Garrulous Geek

Right... Now some serious thoughts about some drunken nights out...

Last Tuesday I went out with my old friend Mike Haydock, who I've known since I was 8 or something, but not seen for about 3 years or something stupid. We kinda lost touch a bit before uni, and managed to drift a lot even though we both went to Durham. So, while I have known him longer and better than anyone I am not actually related to by blood, I haven't seen him in some time. Fortunately the wonders of modern technology allow us to keep in touch through our blogs, so we've gotten back in touch of late.

Anyway... We met up and went for noodles at a restaurant in Soho, which were delicious, and enjoyed by all, even if I gave up on trying to use the chopsticks approximately 0.3 seconds after picking them up. Never mind! After that we pottered through Soho and found a great pub called the glasshouse, which was utterly surrounded by the establishments for which Soho is most famous. Dodgy... The pub was nice though. And so, we sat and drank and talked until chucking out time. We talked about life and what's going on and jobs and houses and wives and girlfriends (not frickin' wags, for goodness sake, stupid OED - and here I want to link to a story about the Oxford Dictionary adding the acronym WAG, but can only find a story at the Daily Mail, and will not sully my page with a link to that rag... but I digress) and my baby and his sister's impending baby and old friends and new friends and music and... possibly a whole load of other stuff, but my memory is hazy. I recall Mr Haydock decrying Strictly Come Dancing as rubbish (he is wrong) and Jo Whiley definitely appeared in conversation, though I have no idea in what context. So there you go. All in all we had a great time, and I once again found it very reassuring to catch up with someone who I know so well and who knows me so well. Great to see he's still the same guy I remember, even down to saying words that no one outside our circle of friends from all those years ago would even really understand... Great days.

And so, to Thursday... Thursday night was in honour of the birthdays of the venerable Katie and Kevin, friends of mine from my tax course. We went to a bar called Babble and proceeded to drink and dance and do all the other things that people do in bars, which is to say we talked about the pros and cons of breasts (generally speaking, we are for them) and set fire to highly alcoholic drinks in our mouths. As one does. I drank a lot, quite probably more than I have ever drunk in one night before, yet managed to stay with it somehow. Goodness only knows how to be honest... I drank Long Island Iced Tea like it was going out of fashion. We left about midnight, which was the right time, as one of our fellow revellers proceeded to be sick on the floor. I'd say it was outrageous, had I not done many and various worse things in my less than sensible youth. Ho hum. So, that was a pretty crazy night all told.

And now, the musy emo part of the post... Those with an aversion to such things, look away now...

I get quite fed up with myself from time to time, because I feel like I'm trying to be someone I'm not. It is painfully obvious to me, looking back, that with Mikey I could just be myself and get on with things, but with the folk on the other night I was kinda acting.

I find myself trying to show off particular traits, which are invariably much less prominent in me than I'm making out. I fit myself around the people I'm with, and act up to fit in. I overplay my andogyny to appear less threatening to the laydeez so I can be friends with them, then overplay it with the guys so they can gently mock me for being gay and all the rest of it, and I try to be funnier than I am, and cruder than I really ought to be, and I try too hard to be quirky, and I show off my mental arithmetic when I really don't need to... It's silly, because I am all of those things (androgynous, funny, crude, quirky, good at mental arithmetic) but I end up forcing it and it feels a bit like I'm playing myself in some kind of idiotic sitcom.

Now, as I said earlier, this is all emo teenage whining and worrying, but this is a blog and you get what you pay for, so to speak. It just bugs me that I'm 24 and still pretending about who I am to some people. I know pretty much everyone does it, but that doesn't make it right, and I really wish I didn't have to do it. I guess it comes out of worrying that people won't like you, but that's just silly, because most decent people won't really care, and besides - I like to think I'm unfettered by the opinions of others. Nice try, I guess.
And, by way of a vastly understated coda, it's worth noting that the bit of me that gets underplayed with nigh on everyone is my Christianity. Damnit.

So, there you go. Here's the full lyrics to the Ben Fold's Five song from which the post title is taken. It says it all very well really.

The Best Imitation of Myself - Ben Fold's Five

I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest
So I can be for you what you wanna see.
I got the gestures and sounds, got the timing down,
It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me.
Do you think I should take a class, to lose my Southern accent?
Did I make me up, or fit the face till it stuck?
I do the best imitation of myself.

The "problem with you" speech you gave me was fine,
I liked the theories about my little stage.
And I swear I was listening, but I started drifting,
Around the part about me acting my age.
Now if it's all the same, I've people to entertain...
I'll juggle one handed, do some magic tricks and
The best imitation of myself.

Maybe I'm thinking myself in a hole,
Wondering who I am when I ought to know
Straighten up now time to go
Fool somebody else... Fool somebody else

Last night I was east within, and west within
Trying to be for you what you wanna see
But I can't help it with you, the good and bad comes through
Don't want you hanging out with noone but me
Now if it's all the same, it comes from the same place.
And if my mind's somewhere else, you won't be able to tell
I do the best imitation of myself.

Yes it's uncanny to see
You'd really think it was me
The best imitation of myself
The best imitation of myself

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here... all my life. Good night.

I am quite drunk at the time of writing this post...

Nevertheless, while I have had a wicked time with my tax friends, I would far rather have been with Alison... Honestly, it's just not the same...

So, when I'm sober again, ask me about my night out with Mickey Haddock and my night with the tax dudes.

Please note, that this post required considerable spell checking...

Right then. It's about time I blogged properly, so here goes. I'm going to waffle about what I'm up to at the moment, and then post pics of Beth at the end, so if you're just here for the baby pictures, skip ahead.

So... life then. Work is going well. It's really quite busy. I've got lots of work to be getting on with, which is pretty cool. It's at a pretty good pace which means I'm always under enough pressure to be motivated, without it feeling too overwhelming. This is a good thing. I've been hearing some horror stories of some of my fellow trainees in other offices not having anything to do. One guy told me he'd spent the afternoon practising how fast he could say "Peter Piper". He got it down to 5.2 seconds, apparently. Impressive, but not exactly what he's there for. I might be off to visit a client sometime this coming week, which would be my first, and I might have a business trip to London a week or so later to learn something complicated. Exciting stuff. I am, as tragic as it may seem, really enjoying this job. For all my concerns about spending my life as an accountant, it's actually pretty good so far. Good stuff.

I spent some of my hard earned cash on a Nintendo DS Lite. It's easily one of the best things I've ever bought. I picked it up on ebay and it came with Nintendogs and that Brain Training game that you've probably seen people playing on the train/bus/plane/helicopter to work. Those two are pretty cool, especially Nintendogs. The whole stylus and touch screen thing is cool, even if it is just a contrived way of getting a mouse onto a handheld console. It's pretty neat to be able to talk to the dog with the mic and teach it tricks, and stroke it to say well done. Nifty. I've since picked up a few more games, including Phoenix Wright, a mad little visual novel type game about a lawyer, which Marilyn Manson, of all people, loves. So there you go. I like it so much I sold a bunch of stuff and bought one for Alison as well. Admittedly there is the ulterior motive that I need someone to play Mario Kart against, but she's been getting into it for herself, especially this mad little game called Cooking Mama which is, as the name suggests, all about cooking. Cooking Japanese meals. As you do. So, that's pretty cool. Heartily recommended. Buy a DS Lite. Or buy me loads of games for mine. I'm not too fussed which.

I picked up the new Muse album too. It's taking a bit of a time to get into, as it's a bit more obscure than Absolution. It's good, just a bit crazy. I think it'll grow on me. It's certainly very musically accomplished, to say the least.

We watched Good Night And Good Luck last night, George Clooney's film about the news reporting on McCarthyism in the 50s. It was very good, well written and well acted. It was quite concise, which bothered me slightly, as I could have watched a lot more of it. The subject matter was certainly very interesting, and I like the sentiment that TV and journalism should be honest and challenging. I found the closing line of the film very strong:

"This instrument [television] can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire, but it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box."

I don't know if I mentioned it at the time, but I remember thinking that sort of thing when I watched Gunther von Hagens autopsy programmes on Channel 4. It was astounding to me that TV could be so educational, when primarily it's just utterly forgettable crap, if I can be frank. As sci fi author Sturgeon noted, 90% of everything is crud. Now, autopsies are certainly different to political awareness, but I think the point stands. It would be nice if TV could actually challenge us once in a while. Anyway. It was a good film.

Things with Ali and Beth are good. Beth has been a bit ill, which has been hard work for Ali. She had some kind of bug or something that was making her sick, which was pretty gross and fairly distressing for her. She's come through that now, and is back to being cheerful, which is good. Ali and Beth are having fun, so that's cool. Beth is getting pretty good at sitting up, as well as picking things up and holding them, and putting everything in her mouth! She's trying to feed herself when Ali gives her pureed fruit and veg, which is entertaining if extremely messy. So... here's some photos!



This is back when Ali first started giving Beth some solid food, nearly two months ago. She's just had some passion fruit and was very pleased with it!



Here's Ali holding Beth, who's wearing a little snowsuit that my sister bought for her. It's really cute. It has a giraffe on it, which you can't see in the photo, and it's really snuggly and warm.



Here's me with Beth who's in a little dress that Ali got for her for like £2 or something, thanks to a handy voucher. Nice.



Here's Beth in her door bouncer. It's a proper life saver - she loves bouncing up and down, and it can keep her entertained for quite a while, so you can get on with something in the meantime. It also helps with getting the burps out of her!



Here's Beth on a swing. She has to be kinda wedged in (hence the blanket) but she really likes it. She starts giggling and grinning. Very cute.



Ali has found that Beth can be quite easily entertained by giving her random items to play with and look at. So, here's Beth having a look at the whisk. Tasty...



Lastly, here's me and Beth out on a walk just this afternoon. We went out to a place called Pennington Flash, which is a nature reserve type place with a big lake, and saw all the ducks and geese and suchlike. I carried Beth round in a little harness on my front and she had a great time looking at everything.

So... there you go. That's about enough for now! See you again soon.

So, I've not blogged in a while, and I saw one of those silly quiz things over at Rach's blog, and figured that'd be alright for a quick post. Here goes...

Q1 How many people have you been romantically in love with?

2, I think.

Q2 How many people have you had sex with?

Just the one.

Q3 Capital Punishment is proven not to work, however, which 3 people in the world do you think we should make absolutely sure with?

What, like throughout all of time, or just present day? If you're talking the whole of time then people like Hitler and Stalin obviously come at the top of the lists. If you want right now... well, I don't know I could think of three. To be honest, I think Saddam deserves it. I don't really approve of the death penalty, but really - when someone has killed that many people, what else can you do with them? Can you punish them enough? Torture? Vivisection? I'm not really up for that side of things, so I think in these cases death is about the only option you have left. It's difficult, because their crimes are so far off the map that it's just about impossible to judge in any sensible fashion.

Q4 How would you kill them?

Lethal injection, but not the way they do it in the US, as it's not as painless as some people think. Just give them a huge whack of barbiturates and let them go that way.

Q5 Who do you think of most when masturbating?

I think about loaded questions and the fifth amendment of the US constitution!

Q6 What has been your most harrowing experience?

Leaving school because I was being bullied, I think. That was quite a long time ago now though.

Q7 How often have you been unfaithful?

Never, though I have been the person someone else was unfaithful with, which was a drunken teenage mistake. Well, I think I was a teenager anyway. If not, I was probably making up for lost time on account of my extremely inactive teenage years.

Q8 What is the most valuable item you have stolen?

This looks like another case for the fifth amendment! Nothing, really, unless you count taking things that were being thrown out and would end up in landfill. Apparently that's stealing from the council or waste management services... Whatever...

Q9 What would be the lowest wage you could accept to do your dream job?

I'll be very content with the salary I get when I qualify from my training for this job. Although by then I'm sure outgoings will be on the up as Beth gets bigger and so on.

Q10 Have you been 100% truthful in answering the above questions?

Yes, I have.

Right. I'll make a more useful post later, probably with pictures of baby Beth as I've not put up any of her for a while. I'll bet you all want to see pictures of her trying to eat and getting food all over the place!