Lloydie’s Blog

It happens to the best of us. You’re sat on the tube when all of a sudden, the Arctic Monkeys stop singing. Great, you think to yourself, I’ve got another 30 minutes of silent tube hell. Faced with this nightmarish concept, your mind starts to wander. You’re thinking, what can I do to occupy myself? In such a grave and depressing situation, it’s amazing where the mind ends up.

You begin to look around the tube train, desperately seeking something to pacify your overactive brain. You start to look at the other passengers, it’s rush-hour so the train is quite full. After about five minutes of playing “which one of you smells of cabbage?”, you run out of games to play in your mind. Whatever you do, you can’t be seen to be staring at anyone, for therein lies danger. So you’re subtle. You casually glance around, not concentrating on any one person for too long. Yes, whatever game you come up with it can’t involve any sort of deep analysis. You’ve already aroused too much suspicion trying to sniff out the cabbage-man. You need a game that deals with split second decisions. And so, pint-or-punch is born.

Your new mission is to divide up the inhabitants of the carriage, given a single cursory glance of each, into two groups. People for whom you would buy a pint at the pub, and people for whom you would give a punch in the face. The groups are exclusive and there is no middle ground. You cannot waiver, you must make an instantaneous decision.

As you start to play, you begin to feel guilty. Sure, this isn’t life-or-death, it’s pint-or-punch, but should you really be deciding that you’d punch someone based on their looks alone. You remind yourself, for the sake of your own sanity, that you are in no way going to start punching people on the underground. This is just a thought experiment. You are, after all, extremely bored.

Your conscience is rattled even more when, having categorised an old woman as having what you’ve deemed to be a “punchable face”, you realise that a girl you’d singled out for a free pint moments before is actually her daughter. You begin to see the similarity in their faces, stumbling upon the rationale that you would have bought the woman a pint had she only been 20 years younger. Shockingly you then realise that, by your very own reasoning, that young girl is about 20 years away from a punch in the face.

Having scared yourself into intellectual meltdown, you stop playing and pickup a loose copy of the Metro.

It’s New Year so I figured I should probably, as is traditional, write some resolutions. I normally make some sort of half hearted resolutions which are duly forgotten by February, but this year is going to be different. This year I’m writing them down. Of course, it doesn’t mean I’ll stick to them, but at least I’ll have a physical record of my failure (and who doesn’t like having that). OK, here goes:

1) Be more arsed.

This is an old favourite that I fail at every year. Basically, if there’s something that needs to be done and I don’t really want to do it, I can often be heard to utter the phrase “I can’t be arsed“. I therefore resolve to stop being lazy and start doing all the jobs that I couldn’t be arsed to do before.

2) Drink less.

Apparently I have gained a reputation for being somewhat of a heavy drinker. It’s true, perhaps I could drink less beer. I mean, perhaps I should cut down on the binge drinking a bit, as it is kinda killing me. Also, I drink an awful lot of tea. Maybe I shouldn’t.

3) Drink more.

Everybody knows red wine is good for you. I probably don’t drink enough wine. I therefore resolve to drink more wine in future, perhaps instead of beer. I probably shouldn’t drink it instead of tea though, as I drink too much alcohol at work already (in retrospect, this may be where my reputation comes from).

4) Exercise (no, the sauna is not “exercise”).

Last year I joined a gym. It’s in the same building that I work in, which I thought would be pretty convenient. I still think it is. Every morning as I walk past it I think to myself “wow, my gym is really conveniently located right next to my office”. This year I’m going to actually go inside, I promise.

As you may or may not already know, yesterday was my birthday. Subsequently, I’m writing the obligatory “taking stock of my life” post.

You see, now I’ve reached the grand old age of 28, I started to think that maybe there’s more to life than just drinking tea and beer? I mean, obviously I do other stuff as well, like go to work and eat dinner and all that. It’s just that if I were to die right now, and have my life flash before my eyes, I can’t help but think there would be a hell of a lot of tea and beer drinking to watch.

In fact, one could probably be forgiven for thinking that is wasn’t my life flashing before their eyes at all, but some random commercial break which just happened to be broadcast in their penultimate moments. It’s a scary thought.

So what does this mean for yours truly? A change of beverage perhaps? Well, no. That’s no really the point (although I can see why you might think that. I don’t blame you, it’s my fault really). The point is; maybe it’s time I grew up and did something with my life? Maybe it’s time I started acting my age?

The problem here being, acting my age is a lot more difficult that it sounds. You see, I have no idea what 28 year olds are supposed to act like. In fact I’ve been pretty much stumped since the age of 25. I have, therefore, been acting like a 25 year old ever since, and will probably continue to do so until I figure out exactly how I should be behaving. This may not sound like an issue now, but I can only assume it’s going to get worse the older I get.

And so, my birthday resolution is this; work out how 28 year olds are supposed to act, follow suit and, while I’m at it, achieve something meaningful with my life. Oh, and maybe lay off the tea and beer.

It’s my birthday next week so, needless to say, I’m feeling old. Scratch that. I am old.� I have proof.

A couple of days ago I applied for some free tickets to a Christmas Special recording of Top Of The Pops. Apparently the Kaiser Chiefs are going to be on, so I figured “why the hell not”. Also, the BBC studios are pretty close to my office. Oh, and did I mention it’s FREE. All I had to do was apply…

And apply I did.

Not only did they say “No”, they also suggested that perhaps I’d like to apply for tickets to a Strictly Come Dancing recording instead.

I mean, I know I’m not exactly “target audience” for TOTP, being post-puberty and all, but Strictly Come Dancing? Come on! I’m not that old, am I?

Right, rant over. I’m off to catch The Archers on Radio 4.

I was discussing personality profiles with Carolyn the other day. I remember taking one as a kid at school, the whole class took them. Once we’d taken them, we all got to read each others and say whether or not we thought they were accurate. Apart from testing the correctness of your results, it was also pretty interesting to find out what everyone else thought about you. I was voted “most laid-back”. I remember thinking this was kinda weird at the time, as we didn’t actually get to vote about anyone else, just me. Was my teacher was trying to tell me something? I don’t know. It’s lucky I’m so laid-back, otherwise I could have gotten seriously paranoid.

After our little discussion, Carolyn (being ever resourceful) goes and finds this website where you can take the tests. And so, of course, I did.

It’s a series of multiple choice questions (72 to be exact) that were developed by some people called Myers and Briggs (there’s also thing Jung guy that it’s kinda based on). It has some pretty serious psychological backing, it’s not just one of those “tell me your favourite colour or you’ll have bad luck for 5 years” things.

Anyway, as I was saying, I took the test. Apparently I’m an ENFP. So what the hell is an ENFP and, more importantly, why the hell do you care?

So it works like this. You take the test and then you get given your “personality type”. There are 16 of them, and everyone is one (and only one). Each one has a rubbish acronym that doesn’t make much sense (i.e. ENFP). They also have more poetic names, which vary depending one where you look. For example, on one site I’m in a group called “The Inspirers”. On another I’m “The Advocate”, and on yet another I’m “The Visionary”. I’m sticking with that one until I find a site where it’s calling me “The Most Awesomest Future Ruler of the Free People”.

Once you’ve got your acronym you can them look up the profile of your type, e.g. what it all actually means. This is where it gets really interesting. This site, for example, contains information on your profile, career choices, personality and relationships, you name it. And the weird thing is, it’s all scarily accurate. Like “bugger me, have they been following me for weeks or something?” accurate. I mean, it’s lucky I’m so laid-back, otherwise I could have gotten seriously paranoid.

There was an article in the Metro today about some scientists who have managed to breed mice that have no fear. Somehow these crazy science types have isolated the part of the mouse that senses fear, and then gone and removed it (presumably just for fun). Apparently the fearless mice then proceed to wander up to nearby cats and (possibly) taunt them, in Speedy Gonzalez kind of way. Sadly, these lab mice are *not* blessed with Se�or Gonzalez’s super speed, and are presumably promptly eaten by said feline.

Anyway, this kinda got me wondering. What if Brian came from such a lab? I mean, I’m not saying he’s fearless or anything. He hid behind the sofa for the entirety of this weeks Heroes episode (to be fair, that Sylar bloke is one scary son-of-a-bitch). What I’m saying is, what if he’d been part of some evil (or, for arguments sake, non-evil) science lab experiment?

To satisfy my curiosity (and make sure I’m not living with some evil super-mouse), I’m going to start testing Brian’s abilities, just in-case he’s got some amazing power I have yet to discover (other than being able to disappear for weeks on end). Also, for the benefit of the scientific community/eminent historians/bored people who read my blog, I shall be recording my findings here. That is, of course, unless Brian’s super ability is some sort of mind control thing. If it is, we’re all screwed.

I was telling my friend Alun about something that happened to me last weekend and I realised I might as well share it with you people too.

So, I go into this department store and they were playing Christmas songs. Just to put this into some sort of perspective, it’s last Sunday - October 28th - and they’re playing bloody Christmas music.

It took every ounce of my strength not to grab the nearest salesperson and shake them vigorously by the shoulders, shouting “Is it Christmas? Is it? IS IT!? NO! No it bloody isn’t! It isn’t even bloody Halloween yet, you bastards!”.

In retrospect that may have been a little harsh, so I’m glad I kept my usual cool exterior.

My experience in the department store, like a visit from the Ghost of Christmas past, left me with somewhat of a crisis, questioning my harsh attitude and what might lie ahead in the Christmases to come. By morning I had renewed vigor and was alive with the Christmas spirit. I flung open to window of my apartment and shouted down to a small street urchin, “You boy! What day is this?”. He replied, in an appropriately jolly manner, “Today sir? Why it’s the 29th of October!”, before adding a heart felt “Merry Christmas sir!”.

ok, so that didn’t actually happen. My windows are locked and I lost the key about 3 months ago. Still, if I was able to open them, that’s how I imagine the whole scene would play out.

Anyhow, as Halloween has now safely passed us by, I’ve decided it’s time to fully embrace the (now even longer) “Christmas season”. I’m embracing it so much so that, from today onwards, I shall start saying “Merry Christmas” to every salesperson I see in town. And then, when they look back at me in utter bemusement, I’ll shout at them “See! SEE!”.

Or maybe I’ll just walk off and remain smugly quiet, I haven’t quiet decided yet.

In a shameless attempt to win an iPod, I here-by announce my belief in the truth.

Thing is, even if there wasn’t a free iPod involved (and, let’s face it, who doesn’t like free iPods), I’d still be telling you to believe in the truth too. You see, that’s the funny thing about it. It is actually true (the clue was in the name there).

To be fair, I am inclined to believe pretty much anything from The Science Creative Quarterly, being genius science types and all.

They’re also backed by the Order Of The Science Scouts Of Exemplary Repute And Above Average Physique, of which I am longing to be a member. I think it has something to do with my unfulfilled ambition to be a scientist.

No. Wait. I have a BSc. That makes me a scientist! Excellent.

If you’re like me, you’ve uploaded pretty much all your digital photos to that wonderful photo sharing website that is flickr. In fact, you probably use it to archive your photos too. Kind of like a backup service - just in case you wake up hung over and, in the shock of the phone ringing at some ungodly hour, accidentally knock a glass of water all over your laptop, which subsequently emits some scary blue smoke when you turn it on. Or, you know, something like that.

So what happens when you want a copy of your photos on a different laptop? You download them from flickr, right? If only there was an easy way to download all of them, rather than having to grab each one individually. Well guess what, now there is (although you already knew that, because “you’re like me” apparently).

Introducing flickr downloadr!

ok, so it needs a new name, but it works (mostly).

Please feel free to visit the flickr downloadr page and try it out.

Oh, and it’s at version 0.1 right now, which is a beta. That means if it breaks I’ll apologise and try to fix it as soon as I can. Also, don’t rely on it in any life-or-death situations, as it’ll probably bail on you.

Anyway, watch the flickr downloadr page for updates. I’ll also post on here when new versions come out.

Brian reappeared at the weekend. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Brian is the mouse I occasionally share my apartment with. I say “occasionally” because he hasn’t been around for a while. He tends to come and go as he pleases, which kind of baffles me somewhat as he doesn’t have a key.

Anyway, I shouted at him last time and he just took off. That was over a month ago.

Now Brian was back I decided I was going to treat him differently this time. I felt really guilty after shouting at him and realised that it was my own fault that he abandoned me. Now he’s returned, I thought, I’m going to treat him with a lot more respect and patience.

For example: On Sunday night we were sat watching the TV at around, say, 10 o’clock in the evening. While sat there I decided that I needed the toilet. I move to get up and, seeing me starting to head to the bathroom, Brian rushes across the room and darts straight in there before I could. “Bastard”, I thought.

Then I remembered I was going to be more patient with him. No, I decided, I’m not going to bang on the door and swear at him until he comes out, even if he is in there for bloody ages again.

After about an hour I started to think that maybe he was just doing it to annoy me. After all, he KNEW I needed the loo. I gave it another ten minutes and, deciding that no-one should monopolise the bathroom for that amount of time, I let myself in.

Here’s the weird bit. He’d vanished. Now there’s no exit to the bathroom except the door I’d just barged through. There’s not even a window or skylight or one of those cartoon mouse holes in the skirting. There’s nothing. Short of donning some mouse-sized scuba equipment and riding down the brown-flume , I have no idea how he managed to get out.

I’m beginning to think Brian has some sort of escapology super power.