year, and my mother seemingly on the verge of passing away, the health of the people around me has actually started to matter. I sure didn’t see that coming.

So, yeah, those are my two good deeds for the, erm, decade.

I then got a call from the council, strangely early for that time of the day and week, wanting me to do a survey with them. It only took a few minutes, and the dude calling was nice enough, but it did take me by surprise. It obviously didn’t help that 9 am is my bedtime these days, so I must have sounded pretty out of it. At any rate, I didn’t end up drifting off to sleep until about 2 pm, which was annoying and, ironically, exhausting.

I had a really bad food day yesterday. Having few ingredients for s full meal in the house, I ended up just making a disappointing sandwich for lunch, then hydrating a disappointing packet of instant noodles for dinner. I’d make up for it today by ordering a lavish takeaway but, of course, when your “morning” is 9 pm at night, it’s a little difficult to find a restaurant that’s sill taking orders. I think that’s the only thing that really bothers me about an upturned sleep pattern - the fact that it screws with your plans.

I did end up watching Michael Mann’s The Keep in the end. What a bizarre film! It feels like one of those “lost masterpieces” that got royally screwed over by the studio. There are moments of brilliance in there, but also very noticeable signs of post-production problems, such as rushed special effects, non-existent sound mixing, a desperate need for ADR work, and butchery in editing by the studio. I don’t think there’s a director’s cut lying around in a vault somewhere waiting to be discovered, plus I’m gonna go ahead and assume the studio binned what they left on the cutting room floor, so it’ll just have to remain a cinematic tragedy, along the lines of Greed and The Magnificent Ambersons. Still, what a cast! Jurgen Prochnow?! Ian McKellen?! Gabriel Byrne?! Scott Glenn?! It’s a star-studded catastrophe!

I was also wondering whether the version available isn’t actually cropped, but accidentally “open matte”. This is (I think, as I’m certainly no expert) where the full scope of what the film camera captures is displayed, rather than the aspect ratio the director intended. This often leads to revealing mistakes, such as boom mics being in shot and great empty areas at the top and bottom of the screen. The film certainly doesn’t look grainy like a cropped widescreen print, so who knows. I’m sure the information is out there somewhere, but I assume the soon-to-be-released documentary I contributed to will explain everything. Still, the aspect ratio thing will just serve as another sign that the studio fucked the whole thing over. Poor Michael Mann. I doubt he’d get that treatment these days. Well, he manages to ruin his own films now by using that awful digital stock that makes his multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbusters look like shitty home movies.

Idiot.

Oh I tidied up my profile bio that you should be able to see to your right. It’s pretty much the same wording but, for some reason, I chose rambling bollocks over brevity when I originally wrote it. Hopefully this new version will be a little easier on the eyes and brain for new readers. So enjoy!

What else? Not much, really. I’m still waking up, having just finished my cafetière of coffee and slice of blue cheese. I’m just about to watch the most recent Astronomy Cast, which always cheers me up. I think my main meal today will be frozen chips and a tin of baked beans & sausage. Kill me now! Oh well, serves me right for prioritising booze over actual food with my last shopping order. Although, to be fair, I didn’t realise at the time that my sleep pattern would be so skewed by the end of the food supply week.

Right, I best go rustle up brunch, which will consist of uncooked porridge oats and soya milk.

Mmmmm!

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Signed. Sealed. Intoxicated.

I’ve been fighting an absolute stinker of a hangover for the past couple of days. I’m enjoying my switch to Budweiser but, wow, the DTs it inflicts come with some hideous paranoia. You know a hangover’s bad when you think to yourself: “How is this better than being sober?!”. Like I would ever usually think that. Anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s all gone now.

Until the next time, of course.

Oh, the perk from that crowdfunding thing I donated to a decade ago finally arrived. It’s a signed copy of the book The Keep by F. Paul Wilson. Behold!

I won’t be able to read it, of course, thanks to my forever deteriorating eyesight, but I’ve found the audiobook online, so that’ll do. It’s actually part one of a six book series, which I didn’t realise. I’ve also got the Michael Mann adaptation from the 1980s on Prime Video (although it's shockingly cropped from its intended 2.35:1 aspect ratio), so I’ll have to watch that back. The film is actually what the crowdfunding thing was all about. Some dude is making a documentary about it, which is cool, as I remember seeing parts of The Keep when I was little (I must have naughtily stayed up late or something) and some of the visuals have haunted me ever since. So, yeah, the book’s gone on the shelf, and I’m now a little less anxious about what was going on with the perks. It has been a looong time since I signed up, after all.

I don’t have much else to report. The temperature’s dropped like a mofo, so it’s definitely autumn now. I much prefer the cold, so I’m loving this. There are few simpler pleasures than snuggling up under a duvet, which you just can’t do during the summer. Chuck in a rainstorm outside and I’m in heaven.

I’m currently going through the Rick and Morty boxset, as it’s on regular rotation in my sitcom collection. I’ve only got the Season 1-3 set, so let me know if anything beyond that is worth catching. I wasn’t impressed with the quality of 3.

I might order the Bill & Ted trilogy tomorrow. I remember loving the first one when I was a kid, but steered clear of the second, as it seemed to get bad reviews from professional critics at the time. It has, however, become rather respected over the years, so I’ve got more reason to give it a go now. I’m not keen on seeing the third one, as the idea of two middle-aged actors reprising roles they played when they were in their twenties is rather unappealing, but I’ve heard it’s pretty good. I doubt they’d have done it unless they had some good ideas. Plus, hey, everyone loves Keanu Reeves, right? The loveable dope.

If you’ve not witnessed him attempting to perform Shakespeare, then you’ve simply not lived.

That tenant downstairs still has his illicit pet dog. What makes me more anxious than the dog itself is my next door neighbour “Angry Game Boy”s reaction to the dog’s barking. Dog barks seem to be a particular bugbear for him, and he goes on a violent, screaming rampage around his flat if a dog anywhere in the neighbourhood pipes up for a significant amount of time. The one downstairs sets him off straight away. Well, should I bump into “Angry Game Boy” in the stairwell, I’ll try to offer to put him up on my sofa so he can get some sleep.

Clever, huh?! Oh myyy.

There’s lots of Black Friday advertising online assaulting my senses this weekend. I’m aware that there are deals going on all year round, so these big seasonal ones never get me excited. The price drops aren’t impressive anyway. Shops just like to create a frenzy (quite successfully, I might add), which I don’t want any part of. With the exception of the odd home video, there’s not much I fancy buying at the moment.

Unless you can get a Black Friday discount on human physical contact.

Seriously, can you?!

Well, chronic sadness aside, I’ve managed to turn days into nights again. This just happens every so often, so I’m not getting upset about it. It does get me confused about when I should be taking my medication, but I think I’ve just about got that sorted. I’m basically falling asleep around midday and getting up around 8 pm. At least it’s a little quieter outside the building at that time of the day-night cycle, as I’ve found a council estate to be much like a building site. I guess people are moving in and out of these flats and maisonettes all the time, so the council are forever having to do repairs and prepare things for the next tenant. I’ve stopped playing the lottery now, so I’m no longer holding out for something better.

This is my life, and it’s ending one new antisocial neighbour at a time.

My appetite is a little uncertain at the moment. I don’t feel like I’m “off” anything in particular, but neither am I feeling very inspired to cook. To be fair, I haven’t bought anything in to be inspired about. Maybe I’ll include the ingredients to make a fancy homemade curry when I put my weekly grocery order in tomorrow. I fancy doing my signature “Mince & Paneer Citrus Sensation”. It’s an acquired taste but, considering how many friends have walked away over the years, so am I.

I cook how I socialise.

Poorly.

Well, that’s all for now, folks. Just thought I’d keep this little plate spinning. Apart from having to do some home blood pressure tests and pick up medication, the week ahead looks pretty bare. If it weren’t for the blood pressure thing, I’d probably just get drunk again. Still, I wonder what nasty little surprises will befall me.

I’ll endeavour to keep you updated.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!