Coffee

I have never been a big coffee drinker, I have moments in my life where I feel the urge to drink a bit, I have no idea why, I suppose it's a whim.

The time I drank the most coffee was when I was working in an office, surprise surprise. We had a lovely secretary/debt collector working there who was a big fan of keeping us lads in drinks throughout the day, so from 9am until 5pm we were practically drowning in the stuff. I still blame a suspected heart attack on the sheer amount of coffee I was imbibing at the time.

You see, my body doesn't like coffee for some reason, it gives me palpitations and I do feel rather peculiar after drinking the stuff. However, my tastebuds demand that I have my coffee strong, black and with plenty of sugar, so I might as well be ingesting the nasty dark liquid intravenously straight into my left ventricle for all the good I'm doing myself.

For most people coffee is like a shot of adrenaline, for me it's like a blast in the chest from a 600v car battery, which is odd as tea has more caffeine in it but it doesn't have the same effect at all.

Perhaps it's all psychological with me, but I'm not the type to take to mental disorders sitting down, I refuse to believe that my brain is trying to fool me about the potency of my beverage, so it must be physical.

Does anyone else get this from coffee? I'm sure I'm rather odd in this.

Anyhow, lately I have been drinking a cup or two a day and as you can see I've actually began to write more too. I'm wondering if this lightning bolt up the balloon knot is doing me some good, or am I just flapping about like a headless chicken after the axe fell on its neck, only to run into the dust dying later on.

I'm I burning my candle from both ends? I expect so.

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Too Much Choice

So, I crumpled and bought a cheap digital freeview box so that I can get my fix of University Challenge. Set me back £18.99 and now I can get nine digital channels and two analogue, which will later change over to digital and I'll also receive seven more channels, so all in all I should be getting 15 digital TV channels and 12 digital radio channels from early April, quite a change from the four that I'm used to.

But lets face it, I only really watch about four or five programs a week, mostly on BBC2 and after last nights viewing I have come to the conclusion that too much choice is a bad thing.

The quality of the programs are poor and there is a huge amount of repeated tosh that would be far better off not being aired to begin with. 

From the time I used to watch television on a regular basis, we only had three channels available to us then and the quality of programs was high, in fact you could easily not switch over from one channel to another all evening simply because there was no need to, pure entertainment and quality. With the advent of the video recorder you could even watch the programs on the other side you had to miss because something even better was on, how many times can you say that nowadays? 

So here's me thinking about how the BBC has 'diversified' over the last few years. 

It now has eight channels that I'm aware of and so many radio stations that I'd need a separate post to list them all, so technically with the might of the British tax payer bankrolling their coffers they should still produce a vast amount of quality programs. Alas, this is not the case.

Due to the sheer scale of the hours they have to fill, the quality has slipped, I can't even remember the last quality comedy that the BBC produced, anyone care to mention any? It was probably Blackadder, but please prove me wrong. I'm only glad that Channel 4 have had the temerity to finance quality writers and producers, at east they still produce the odd gem now and again like Green Wing, Spaced and Father Ted. But I will take a massive amount of point action away for airing Big Brother.

I wont even mention Soaps, I had the misfortune of watching the live episode of Eastenders a while back, I've seen better acted pantomimes, least said soonest mended I feel….

If I'm honest the only place the BBC excels is with their news coverage, there is nothing quite like an impartial government run news service. Hang on, isn't that what North Korea has???

I should say a word or two about ITV, but I don't think I've watched anything on that channel since I was 10 years old, so I can't really comment. I couldn't even tell you if Vera Duckworth is still on Coronation Street. I think I read somewhere that she got killed off, but I don't really know. I suppose that goes to show that ITV's productions are so dull that I don't even bother to read about them. Perhaps it's a good thing that they are finally axing The Bill after more than a couple of decades, that got boring after they went from one hour episodes to half hour ones back in the 80's. Bring back the Sweeney! 

Maybe it's me, perhaps I have a particular taste. I do like documentaries and quiz shows. I did enjoy programs like Parkinson, but nobody has taken up the mantle of the chat show that even comes close to the quality of Michael Parkinson's effort, in fact, other than Jonathan Ross' particularly childish attempt, there isn't a quality chat show on British TV that will attract a big star. Again I hope someone can prove me wrong.

Drama, fair enough, there are a few good ones that have popped their heads above the sinking mire of poorly made piffle. I personally liked Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, plus you have Dr.Who and Torchwood, pretty good efforts when you consider their budgets compared to the American equivalents. The odd one off costume drama seem to be well made but they are not to my taste, although I did watch a bit of Bleak House because I'm madly in lust with Gillian Anderson.

So I suppose not all is lost, it's just that you now have to wade through an amazing amount of rubbish to find the little golden nugget in the pile of slag.

I'd much prefer if we returned to the good old days of three channels, I'd maybe allow C4 back into the fold if they begged forgiveness for Big Brother by producing more quality comedy, but that sin was so grievous that they may never be allowed to broadcast again in the universe that I have created in my head.

I can only be thankful for the DVD box set, at least I can watch some quality programs from other countries now, which can't be a bad thing.

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Sense of Self

Here's an interesting one, are animals capable of committing suicide? To commit suicide you must have a sense of self but do animals have a sense of self or do we give them their identity through anthropomorphising them? 

I was urged to think about this after reading an article in New Scientist online as to whether animals can or cannot commit suicide. We have all heard that lemmings are sometimes taken to jumping off cliffs when food is short but this has turned out to be a myth as when their population gets out of control predators find them easier to catch so their numbers dwindle.

Some 'higher order' animals such as whales and dolphins have been known to beach themselves, but is this due to a suicidal attempt or is it in response to external factors such as seismic activity? Who knows…

The seemingly definitive test of self awareness is to see if animals recognise themselves in a mirror or a picture, some great apes and elephants manage this, but there has never been any documented evidence of these animals committing suicide, so are they really aware of who or what they are? 

From the various pets I have owned over the years I can certainly attest to the fact that none of them recognised themselves in a mirror. All the fish I have owned, although intelligent, still attacked their own reflection, birds tend to do the same. Both cats and dogs never seem to pay much attention to themselves, and even though there may be a few instances of a faithful dog pining for its owner after their death, none of these animals thought it was a worthy enough reason to end their lives.

Is self awareness or consciousness the ability to fathom the ability to end your own existence? Spooky thought isn't it. It makes me wonder why humans are the only animal that has suicidal tendencies. When you think about it, wars would not be fought so hard if you had an overriding instinct to live, as you see with most animals, once they have been beaten they will run away to fight another day rather than fight on to futilely die over land or honour or whatever like we humans do. Makes me wonder why we have this trait in our makeup. 

I expect someone will bring up religion into this, but I don't think that the human ability to believe in an afterlife has much to do with suicide as the Christian belief says that people who take their own lives go to hell, ergo taking your life to end the pain will only make things worse and lets face it, happy people don't tend to jump off tall buildings.

I'm going to stop thinking about this, it makes my head hurt slightly, but if anyone has any idea as to why animals don't commit suicide, please let me know.

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On Social Interaction

I know, I don't post for weeks and now I'm writing like three buses have come along at once, but here are a few thoughts from a comment that Melissa left on a previous post.

I commented that I don't see many of the old Modbloggers writing as much, I assumed it was because we have been blogging for many years and are running out of fresh things to write about.

I suppose you could say that we were the ground breakers at the time, boldly writing our way into the fledgling social interactions that later became the multi-national corporate sites like Facebook that millions of us use every day. 

But back when such sites never existed we bloggers and usenet users made friends by writing about ourselves and leaving comments on each other blogs, no different from what we do today although the numbers of sites that allowed you to do this were few and the amount of people who did just as miniscule. 

Sometimes you would stumble upon a blog that you particularly enjoyed and you would trade your chat address with that person and you would make a real friend, many of my followers have read my musings since the AOL days oh so many moons ago, and I'm glad to say that on the most part everyone who mattered has followed me wherever I have chosen to write.

But I began to wonder at why we are all becoming a little bit quieter, many of us wrote at least once a day and have done so for years, so I doubt much of that is to do with lack of subject matter. 

Then Melissa pointed out that between Facebook, Twitter and all the other social sites available now, there are so many places to keep in touch and interact it's becoming hard to find the time to write a blog post. The majority of us now just leave a snippet of information on a status feed.

I know I spend most of my day reading updates on Twitter, I like to do so because it keeps me abreast of all the news and I have also made a lot of new friends through it. I'm sure I must spend a lot of the time reading what my friends on Facebook are up to as well, although I don't use that site as much now as I find it rather dull with all the stupid farming games taking over.

Have I become a victim of the 140 character blog? 

I think I have, Neil Gaiman, the writer of many wonderful novels including the Sandman series has been an avid blogger for as long as most of us, but even he's admitted that he's slowed down since the emergence of Twitter because it's easier to engage with your fans as it were. 

On my blog I can write something and over a couple of days a few people will leave a comment or two and I can reply, sometimes discussing a certain subject or whatever. On Twitter or Facebook I can leave a little remark and almost instantly I'm chatting away with someone about the subject and before you know it the thread has turned into a thesis.

Have blogs become too slow a way of engaging with people? I hope not, I still enjoy writing here, I find it rather cathartic. The responses I get from people for what sometimes can be more of a diary post about certain aspects of my life can be very helpful to me. I like getting the advice of people who come from different walks of life and ages than I, I also like to hear the responses from people of different countries and how they view topics that have no or little bearing on their lives, it sometimes gives you a perspective that you would never have seen otherwise.

I can also say that my politics have changed over the years from the valued arguments that a few bloggers have written and if blogging was to die as a social interaction I fear that there would be many people out there who would miss a valuable opportunity for self education through the anecdotal writings of others.

So fellow bloggers of a certain age who were here from the genesis of online writing, we have the experience and knowledge that new bloggers can only crave. There are no excuses for not writing, well, there may be one or two, but you know… So I urge you to keep the blogging flame alive by writing at least once a week, it's not too much to ask, after all, who will teach the noobs?

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Digital Changeover

The day is upon us, for our little transmitting area the digital revolution is about to take place, the analogue signal is going to be replaced by digital and by the beginning of April all analogue television and radio services will be changed over to digital transmissions. Usually I'd be over the moon, nothing like keeping up with technology I always say, it's about bloody time that we were brought kicking and screaming into the twenty first century.

Although I'm not at all happy, I don't have any of the up to date technology needed to receive any of these digital signals. I've only recently got given a little TV from me old mate SmilingGrump, now it's going to be obsolete unless I buy a digital receiver, the cheapest I have found is £25. Likewise my clock radio, the only working radio in my house will no longer function. *sigh* I'm not in the position to pay out a quarter of my monthly income on a little plastic box at the moment, so it seems I'll go without.

Fair enough, I don't listen much to the radio nowadays and the TV is seldom on, I only use it to watch dvd's mostly, but it would be nice to have the option. If I was 75 or over I'd get a nice little lump sum from the government to help me out in buying all these new fancy digital gizmo's that are needed, alas I am not and there is no help for layabout bums like me. I'm not going to paint everyone with the same brush here, but most of the septuagenarians I know are rather well off or have trouble knowing what this new fangled telebox thing is, so I fail to see why they are getting all the handouts. Surely any handouts should be based on your income, not on how old you are. 

I still don't believe that bums like me should get any more than we do, after all access to TV isn't a high priority for your wellbeing nor will it help you find a job or feed you, but I'm a firm believer in fairness.

For a lot of us stay at home wasters, the TV is the only thing that is keeping you sane, perhaps the radio might be the only voice you will hear in a week, so not having access to services that were there for years without question will be a blow to many people. Personally I'm quite happy with a book or the internet, I lived quite happily without a TV for nearly two years, but I can easily see the future madness of certain types of bums who rely on their fix of Jeremy Kyle in the mornings or missing their soap operas.

I can see these people feeling rather abandoned.  

More than likely they are already suffering from depression, being out of work can be a very lonely existence and very demoralising at times, so a little diversion from the banality of life through moving pictures and a little humour from the radio can be a big boost.

Will I bow down and go without? I doubt it, I'll have to try and make things balance somehow so that I can buy this silly plastic box, mainly because the University Challenge final is in two weeks and I rather enjoy watching Jeremy Paxman sneer at the know it all students, plus the weekends are a bit more bearable with some noise in the flat when I know that all my friends are out enjoying themselves and I'm stuck at home being skint.

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General Stuff

I know I know, almost two weeks since my last blog post. I blame it on the fact that my internet connection has been a bit ropey and it's near impossible to type a blog post on the phone and very impossible to leave comments on Vox blogs, although I do have a nifty app that allows me to keep up to date with my favorite blogs through the RSS feeds. I've noticed that a lot of us old timer bloggers don't write as much anymore, I suppose after writing on almost all subjects over the years has curtailed what there is left for us to write about.

So, what's been going on in the Kingsters life recently? Not a lot.

Mainly been watching old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nearly halfway through season five now and also the Six Nations Championship has been taking my attention on the weekends. I've also been playing Final Fantasy 1 on the iPhone, well worth the £5 if anyone is into that type of game. I've also applied for a few more jobs, one juicy one in Gloucester as an artworker, half decent money and not too far to travel, I have the skills in the photoshop and indesign area but I don't have the one year industry experience, but nothing ventured nothing gained I say. So far only twelve applicants so I'm feeling rather hopeful.

I also got a small commission to design a pump clip for the Hetty Pegler Brewery, I'd share it on here but I haven't handed over the finished design yet, but there is a copy on my portfolio site which is linked on the left there <—-

I think this will be just a one off design commission that will be payment in kind, so I'll have free beer for an evening or suchlike, I rather like working on a barter system, it suits my personality. I'm glad I don't have to depend on it though, otherwise I'd have starved a long time ago.

And for those of you who are not in the know, it was Squilla's birthday yesterday, being the gentleman I am I wont share how old she is, but lets just say it was a significant one. I know she's been a bit lax about posting on her blog of late, but I think you should all go over there and say hello to urge her on to putting pen onto paper again as it were.

I know she'll pop over here and have a read sometime soon, but I am aware that her and the Fundinator were having a dirty weekend away, so if you can't leave her a massage anywhere else, feel free to do so here 😀

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Jobless

I watched this program on TV last night entitled 'Jobless', obviously I had to watch it because I'm in the same situation and thought I might be able to garner some hints and tips on looking for work. If you missed it and you live in the UK you can watch it on BBC iPlayer for the next seven days if you click this link.

Anyhow, the program was more of a documentary seen through the eyes of the children following several different families from wide ranging areas and classes after both bread winners had been made redundant and how they were dealing with their new situations. 

There wasn't anything I didn't expect to see there, the initial pain of trying to get your benefits sorted out, the demeaning visits to the job centre, the depressing hunt for jobs that almost always ended up in no interview and sometimes not even a courtesy letter acknowledging or informing you that you were unsuccessful.

I did think that all the people involved were very brave in allowing a film crew to follow their lives at such a time, I know first hand how frustrating and depressing not having a paid job is like, especially if you have been working all of your life up until this bloody recession. 

It's not nice watching a grown man cry because the realisation that he no longer seems to have any value in the world of work, nor is it nice to watch him get his hopes up because he gets an interview after six months of searching only to be told that although he had the relevant skills for the job he had no paper qualification like other candidates have, even though he'd been doing the same kind of job for over twenty years.

Here's something that was highlighted in the film, the job centres encourage people to sign on as couples under the pretence that it would be easier as only one of them has to sign on, but in reality it's a way of hiding the true statistics of how many people are unemployed as the second person is not counted as a job seeker. Makes you wonder how many people have been pigeonholed in this category to help the politicians look good.

I suspect that these people, invariably wives or girlfriends, are then forgotten and left as collateral losses in the new world of employment.

On a personal note I found the program empowering, it actually showed me that although I'm pretty much up shit creek, I'm not the only one and I'm lucky in the fact that I only have myself to worry about and although I may be using candles in the near future, I'm not likely to lose my house.

I shouldn't feel guilty and depressed that I'm not getting any interviews, it's not my fault, all I can do it keep trying. The only thing that was a bit of a downer is that only two of the people featured finally managed to find a decent job. 

I suppose that is a sign of the times…

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Starfleet Commander

I've been playing this Facebook game called Starfleet Commander for a couple of months, it's rather rubbish as games go but it keeps me entertained. The gist of the game is to build colonies and mine/harvest resources to build better buildings and to research technologies to build up your starship fleet.  It's not a linear nor a turn based game, you just do your own thing at your own speed, but the whammy comes from the fact you can raid other peoples planets for resources and for fun.

Personally I am getting to the stage where I'm almost a force to be noticed, until today. This utter bastard who is like 20,000 levels higher up the ladder than me totally destroyed my fleet and stole 70% of my resources. 

I can't be angry about it because that is how the game works and I should have done what they keep harping on about which is fleet save, which is to send out your fleet on a round trip bearing any resources onboard so if your planet gets attacked you don't lose anything. 

However, because I have only been attacked once before and didn't lose much I have been a bit lax in doing so, plus I check in quite often so I can see if anybody is coming in time.

This time round this bugger waited until there was a scheduled maintenance to the site before springing an attack, all the usual bits and bobs were allowed to keep running but we couldn't log in, so when I went back to see what was going on it was too late for me to do anything, so I ended up losing everything.

It will only take me a few days to get back to where I was, but what got me is the underhandedness of how it was done, taking this clandestine approach, especially from a player so much more powerful than me, was rather below the belt I felt.

I shall not let this one lie, I'm going to work hard at avenging my fleet, making sure that this Machiavellian idiot gets his or her comeuppance. I could ask my allies in the Pug Empire to help me in my vengeance right away, but I always feel that revenge is better served stone cold.

In about three months time, I'll let you know how it went.

/nerdy post about a game nobody plays.

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Subscriptions

I had a quick look on Google Reader to see how many people subscribe to my blog through the RSS feeds, it's a meagre twelve, which was a surprise as there are 125 Vox subscribers following me, which is a nice round figure 😀

I suspect that of the 125 followers only a small percentage actually take the time to read and comment on anything I write as some Vox members are simply there to gain followers for marketing purposes or spamming, very much like Twitter followers.

So I can safely conclude that I have twelve regular readers. Bit disappointing really…

I know I'm being a bit harsh on myself, not everyone uses Google Reader and a lot of people visit my blog manually and many of my Vox followers are 'real' followers who don't need to use an RSS reader because all Vox posts can be seen within your neighbourhood, but twelve!!! Hardly worth expending my finger energy typing!

I think I should be grateful to you precious anonymous twelve, I suspect I know who a few of you are, but it would be nice to know for sure. I think I'd bet my bottom dollar that the majority of you have followed my writings since Modblog. 

So here's a big thank you from me to you, the Treasured Twelve, far better than the Magnificent Seven.

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A Blog Post!!!

It has been brought to my attention that I have been very lax at writing blog posts over the last couple of weeks, and yes, when I did look I found that I haven't written anything since 14th February. I think this is the longest blog hiatus I have ever taken since I first started blogging at AOL all those many moons ago. I've also been very quiet on Twitter.

Why have I not bothered? I don't know, seems that I have nothing to write about. I could argue that over the years I have written about most subjects and I don't want to bore any of you by writing about things I have already covered. But I have many new readers out there who have not read about the numerous things I wrote about whilst I was at AOL, Modblog or EFX2, so that's hardly an excuse. 

Because my blog has primarily about my life experiences I suppose I should come to the conclusion that sitting at home all day doing nothing leaves me with nothing to write about. As much as I have always lived with the maxim that 'your life is not your job', I'm steadily coming to the conclusion that without work I'm fading away.

It brought it home to me recently when I really needed the money to do things that normal people do to enjoy themselves. I want to be able to take someone out for a meal, I want to be able to visit the pub whenever I choose, I want to be able to go to the cinema, I'd love to be able to jump in my car and drive somewhere to visit friends. Music nights down the pub have shifted to the following Wednesday's which is a week after I get my state handout, so by then I've already spent the meagre amount on other things. All these things are simply impossible when you have no money and no job. 

Things I used to take for granted have steadily been replaced by compromise. Going out socialising with my friends down the pub has become a cheap bottle of wine at home on my own. Going to the cinema has now become downloading a film and watching it at home alone. Going out for a meal is now a bowl of noodles at home. Jumping in my car has now turned into watching my car falling to pieces on the driveway because I can't afford to run it.

Each compromise has steadily turned me into a hermit in the name of 'saving money'.

I'm slowly losing my RL friends too. I no longer get invited to places as it's always assumed that I wouldn't have the cash to go, so what is the point of asking me? I could jump ship and spend my time with a couple of deadbeats who have no intention of finding work but I think that would just mean that I have given up and I'd become an institutionalised bum. I think I'd rather die than give up.

The frustrating thing about it all is that there is a guaranteed job locally as a pizza delivery driver, but you need your own car. Its been advertised on a weekly basis for months and I have asked for some state help to get my car on the road so I can get this job, I was offered a grant of £100 which would not even cover the cost of the road tax, so god only knows how I'd afford the MOT and the insurance just so I could earn some money. I popped into the pizza place to ask if there was any way around my problem, alas, even though they are a large multi-national they do not offer any help for prospective job hunters. 

Sometimes I feel so helpless and frustrated. For all the jobs I have applied for over the last year I rarely get an acknowledgement letter back and I have yet to even get as far as an interview. 

Most of the jobs I apply for now are through a job website and this particular one shows how many applications a particular post has received. I doubt that there are any advertised jobs that fall below seventy applicants at the moment. Unless you're super qualified or know someone at the company, how is anyone supposed to succeed? I know someone does and that I shouldn't give up, but sometimes it's impossible to even see they sky because of the clouds.

This blog post is fast turning into a whinge and I certainly try my best not to whinge and moan about my situation as I feel it does tend to annoy people. I know something will turn up eventually, I just wish it would happen sooner…

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