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Ah

It may have been a little quiet on here lately, mainly due to the fact that I've been in totally agony for a while. I had a "routine voluntary surgery." Which is the polite way of saying I opted to let a surgeon loose on my gonads with a scalpel.

You may be thinking "I wonder why any sane man would do that?" and at this point, I'm thinking the same thing, but that is only because my children are currently tucked up asleep in bed. If they were running riot around my ankles, the pain in my strides would be more than worth it.

However, the point is this. I decided I was a big tough guy. I decided I was going to have the operation under local anaesthetic. Perhaps i should have paid more attention to the doctor at my pre-op appointment. I (wrongly) assumed that the "local" part of a local anesthetic would be you know, the groin area. Local to where I was being operated on. I was massively optimistic. In this case, local meant local to exactly where I was having surgery. Local to the tubes I was having snipped and cauterised. Unfortunately for me, they'd have probably been better going in the back door to find my tubes. They were so near the back that before I even had the anesthetic, I was in excruciating agony.

All this after waiting for four hours, in a backless robe, surrounded by the recovering patients before me, nothing to eat, drink, or do. From walking down to theatre to leaving to go home was 45 minutes. Tops. And for 44 of those minutes, I was having my scrotum manipulated like a top shelf Stretch Armstrong.

So, you know, great weekend.

Well, this sucks

In the last fortnight, I've had to buy a new washing machine, and a new dishwasher. This was mearly a minor inconvenience, but yesterday I got a phone call I never wanted to take.

As my phone rang, I just felt something was wrong. It just didn't seem right somehow to be getting a phone call at that time of the day, from home, and on my mobile. My heart sank the second my ring tone could be heard emanating from the pocket of my slacks.

I reached my cold hand into my pocket, and slowly pulled my phone out, and grasped it in my hand tight, filled with dread and angst that I'd not felt since my youth, and the ominous walk home when you'd played out too late. I clicked the phlegmatic and stony key to answer the call, and the voice that met me on the other end was unexpected. It was my eldest. I could tell with the vibrato in his young voice that it was bad news. "Dad... Daddy" he said. "Daddy, the... the... the..." HE couldn't bring himself to say the words he knew would brake his Father's heart. He then plucked up the courage to finish his sentence, and did so in the most dramatic and climactic way he could; "the xbox is... is... BROKEN!!!"

Oh, god. Oh god no! As the phone dropped from my hand, it tumbled all most in slow motion, and was beaten to the ground by a solitary tear from my right eye. I could here my son's voice from the ground, devastated, dejected, and inconsolable. My brave little soldier had had to do something no three year old should have to do, and he did it bravely, and in doing so, earned his old Dad's respect. I was proud, really proud, but that didn't subtract from the fact that it was gone, and it wasn't coming back.

Losing a close friend is something you just can't be prepared for. Little Jimmy, that's what I called him, Little Jimmy was a great mate, he was always there, ready to cheer me up, never concerned with how bad a day he'd had, only ever concerned with entertaining me and the boy. Jimmy was a trouper. His little green smile made my day more times than I remember, and he will always be in my heart. Night and Bless Jimmy. Rest in Peace.

Or am I over-reacting?

Player Hater

Now, I realise it's easy to laugh at the misfortune of others, but I'm tired and cranky, so I'm going to anyway.

Cristiano Ronaldo crashed his 2 day old Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano yesterday, in a tunnel under Manchester Airport. While I know there's a lot of people who'll just think I'm jealous of Ronaldo's salary and collection of wonderful cars, but as right as they are, I hope they'll indulge me...

Aside from being my dream car, the £200,000 Fiorano is quite possibly one of the most beautiful things ever created by man. Styled by the house of Pininfarina, it's 6 litre V12 makes this work of art go from 0-60 in 3.7 seconds, and is doing 160mph in less than 20. It's so technologically advanced that Ferrari reckon that a "competent driver" can complete a lap of their test track within a second of Michael Schumacher. Wow. It's like attaching rockets to the Venus de Milo, aiming it at the moon, and being able to hit the Apollo landing site every time.

Ok, that's enough petrol-headery from me, but I promise I'm making a point here. The tunnel that Ronaldo was driving through, I've been through a number of times, and I know that it gets very narrow, very quickly, as does anyone who's been through it before. Therefore, we slow down as we go through it. Simple. Crissy Ronbags was on his way from home, to training, so one can healthily assume he's driven that route before. He'd have known it narrows. So what was the dumb shit thinking?

Well, a number of things crossed my mind. Speeding, changing the radio, putting on make-up? Who knows. The truth is, even driven at speed, this car has enough Formula 1 technology to allow anyone to get within a second of Schumi's lap time. I'm not one to cast aspersions, but he must have been doing something other than giving the road his full attention.

Knowing how intelligent footballers are, my theory is this. Ronnie had been playing Gran Tourismo before setting off to work, and at the time of the accident, he was looking for the 599's pause button because he needed to do potty. It's as good an explanation as I can come up with.

I'm wasted on my peers.

Yesterday, I started to doubt my comedy genius. I'm convinced I'm the next Andy Kaufman, really I am, but I tried to make the same brilliant joke yesterday THREE times, with THREE different people, and in THREE different ways, but all I got was blank looks. It's ridiculous.

While they are two very sad news story's, the troubles in Gaza, and the alcohol-fueled absconding of Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne, you can't ignore who similar Gaza and Gazza are. Hilarity must ensue! Surely!

Ok, attempt #1 : 0745hrs : Wife :

She says to me "It's terrible what has happened to Gazza isn't it?" So I saw my chance, and responded with lightning quick reflexes, normally reserved for serpents. "Yeah, but to be fair, he keeps firing his home-made rockets at Israel..." She looked at me like she'd caught me arm wrestling a panda. After a long explanation, she still didn't even raise a smile. 0-1

Attempt #2 : 1235hrs : Colleague A :

Staff room, lunchtime, she says "I don't know which side's worse in Gaza" I respond, more cautiously this time, making sure I make the most of the opportunity. " With alcoholism, there's never a winning side." Not as good as response 1, but, I had a bigger audience, so I held out a bit more hope... NOTHING! Nobody even gave what I said a second look! Shitehawks.

Final Attempt : 15:50 : Colleague B:

My office, she says "The problems in Gaza are getting worse aren't they?" This was it, I could feel it, my final chance. I had to make this one count. The heat was on. I paused for breath, and thought long and hard about my retort. Finally, I felt good about it, I felt the time was right, my gag was good, clever, witty, insightful. I had it. Time to cease the moment...

"Not as bad as your FACE! Hahahaha! BURN!

The pressure was just too much.

Goddamn Lego Batman

I have a 3 year old son, and we made the mistake of buying him Lego Batman for the xbox360 for christmas. I say mistake, I mean, travesty of bad judgement really.

Now, don't get me wrong, the thought of my 3 year old being able to play on the xbox and leave me the hell alone for five minutes is wonderful, but they have made it easy enough for him to play, but thrown in a few curveballs to make it hard enough for him not to be able to finish a level.

This means, far from having time to organise my collection of Italian Lira, or whittle, I need to constantly provide assistance to the boy, inboth an advisory and practical capacity. I mean, of course I know Poison Ivy is the best on to go through the toxic waste and double jump to that ledge, but why is that more important than fashioning a windmill out of this peice of Serbian Balsa?

Truth is, my kids are great, but I'm at the point where I need at least one of them to branch out on their own and give me a bit of a break. I thought that Lego Batman might have been a window to push him through, but, alas. Life is not as simple as it should be. So now, rather than anticipate some quality time with the wife, or some books on East Peruvian Pan-pipery, every time he wants to play Lego Batman, I'm filled with dread of the next ridiculous question I'm asked. Like "Can I be Indiana Jones and fight Catwoman?"

2009 - The year of the Matador

Hello!

It's been a while since I entered into one-way conversation with you. I have had to do the whole Christmas thing, apologies. So what's happened in the last fortnight?

Jeff Buckley made number 2 in the Christmas chart, a massive achievement in my eyes, didn't really stand a chance against the might of the Cowell Publicity Machine and legions of retarded mini-bopper pre-teens. I'm not really sure what we need to do next year to prevent another Pop-Factor number 1 at Christmas, but the current plan involves a goose, some ice cream and a selection of biscuits. *winks* You might want to stay out of Southampton, if you know what I mean. Nothing to do with the plan, it's just a shithole.

What's next? Erm, Christmas Telly! Yeah! Didn't watch any. Oh, except the latest Wallace and Grommit short film "A Matter of Loaf and Death." It was, as always, very good, and seemed to look more roughly animated than the third, looking a little more like the original film. Which I liked, as it retained much more of its character. The story was clever, but felt extremely rushed in the short-film format. The expressions on Grommit's face are usually the highlight of these things, and this was no different. And the scene where he is deciding where to throw the bomb is genius! 

The only other thing worthy of a mention was Elton John on New Years Eve. Oh. My. Effing. God. What has happened to his voice? He was in tune, fair enough, but could he not be bothered with punctuating? As he slurred through "Daniel" and "I Guess That's Why They Call it The Blues," which I don't mind confessing is one of my favorite songs, I wondered to myself, Haven't they made Kerry Katona look a lot like Sir Elton? 

It was frightening! Terrifying! Shocking! Ok, I'm overdoing it, but it was terrible. He didn't seem to be able to pause between words, instead he seemed to be attempting to show the world what he'd look like as a stroke victim.