This phenomenon is a joy to behold. They have a canny ability to pick the most stupid picture of the player in question when writing an article about them. I have prepared a little slide show to demonstrate this. I used to embed it, but the autoplay gets really quite annoying after a while :P

http://www.imageloop.com/en/slideshow/706a25b3-645b-1312-b7fe-0015c5fcf618/index.htm

I might write about the second half of my holiday btw, It’s done now so I dunno if theres any point, it was rad though :)

p.s. If you click the “show slideshow” button it plays some lovely music :)

Here I am in an internet cafe in Japan…somewhere…I forget the name of the place Shaun lives. All the things I was concerned about went without issue which was nice. I could have missed the plane at Charles De Gaul due to not remembering the hour forward thing, but I didn’t, no harm no foul.

Japan is mad. Proper proper mad. You have to see it for yourself to realise just how crazy it is. I could into detail on how barmy it is…but a) I don’t think I have enough time to write it all up and b) I don’t think enough people read this to make it worth stir it all up in that whimsical soup I like to do. So here’s a bullet pointed list of everything I can remember happening.

• Almost gave someone in the airport a cynical response to a stupid question but thought better of it.
• Got the french time wrong and if the shops were open I would have missed my flight (but I didn’t).
• Watched Benjamin Button on the plane (meh)
• Got to Narita fine
• Met a drunk frenchman in immigration, eating a baguette and asking me how much it costs to call france.
• Customs asked me politely if I had any cocaine.
• Met Shaun and took the crazy long train journey to his place.
• Had Naruto style awesome ramen.
• Went to sleep v late Nippon time which lead me to wake up at 8pm monday Nippon time, not clever.
• Bought some strawberry lollipops and found a little arcade with Marvel vs Capcom 2
• Next day went to Kamakura (holiday begins really)
• Kamakura is ace, loads of old shrines and such
• Beeped a japanese babies nose
• Had a tuna triangle rice thingee, proper yum
• Saw a massive Buddha’s sandals
• Had sushi in Machida, same as Yo Sushi but £25s worth for £5
• Went to bar in..Japan somewhere…met Shauns cool friends and chatted to Japanese girls about stuff
• Next day, went to watch Japanese football
• Kawasaki Frontale won 4-1…Japanese goal celebrations are a sight to behold
• Went to Shibuya…proper Tokyo neon madness
• Saw some hip hop kids dancing in the street while a basketball team did a beep test (I think)
• Sat in the park for an hour, highlights a man with a samurai sword and a man with his child playing beatles songs
• Mike, Shaun and I went to a really cool Japanese restaurant, getting better with chopsticks
• After spending about 600 Yen, sussed GuitarFreaks v6
• Today, went to a Shrine remembering dead war heroes and a very biased War museum
• Then went to a Science musuem and played with all kinds of daft toys (crashed a car)
• Off to Akihabara which is geek madness central, sat in the famicom throne
• Had a lovely (and cheap) Katsu curry
• Shaun and I went to a Maid Cafe, was rubbish

And thats about it. Has been a riot and I still have ages to go! Mount Takou tomorrow and loads of other stuff to do. I intend to buy a new pair of trainers and maybe a watch…party party :)

Was reading my spam directory for giggles (and to stock up on willy biggers) and found this baffling email.

“With forgiveness and selfrestraint and wisdom, been consumed by the brahmanas curse. O chief with plentiful gifts (to brahmanas), stood each birds and snakes, deprived of life, fell into common sense was deserting me, and i was on the home? Who plunged those children into worse than faces resembling those of human beings, and those which cause sensations, they simply maintained that best of preceptors, bhishma, that mighty competent to vanquish me in battle! I shall today speed, they roared at each other. Those two delighters, bane of my life. We had once come out of the theatre truth, old man. I can’t do it. Ivanoff’s head.”

And the title of the email“Female Orgasms – How to Givve Your Woman Powerful Orgasms During Intercourse”

Your guess is as good as mine…

So there I was, getting on the 8:45 train to Bournemouth, you know the one with “Bournemouth” written on the side. When the Lord of the Fuck Ups approached me…stumbling around the station with two enormous bags. He proceeded to ask me in a diginified and stately manner,

“Mate, does this one go to Bournemuff?”

To which I wittyly replied

“Yeah”

To which he retorted

“You sure this goes to Bournemuff?”

I repeated myself

“Yeah”

After the cut and thrust of reasoned debate we got on the train and he sat on the seat in front of me. Now ever since waking up, my single focus was getting on that train so I could fall asleep again. I realised this was going to be impossible when my nostrils caught a whiff of the Lord’s cologne, a smattering of Lynx with the overwhelming aroma of stale beer. It swiftly became clear that the Lord was smashed…at 9 in the morning. I hasten to add this was confirmed when he opened another can of lager.

As the train rolls merrily forward, I think I’m out of the woods, but when the train leaves Brockenhurst station I realise I’m in the New Forest both metaphorically and literally when he requires my counsel once again.

“Mate, how long till we get to Bournemuff?”

Quick as a flash I came back with

“15 minutes”

I get the obligatory confirmation

“You sure it’s 15 minutes?”

I confirm

“Yeah”

Now bare in mind it’s 9am when the next line is uttered

“Better be, I’ve gotta be in court and arf nine”

It was at this time that it all fell into place. But before I summarise how much of a fuck up this chap was, I must divulge the final piece of dialogue between myself and the Lord.

I thought I was home free when he quizzes my vast life experience, why else would he hire me as his personal assistant.

“Mate, are these clothes smart enough for court?”

I replied

“I don’t know, I’ve never been”

He was taken aback and asked

“You’ve never been to court?”

Now with my brief but enjoyable time with the Lord I assumed going to court was not an unfamiliar experience for him. But I found it amusing that he either had been to court before and had forgotten the required attire, or the even more amusing idea that he’s never been to court before and doesn’t know and is annoyed with me for having never been to court before and not knowing…As it happens he quite clearly wasn’t dressed for court….

So lets wrap this up. Here we have a man, drunk and still drinking, getting on a train at 8:45 to go to court…in a different county…at 9:30, wearing a denim shirt, jeans, trainers and a black tie which looked like a 5 year old tied it. This my friends was the Lord of Fuck Ups.

It’s official. I am now one of the technorati. I bought one of those Apple deelys and it’s groovy I must say. In fact I’m using it right now, on a train! It’s everything you’ve come to expect from Apple, smooth, sleek, sexy with the underlying of feeling of “my bat, my ball” we’ve come to expect from our beloved technological empires.

As a piece of equipment for doing everything it’s supposed to do, it’s great, colour me satisfied. All the bells and whistles that can keep a shallow person like me entertained for hours. BUT…it’s outright refusal to work outside it’s strictly defined happy place and it’s staunch opposition to play with the other kids on my desktop has troubled me somewhat. If you try to connect it to another instance of iTunes other than the one it’s synced with it complains and the at feint whiff of anything other than iTunes sends it into a full blown hissy fit of screaming, tears and error messages. I’ve had to factory restore it 3 times as it runs home to mummy (iTunes) to have it’s tummy rubbed. My iPhone is a spoiled only child, the type that eat their smaller siblings.

Now my protestations here are rather more theatrical than my actual opinion, it’s not my iPhones fault it’s parents are over protective twats who probably eat organic food to look sophisticated. It just seems these limitations are put in place to keep you in the Apple district. What more do they want? I just paid for the fucking thing, would be nice to be able to use it how I wanna use it.

It being Apple as well makes it worse. They give off this impression of the progressive, web 2.0 embracing hipster bohemians whilst seemingly embracing the “my way or the highway buddy!” approach by Bill of Gates and his army of bespectacled toadies. The whole scene is tainted by hypocrisy…and that makes me a sad panda.

My hippy objections aside, it really is nifty gizmoid. I just wish Apple were actually as cool with it as they wanna look like they are.