Morning woes

I got up the other day rather sluggishly. I fell asleep around 2:30 in the morning and regained consciousness a few hours after with the alarm going off on my mobile phone. I flopped over to the end of my bed and reached out my arm to the floor using my hand as one of those grapplers you get at the arcades, where you never win the teddy. I managed to get hold of it and opened my eyes to locate the snooze button. To my disgust the screen had turned itself off and all I could see was a black panel, the alarm though, was still ringing. I proceeded to tap the screen ever so slightly for any sign of response. Nothing! My alarm, sensing my stirring anxiety decided to crank it up a few decibels which in turn caused me to throw the thing against the wall, where I heard a smash, a crack, followed by silence. I succeeded.

I ambled along in auto pilot, ironing my trousers, t-shirt and my index finger. I couldn’t even be bothered to look at it, I just mumbled an expletive and thought it felt rather hot. Breakfast usually consists of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes but not today, they had run out the previous morning and I’d forgotten to get some more. Instead I had to crunch some bran flakes which I bought when I was going through a fitness phase. They reminded me of the cardboard ninja stars I used to make as a boy but always ended up chewing for some reason.

I caught the bus to work, where I proceeded to plug in my ear phones and turn on my personal DAB radio searching for 1Xtra. After 20 seconds I realised nothing was playing. I looked at my DAB, “Station unavailable”. I tuned to 6Music. Nothing. I couldn’t tune in anything, Radio 2, Virgin, Radio 4 even Radio 1! The only thing that came up was Core which was playing some rhubarb pulp. I cut my losses and turned off the DAB whilst uttering a few cusses which brought a raised eye brow from the lady sitting opposite me. I however was more entranced with the facial hairs protruding from the side of her face. They were thick, dark brown and twirly, like bristles on the brush I use to polish my shoes. I wondered if she groomed them.

Once alighted from the bus I strolled along to work and came across a wooden bridge, as I came to the brow of the bridge I noticed a pretty long haired brunette with a long black coat coming across the opposite direction. She was going to pass me. We caught eye contact and so I decided to smile at her, she gave me a smile back and a tiny wave. It was then, I realised that today wasn’t going to be a bad day after all. It’s funny, no, in fact compelling the influence women have over men’s lives.

Salmon

Salmon /Sal mon
[Modern English, derives from a slang Milton Keynes colloquialism]
n. Human being that sees actual existence inferior to the virtual kind.

That would be the dictionary definition of my friend Salmon (as seen on the right). You see Salmon is addicted to Internet gaming, particularly one, World of WarCraft. I've known Salmon for many years but it's only recently that it dawned on me that he prefers his virtual life than his real one.

Salmon was never really social, he did go out now and then but was definitely a reserved fellow. However, when there was a house party at the house he lived in he would always join in. That is when, I believe, the trouble started. You see the first party that was held at the house he lived in he would drink a few cans of Fosters, chat up a few chicks and generally adhere to all basic young male mannerisms. However, the next day he would get quite an amount of pleasure in informing everyone just how much of a fool they made of themselves. This was always followed by him taking a sip of his coffee with a wide beaming smile of smugness emitting from his face as he put the mug back down. Unfortunately for salmon that smug smile would soon turn into a startled gaze, one like when you are almost at work and then you realise you’ve left the iron plugged in. It came about when I decided to bring a video camera to a party to see what stuff I would find in the morning. That night Salmon was drinking vodka with me and a few others and started to get a bit smashed. He took the camera off me and wondered off, I didn’t mind because I was rapidly deteriorating into semi drunken consciousness. I remember a few yells of “Salmon, for fuck sakes”, and “You better not be recording”. The next day after that party we decided to check out the tape, there was nothing too incriminating, a few people being stupid by rave dancing topless to no music, however, it was Salmon’s audio commentary that was the most interesting part. You see a smashed Salmon conveyed in a slurred manner exactly what he thought of everyone caught on camera. The type of drivel that he said was “She’s well fit, I’d love to F*%k her” and “Doesn’t she know, she’s rank”, also “She well pisses me off”. Everyone was crying with laughter, rolling around on the floor unable to comprehend that someone so mild mannered and stiff would ever come out with stuff like this. Maybe we laughed because we didn’t know how to react. Salmon though was not laughing, his tanned tinged face had now gone white, his eyes enlarged to the similar size of a habitual ecstasy taker and his mouth was of course drooping. It took at least half an hour to convince Salmon that we didn’t think he was a misogynist. Even now I don’t think he believed us, the grapple paranoia had around conscious was too strong. Salmon, announced he was no longer drinking alcohol or partaking in anything social again. And he hasn’t.

I first saw the change when he told me he was looking forward to a new Internet game that was coming out. At the time he was working at the computer place Game so I thought it was related to a promotion they were running. Once World of WarCraft came out no one saw him for weeks, he’d stay in his room all day and night playing this game. When I came round to see him I’d get a few grunts about how hard the trolls are and how wicked elves are. True, I love elfish looking women but I don’t think that was his point. He did though hold a torch for one girl who would come and see him. Before Salmon made his pledge they would go to the cinema, art galleries and gigs together but since the game came out he wasn’t interested in anything like that at all. I started to worry when he quit his job in Game for a part time one in a school. “It’s so I can write my novel” he told me. I never believed him, especially when I asked him how it was going and he refused to tell me on the grounds that someone had leaked part of his storyline to someone and jeopardised his whole novel. However the last straw was when the girl he liked said she couldn’t be bothered with Salmon anymore.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, I asked him if he would consider going back to work full time, you know, because he’s got no money”. She replied.

Oh right, what did he say?

“Well, he said he’s got money. So I asked where and he replied that he’d just won some money in the game by beating someone”.

And with that she left and hasn’t come back to see him. Salmon just snorts every time I mention her name to the point where I don’t bother anymore. All he does now is stay up really late playing World of WarCraft and then works 3 hours followed by more of that game. I even told him he had a problem but he just ignores me. So Salmon, I’ve written this piece to seek advice on how to sway you from thinking your real life is worse than your virtual one.

Mr Amstell

I’ve never really been much of a Simon Amstell fan, in fact I abhorred the curly haired ferret, that is, until last Thursday night.

Ever since my bleary eyes caught sight of him on Saturday mornings presenting Popworld I thought he was annoying. Annoying because he was patronising about everything, even his side-kick chick fell victim. I got to admit some of it was funny, especially when asking questions to the likes of ex A1 members about their solo careers, and they so naively reply with enthusiasm of an 8 year old whose just been given their first mobile phone, utter excitement that you’d expect an excrement stain to be left. He did though immerse himself in constant sarcastic quibble that I sometimes wondered how he could maintain it all the time, but he managed to and subsequently I switched off the TV and laid my head back down to get a few more hours of shut eye.

However, I started to side with popular opinion when I caught Mr Amstell on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Filling Lamarr’s boots takes some doing, considering he’s drier than the white wine I drink. True for the last two series he didn’t really care and in fact used the show as an experiment to see how long he can stay in a job where he openly expresses his lack of interest in it. Amstell though was quick of the mark making witty comments here and there that brought rapturous roars from the bear Jupitus. It wasn’t until the most recent show when that moronic vomit stain looking guy was on there, I believe his name is, Donald Tourette, that I thought he was quite damn good. The fool, who in terms of punk rock is still sucking on the teat of Sid Vicious came wading in with ‘comebacks’ like “You’re a wanker, son”. Amstell completely emasculated the guy, and the dim wit was unaware that it was being done. In fact he probably still thinks he’s come out of the show thinking he’s now legendary status. So Mr Simon Amstell I give you kudos for your presenting skills and abilities to cleverly demean your guests without them even knowing and when they do know cannot even give a decent ‘comeback’, apart from Noel Fielding. I guess your apprenticeship on Popworld wasn’t a waste after all.

On a different note I went to town and looked at buying Factotum. I had a quick read and didn’t bother beacuse I was hungry. Instead I bought a sandwich from M&S.

Commencement

Ok, so this forthcoming prose was spawned after a few Lithuanian beers shared with Coldbrain one chilly evening.

I'm into beat authors at the moment. Bukowski, Burrows (mentalist) and Kerouac. In fact I have just finished reading Bukowski's Post Office which I found myself being envious of the leading protagonist but also having some sort of pity towards him. I'm envious because of his matter-of-fact approach to life. The fact he doesn't give a shit, not one single plop of poo about anyone really. That must be such a good feeling to be released from all conventional society drawbacks, like a dead end jobs in the post office, or putting the rubbish out on a Tuesday. The pity derives from his dependence of alcohol and the fact he gets wasted every night and doesn't even eat. When I was coming towards the end of the book I thought, yeah, you've had a pretty good adventure of sleeping with women and spending money won at the race track but now your life seems pretty pointless considering you just sit there getting wasted until you go numb.

The designer where I work has suggested I check out Factotum so I'm gonna pick that up the next time I'm up town if I can remember and it looks any good.