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

I Need You Boots Your Clothes And You To Stop Poking Me.

This Week I want to talk about thresholds, and not the boundaries around your house, that'd be a boring subject. Well less boring than this one anyway.

So the idea for this one came from a pretty surreal source, and like most small thoughts they evolved into something that actually I thought I may be able to write about. How wrong was I? I was watching Terminator 2 a few nights ago and I don't know if you've seen it but there is a scene where a little kid pokes Arnie in the cheek about 4 times, and since he's a robot, he isn't allowed to show emotions. Now think how many takes that scene actually took? I know he's a great actor and all but I'd get ruddy peeved off if a kid kept jabbing me in the face, and since the first rule of showbiz is not to work with kids, we have to immediately assume that the reason behind this is because kids make everyone annoyed with their crying and whining and ballsing up, so if he add a fair 15 takes onto that and times the amount of times Arnie gets poked (4) we get 60 pokes in the face. I would not have the threshold for that much facepokery, so on that note I thought to myself as I lie in bed, "what is my threshold for annoyance, and anything else for that matter?"

Annoyance
As previously mentioned my threshold for annoyance doesn't succeed a few pokes in the face. Ever since i was a kid I had a short fuse, I suppose it comes with having such ammunition as a surname, I got tired of jokes easily and I still cant stand someone repeating themselves over again, so that scene in terminator would have been very different if I was the Austrian body builder. this also accounts for the reason my acting career will never take flight, since imagine if there was a job where you have to repeat yourself 100's of times? Devastating.

Pain
Now here's a fun one, my threshold for pain is the equivalent to that of a small child thrown against a wall by an Austrian body builder after 1 too many pokes to the face. I am truly terrible with pain, in fact I seem to be cursed with this since every time I say that sentence; "I Don't Like Pain" I seem to get into an accident which proves my point exactly, last year whilst on a bike ride I said to a friend, I don't like pain, and I fell down a "cliff" (See Big Hill) and couldn't move for 2 days. On the beach the other day, a mere hour after stating the claim I attempted a downhill cartwheel chain and buggered my wrist up royally. I say royally, most people could have shock it off, but not this small child thrown against a wall! So Expect me next week to be talking about an accident with a brick involving my head since I've said "the" phrase twice in the last paragraph

Bad Comedy
I'm willing to give anything a chance, a sitcom, a stand up, a whiny celebrity with some merit. But I find it hard to put up with things I feel so strongly about, like drugs, abortion and the over use of the word random in today's youth. For instance I am not the worlds biggest fan of Dane Cook. He's a terrible comedian who isn't funny and steals other peoples jokes, plus he just LOOKS like a douchebag, and I have attempted to give him a chance I have, I watched him kill a theatre full of peoples sense of humour for 10 minutes straight, I watched him ruin the great film "waiting" hell, I even sat through "my best friends wedding" but he just isn't funny, in fact, I'd go as far to say he is UN funny. and a douche, don't forget that.

Film
My threshold for Film is also controlled by a few ground rules: If there are more than 3 explosions, various one liners, a guy that looks like Ben Folds or robots in the trailer, i will most likely see it, if the title ends in "....Movie" I wont touch it, if it has Keanu Reeves, the acting will most likely be more like cardboard than a "Shreddies" box, for full frontal nudity of Jason Segal there must be at least 1 hot actress. per testicle. and finally when it comes to chick flicks, soppy stories, rom com's involving Colin Firth, or a film where the pet is the mian character, the rule all boyfriends and dating men should abide by to avoid disappointment, If It gets Me Laid, It Gets Played.

Joe Strange

Attempted to go an entire blog about poking faces without mentioning Pokerface.