Clarity, and A Near Death Experience

Well, that was an eventful weekend.

The good news is I have joined the ranks of the speccies. Four eyes are definitely better than two, especially if your two don't work too well. I can't believe I managed to go so long seeing the world all blurry. It's not just going from SD to HD, it's like going from Atari to PS3.

.....Mum?

After upgrading my senses I jumped straight on a train to Kent to make the most of the perfect sunshine. The original plan was go down, meet up with a couple of people, head to the beach and end up in the pub. Nice, normal, safe plan. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

So after an uneventful train journey and wading through the crowds, we made it to the pub. So far, so good, having a nice time, shooting some pool, blissfully unaware that I would be ending the night fearing for my life.

A few really good friends of mine turned up in the pub, completely unannounced, which was a lovely surprise. One of them asked me if I wanted to head into Canterbury with them later. "No" was my instantaneous response. I'm not against clubbing per se, but some nights I just don't fancy being stuck in a stuffy room with hundreds of sweaty chavs. Might just be me.

This is on a good night

However, through a combination of peer pressure, nagging, and about 5 too many drinks, I grudgingly agreed to go. 'I haven't been for a while, and it's student union, so there won't be many chavs' I thought to myself. I was right, there weren't many chavs, in fact, I even quite enjoyed it for about 10 minutes. Then I saw the foam cannon.

Now, I understand foam parties are popular. I mean, who wouldn't want to dance around in a giant bubble bath? Plus it solves the sweatiness issue, so that's pretty win-win. This is all fine, unless, like me, you're a tad vertically-challenged. I'm by no means the shortest guy in the world, at a steady 5'10, but when it comes to foam parties, I never fare well. 

There are people under there

There is only one thing worse than getting foam in your eyes, it stings like hell, and you can't see a thing. The one thing worse than getting it in your eyes, is getting it in your lungs. Wave after wave of foam descends on you, you can't see, you can't breathe, all you can do is pick a direction and start trying to swim-move your way through the crowd just to live. Apparently, people enjoy this. I tend to prefer a little less risk of death when I go clubbing.

Although I will say one thing for it, it made my hair amazingly soft. I need that recipe.

So, not only have I been hungover most of the day (vodka redbull is not a good thing to tip into your snakebite). I've been coughing up more bubbles than Upton Park when West Ham actually score a goal (which is rare, lets face it).

Anyway, sorry for disturbing your pornography binge, you may resume at your leisure.

~Flynny

Wheatus Have Still Got It

Now, I'm not normally one for going to gigs on my own, but this is Wheatus. A band I remember growing up with from age 11. I wasn't going to miss it for anything. Boy am I glad I went.

Yup, from the day I found out they had for some unknown reason decided Bedford was a stop on their tour I was mega excited. I mean, come on, who didn't love Teenage Dirtbag growing up? What? Get off my blog, don't return until you know all the words to Truffles.

Not many can pull off the 'constipated and loving it' look

On the night, the guys rocked it, completely. I have to admit I had my doubts when a guy who looked like he was on the run from the hairdressers guild turned up holding an accordion. It's an unusual opening for a band that people have heard of. Anyway, turns out the guys name was Corn Mo, and he's got a hell of a voice. Oh, and he's funny as fuck.

Meet Corn Mo, don't stand too close

The second support act, Math the Band, didn't really connect. They had energy in abundance, to the point where they made a lot of noise and nobody had a clue what was happening. Which is fine if you're into that sort of thing. At one point the guy handed his guitar to a girl in the front row, just so he could be a little bit more mental on stage. She didn't have a clue what to do, and actually looked a bit scared, bless.

So after the tornado of noise blew itself out, we were treated to some rapper, sponsored by a fast food chain. I think his name was McLars, or something along those lines. He came to the stage with a projector and a laptop, confessing straight away that he dealt in 'laptop rap'. Didn't go down too well at first, but he soon redeemed himself with a succession of witty, well written tracks. He's well worth looking up if, like me, you don't mind a bit of the old hippety-hop, but you're prone to calling it hippety-hop.

McLars. The hat's glued on, so don't even try

Now, I realise by now that most internet people will be looking at pictures of cats with hilarious speech bubbles. So if you're still reading, congratulations, you win at life.

When Wheatus finally hit the stage they made an announcement that is pretty much any live music fans wet dream. "Hey guys, we don't have a setlist, shout out a song and we'll play it!" They ended up playing all but one of the songs off their first album, as well as a couple of newer songs and 'My Name is Jonas'. When they got round to playing Teenage Dirtbag I was there, right at the front, rocking my socks off, or something like that. I felt like I was 12 again.

Well worth the lack of sleep and subsequent hangover at work today.

You can go back to pirating films now.

~Flynny

Sunday Night Drivel

Hey hey kids, and adolescents, who knows, maybe even adults?

After last nights nightmare scenario with the football, I have spent the day discovering Batman: Arkham Asylum. There's been people bugging me to play it for yonks, and I finally gave in. So glad I did. I may be reviewing it after I've finished it, so watch this space.

My thoughts exactly, Brucie

Other than that it's been a fairly uneventful weekend, I'm upgrading the world to HD as of next weekend, finally getting a new pair of specs. My last pair thought they would stay on a train long after I got off it, traitorous bastards. So I've gone the last 3 or 4 years not quite knowing if I recognise people more than 10 feet away or not, which has led to a few embarrassing situations, to say the least.

Also, went to see The Dictator yesterday, I tell you what, I wasn't expecting it to be anywhere near as good as it was. I'm a big fan of Ali G and Borat, but Bruno didn't really connect. This is Sacha Baron Cohen back at his best though, the man is not scared of anything. Genuinely full of proper belly laughs, go and see it. NOW! I'll wait.

Admiral General Aladeen commands you!

So that was my weekend, I'm now settling in to watch the start of a new series of Family Guy (for us brits anyway). No doubt I'll be posting again some time during the week, so see you all then, try and stay out of prison!

~Flynny

Spiked Underpants Are a Pain in the Arse

If I can manage a post to live up to that gem of a title it will be a minor miracle.

Don't give me that look, beardy

So there I was today, bored out of my skull, thinking I'd just have a quick look to see if anybody was actually reading my inane ramblings. Turns out, they actually are. Well, either that or they're just looking at the pretty pictures, either way, hello, nice to meet you, thank you for taking a few minutes to read my irrelevant, occasionally ranty posts.

Speaking of rants, I was half an hour late for work today, thanks to the world's most inconsistent bus route. It's suddenly become acceptable for 12-minute interval buses to be 10 minutes late and rammed full of people so they can't pick Flynny up and get him to work on time and cause him to rage internally because he's too god damn laid back to shout at people or cause a fuss or even complain politely!

Aaaaaaand breathe.....

You don't want to hear about the minutiae of my daily life though, that's not what this blog is about, is it? I hope not, to be honest, I don't even know myself. I have had a neat idea for some sort of regular thing though, I want to post a Top 10 list of whatever the hell I feel like once a week. I give it 3 weeks before I give up, any takers?

Guess what I'm doing, go on, guess. Nope. Nuh-uh, watching drunkards in fancy dress watch huge men throw tiny arrows at a piece of cork? Third time lucky I guess. 

You know, fancy dress has always intrigued me. Ordinarily, you wouldn't see Elvis sharing a pint with a man in drag pretending to be Madonna, or maybe you would, Elvis was pretty rock'n'roll after all. I just saw 4 guys dressed as crayons. Crayons! How the hell did that conversation go? 

'Steve, fancy going to the darts?' 

'Sure Dave, but only if we dress up' 

'Cracking idea Steve, what shall we go as?' 

'I dunno Dave, superheroes seem a bit overdone, have a look in your kids toybox when you get home and see what you come up with'

They were all out of  naked Action Man

You really couldn't make it up.

Anyway, this has gone far enough. Keep reading, it really does make me smile.

~Flynny

Growing Up Sucks

Travel. Work. Eat. Work. Travel. Eat. Faff. Sleep. Repeat.

When you're younger, you think you have all the time in the world, that growing up and getting a job is something stuffy old people do. Then you hit your 20's and leave education, and shit gets real.

Now I'm not in any way complaining about my job. I actually enjoy doing it, and it gets me by. What I don't like is the way all my time just seems to get sucked into this vortex, I can coast through weeks without really ever noticing anything. I spend pretty much all day every weekday engaging with a screen of some kind. Not because I want to, but because there's very little alternative for me.

I'm hoping now that it's the middle of May I might be able to get out a bit more in the evenings without having to put on my armbands first. There's nothing like a refreshing walk when you're bored out of your skull.

Not that I'm a loner or anything, but I don't really know anyone local to me here in Bedford. I grew up in Kent, lived there between the ages of 5 and 18, made friends for life there, and I'd move back in a heartbeat if money were no object.

Unfortunately it is, so here I am. Blogging. I mean, that's great news for you, obviously, you get my pearls of wisdom to peruse at your leisure. But I miss the days where I could just ring my mates and go and drink cheap nasty cider on the beach in the middle of the night. I miss just walking through town and seeing people I knew, setting up impromptu gatherings, playing poker.

Growing up sucks, but at least I still have my immaturity. Penis.

~Flynny

England Squad Reaction

Ok, I realise the title of this blog is a major turn-off for quite a few denizens of the internet, but I wouldn't be doing my patriotic duty as an English football fan if I didn't react to it at all.

It is important to note at this point that I am a diehard spurs fan, and the views in this blog may not be representative of football fans nationwide.

So there I was at work, relatively busy, and very glad that my lunch break coincided with Roy Hodgson naming his first England squad, the 23 noble men given the ultimate task of any sportsperson, representing their country on an international stage.

Now, bearing in mind a frankly embarrassing World Cup performance, signalling the beginning of the end for the great square-faced muppet lookalike himself, I was hoping for something a little more departed from that squad. The same old faces have underachieved again and again for England, and most of them are now getting to the age where it can be seen as perfectly reasonable to tell them to get stuffed and move over for some real talent.

It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights

Right?

Wrong.

It appears Roy is already in the FA's pocket. The only notable face missing from the World Cup squad is a player who really should have been included in the place of the wife-cheating, possibly-racist liability that we call John Terry.  I mean, really, I would be surprised if he even makes it off the plane before finding himself staring at the wall of a Ukrainian prison cell.

So that's beef number one, Ferdinand should be going instead of Terry. People may counter this argument by saying Rio won't be able to play every game, but they're forgetting Wayne Rooney has been included in the squad, even though he may only be eligible for one game in the whole tournament if we crash out in the group stages.

Beef number two, Stewart Downing. Why? Why Stewart Downing? He has been the Premier League's least productive player this season, scoring and creating the exact same amount of goals as me. None. It's an absolute waste of a squad place, considering infinitely more useful players, such as Aaron Lennon and Adam Johnson, even Danny Murphy, were completely overlooked.

It's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight...

Beef number three, Frank Lampard. Painfully average all season, picked not on merit, but more for the fact that we always pick him, no matter how well he's been playing. It's about time an England manager had the bollocks to drop some of the recurring big names from our team and start picking players based on form and confidence.

Which brings me to my final rant. Andy Carroll. Much has been made of him this season, which is understandable given that he's only scored 4 goals after signing for Liverpool for £35m from Newcastle. I can see why Hodgson picked him, he was looking for someone to bully defences and give us an aerial presence in the box. That's fine, I get that, but then why not Grant Holt or Peter Crouch? They've both scored more than twice as many goals as Carroll this season, doing the same thing he's been picked to do.

Who doesn't want to see this again?

Anyway, I should really end on a positive note, as I'm supposed to be supporting this team in a months time after all. It's great to see that in the squad overall, 9 different clubs are represented, and all the players play in the country they're representing. I don't believe any other country can claim that is the case with their squads, proving once and for all that the Premier League is the best in the world.

~Flynny

Future Lawyers Are Pretty Dumb Sometimes

You know, working in customer service can give you a great insight into how different people are.

I work for an exam board here on our little island, an exam board delivering Law qualifications, at that. If some of the phone calls I get are anything to go by, our system is going to be completely screwed within about 10 years.

I'm always amazed by the number of people we get complaining about one thing or another, then getting frustrated when we tell them it's all within our regulations.

'Don't quote regulations at me!'

'Tell me why!'

'So what, is that it then?'

I mean, you would think, of all people, students of the law would understand. You read things before you sign them. You think things through before you do them. You don't phone up and complain about rules and regulations, because that's exactly what you're hoping to specialise in!

On a lighter note, we do get some hilarious questions and excuses from people.

I'm not allowed to reveal them on here though, customer privacy and all that, rules is rules.

Here's a picture of an alcoholic baby, to end this ramble.

~Flynny

Right, Seriously Now...

There has to be an easier way to find people on this thing. All I've managed so far is clicking on the 'next blog...' button and coming up with a series of blogs that are long deceased. God rest their electronic souls.

I mean, for a company world famous for their search engine and user-friendliness, you would think they would make it a little bit easier. Am I right? Or just being obtuse?

Alright, alright, I just need more patience, it's a virtue, apparently. If I do end up following anyone, it'll be a miracle that I've found all the right buttons, so you should be pleased, k? Of course, if you'd like to make it easier for me by randomly stumbling across my little blog, and following me, I will of course check you out. I might even find the right button to follow you back, but hey, who knows?

Wish me luck!

~Flynny

First!

Uhhhhh.... hi?

So, owing to the fact that I can't log in to Warcraft to finally hit the level cap for the first time in my life, I'm starting a blog instead.

The award for lamest opening sentence to a blog goes to..........

If you can't tell, I'm a bit of a geek, and I don't particularly care. But I'm not your standard, everyday geek, oh no. I'm a beer-swilling, all-singing, no-dancing behemoth of geekiness. I'm a big football fan, I listen to a wide variety of music, and I don't live in my mum's basement. So suck on that.

I'll be posting all sorts of crap on here, seeing as I have no idea what I'm really doing. I've always liked the idea of having a blog, but I'm a bit worried I may not be self-centered enough to keep writing about myself all the time. In which case I'll write about a variety of other things. Music, games, sports, anything that pops into my head, yadda yadda yadda.

Don't you just hate awkward introductory posts? You know, the ones where some guy sitting on his laptop tries to be funny, thinking it might be the slightest bit endearing? The ones where people don't really know what they want their blog to be yet, so they just try not to end up looking like a total douche? Yeah, those ones.

Anyway, enough blah, I'm going to look for some blogs to follow so I can get an idea of what you lovely people are like.

~Flynny