Work, Work, Work.

Ah, so, this weeks, and last weeks, and possibly the weeks before? I honestly can't remember, blog posts are non-existent. This is almost completely due to a large, nay massive load of work for college recently.
Last week I chose to change the blog day to Wednesday in a hope to make it more possible to write one, but since I have a second year practical examination in Drama in 7 days (that's right, one week) today has been a bit hectic and I haven't had time to write anything. Tomorrow I will write an entry, and work permitting, I'll write one at the weekend, then next week all should be back to normal.

Joe.

New time slot of Wednesdays don't forget.

I Dream Of A Time Machine

So, not only is the title of this blog autobiographical, it's also a possible name for my first stand up show. For those who don't know I love my dreams, I've started making a record of them as of late, but that's a story for next week. Meanwhile, here's the explanation for last weeks nonblog and this week's lateness.

The real topic for this week is the second part of the saying, the whole "Time Machine" bit. I've always been fascinated with time, and Back To The Future is one of my all time favorite films. Recently, however, I've begun to resent time, and all it represents. which is normal i suppose, resenting something you are interested in, I mean someone who is really interested in venomous snake's isn't going to think "Oh crikey, this is lucky, I've always wondered how this would have felt, glorious day!" when bitten by a viper.

As you may have picked up, I'm a student, this leaves people like me with a large amount of work, and a constant desire for another four hours in each day. With assignments and coursework covering our free time more inefficiently than an overweight driving instructor, we are very rarely not stressed or strained, and therefore we come across as aggressive or angry, which has developed into a negative stigma attached to our entire generation. We are the ones, by the way, who are being blamed for everything; "global warming? well that's clearly young people's energy consumption"; "Street violence? Young people's gang culture that was totally not around before 1997"; "That weird smell old people give off?..." Ok so maybe not everything.

But it's not just we young people who're affected negatively by time; sometimes real life adults have to deal with a time restraint or deadline. This is what I am blaming for the adults unpredictable change in moods which rival even the most hormonal teenager. Add to this the constant worry about growing old, I'd say time is one of the top causes behind stress, behind workloads, children and call centres for real life adults.

But I'm not really wanting to talk about time restrictions and what not, even though I've spent about two hundred words talking about it. Really I want to talk about the ability to travel through time, hence the time machine title, and fix bad things that you've done, or mistakes you've made, And I'm sure I'm not the only person who thinks this sort of thing.

Imagine, it would be just like being able to have a "save game" feature in life, except you don't have to pre-think the save, just rewind and try again: Tripped over a paving stone in front of an attractive member of the opposite sex? Just rewind and pick up your feet. Mess up your order in a restaurant? Reverse back and learn to pronounce the kicking K in Bruschetta. Propose to someone who doesn't really love you? Oh well you get the idea.

But you know what? I think the most useful thing that I'd use the time machine for would be something I alluded to a while ago in one of my entries, when you like someone and are too afraid to say anything to them, because you're so infatuated when you speak to them you turn into a sort of putty creature (soft and squishy on the inside, not the putties from power-rangers... they were lame). The a few weeks, months or years later you find out that they had the same feelings towards you. This has happened to me on countless occasions, and has annoyed, angered and caused great distress each and every time. Now if you were able to use a delorian, or watch, or tea cosey to travel back to that first incident, you'd be pretty happy I reckon.

But then again, time is so complex, and the Universe so deep that there is probably a reason for everything that happens, and there is probably a reason I never asked Ms Sayles out when she was single in year 8.

Joe Strange
Ironically, he doesn't wear a watch

30th Post!

Ok, so I don't plan to make 30 a new big thing, but Unfortunatly there isn't going to be a crack'd pot this tuesday, perhaps there will be one this week at some point, as long as I get the majority of the 4 projects I have to do done.

Sorry about that,

Flip!

So it's Tuesday, which means it's time for the Crack'd Pot. But it's also Shrove Tuesday which, to non religious people, (IE Almost everyone I know) means it is Pancake day! I'll let you take that in a minute.

So Pancake day, possibly the greatest day of the year (except maybe talk like a pirate day). It's the day where we make pancakes. It's a plain and simple holiday, a real "Ronseal" Job:
"It's Pancake Day what do you do?"
"Make some Pancakes"

As opposed to:
"It's Christmas day! What do you do?"
"Christ some mass? I'm at a loss"

Really Pancake day is the least confusable day. Which is really pretty sweet, it involves no brain power at all. Which we like. So Happy Pancake day to you.

So, it's obvious that I have forgotten (or never knew) the real reason of Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday, but apparently it marks the day before Ash Wednesday (which was the second choice in naming the hero of the Pokemon series) and is a time for Christians to repent and clear themselves of sin in preparation for Lent, the whole forty days, forty nights thing that gives fat people a chance to make up on their failed new years resolution of "put down the fork". Which makes some sense to me, this is how the religious people see it:

Flour, Eggs and Milk are the equivalent of our sins
So we use up all the Flour, Eggs and Milk to show repenting our sins.
This leaves us with no Flour, Eggs or Milk, showing we have no sins.

Or, how I see it:
Flour, Eggs and Milk are really hard to find in your cupboard.
We Buy Flour, Eggs and Milk to make pancakes in preparation for our forty days of giving stuff up.
We then have no Flour, Eggs and Milk. Which means fat women have no cake baking ingredients, so they can "put down the fork"

I'm just saying it's one of the religious celebrations which has REALLY lost it's meaning; sure Christmas is commercial as hell, but you still have the whole Jesus thing with pancake day it's lost all meaning and is just about making awesome food. Not that I'm complaining.
That's all I'm saying, that and it's a conspiracy to make fat chicks thin again.

But I'm not here to talk only about Pancakes; those delicious, cakey, pans. No, I want to talk about holidays in general. With Valentine's day just gone (which is just swell), Easter around the corner (an early one this year), Christmas was a month and a half ago, and bonfire night and Halloween shortly before that it's clear to see that winter is a season of holidays.

Now I remember in School the teachers telling us that this was because of the shorter days of winter, and people needing cheering up, which for once, I buy. I mean cases of S.A.D (yeah, awesome mnemonic) are vastly increased in winter, when there's less vitamin D coming from the sun, because the damn clouds cover it (Darn you clouds!). So people need celebrations like Christmas, Bonfire Night, and Valentine's day to make you feel happier (though some may argue Valentine's doesn't make everyone cheery).

But that leaves summer. Now most summers are lovely and warm with the sun out and shining and what not, but if you're English, and live in England, you will have noticed, the sun is not that happy to be out and about in the summer.
Which leads me to my point, why don't we have some sort of holiday celebration in summer? almost every month has one up until June, and then after September, but there is a lull halfway through the year.
Thinking about it, it's quite simple. Everyone is happier in the summer in general, the sun has more chance of coming out, (now it's starting to sound like a closet homosexual) and most people have time off.
And, I suppose we do have holidays in the summer, just not religious ones. For music lovers, there's Glastonbury, for Comedy Lovers there's the Edinburgh festival Fringe, for Art lovers there's the Festival itself, and for sports lovers.. well I'm sure there's some sort of championship. This leads me to believe that summer is actually a relatively new invention, and the creators of this season realised we didn't have that much going on in those three or four months, so gave us these new "modern" things.

So once again in "The Crack'd pot" the point has been alluded and all discussion nullified.
Happy Pancake day!

Joe Strange
Is pretty damn excited about the summer.

Complaining 101

It’s the wail of a small child on public transport, who no matter what won’t shut up. It’s the shrill beep of a dying schizophrenic smoke alarm. It’s the stupid high pitched tone that your phone makes when the battery is low.

If any of you are saying “Those are all things that could beat ‘Jedward’ in a singing contest” you were partly right. Because like the subject itself this week, ‘Jedward’ are annoying, in fact the subject matter this week is actually annoyance. Because, we are all humans, and we all get annoyed, sometimes we get peeved for the wrong reasons, other times our restrained growls are completely suitable.

I myself are very easily wound up, I’m assuming it comes with the territory of having 5 older siblings constantly berating me for anything I do, or perhaps it’s because for the first 15 years of my life I had this following conversation with everyone I met:

Idiot: So what’s your name?

Lesser idiot: Joe

Idiot: What’s your second name, Joe?

Lesser idiot: Joe Strange

Idiot: Waaaaay I bet you’re a bit WEIRD, Sorry, can’t talk, my mum told me not to talk to STRANGERS

You can imagine that would get tedious after a while. Add to this a lazy eye, an inability at sports and a quirky nature and you have yourself a grade A piece of easy-to-annoy-pie. Even now that I’ve acknowledged that my name is in fact badass, that my quirky nature is in fact just funny, and that sports suck, I’m still quite easy to tip over the metaphorical edge, for instance today I shouted at a group of people for 5 minutes straight about the inaccuracies of using “Lol’d”. That’s right, I am that guy.

But I’ve found recently that I’m getting annoyed more and more, and not only that, it’s for much more ridiculous things that I’m doing it. So I thought “Joe, You can’t keep getting annoyed at every shrill squeak or retarded laugh, you need to sort yourself out”, therefore I have attempted to determine what is allowed to get me annoyed, and hopefully, you’ll agree and use my rules. If not then why are you reading this? Go out and play!

So, what then, in Joe’s new world of “selective annoyance” classes as annoying? Now these are not steadfast rules so feel free to change them to be more lenient or strict depending on your demeanour but this is a simple set of rules to follow until you find your own threshold.

The senses are the centre of this approach. If an “annoyance stimuli” affects more than two of the 5 traditional senses (Sound, Sight, Smell, Touch or Taste) then it is deemed to be annoying, and the appropriate annoyance responses are as follows:

1 sense: Suck it up and hum a tune in your head, this isn’t annoying, this is just inconvenient.

2 senses: You are allowed to shake your head and sigh to yourself. If you are with another annoyee, you may tilt your head towards the stimuli and sigh,

3 senses: You are permitted to tut disapprovingly and mutter to yourself. As with 2, you may also mutter and moan to your friend so that the annoyee may pick up on the vague subject matter.

4 senses: You begin to throw your arms in the air and say loudly “For Christ’s sake”. You and your partner may talk louder, so the annoyee definitely knows they are in the wrong.

5 senses: Physical violence is now permitted, unless it is a small child, in which case you may pull a scary face and “steal their nose” but do NOT return it. You and your companion may either attempt to beat up the annoyee or outsmart it if they are larger than you in size.

Please remember, these rules only apply when within a confined and or inescapable place, if you have the chance; you are permitted to leave the area after 2 senses have been compromised.

For clarity I will now give you some examples of possible combinations:

1 sense: Loud music emanating from someone’s headphones right next to you. (Sound)

2 senses: A baby who has just soiled itself and is crying about it. (Smell & Sound)

3 senses: Someone is eating bag of smelly crisps, such as cheese and onion, with their mouth open and the shrapnel is being spat at you. (Smell, Sound & Touch)

4 senses: At a gig which your friend assured you would be “your type of music” but in fact isn’t, lights are flashing sporadically, someone has just peed themselves so that they can stay for “the big finale” and a large sweaty man has removed his top and his moist man boobs are rubbing against you (Sound, Sight, Smell & Touch)

5 senses: An ugly baby is crying because it’s soiled itself inside your mouth and just hit you. (All five)

On top of these “sensation annoyances” you are also permitted to be peeved if you have just found out a girl you liked in school liked you at the same time, your favourite band have split, or that they are creating a sequel to IceAge.

What do you mean they have? God Dammit!

Joe Strange

I actually looked up who it is cool to hate, It is Jedward

Lies! Part 2, the re-lyening

Ok, I realise I’ve missed a few weeks recently but I actually have a valid reason for last weeks instance of “no blog”. Last Wednesday I Had an English Language exam, and spent Tuesday night (blog night) Revising, and by revising I mean freaking out until I passed out. So that is my reason but I don’t need to explain myself to you, you’re the internet. By the way, I may find myself clarifying if I’m lying or not this week; just in case you take me a bit too seriously.

So last we- I mean 2 weeks ago I started talking about lying, and this week I intend to continue that trend for one more article. That was not a lie. In the last edition I focused on the negative stigma attached to lying, stating it was one of man's innate characteristics and as natural as sex and bathing. This edition I intend to focus on the positive aspects of lying, where my selfish character may come through, and where I may disregard peoples feelings, but what do you care, you’re the internet.

I’m a lying fanatic, I used to lie all the time when I was a kid, just so that my stories would be entertaining, however after a few too many no way that happened’s from my friends I started telling the truth, but then my stories became less interesting... So I started to lie again (this is not a lie). But that’s the thing, being a guy who adores people’s attention and laughter I find myself expanding the truth some what, making things a bigger deal than they were, or adding a nun who swears, it’s all the same thing, but it’s not just me who works in the lies to get laughs, comedians do it all the time, they will change a story (which may not even be true in the first place) to make it more relatable or funnier. And the thing is there is nothing wrong with this sort of thing, it is harmless lying. No one is hurt and no one really looses out, the audience laugh and the comedian feels good about themselves.

We’re taught from an early age that lying is wrong, if you drew on the wall, you were to confess, it’s wrong to draw on the wall. If you stab Jim with a pencil, blame it on the quiet girl, you would not last long in prison, I mean come on, you’re a kid. But we’re also told about these wonderful things called “White Lies” these are the sorts of lies comedians, children and I love.

Oxford English Dictionary describes a "White Lie” as – A harmless lie told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings now, if you’re like one of those foreign men who sell fake Rolex’s on the street and by that I mean sneaky, not, a foreign man selling Rolex’s on the street, then you can interpret this in one of two ways:

One, you could interpret it the way teachers, parents and probation officers want you to, that you can tell a lie to stop you hurting someone’s feelings, and be boring, or you could interpret it the better way: Note how the describe says “Avoid hurting someone’s feelings” it doesn’t say someone else’s feelings. Which means a white lie can be used to make you feel better; the dictionary allows us to lie to make ourselves feel good, which means we can actually do whatever the hell we want. Think about it:

“Jim, did you eat the last of the Jaffa Cakes?”
telling the truth: “Yes I did Mama, I apologise”
“Well, You shall be grounded, and worst of all, I’m very disappointed in you Jim.”
Whereas
“Jim, did you eat the last Jaffa Cake?”
White Lie: “No”
“Oh good, now I don’t have to ground you and I’m very proud of you, you’re much better looking and talented than your younger brother.”

Everybody wins! See what Jim did there, he told a white lie to make someone feel better, even if that someone was himself, but as we’ve established, those are the rules. If he had told the truth then his mum would be sad because she would have to be disappointed, and everyone hates that, and plus he wouldn’t be able to go to that big high school dance with Jenny, who totally puts out.

And if you think about it, white lies with their original boring, selfless intention, are the worst kind of lies. If someone asks you “Does my bum look big in this?” and you don’t reply “Yes, your bottom is now the equivalent mass of all the tubs of Ben and Jerry’s that girls who have ever been dumped have eaten” then you are taking away you’re now both overweight and angry girlfriends excuse to mow you down and eat the remains.

But then, I’m sure I’d be pretty peeved if someone mowed me down and ate what was left, so in a way the 2 meanings contradict each other into a paradoxical whirlwind of lies.

So in the last 2 weeks we have literally gotten nowhere in the investigation into lying. Oh well.

Joe Strange

Has a terrible feeling all my childhood friends will now turn on me for telling fibs.

Lie down!

So, I’m positive this is a subject everyone on the planet can relate to (except maybe Bruce Forsyth) as it’s one of mans natural urges, the most powerful one besides sex and checking your email every half hour.

While most people would disparage lying (or merely tut if you’re English), I would like to take the lower moral road and say, “go ahead” and “do it” and other such catchy phrases. Because once again, at the Crack’d Pot, we don’t like to take the normal easy road, since the harder road tends to be more fun (unless you have a full bladder, in which case it’s hilarious).

Lying, to me is as essential as a good meal, or bathing, but unlike food and showering lying has this negative stigma attached to it, because many people have given it a bad reputation, much like the great white shark, or the humble honey badger. In this edition I aim to talk about these people, these people who have lead us to believe and to be told, that lying is evil and worth a lock up in the great oven downstairs (that’s hell I’m talking about).

You see these people everyday, for personal gain normally, not that that isn’t worth lying about. Take for example the expenses scandal, for those who aren’t sure what happened, join the club because neither am I, but what I can gather is that politicians claimed money from the government that shouldn’t be claimed from the government for things that the government didn’t want to pay for and were in fact for the selfish fools own gain. (Yeah, why do you think I didn’t do a blog on the “Credit Crunch”) for instance “Oh this? Yes I’ll have a receipt for this cream egg, why yes, the government need my car working and I heard that eggs can be used to fix a leaky radiator... what do you mean these eggs don’t work?” (The worse thing is my best friend, and a viewer of this blog is highly political and will tear me a new one for that). What I’m trying to get at is this sort of lie doesn’t help anyone; in fact this hinders people, because maybe it was because people were claiming on moats that we are in recession. (Once again, I don’t know, I’m just guessing).

But maybe the real reason lying isn’t seen as an amazing trait (where has the truth ever got anyone after all?) is not due to the fact that lying can help you gain something, people do that all the time. (Even me, I know) but more due to the idea that lying is in fact really deceptive. “No dur” I hear you yell, again with the loudness, “Lying isn’t being truthful? Mehuuuh” well it’s something more than that. We, and by “we” I mean humans, have an irksome tendency towards the gaining of knowledge, in fact some people and by “some people” I mean people who pay attention to the bible, say that this pursuit of knowledge was in fact the original sin after all the tree that Adam and Eve stole the apple from was called the tree of knowledge, and they were stealing that apple. Granted sins have “grown up” a bit now, in hindsight Adam and Eve’s rebellion in a garden, where they were basically scrumping, seems a bit tame now that we have guns and bank heists and expenses scams. So back to my point about original sin, most people think of the “Original” as the best, for instance, in film: terminator is much more badass than the T200, in songs: the original “Valerie” by the Zutons is much better than the Amy Winehouse version (I mean really, could you have a more suiting name?) and finally cereal: Cocopops are by far superior to Morrison’s chocolate coated puffs of rice, though the name isn’t as catchy. Therefore we must conclude that the original is the best and most memoriable.

So humans have an unhealthy pursuit of knowledge blah blah... go off on tangent about cereal... ah yes.

so by deceiving someone you are taking away their knowledge of the subject, for instance, by replying to the question “Did you kill my dog?” with “No, he just kicked himself off the cliff” you are taking away that person’s reason to break up with you, by replying to the question “did you steal that cookie from the cookie jar?” with “Who me?” and then to the next question of “Yes you” with “couldn’t have been” you are officially a demigod in my eyes and we should definitely get a drink together.
But also you stole a cookie, which is bad, because cookies are very good.
So in a roundabout way I’ve started on the subject of lying, the bad parts over now, the negative stigma will be detached and thrown carelessly into a bin like a used rubber sheath next week.

Joe Strange

The first “two part-er” blog, I feel so serial drama-y.

Peter's Problems

So, First of all, I’ll promptly apologise for the blog’s tardiness, but the reason it was late actually leads quite well onto my topic this week. I fell asleep.

Now as much as I’d love to talk about sleeping today it’s not actually the topic of this edition of the Crack’d Pot, this week’s talking point, as you may have deduced from the clever title, is growing up, and more importantly the restrictions of this inevitable happening, but not the usual stuff.

OK so, if I’m not talking about the generic parts of getting old; smelliness, crippleness and incoherence, what am I talking about? And also, you’re not old Joe, you are barely a man, what right do you have to lecture us on growing up?
None, it’s the internet, I don’t need them.
And to the previous question; I’m talking about the point of life which I am at now, the most terrifying time in young people and parents alike; Adolescence. There are huge differences in being a “kid”, as I shall be referring to them as from now on, and being a “Teenager”, as I shall be referring to us as from now on despite the negative stigma attached to the word, and not just the usual: Hair in new places; sudden growth; “interest” in new people but a new abundance of things that you’ve got to do to keep cool (or “keep up appearances”, as a quick nod to an old sitcom).

Here’s the thing, growing up seems to have gotten a lot harder recently, when I was a kid I had a relatively easy life; an embarrassing family and many, many questions, and now I’m a teenager I’ve got it relatively easy once again, just the usual exams and panic and stress from relationships of all kinds. But to me, the thing that was easiest about growing up, about this transition between being a kid and being a big goat, I mean teenager, was that I was allowed to do my own thing, not just by my parents, but by my friends and the government.
“Blaming the government?” I hear you say, “Hark, jumping on the blame bandwagon are we? Playing the BlameGame (tm) the same way as everyone else are we? Using all the Clichés are we?

Technically yes. You see not too long ago I was looking for a gun, not a real one mind you, a fake one. So we found one, 3 to be precise. Now 2 of these were spud guns (if you don’t remember these, you may as well stop reading now, you’re far too young for this material) and the 3rd was a cap gun, you must remember cap guns, how else did you play Cowboys and Indians (Native Americans)? So I was talking and laughing to my friend about how hard it was to find these things when I got to the till and turned to see this guy, must have been about 20 years old, not much older than me, you know the kind; spotty, looks like a Iced finger donut, looking at me. I put the guns onto the counter and he says to me;
“Have you got any ID?”
“Err no, why?”
“You have to be 18 to buy a gun.”
“But its not real?”
“Nope even toy ones, it’s THE LAW”

Now stop me when I get preachy, but when I was a kid we could go into a shop and buy a BB gun, and as my friend James will tell you, these things could draw blood, they could blind people! You could actually hijack a plane with one of these! You could go in there, buy a couple of them and you could be 12! I mean, now you can’t even go into a toy shop (we’ll get to that in a minute) and buy something that fires potato, that’s right, A VEGETABLE. And I mean, if you have actual AGE RESTRICTED products in a TOY STORE, things that you have to be 18 to buy, where does it end? Bouncers in front of green grocers in case someone causes hassle with a kiwi?

But another thing I find interesting about growing up is sleep, the seed in which created this tardiness in blogging, is sleep, more importantly sleeping patterns. Anyone who knows me will tell you I love sleep, much much more than the next guy, I have not yet found anything I will put before sleep; an essay to hand in tomorrow and it’s 11PM? My brain wont work, but my dreams will. Entire scrubs marathon on E4 for 24 hours straight? Seen them before, I’ll catch it on +1. Apocalypse? It can wait. I constantly berate people for having erratic or insufficient sleep patterns, and this isn’t because it’s cool to have loads of sleep at my age, it’s generally because I really love bed. I mean I had a 2 hour nap when I got home from college on Tuesday, which is the best feeling in the world.

But it got me thinking, when I was a kid, I would stay up to what seemed like midnight (when in fact it would be like 10) and then at school in the sandpit we’d attempt to outdo each other by adding on half hours to the previous person’s time. Then you realise, in secondary school that “bedtime” doesn’t matter as long as it’s not before 9. Then you get to my age where it is natural to not go to sleep until about 11 or 12 (for me, 1 sometimes) and you don’t make anything out of it. So the general trend seems to be that the older you get the longer you stay up. Not so, my dad and mum are normally in bed by 10, almost definitely by 11. But it’s fine you say, they’re old, it happens earlier than you think, my sister, in her early 20’s is normally in bed by that time, if not sooner, and she is never out the night before.
So growing up is different now to what it was for us, while we would lie about what time we would go to bed (One kid said to me “I was up till half past eleventy” and we were in awe) I’m sure that kids today just don’t sleep, staying up for no reason apart from “older kids do it so it must be cool” No! It’s just hardwired into us, we can’t help it! And while they don’t have fun things like BB guns or potato rifles, they have shed loads of energy drinks and caffeinated food to keep them up. It is indeed a future of nocturnal humans. (or Batmen)

Joe Strange
Once killed a man for keeping him up.

I Am Nervousness!

Nerves, this is something I’m sure everyone has suffered with, (except maybe Bruce Forsyth) whether it’s because of a gig, a first day at school, asking a tremendously pretty girl to the year 6 dance or for those “sports people” who’re reading this; (of which I’m sure there a only a few) a big game, everyone has had nerves.
In all honesty the idea for an article about nerves came to me just after I did in fact do my first gig as a stand up comic, but the idea has been pushed back because of the holidays.
The thing is I suffer from nerves really badly; I am much like a small dog at the vets when it comes to a lot of things, attempting to escape by any means possible. But unfortunately, like the cold, hard, rubber gloved inspection of the puppy’s insides, a lot of these situations are unavoidable.
Certain situations (most actually) put me in such a position where my brain goes into overdrive and begins to work at every possible conversational pathway that the situation may present, not only does this make me do a very questionable face, it causes me to miss vital parts of conversation, which might aid me in the situation I am replicating ten times over in my mind and it sometimes causes, what I like to call; Cognitive Release of Accidental Premonitions (or CRAP) which is when I will mix up my inner conversations with the actual conversation, causes a giant confusion. Causing me to be thinking: “Hmm, and what if their pet doesn’t like me” while having a conversation about homework with a lecturer causing a situation not dissimilar to this:
“Joe what will you do if the printer doesn’t work again?”
“I’ll just slap the dog.”
Blank faces all around because I have no idea I said it.
So, this is one of the reasons I get nervous about most situations, because in preparing for a really intimidating situation, say meeting a girl’s parents, I slip up in a less intimidating circumstance, say, meeting the girl’s dog.
It’s why I never really engaged with sports (What? No, You jest surely) because I would get too worried about little things, like whether I was wearing the right socks, then the ball rolls past and woops, Joe’s off the team. And it’s a surprise that I succeed at all in academic situations, since I am always really worried about the small, insignificant detail that I missed, probably because of a CRAP. Luckily, Because my brain constantly has my back, I’ve managed to create within myself certain nervous situation coping mechanism, such as the quick run through of conversations, or actions, but one I feel I excel at is a particularly useful one.
Now, I am not one to blow my own trumpet, because I have no musical talent, and I don’t own a trumpet, in fact that phrase could not be less useful for me, but social situations tend to be my strong point, the thing is, the only reason I do so well in them is because of my most prominent nervous situation coping mechanism; humour.
When I meet a new person, or group, I tend to open with a joke, or attempt at humour, not because I want to be “top dog” or “class clown” (Dogs’ breath smell and clowns are creepy) but because I don’t want it to be awkward or weird. I’ll attempt to make a joke because it lightens the mood, it relaxes people and it makes people feel better about the entire situations. It’s the same way with social figures, by making jokes, or being funny they are attempting to connect and become more friendly with you, for instance politicians try at humour, and everyone has had the teacher that tries to make everyone laugh whether it’s using taboo language (fuck, shit, boobies) or terrible, terrible jokes, “My pens run out sir” “better run after it then” ba-dun-cha.
This is all I’m doing when I make jokes, I’m just getting over the nerves of the situation, which is not all that great when you’re trying to be serious “Sir, you’re being accused of driving under the influence, please recite the alphabet backwards” “but that’s hard to do even when you ARE sober!”. So the more jokes I make the more nervous I am feeling.
Awkward silences are a prime example of this, you know those moments when all conversation disappears and the conversation dies? These “conversation killers” are great fun for me now that I’ve realised I can use humour to defuse them, and even if all else fails I am determined not to have that awkward silence, even it means directly referencing said silence.
So, nerves are something we all have to deal with, something that plagues most of us some of the time, and some of us most of the time, but they are quite easy to avoid, or cope with, all it takes is practise. And if you can, I advise heavily on using humour, it’s the most effective nerve deterrent, and if you are using it to make an awkward “in-laws” meeting easier, make sure their dad isn’t dead inside like Robert De Niro’s character in “Meet the parents”

Joe Strange

The Crack’d Pot, now with 50% less in-jokes!

The Morning After the Day Before.

Now first of all, let us begin with pleasantries, I do indeed hope you all had a spectacular Christmas and that all the things that normally plague the 25th of December (disappointment, arguments and over eating) did not befall you. Apart from that last one, since you know you’ve had a good Christmas if the only form of travelling available to you is rolling. But the thing with Christmas, the big C, is the fact that once it starts, it’s pretty much over. Let’s face it, Christmas is brilliant, and even though I didn’t feel particularly Cringle-y before hand, my Christmas was really very nice (thanks for asking) it was slightly quieter than usual, with, instead of a sudden stream of visitors, a steady trickle of people, which was a pleasant change. But the thing with Christmas is it’s only really a day long, unless you’re like my family used to be, and have 2 Christmas’s for whatever reason, and in that case it’s only an extra day, it’s not like Easter, who gets a whole weekend to itself!
You wake up on the 26th (or 27th) of December, look around you at the debris of wrapping paper, packaging and slowly increasing amounts of selection box chocolate wrappers, and think “was that it?” or “Well, all over now” or, if you’re my sister, “Oh yay, 15 days until my birthday!” and at that point I’d agree with you, sit down, eat some of your chocolates and tuck in to your turkey leftovers, because this year, the day after boxing day, I had to work, now I know you’re probably thinking “Think of the money” or “at least you have a job” and I appreciate these things, but it means I didn’t have a day to see my friends and say “Give me some chocolate! But first, what did you get” unlike last year where I saw some friends, got drunk and went to Argos (great fun). This all meant that my Christmas spirit, which was so freshly picked from the tree, was soon shot down, stuffed and eaten because I was forced to “move on”. As I say since my festive spirit was really new and I think this was what really got me down about this year, all I could say was “Yeah my Christmas was great thank you, and you?” to customers, which just isn’t the same as sitting in someone’s living room, with a cider, and reminiscing about something that happened only hours ago. So within 24 hours Christmas has been and gone, or so you would think.
See, being the sweet old romantic I am, I have always preferred the build up to Christmas, which is why I was so disappointed when I didn’t get psyched for it this year, the slow realisation that there is only X number of shopping days left, seeing all the decorations go up, and watching the kids go absolutely mental (from behind a childproof one way mirror) are all really great parts of the holiday. And like I said, if you don’t jump the gun and start prepping for it straight after Halloween, the build up to the 25th, to Christmas, can in fact be part of the holiday, if not the best part!
One prime example of this idea is the tradition of “secret Santa” (how secret can a fat guy in a red suit be?) for those who are not aware of this, it isn’t, as the name suggests, Chris Cringle hiding their secret identity like superman, what it is is, you have a list of people in a group, and then a list of people in the same group and mix and match them up so that someone is getting a gift for someone else, now that second part is very important, it’s just not the same getting for yourself, then you all anonymously give the gifts to one another, and no one knows who gave what.
That’s it in theory, in practise, not so much.
What actually happens is far more exciting and fun. People scramble around trying to figure out who has whom, and swapping names so that they can get for their friend, get to reuse an old gift or get for someone who may get drunk enough to sleep with them, searching bookstores and DVD racks and perfume stands for the perfect gift, then cop out, get them some bath salts and be done with it. But it’s not just the gifts that have the anticlimatical essence of Christmas; the entire concept of a “Secret” Santa does too. During the weeks lead up people are mysterious, elusive and hard to find or understand, much like a French spy, they’ll do anything and everything to stop people from finding out who they are getting for, just in case word leaks out and the entire operation is compromised and then, when it comes to the present giving this all goes out the window as people destroy the disguise they had worked so hard to maintain by saying; “Do you like it? If you do, it was me, if not; Joe was your secret Santa” I’m left with a very angry recipient of a lacklustre gift and the build up of mystery is abolished faster than you can say “Seriously, it doesn’t mean you smell bad STOP THROWING THINGS AT ME”
What I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is that seriously people, relish the build up to Christmas, and then enjoy Christmas day, because after that, all you have to look forward to is drinking into the new year and if, like me, you didn’t get to enjoy the best part of Christmas, not the turkey, presents or queens speech, but the carols, the shopping and the wrapping, you’ve got 11 months to get ready to enjoy the hell out of 2010.
Savour Christmas while it lasts, there’s not much time, and so much to do.

Joe Strange
Since next Tuesday we will be in 2010, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year! And see you on the 5th!

Super Festive Edition!

So for this week’s blog I've decided to be all festive, take a seat, sit down, go on, take off your coat, sit by the fire, have a mince pie, some mulled wine perhaps?

So, It's Christmas on Friday, Wow eh? I say this because it really hasn’t felt like Christmas this year at all, not until Saturday in fact. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Joe, You rosy cheeked Christmas elf! How can you not notice Christmas the most magical time of the year?”
Well, dear reader, sit down, next to the fire, with a mince pie and some mulled wine and I shall tell you, MY Christmas story....

It all begins about halfway through November, you know the time, Halloween is a few weeks ago and therefore Christmas stock is in, people are beginning to ask you what you would like for Christmas, (and you still have no clue), and in the Joe Strange household, “Christmas” is a forbidden word. The thing is, me, being a 7 year old at heart, (I still, for instance laugh at the word “titmouse”) get very very excited around this time of year. Mystery, family and flashing lights, are all things that both get me excited and happen around this time of year. So to that effect, I decided this year that I was not going to even think about Christmas until December, which meant 2 weeks of avoiding the subject in November. This would mean that I would have more fun when it came to December and I finally joined in the party. Of course, no one told me that these 2 weeks of ignoring the “C” word, as it would then become known as, would be so painfully hard that I ignored the telly and stopped asking people what they were up to in case any variant of the word “Christmas” turned up, Noel, the holiday season, Xmas, national eat all you can day. This was particularly hard when it came to the notorious Coke advert, with its pretty lights and catchy jingle.
So at first I was avoiding the season, and now, I’m having trouble getting into the festive spirit, and as of Saturday, as I said, I am in the spirit, but that was 6 days before! I know i intended to be late to the party but not so late that the good nibbles were gone, all the fun people were gone and all that was left was breadsticks and people passed out!
So, I’m obviously being awkward about it, I hear to you think, I’m not, or not intentionally, I’ve had things on my mind since the beginning of the month which have subdued the festivities, as I mentioned 2 entries ago, my stand up show was taking up a lot of my thought time and my energies, which didn’t leave much room for small things like Jesus’ birthday, and then, after my gig I had to focus on getting college work done in time so that the last day of term could be a blast (I got it done, and it was).
Even the slowly increasing number of Christmas cards in my possession and the influx of tinsel in the college didn’t affect my Christmas mood.
Now I know you’re all thinking I’m some sort of scrooge, but it’s not just me personally that has had trouble with the whole Christmas thing, a friend of mine today said “Christmas gets worse as you get older”. Now while I agree on some points, the mystery is gone, people ask you what you want, the giant beardy paedophile doesn’t actually exist and you can no longer go to Santa’s grotto, I have to disagree with others, for instant, when you’re a kid the idea of family isn’t as cemented into your brain, and for me that’s a major draw for Christmas, I love my family, the atmosphere is more conscious as well, for once you do get into the mood, Christmas makes you feel ecstatic. (Hopefully or else here’s a humbug). And of course there’s the alcoholic excuse, this time of the year it’s perfectly acceptable to buy vast amounts of booze and not feel guilty, and if that isn’t a Christmas blessing I don’t know what is.
Another reason I think I’m not in the Christmas mood is because of the considerable lack of Christmas decorations in the house, you see, we keep the decorations in the attic, I’m the only one who can fit up there and therefore if I am away at college or work or unconscious, I am unable to retrieve these items and so there is no Christmas cheer in the Strange house.
2 things this weekend got me into the Christmas spirit, first of all, like many of my problems, this lack of festivity in my mind was solved by a few people, not my close friends, not my family, not even the A-team, but The Barenaked Ladies. This is by far my favourite band, for a number of reasons, but i recently and completely legally came into possession of their holiday album, which involves an extraordinary rendition of “jingle bells”. I challenge anyone to listen to that song and by the end of it not feel Christmassy, except you Ebenezer. And second of all, it snowed this weekend, and for those who live in the arctic, or Canada, or Greenland, this may not sound very impressive but here in Cornwall, it’s a ruddy big deal, it causes the entire place to grind to a halt, which is highly impressive. (For more information on this subject see blog entry “with this carrot”)

So thanks to those few things and of course, help from others, I have reached the point where I cannot wait for Friday the 25th of December. So thank you everyone for everything they’ve done for me this year, and this month, even if it’s as simple as reading this blog. Merry Christmas.

Joe Strange

If for some reason or another you do not celebrate Christmas please replace all instances of the “C” word with you’re holiday.

Myspace Archives.

Wait! This is madness is it not? not only 2 blogs in one week, but published on the same night?

Well, due to the fact that I looked on my last entry and realised... it's a tad lacking, I figured I'd just do 2 smaller ones for the price of one.

Now i say smaller, but this is in fact going to be a mammoth of a blog, but not because I am going to write a lot, because I HAVE written a lot.

Those who joined me when I first started up my Blogspot blogs, may remember me mentioning my old "myspace" blogs. you remember myspace right readers? that cool and indie place to go which was full of music and bands, then (nearly) everyone jumped ship and went over to old facebook?
well to make up for my small amount of new material this week, I now give you a large amount of OLD material.

Now, a lot of work has gone into searching the depths of Myspace for these blogs, I had to endure the lengthy login section, by pass the fathoms of the overfilled mailbox, creep by the "myspace" pictures which linger on and endure the updates of bands who have passed it, to bring you this... the Joe Strange preblogger era of blogs. before structure and form, before coherent thought there was the "Myspace stories"

Joe Strange

You may notice these are in fact on a blogger page, but this is so you do not have to endure the process which I had to to read them, I'm not even sure if non myspacers could read them, so here are the new copies. back to normal next week!

Stand up! Now, Sit, good lifetime dream.

Okay, so this week I'm taking a break from my usual "objective" blogs (where no opinion is shown at all) and talking specifically about something that has happened to me.

So for those who don't know me, I'm a huge fan of stand up, and comedy in general, so much in fact that I gave up learning to drive to visit the Edinburgh fringe festival.
This love of comedy caused me to become so obsessed that I started doing it myself. and on Saturday the 12th of December 2009. I had my first proper show.

Now the lead up to the show was something of a spectacle on my part, my mood would change from very nervous to highly excited in an instant, which lead costumers to believe I was riddle with drugs. (to explain that, I'll just say, my work is a bit lame in the fact I can ask for a day off and you can almost guarantee that they wont be able to do it, but the week after, NO PROBLEM. Therefore even though asking if I can get the day off I did not, meaning I had to be crazy in front of people.)
It did mean however that I got a whole lot of work done, because if I was hit by the nerves i needed something to pre-occupy my mind with, and if I was hit with the excitement I had more energy than a 6 year old boy who's been introduced to speed, so could do lots of things.
So it was a productive day.

So I guess before I go into it any more, I'll link the video, then I'll talk some more about it after you've watched it. Go Ahead, watch it, I'll see you in 6:44.

Go on!



Now first of all, thanks to my friend Megan for recording it and putting it on youtube.
But as you can see, for a first time I don't think it was too bad. after watching it over, and over, and over again, I feel like there is a lot of stuff I could have fixed up, and done a lot better, so that's the next job.

I think the real important thing is the fact that I didn't run off at any point, apart from when I'd finished of course, that'd been a bit weird else.
"Please leave the stage"
"No! I promised myself I'd never quit!"
and the fact that I got off stage, and instantly thought "Well I want to do that again!"

So I officially have a love for the art, and if anyone knows of any chances for me to do more, I'd be more than happy to hear them!

Joe Strange
I realise that this week's blog has been a bit... strange and lacking, but I'll be back to the normal format this Tuesday. ttfn

'Tis The Season To Be Poorly.

So, looking at this blog page it really does feel like that scene from “Jumanji” where Robin Williams walks into the old shoe factory, something used to be here... but I don’t know what.
That was a lie, I do know what it was, a kick ass blog, so I’m reopening the shoe factory.

So, It’s December, which means; the excitement is here, Christmas is round the corner, and national “get as drunk as you can” night is not far off. But let us face it, there’s one thing we can’t stand about winter, one thing we dread when it comes to November, and it isn’t the sudden ability to consume copious amounts of alcohol in one.
Go into work, school, college, prison, wherever it is you spend your day and look around. Do you see empty seats? Deserted classrooms? Cells left unattended, which has nothing to do with the sudden hole in the wall?
Yes. Of course you do, it’s flipping winter, whenever winter comes about you can stop thinking about being productive and put everything to the side, in fact, I dare say you’d better watch out, and better not cry, you’d better not pout, because, like a slightly rotund, bearded present giver, the cold is coming to town.
That’s right, the cold virus (for you eggheads that’s VURI, now may I suggest leaving this blog because it’s obviously far too light-hearted for your eyes) and all its infectious little buddies are settling down and making camp in you’re immune system. Whether it’s a cough, a tickly throat or the dreaded “what’s going around”, statistically 6 in 4 people you know will be ill at any one time. This poses a dreadful dilemma for those who aren’t ill, even worse, those who are. So I shall, as a return to my article, be attempting to guide people into the ins and outs of being ill, and not getting ill.
First we’ll start with the healthy people or “Winners” as you shall now be known.
For you who hardly every get ill, perhaps a sniffle for a week in November, congratulations, you’ve won the national health lottery, although chance dictates you’re more likely to get a “big’un” in your life, so watch out for that.
My main advice is to stay away form any of the “losers” out there, and if possible go to your nearest radioactive testing facility and “borrow” a hazmat suit, what could possibly go wrong?
Now, I can hear you saying now, “Joe, you disembodied sage, where do you stand on this scale of winners and losers? Where do you come into the national health lottery?” Well I hate to say it guys, but I’m not the one who gets a cold a year, or the sniffles for a week, oh no, I’m the one who can catch, have and get rid of a cold in 36 hours. I’m just that good. Once again I hear you shout “Joe for your own safety, get an illness, you just told us we will all have a big’un! And plus you never described what it was!” well kids I got mine out the way early. Pneumonia at aged 7.
Now for the doomed.
If you are ill, whether it is a cold, flu, an Australian scratch, or pneumonia, take my advice. Stay inside. Don’t bother going to work, school, college, prison, because you will feel just like a leper, because that’s all you are to us healthy people. In fact I am guilty of this myself, today while in one of my classes, a girl came over to me and I asked how she was, she replied “very ill” now without thinking I moved slightly further away from her, but, so I didn’t seem like a grade A twat, I passed it off as a joke, allowing me to be more of a Grade C twat at best.
Also wrap up warm, germs are allergic to scarves and wool, which is the only reason people own scarves and gloves, I mean lets face it, gloves are far too impractical and scarves are a volatile clothing snake ready to kill at the smallest “snag and slip” (also a winter version of the “slip and slide” also a reason why I’m not allowed to create children’s’ games), so why else wear them? The warmth also allows for you to fall asleep better, since heat induces warmth, to a certain degree, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t set up a bed on top of a volcano and say “it’s better than nightol!”, and sleep is another of the illness’s natural predators, it can’t stand the idea of being stationary, not being able to move from one doomed host to the next.
Finally, I’d advise staying away from any kind of farm yard animal. Animals only ever lead to disaster where illness is concerned, we’ve had cows who’ve gone crazy, cat’s with aids (though, that would have to be a different kind of petting zoo) and now pigs with a bad cold.
Now I know it’s old and it’s not “cool” to mock swine flu anymore, but I’m thoroughly anti zombie, and anything that is causing a zombie outbreak deserves a fresh layer of mock paint. This story states that the “carriers” as they shall now be known, have symptoms such as “acting violently and speaking gibberish” expected to be added to that list soon: “shuffling of movements” and “biting of necks”. All very zombie like behaviour. Now before you panic, head up to the attic (zombies can’t climb after all) and ready the rations, note that firstly this is Japan, and secondly it only effects ages up to 17, so basically teenagers. Now if this is only teenagers that are experiencing this, all the above symptoms are really not that unnatural; violence, non sensical sayings, shuffling and now, thanks to the “twilight” craze, biting of necks is now becoming more common, these crazed girls will do anything for that hot guys attention, even it that “attention” is in the form of a court order.
“Ahh, a restraining order! He’s probably afraid he’ll hurt me, aww”
So no real panic, since teenagers have been around for years, decades I’d say, and no zombie apocalypse yet.

Joe Strange

In the month’s I’ve been away I’ve been unable to mock “Twilight” swine-flu or the Japanese in writing, so this was a welcome release for me.

Yeah... about that.

Ok, Ok So I realise with time keeping skills like this I'm never going to make it as anything but bugger it, I've been busy putting off procrastination.

Once again I failed you guys and missed out on another weeks blog, so, not to get into bad habits of posting late, (by 2 days) I'm giving this week a miss, don't worry next weeks will be epic I'm sure.

Joe Strange
Last time I promise sir.

Sticks And Stones

We all know the phrase that my title tonight gets its name from, you know the old wives tale "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" it's a really well known phrase like; "It's raining cats and dogs" or "Come on mate, it was one time, with your wife, it didn’t mean anything, I mean sure she’s pregnant and its not yours... wow actually that must suck for you, well I’m off to screw your sister hem bye!". But also like the other 2 sayings it’s all complete and utter bovine faeces. I mean can you imagine it raining cats and dogs? if that were to happen then that implies that all water in the world is household pets and would mean that everyone, and not just David Blunkett, would have to shower with a Labrador (well how else is he going to find the soap?). It’s a preposterous idea.
The harsh, hallowing truth is, words are mans biggest weapons, well apart from nukes, or Chuck Norris. Entire nations can be seduced by a well constructed sentence, entire wars have been caused by one mans vocabulary, or lack of in one particular, recent, weapon of mass destruction searching example.
But anyway I have a bone to pick with that phrase, is it not true that you are taught it from a young age, to try and “thicken your skin” so to speak, so that when you get older and people begin to insult you about everything you do, say or are, you’re not as badly affected? If it is so efficient then why when you make a small girl cry, and she goes running to the playground assistant and you run up chanting “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” you get shouted at and told “this is no excuse for a seventeen year old, now please leave the school before we phone the police.” And barred from the local primary school?
There are two reasons for this; one, parents are liars and will tell you anything to stop you complaining about your brother saying that your head is weird and two, words really do hurt, and when used correctly (or incorrectly) they can make a bad situation worse.

Ok, not strictly an example of making a bad situation worse, but more of a bad situation a bit more confusing. You may have remembered a few weeks ago, I had to attend a funeral, well, this was my first funeral and as we approached the grieving partner he asked me “Is this your first funeral then Joe?” and before I could solemnly nod my head my mum butted in and says “Yes it is. UNFORTUNATLY”
Ill gives you a moment to think about that... what in the world possessed my mother to add that bit on the end? What’s unfortunate; that I’m 17, and it’s only now I have to face a coffin? Because I’d say that was pretty good, in fact I would say I’m somewhat of a LUCKY person. Or is it unfortunate that this funeral is my first one, because that sounds a bit undermining and is not really the best thing to say to someone about to say goodbye to their loved one “well, I understand that you’ve lost your soul mate but you could have put some effort in, I mean really, think of my son, this is his first experience of admitting to the fragility of life and this place is a dump!” needless to say with all this running through my mind, I had no time to be sad, I was too busy being confused.

Ok, so I’ve explained how peoples choice of words can be idiotic and sometimes life threatening (“I read sharks don’t like meat, apparently they prefer tofu”)
But words are brilliant, they can be picked out of sentences to get the real meaning, one word can change the entire perceived denotation of a sentence. Like when someone starts a sentence with “Ok, Hypothetically...” this can be translated as “Ok the situation I am about to ask you about has just happened, it’s bad and I have just done it, I’m asking for your advice so that I can part some of the blame on you and feign ignorance” or when someone shouts out at a party “TUNE”, this can be translated as “I’m a complete moron and shouldn’t be allowed to breed”

One word use which I never understood, is when people tag “actually” onto the end of a phrase, such as saying to a Italian chef; “yeah, that bolognaise was quite nice actually” or saying to The Who (pre deaths); “Well actually that concert wasn’t bad”, or to a hesitating murderer; “actually I’d prefer not dying tonight, I have dinner with the girlfriends parents”. It’s admitting that before the event you had apprehensions about the quality of it, or doubted the person in question, whereas in reality, you wouldn’t have doubts about a top chef cooking a kickass bolognaise and chances are you do quite like living. I don’t know if you have any experience with the word “actually” but to me it was introduced by my family, mainly my mother. I don’t know why, perhaps things were just more surprising back then.

But my favourite use of language is something even I’m regularly guilty of. It’s what I call “delusions of self importance” It may sound like a complete knock off of “delusions of grandeur” and that’s because, well it is. Basically it’s a term I invented (I hope) that is to be used when someone uses a word that isn’t needed in a sentence, when another, more regular, down to earth word is more appropriate, like whenever I don’t want to sound like a “blogger” and say this is an “article”, it is really not an article, but by saying that, not only are people more impressed, but it makes ME feel better, and also makes other people feel inadequate, “Oh man, I wish I wrote articles.” You can hear them thinking. But it’s also used by the wider world, when they say something which makes them seem more important, if you’re observant you’ll realise he is only helping himself, not anyone else and probably feeding an oversized ego. Like I said, I’m very guilty of this. Though I would like to quickly add that this isn’t the same as when someone uses a higher register word, because chances are they are just better educated, or a pretentious tool.

Joe Strange

Gets to tick his chart today because he used “grandeur” in a sentence.

Life Offline

Today I'm going to be talking about something that is new to oh so many people on the internet, and that's life without the World Wide Web, or a computer for that matter.
Briefly I would like to say again sorry for not writing a proper blog last week but details can be found down there about the reasons for the blogs absence.

So, over the last few weeks (2 perhaps, maybe even 3) my visits to the computer screen and the large variety of websites I frequent have dwindled, and at some points I didn’t type anything or even turn on the screen for days at a time. But it's fine now, my computer is closer now, and most of the redecorating is done.

at first I thought it was strange not being at my desk a lot, at any possible time I would fire up the Acer and check my emails, but as I grew more tired from work and other "components" to my... rehab, were introduced, I found the need for MSN, Cracked and even this little website called face book (it's not very big, I doubt you've heard of it) dwindled away to almost nothing, causing me to fast the internet (not by all accounts of course, my Xbox live account still maintained a good workout.)

I don't know if you can put this down to laziness or me realising I don’t have to be refined by the shackles of technology, but I soon gave up the need to be at the computer at all, even breaking a vow I made to myself at the beginning of this blog of writing it once a week no matter what. Normally I would return from work of a day, go down into my room and "log on" but over this period, I didn’t have a computer in my room to log on to, nor did I have to go "down" into my room, since my new room is adjacent to my front door... Yeah I’m going to put it down to laziness.

But life offline has been actually pretty fulfilling, and isolating in equal measures.
for instance, for a brief time last week I had one of those social life things, I took it upon myself to come out of my hibernation state on the days I wasn't working and met with real life people, even enjoyed a movie, and then on Saturday, one of the most social events I've been to in a long time, (well since the last one) in which I went to a concert and made a new "friend" or 2. Granted with my lack of mobility and lack of time due to my heavy work hours (7 hours overtime on my last payslip) I did have to resort to technology to organise these things, but then hey, I never said I was going to be a techno-hermit. That itself conjures images of a beardy tramp raving to some Drum and Bass, and that my friends is not going to happen to me. It’s also allowed me to really relax (if you can call moving anything anywhere relaxing) when I was tired, or stressed, instead of whining to a friend and causing some aggravated tension over a screen I merely lay down on my bed put on the radio or a nice calming CD and relax for half an hour. Then I'd go to work because I realised I had fallen asleep and it was 8:55 the next morning.

But Apart from the slight change in a few social events, I think I can safely say that I prefer life online. I wired it all up last night, so I’m about 18 hours into having a computer and I’m already feeling the benefits, much like a junkie who has got a fix after being in rehab, except I’m not addicted. Yet.
Ok, so I don’t know how big a commitment you readers have to the internet, how many websites you “frequent” or how often you like to update things, in fact why don’t you leave a comment and tell me? But with me, I tend to have a few websites which are updated daily which I like to have a look at when I can, this takes from half an hour to an hour to do, a day. So as you can imagine after not really paying much attention to the internet for a few days, I had a whole lot of catching up to do, unfortunately my websites seemed to have updated more than usual and now I have a general feeling of being out of sync, and not just with the sites, with my friends. I don’t suppose any of you do the old trick of checking people’s statuses or PM’s to see what’s going on, but a lot of my friends have things I know nothing about. Now I grant you that the areas I know nothing about far surpass the areas I know a bit about and dwarf the areas I know a lot about (this really only includes comedy and converse, oh and harry potter. No shame there I suppose) but it still came as a shock, it’s similar as to when you go away for a holiday and come back and 2 of your friends are now seeing someone, or broken up or someone’s got an I phone, you know, really significant things. But it’s not all loneliness and cluelessness. For instance I am soon to be sort of replacing my current, loyal and all round good guy creative MP3 player (apply named Steve) for an IPod, so to prepare for this huge transition (when you rely on music to get you through your day as much as me, its not a choice that doesn’t need preparation) I have changed my media player from well, Media player, to iTunes, now before this me and iTunes had some, how the street kids call, beef, in the way I never understood anything it did ever. But know it’s sorted me and him are best friends, he even found me the 2nd Lazlo bane album, making him my super mega new best friend.

So in all, the internet is good, but as with everything, especially steak it should not be over done, or underdone.

Joe Strange
Never realised how many times I use a first person pronoun in my blog, it must make me sound very self obsessed. Well I know better.

This Weeks Entry.

I am only flying a visit by Blogger today, just to explain the absence of the blog this week, I haven't been able to A - find the time to write one over the last few days and B - had the will or energy to write one.

As I may have mentioned, I have recently been moving rooms, with my possessions scattered throughout the house, and I took a "Vow" not to move my computer into the room until its fully painted, unfortunately painting is taking longer than I thought, but I'm breaking my vow after today and moving it in tonight after the "main" wall is dried. the lack of a computer in my room has taken away the liberty of "Oh, ill write the blog now, or at least start it, Oh no, something less productive is on TV" So that's reason 1

the second reason is that i have been uncharacteristically working all the time for the last few days, this has left me without energy or motivation to do much at all, but after a "re energising" day yesterday and less hours in line for work next week, i should be recovered and ready to write again on Tuesday. So that's the second.

the third and most harrowing reason is as follows, 2 weeks ago a friend of mine, and the families, died in a motorcycle accident, it came as a huge shock to us since he was still young, and, to me, he was pretty damn invincible. But his Funeral was on monday, and surprisingly i was better than i thought, until Tuesday, when it hit me and i was mentally drained for the day. so that's the third reason.

So, I am sorry for the lack of humour and a proper blog this week, but schedule resumes as normal next week, with a new batch of activeness!

Joe Strange

I realise i had A and B as the first reasons, and 3 sections for reasons, but, i also included two reasons in A and B, cos I'm crazy like that.

The Art Of Passivity.

This week’s topic actually has an ironic twist to it, which is brilliant because I finally got to use the word "irony" (or its variations) in a blog.

So! Passivity is the action of well... doing nothing at all, so it isn't really an action, more of a state of being. I say this week’s blog is ironic for one reason (I would love to say 2 reasons, but there is only really one) You see, today I nearly didn’t write an article because I was tired, a bit ill and in all fairness wasn’t doing anything productive, so one may say I wasn’t doing anything. So I was being passive, and then I realised that you can think about so much, realise so much and achieve a brilliant mind set by just sitting there.

Ok, I here some of you saying, “Joe, you handsomely witty fiend, you have a computer how can you be sat there doing nothing with the entire internet in front of you.” Well I recently thought it would be a good idea to move to my large, hot, blue bedroom to my sister’s old slightly smaller, cold and red bedroom. I know it sounds like a down grade but it; is closer to the kitchen, means I get my own bath/shower and is further away from the end of the house where the parents live, and so when I come home at night I don’t need to wake them. It also means I get to re-realise how much of a bastard my bed is to put back together and take apart is, oh and there is painting to be done which means music, a stereo and a paint roller, and yet another question of my sexuality (I’m up to 9 confirmed inquisitions)

So, where was I? Anyway we are about halfway through the moving process, and as previously stated I have moved the bed, drawers and a desk into the room, along with most my clothes and the most important belongings. But my computer still remains in my old room.

This means that I have been detached from the PC for a while, it’s been good for me, it means that I have rediscovered old joys, like reading not because I am on a train or bus, but because I’m bored. Earlier I was listening to the second series of “Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better” and just lying on my bed, it was the most peaceful (if you excuse Tom Basden’s lovely singing) I’ve had in quite a while.

So this got me thinking, when was the last time you sat down, or lay down and did nothing, just stared and thought? For me, it is the few times I forget my MP3 when I go to college and just sit on the bus and stare out the window, it’s really very thought provoking and can lead to some amazing observations and insane cognitions.
And I know in today’s society everyone has to be doing something or else they just feel like they’re “wasting time” similar to when people walk into a high class expensive shop and go “Oh I feel like I’m spending money just by standing here” and you cant help but think to yourself... Yes mother, you’re at the till. So instead of just sitting there spending time, or wasting money, get a nice relaxing album, I propose Jack Johnson (if it helped me fail my GCSE French Oral it can help you relax.) or a book that isn’t going to make you ponder the meaning of life, like maybe pick up a harry potter that you’ve already read or the bible. At this point I would discourage any autobiographies written by sports figures, since we are trying to relax the brain not destroy it with dull-ness, the same reason I would not advise reading this blog for this exercise.

And I’m pretty sure that this sort of “stationary progression” is more useful than busy bodies would have us believe. This spark of inspiration, and ultimately what lead to me actually keeping a weekly deadline, came about from me doing nothing. This small little thing came about from me not using the internet for a couple of hours when I could have easily abandoned my lovely new room and ventured into the new “store room” and played mindless games for 120 minutes. Now think back to Edison, or Da Vinci, I’m pretty sure they didn’t have the internet back in “their days” so therefore we have to assume, and assume correctly that the reason they were such brilliant people was because they sat around and did nothing all day.

Joe Strange

It is proven that evil masterminds such as Hitler and Jack the Ripper also had no internet, therefore sat around and did nothing, so it works for brilliant geniuses and evil masterminds, laziness is a 2 way street after all.

My Festival Education

So with Glastonbury behind us now, I didn’t go but I was assured it was an insane experience, my thoughts this weeks go to festivals and all round excitement about events.

First of all there’s the excitement for the smallest happenings, a party? Everyone prepare with military precision who, what, when where, and then get ready with the hilarious anecdotes about what the crazy guy did that night. There’s always one, and if you don’t know them, you probably are them. In fact it goes further than the preparation, some small events are so saturated with alcohol, flashing lights and squirrels, that it seem like the biggest party in history even if it is just a drink down the pub that went a bit far. Now speaking of a bit far, I’m a relatively calm guy, I’m not one for getting “wrecked” or snorting sherbet through a toilet roll tube (it’s all the rage apparently). But that’s not to mean I don’t enjoy a few glasses of pimms and watching my butler juggle the family cats. But there are some people I know, no names but a lot of respect to these crazy people, which will see my few pimms and a juggling butler and raise me a crate of absinthe and a butler with the hiccoughs swallowing swords. These people truly are insane. They make horrendous claims such as “it must have been a good night, I don’t remember a thing” that sounds rather inconvenient, especially since you can’t figure out how you lost a kidney and grew an extra toe. And my favourite, “F***, What A F***ing Awesome Weekend. Alcohol, Unknown Drunken Injuries, Drink Driving On Dodgems, Sickness, Studio Bar, Skinny Dipping.... F*** Glasto, The Party Is Right Here.” (edited for your young pretty little minds)
This guy is so excited about a small celebration that he said to Glastonbury; “No, screw you, and your atmosphere and music, I’m fine being inebriated at a fair ground”

Before this year Glastonbury never really appealed to me, bands who I most likely won’t like, mud everywhere and sleeping out in the cold? When you’re as picky with music as me you get hesitant about spending a lot of money to see a few bands, most of which you’re not sure of if you can even stand. Of course you say that to any music fanatic and they will assure you, with a lot of force, I mean a lot of insistence, non of which is violent, that it’s not just a “few” bands, and in fact the atmosphere is something not to be scoffed at, in fact some say it is to be gawped at, and that if you say this again they will shove a small, claustrophobic mammal down your throat so it can reside there until the fear gets too much and it claws it’s way out. Apparently. So I now I have been educated in the awesomeness that is Glastonbury and the music there, I still have to be persuaded that the mud, strangers, cold and over all socialising is all worth it. It’s apparent that it is, according to eye witness reports, it doesn’t always rain at “Glasto”, not every one is going to murder you and jumpers are on sale everywhere. Oh and socialising isn’t all that bad either.

And well, looking at the past line up, well the one that was this weekend, there are so many stages and acts I must like at least one of them right? Yeah I thought so. It may be because I’m only a country boy trying to live the city life (on the basis I know how a computer works) but previously I thought all people wanted to hurt me. Who wouldn’t, with all this scare mongering about killers and stuff? I was also under the impression that the cold would kill you and that the only good company to keep was tree’s, sheep, and people you’ve known ever since you learnt to judge character. But apparently my West Country teaching was all a lie, and the above facts aren’t even true!
So I’m sold, on Glastonbury.

This all came to me about 9 months ago (it was just under 9 months later that I realised Glastonbury might not be terrible) when I was at a BBQ on one of the sunny days in the abyss of terrible weather that was last years “Summer”. I was talking to a new “friend” about comedy (my go to conversation) when some drunk old man comes into the kitchen and leans over the counter to us and says in a gravelly yet wise voice. “I couldn’t help overhearing that you like comedy” yes I replied to the drunken mentor. “Well may I kindly suggest…” a very long pause. Yes I thought, you can suggest anything kindly, just don’t bring out a blade (I was still under the impression all people where out to get me by now) “… that you go to the Edinburgh festival, its full of comedy, and some gigs are free, and you can heckle at the crap ones” Great I thought, it had already crossed my mind. But my doubts about the huge venues and lack of funds had kept me back from seriously thinking about it until then, but this drunken guy had told me it wasn’t too much of a problem, and so far he hadn’t brought a knife to my throat so he also threw that “lie” out of the water.

So a year or so later, I have decided to get my act together and organise a trip to Edinburgh for the festival in august, 5 days of comedy and theatre shows, and so far, in the planning stages it hasn’t blown up too badly. In fact we are almost ready to go, just got to wait until the date and save up for what will most likely be the funniest, most expensive 5 days of my ever so short life thus far.

Joe strange

I’m taking a break from my usual comical quips to say that during my Edinburgh trip I will most likely be keeping a blog and will have a few videos of the trip. How I intend to keep the “real time” blog without a computer, I don’t know, I may do a retrospective blog on the Saturday when I get back to Cornwall. So stay tuned!