Better than I expected. Plus I didn’t go blind. Win win.
Yesterday afternoon, Claire and I were doing some spring cleaning and had to take an old wooden chair into the garage. I left Claire in the house, as we were expecting an online shopping delivery, so took the chair to the garage myself.
The door on the garage is rubbish and far too loose. After unlocking it, I worry that I’ll push down on the door too hard, in an attempt to open it, resulting in the door flying upwards and knocking me out.
As a result, I cautiously lifted the door. That is when I saw it. Quite possibly the largest spider I have ever seen, outside of a Resident Evil video game. Had it been in the front room, I would have burnt the house down – granted, possibly a little extreme, but didn’t Sigourney Weaver say to kill the Alien with fire?
Luckily this spider was outside and our garage is a safe distance from the house. However, there was still no way I was going to fully open the door, let alone walk into the garage.
The spider wasn’t even scared! Aren’t they supposed to run away from you? This one casually walked around, as if to say “This is my garage, bitch. You wanna deal wit me?”
It was then I spotted his mates. Granted they were not quite as large as him, but they were still big, meaty beasts. Three spiders all sitting on the garage door, like a gang from a ghetto, waiting to kill anyone that would dare question them.
Earlier that day, we were watching Bear Grills on TV. ‘Bear’ was somewhere in the jungle, teaching a group of Z-List celebrities how to cook tarantulas. Apparently they are a good source of food (the spiders, not the celebrities); and by eating them would stop the Z-list celebrities becoming Dead-list celebrities. With no word of a lie, I could live in my garage for a week, and survive on its spider population. Of course, this would mean catching, cooking and eating the spiders. Quite frankly, I would rather eat the artificial Christmas tree, which is also in our garage, than dine out one of those monsters.
After she had finished dealing with the Tesco delivery driver, Claire came to help me. While she doesn’t share my level of dislike for the spiders, she isn’t fearless and was equally as horrified by the squatters in our garage as I was. She bravely plucked up the courage to run like Usain Bolt under the door with bags of brick-a-brack and reposition the chair. It was a military operation, and one which Claire should win a George Cross, in recognition of her bravery.
The chair and bags are now in the garage. This is good news. The bad news is that the spiders are also in the garage. They are probably breeding. Soon there will be thousands of them. When I return to the garage, I’m bringing a flamethrower.
Since my last blog, we have made lots of progress with our wedding plans. On Saturday, Claire and I went into town to collect the rings we ordered ages ago. I was well prepared when it came to trying on my ring, and held out the correct finger on the left hand. Our beautiful looking rings are engraved with our initials and wedding date. I was tempted to joke that the date was wrong, but thought this would give either the Jeweller or Claire a heart attack.
I must have tried my ring on ten times since taking it home. Claire has probably tried hers on even more. I should really stop this and put them somewhere safe until the day of the wedding, but at the moment I’m holding onto it tight. When the big day arrives in June, I will probably be found in the corner of a room, clutching the ring, eating a raw fish, while muttering “my precious”.
This morning, we went to the church to meet The Reverend, who will be marrying us. He was very nice, made us feel special and came across as excited about the wedding as we are! Forms have now been completed and it is official – the ceremony is booked and confirmed. Our wedding is really happening and it is just 3 months away!
Considering my laziness in failing to update my blog until yesterday, today’s rant is pretty ironic, as it concerns system updates and how they really grind my gears.
Yesterday’s blog about the fun-goings-on, which have taken place on my street recently, nearly didn’t happen. Please picture the scene. I was sat on the sofa, happily typing away on my laptop when everything ground to a halt. Microsoft Word stopped working and the laptop made a noise as if it was about to take off into outer-space.
I am not a man to be beaten, and knowing that the shit piece of Office software Bill Gates had put together was throwing a tantrum, I opened up Notepad to write the remainder of my story. OK, it doesn’t come with a spelling and grammar checker, but when has I evar neded one of they?
The reason for my laptop going on strike, was because one of those automatic Windows updates was being applied. Not just a little one, mind. No, this was one hefty, mother fucker of an update. It seemed to go on and on for hours, while the first half of my blog, which I had written in Word, remained on screen frozen. Luckily, I am not stupid and frequently save my work, so there was no fear of relying upon Microsoft’s auto-recover feature and losing all the blood, sweat and tears I had shed earlier.
The updates were eventually installed and the laptop rebooted – twice – to allow them to be configured. Why didn’t Microsoft tell me about this? OK, it is kind of my fault for having to auto-updates turned on. If I don’t, I’ll forget about them for about 5 years, only remembering I should really update when I see a scare on the news about how some kid in Australia is hacking everyone and stealing their Nandos loyalty points. What I do object to is one huge dump of an update being put onto my computer and preventing it from functioning, without telling me. It’s like going to the dentist for a routine check-up. He spots a problem, neglects to inform you, but carries on with the procedure anyway, and removes all your teeth, tongue and tonsils. Do dentists remove tonsils? Probably.
I am sure Bill Gates is a regular reader of my blog. After all, since stepping down as head of Microsoft, he’s bound to have more time on his hands. So, Billy – please tell your boffins in Microsoft Towers, that I would like to be warned before you shit on my laptop next time. Thanks.
It was my birthday yesterday. Yes, it was! Why don’t you all stop reading this blog for one minute to sing me ‘Happy Birthday’ or send me a belated card and cheque. I’ll give you five minutes for that…
Done? Oh good. Thanks in advance for the cheque. I made it easy for my loved ones to buy my present this year, by dropping countless numbers of hints that I would like Amazon vouchers, to enable me to purchase the Wii U console. I’m aware that this machine has been out for 2 years now, but it’s only been recently that any games that took my interest were released – namely Donkey Kong and the latest addition to the Mario Kart series.
I ordered the Wii on my birthday, paying extra for next day delivery. I waited in all day today, getting up very early, as I just knew if I slept in, the courier would attempt to deliver it, I would not be downstairs in 10 seconds, resulting in him either throwing my parcel over the garden wall or taking it back to the depot – probably in Hull.
I got up and waited. I had my breakfast. I waited a bit more. I watched 4 episodes of Keeping Up Appearances. I waited again. I ate lunch. I continued to wait. I was tempted to go to the toilet for a poo, as you can guarantee without a shadow of a doubt, that when you are mid-shit, the doorbell will go, resulting in you having to quickly pull your trousers up and run down the stairs, with a turtle head hanging between your buttocks and pants. I didn’t go to the toilet. I continued to wait, until shortly after 4pm, when a white van appeared outside. Out of the van appeared a man with a box, which he brought to the door. I had to scribble something onto his iPhone with my finger. Presumably this is an alternative to a signature these days. I put a crude S and K – my initials. It probably looked like a snake and a big ‘X’ kiss.
The Wii U was unboxed and assembled with ease. I didn’t even need to read the instructions. Then the problems started. After going through about a thousand configuration settings, the console wanted to connect to the internet, so it could perform a system update. I was given no choice, so allowed it to do so. Why do these modern consoles need so many updates? The SNES didn’t need any. The only thing you had to do with SNES games was blow into the underside of the cartridge a few times before playing it. You accepted that as it was part of the course. Over an hour it took to download and install whatever updates it needed. In which time I had a ride on my exercise bike, did the washing up, went for my poo and drank probably a pint of Coca Cola, before going back to the toilet to piss it all out.
Finally the Wii U updated itself! I was happy. Happy until I put the Mario Kart 8 disc into the machine and was told that the game wanted to be updated as well. It was at that point I got a hammer and smashed the Wii U into a million pieces.
They say old habits die hard. I don’t really know what this means, or what a movie series starring Bruce Willis has to do with it; but I think it refers to something along the lines of how difficult it is to stop bad behaviours, such as smoking, swearing or not updating ones blog on a regular basis. I refuse to let such laziness return to my website, so am writing this after realising to my horror that it has been ten whole days since I last blogged.
No doubt you are all wondering what I have done in my week away from WordPress. Giving the fact I live such an exciting, action-packed life, you would be forgiven for thinking that I had climbed a mountain, discovered a previously unknown planet and won a reality television show. You would be forgiven, but you would also be wrong.
There has been activity on my street. I live in a relativity quite area. There is rarely any trouble and the average age of my neighbours is 84. The largest worry for my fellow residents’ is parking – more specifically other people from outside of the area parking their cars on our street when they go to work or visit friends and family. While I am a firm believer that if you pay your road tax, you can park anywhere providing it is legal, I can sympathise with my neighbours as during the day, there are some very inappropriately parked vehicles – primarily ones positioned adjacent to each other, which would make getting lorries and emergency vehicles down the street near on impossible. Then you have cars which park on the pavement. Don’t even get me started on that. It’s tricky, as I also feel for those who need to park their cars, yet struggle to find anywhere to do so! Whatever. I digress a lot. I’ll get to the point…
There was delight all over the street one morning last week, when many of us were awoken in the early hours (well, 8am), by a truck driving down the road, followed by a group of workmen. The truck was clearly branded with the words every local resident had been dreaming of for years LINE MARKING. In under half an hour, large parts of my humble road had been marked in fresh, double yellow lines. Surely now all us locals are happy… until we want to park somewhere ourselves. Doh!
The other ‘event of interest’ to take place was a death. Luckily this death was only an animal, although I am sure the poor thing’s loved ones were very distressed and still in mourning. The deceased creature was a bird. From looking at its remains, one of the pigeons which sit on the house roofs. Not only had the bird died, it had been savagely murdered and eaten. Not just a bit nibbled, I am talking devoured. I was unfortunate enough to spot the carcass on the pavement, while walking home from work. It can only be described as what my plate looks like after a visit to Nandos (only without the spicy rice and coleslaw). There was nothing left, apart from bones and a few feathers. Normally, I would blame a fox for such a barbaric act, but this murder had taken place during the day. The other suspect would be a cat, but if David Attenborough has taught me nothing else, it is that cats only kill for fun. Therefore Mr Fox and Pussy Galore can be eliminated from my enquiries. Therefore, Detective Sean’s finger of blame is pointing at a human. Who that human is, I don’t know (it wasn’t me). That I find very disturbing.
About Me
So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?
If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.
However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.
You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.
All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
