I've always loved Henry Rollins

"In my opinion Morrissey just embodies every horrible trait that a human can possibly possess."

Nicknames, innit?

I've been trying to figure out appropriate nicknames for Liz and Tim for this blog.  Liz's still eludes me but I think I'm going to go with T-Ban for Tim.   I'd like it better if I could make it work with Tae Bo but you have to work with what you've got.


Here is a video which has delighted me.

Tattoo ideas

I've always been fascinated by tattoos.  When I was about eleven I was really into hair metal and Axl Rose and Rikki Rockett all had several tattoos.  None of them really held a candle to Nikki Sixx, though, who had a whole sleeve and it even extended onto his chest!

I got my first tattoo when I was eighteen and then my second not long after.  I waited for years before getting my next one and then I had another a few years later.  I've always been a bit hesitant about tattoos because I was afraid of regretting it.

One day I saw a woman in Starbucks.  She had loads of tattoos all over her arms and she was probably in her late thirties.  I didn't like her tattoos, mind, but I loved the look.  That's when I decided I couldn't give less of a shit about regretting it.  When did I think I would get these awesomely tattooed arms I wanted so badly?

So in the last year I've had a fucking shit ton of tattoo work done and it's all fabulous.  This has also led me to just get tattoos whenever I feel like it after not that much thought.  That's why I have a tattoo of me and my dog under a banner that reads 'TRUE LOVE FOR EVER.'

While visiting Brazilian Rachel in Hawai'i in 2011 I saw loads of haole with tattoos of the island chain and I thought, 'I want one!'  I didn't think that much of it, to be honest, but then in the past month or so the idea has really taken hold of me and I finally decided that I had to just go for it.  Except by now I want an hula dancer pin up (but Polynesian, for some reason all the pictures I've found are of white women) to accompany my Hawaiian Island piece.

All this leads me to this morning.  I didn't sleep much last night and when I finally dropped off I had a terrible nightmare which is just a load of bullshit.  I'm a little bit worse for wear today and so tired I feel both nauseated and starving.  I can already tell by 7pm I'm going to be so tired I won't be able to sleep at all.

I decided to accompany this Hawaii tattoo I want a tattoo of California on the other side.  I was a bit stuck about what I wanted, though, until I decided that I should get a tattoo of a burrito.

What the fuck, brain?

If this is still a good idea next week I'm going to go for it.  You have to, don't you?

Additional cast member

Brazilian Rachel: she is my very best friend in the whole world.  We met in college and I miss her every day.  She is not Brazilian.

Draw four.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about SPM lately and I can't continue to blog about him with any sort of dedication.  He's just so ... well, you know.


So, because I'm obviously destined to become a famous blogger (!) I'm going to keep blogging.  As R. Kelly Andy says, I 'have a good back story.'


Uno is my favorite game.  I've been playing it with my family since I was about five or six years old.  I have vivid memories of the joy I felt playing a Draw Four card against my hapless opponents.  I'm sure I cackled with glee as I destroyed their hopes of winning.  As I've gotten older it's come to me that maybe they let me win because I was only a child.  Fuck that shit.  I'm sure my prowess at Uno was apparent from even that young age.

Digression: My whole family is fucking crazy competitive.  I've inherited this trait in such abundance sometimes it scares even me.  Usually I'm able to be adult about it all and bow out of any kind of competition or game because my friendships are important to me but sometimes I can't help but play.

Here are my two favorite examples of my family's inability to play friendly:

When I was about sixteen my mother, my uncle and my grandmother decided to play Scrabble.  I was reading on the sofa next to the table and let them get on with it.  They are all wicked crazy Scrabble players (I hate the game and never play it because after two turns I get bored and try to spell F-U-C-K-Y-O-U with my letters) and argue all the time.  My uncle reads the Scrabble dictionary on the toilet, my grandmother had to institute a timer with a friend because they took too long to play each turn, and my mother is a killer Scrabble player who takes no prisoners.  My grandmother had a fucking super fancy Scrabble board that was on a lazy-susan type contraption so you could rotate the board and had plastic dividers between each square so the letters didn't slide around.  Serious business.  My uncle challenged the validity of a word, the dictionary was produced, the word was valid and he lost a turn.  When the turn-that-would-have-been came my Uncle insisted on taking his turn to study the board.  My mother, enraged, insisted that he had lost this privilege and anyway the board would be different when his turn came around again (I'm with her on this, for what it's worth).  They argued, my mother tried to spin the board and my uncle, unable to take his punishment like an adult, held the board in place.  With a loud crack the board split in two and my grandmother was fucking pissed.  They had to buy her another board.

Digression digression: For a while my mother and uncle had a weird Minesweeper rivalry and would call each other with their lowest scores, mocking the ability of the other.  Yeah, these are adults.

The second example involves Pictionary, a game I love but won't play anymore.  When I was about seven or eight I played with my whole extended family (it must have been Christmas or Thanksgiving if we were all together) and another uncle offered to help me read and understand my cards (pro tip: adult idioms can be hard for children).  I was supposed to draw a Bearded Lady.  I obviously drew a stick figure woman with a beard and when someone on my team said, 'Bearded woman' I said, 'yes!' and considered it a victory.  The opposition team, who were all still members of my family, insisted that it was different and we could not have the point.

These people.  These fucking people.

So I fucking love Uno and always have.  Big Daddy hates Uno and won't play it with me, probably because I'm ruthless and don't want to teach him the rules so I beat him every time we play.

YES, I AM THAT ASSHOLE.  I figured that was clear by now but just in case it wasn't I am The Worst Person Ever to play games with.  I'm not above cheating but will complain if anyone cheats against me.  I'm unscrupulous and will steal from the bank in Monopoly if it means I'm going to win this shit.

I recently managed to convince some of my work friends, R. Kelly Andy among them, to play Uno with me at lunch.  I think they might be addicted because after the first game they weren't that wild about it but then all of them showed up at an Uno date I had with LolKate and wanted to play.  Uno isn't that great, my ass!

Additional players

LolKate: LolKate is a friend from work.  I show my affection like young boys do when they like a girl.  I tease her mercilessly and troll her forever.  I spend a lot of time trying to get her to let me use her phone so I can update her Facebook status.  She always falls for this.

Sam Cojones: Another friend from work.  For some reason I'm always surprised when he knows about pop culture even though we're the same age.  Randomly a fan of Pitchshifter, Sam's family owns half of Hertfordshire.

NisbetNumeroDos: We bonded when we worked on the same corridor last year.  He's a real hipster but won't admit it.  He loves the fuck out of the zoo.

JonathanWhite: I always have to call him by his whole name.  No one else does this and he calls himself Jon.  If anyone talks about Jon I ask who they mean.  NisbetNumeroDos calls him 'Jon ... athanWhite' for my benefit.  We'd talked on the phone for years and I never knew what he looked like.  I recognized him by his voice the first time I saw him, which sounds creepy as shit.

Liz: Liz doesn't have a nickname...yet.  She beat me in one of the fastest goddamn Uno games ever this morning!  We are friends even though she misspelled my name for ages.

Tim: Tim doesn't have a nickname yet, either.  I'm going to work on this!  Tim destroyed everyone in his first ever play of Settlers of Catan and somehow failed to gloat.  I don't get this at all.

R. Kelly Sarah:  R. Kelly Andy's wife.  I've only met her once but I'm somehow sure she'll be in this blog a lot.  Every time I see this I think of her.

He looks like he wants to die after 35 seconds.

I love the backing music he chose.  A+

Ahahahahahhahaha!

AA Gill wins 'Hatchet Job of the Year' for his review of Autobiography.

I read the review and all I could think was, 'ZING!'



 

!

I just totally passed SPM's house on the bus.

That's all.