trenchblog

With 75% of my move complete, all that’s left is to sort through boxes of nonsense that I’ve kept for far too many years. The worst part of this process is the moment where you have to decide whether to throw out your old toys or not. Being 27 I should have no practical use for toys, but the thought of chucking away a fully working and complete Crash Test Dummies cat into the bin is too much to bare. Maybe next year.

Sadly one of the Crash Test Dummies Car’s siblings hadn’t fared so well, so it was with a heavy heart that I decided to dispose of… my Thundertank.

I do not need to describe how awesome the Thundertank was, and is. With it’s actual tank tracks, pop up ‘attack’ mode and general all-round sweetness. I do not need to mention any of this because you, readers, know all too well how aces this plastic beast was.

Likewise you also know how the hatch doors always fell off. And the tracks always stuck. Until they snapped. And that only one full-sized figure could fit in it unless the hatches were open.

Thundertank, you were a fickle, often broken playtime pal. But the time has come for us to part. Trenchblog salutes you.

Regular readers, (who probably read more regularly than I write, somehow defying all laws of the spacetime continuum), will have built up a fairly accurate mental image of my Mother. If not you can peruse the ‘Conversations with Mother‘ catagory to get an idea of what I have to put up with on a daily basis.

Now readers, given your knowledge of my Mother, I think the following question should be fairly easy. Let’s see shall we?

Q) What leaving gift did Mother give to me to celebrate my in-progress housemove?

A) Was it:

• A handmade trinket
• A delicious homebaked treat
• A sum of monies
• By electrocuting me with my own new cooker

Secretly I think it was part of her plan to hospitalise me for a month or two and squeeze a bit more rent out of me. Well who’s laughing now eh Mother?

Me, with my huge piles of cash and complete lack of eyebrows. Ha!

But today I did see someone wearing an ensemble that made me consider whether I’d entered an unearthly limbo. Frankly you would too if you saw a gent wearing:

• An old school Slayer t-shirt
• Super tight black jeans. Exactly too tight enough.
• White leather cowboy boots. Aforementioned trousers tucked very firmly into.

It was enough to make me want to put the blog on hiatus again.

But I bet that’s just what he wants me to do.

… you turn down a copy of Timecop for £1.

Not because it’s a not partcularly great Van Damme-fest. Or because JCVD demonstrates the patented Van-Mullett, (see also Hard Target).

But because the film is presented in 4:3 crap-o-vision. You’ll be damned before you watch Timecop in anything but the original aspect ratio.

The slimpack instead of a full dvd case did not help either.

Housemove - Verb [houz]+[moov]
1. Process of giving stupendous amounts of money to professionals who then in turn balls up basic parts of their own job. See also Stress, Lifelong debt, Inevitably crappy neighbours, Walking around nude because you can.

An impending housemove means I have developed an unhealthy obsession with appliances and housewares.

So it was that I stumbled across an amazing pair of items in a catalogue.

Battery powered salt and pepper grinders.

Which means that mankind has spent hundreds of hours trying to make salt and pepper dispensal less menial. Clearly someone, somewhere thought there was a market for these devices. Are these people really out there? Do people roll their eyes at the thought of manually twisting a regular grinder to produce the condiment they so crave?

If you factor in the time walking around a supermarket to get batteries and then the energy spent replacing them, you’re not even saving that much time.

I can picture the scene now.

A dinner party. Group laughter. The wine has already started to flow as the main course is served.

Jeff: Here’s Melinda’s infamous beef stroganoff. Tuck in!
Ted: This smells delightful.
Sarah: It really does, you’ve spoilt us Melinda!
Melinda: Oh it was no trouble really, I just hope you enjoy it.
Ted: I’m certain we will. Jeff, could you pass the salt?
Jeff: (Looking excited) Allow me!

Jeff leans over, grinder in hand. Instead of twisting it a few times, he depresses a button.

The grinder whirs for a few moments. Salt falls from the underside.

Awkward silence falls over the room.

Melinda avoids eye contacts with the guests.

Ted: You’re a c*ck.

1. The lock which was so complicated that it took me nearly half a minute to fathom it. Slightly balanced out by the fact that it looked like it could be used to secure a castle gate, much less a lavvie door.
2. The fact that the flushing mechanism was unable to cope with the removal of one modest-sized arse bogey.
3. The fact that the cistern took so long to fill after the aforementioned flush, that a second much-needed attack was all but impossible.
4. The fact that there was no actual toilet paper and I had to make do with paper hand towels instead. Sigh.
5. Worst of all, the gigantic mirror that occupied an entire wall of the facilities. I don’t know about disabled persons, but I certainly don’t want to see a life-sized reflection of myself trying to pinch one out. It very nearly ruined my concentration.

Spotted a sign in a car window whilst walking the dog the other night.

Car for sale.

£295

I can’t help but think that first line is redundant. After all, if I see a car with a sign in the window, I always assume the sign indicates the amount in pounds sterling required to purchase that very vehicle.

This sign maker had stopped short of writing:

This car for sale.

Which of course means they might be selling a completely different car for that amount. A good strategy if the car for sale is much crummier than the one you put the sign in. I fully endorse this approach in fact.

When I need to next sell a car I’ll rent a sportscar for a week and put my sign in that. It will please me to see the buyers face when I hand over keys to a battered Fiat Punto or somesuch. I am sure that in the eyes of the law this is all perfectly legal. So long as they do not ask me directly “Are you certain this Ferrari is the car you’re selling for £495?”, I will be fine.

Step 1 - Be slightly annoyed at light drizzle on the way to the bus stop without an umbrella.

Step 2 - Just reach a pedestrian crossing as it turns to “Don’t cross”, delaying you by at least 30 seconds.

Step 3 - Register your disgust aloud with the unlikely curse “Clucking cluck cluck”.

Step 4 - Turn head slightly and realise there is a woman right behind you.

… pure joy. Yay for cheap dvds.

Reasons I have not cut my own hair for at least the third week I’ve been meaning to:

• Been playing Flatout: Ultimate Carnage.
• Been playing Carcasonne, yes, still.
• Been asleep.
• Been picking up a few last odds and sods in the post-Xmas sales.
• Finally gotten around to watching Carnivale season one, which I must have borrowed from an unwitting friend around 8 months ago. As consolation to him, it is all kinds of awesome.
• Enjoy going in on Mondays sporting the Grizzly Adams look. Makes me appear even less professional and wards off any person likely to start a casual conversation.

Definitely going to cut it next week.

Definitely.

Well, very likely at the least.

24hr Teso would cost me a fortune by itself, much less if I were fuelled by Absolute, the world’s smothest vodka. Which I am, on a weekly basis. Hence:

The Mask Of Zorro £2 - Which I remember being far more fun than I was expecting the first and only time I’ve seen it. And it’s got the villain from No Escape in it. No Escape!

The Bourne Supremacy £3 - Earlier in the night I was complaining about it’s gimmicky and annoying camera work, hours later I bought it. Three squid isn’t robbery for a fair film and I’m a completist so I couldn’t resist a bargain.

Note to self: Only go to Tesco when sober, or rich.

Exiting from college in 1999, my career aspirations were vague and my enthusiasm for hard work non-existant.

Naturally, I felt compelled to go to University and sponge off the state for four years.

Unfortunately for me, this was right around the period when the government had introduced tuition fees and dismissed student grants in favour of student loans. Luck was in my favour however when I realised that you only paid back a % of post-Uni wages above £15k. A quick bit of maths meant that unless I became CEO of a major financial institution it would take approximately… forever to pay it all back. ‘All’ in my case being £13k or so.

Thankfully for me, after Uni I found my way into a job which has kept me slightly below the magical £15k limit.

Until this month.

This month The Company gave us a small but nonetheless welcome pre-Xmas bonus. Only a hundred squid or so but just enough to push me over the threshold for loan repayments. Arses.

Imagine my glee when I saw that my first ever student loan repayment was for… £1.

Yes, one pound.

Which, by my calculations, sets me on course to have my whole debt repaid by 3090AD, excluding interest.

I could stretch it out though. I have the option of claiming back any repayments if at the end of the tax year I still earnt less than £15k in wages.

That one pound will be mine again you heartless bastards.

Situation: Girlfriend gets a haircut.

Do: Say it looks nice. Moan a bit about how much it cost.

Don’t: Say it makes her look like a 13 year old boy.

trench, making mistakes so you don’t have to.

On Sunday I had to pop into my local Tesco to purchase some cobs for the forthcoming week. You will all be interested to know that I purchased four mixed seed buns for 79p, additionally I bought a cheesy tear n’share bread which was reduced to 66p.

Having collected my goods I headed swiftly to the batchelor till. This is the one right at the end for baskets only, ten items or less. As I approached I noticed that the till was not being operated by the stereotypical miserable woman. Far from it, this till was being operated by a man. But this was no ordinary man, this was in the fact the security guard who I immediately recognised having passed him at his little security podium many times before.

The Security Man seem unperturbed at his strange position and was busying himself scanning goods. I approached with some nervousness, but quickly had both my checkout operator expectations met and then exceeded. This was for two key reasons.

Firstly, The Security Man gave me some genuine sympathy when I as usual struggled to open a plastic bag. Typically at this point I make some remark to the person on the till about me being ready to start bagging in a few months. Taking this as a cue, they then open some bags with their super sticky operator hands. They always take the chance to give me a disapproving glance though, as to say “stupid men, can’t even open their own plastic shopping bags”. This man however could relate to my position and I didn’t feel under pressure to rush my bag opening. Better still, without a woman glaring at me I beat my own personal best time and opened the bag in 3 minutes and 48 seconds.

Secondly, and most importantly, was the way the man sent me on my way. At best from the usual operators you can expect a forced “Thanks, goodbye”, not so for The Security Man.

Thankyou Sir

Sir!

There was something about the unexpected bit of respect that gave me a decidedly odd Fight Club vibe. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you Sir“, “May I recommend against the lobster bisque Sir“. I left beaming.

In future I will take my goods directly to the little security podium and insist he scan my goods there. If he refuses, I will begin throwing down fisticuffs, the sight of which will certainly make him relent and begin scanning away in front of my grinning face.