Not having a camera with me at all times is getting more and more annoying.

I will often see something which makes me smile, or stop and look again, thinking “did I really just see that!?”.

Today I was walking through town to get the bus. I walked past one of the shelters and turned to look at the really useless electronic displays they have, which displays how long it’s going to be until the next bus might be there. Of course, those displays are about as reliable and informative as a Microsoft Minute.

Anyway, I looked at the display, carried on walking, stopped, looked again. I can’t remember the destinations of these buses, but the 3 it had (in this order) on the display were:

S
T
D

I wish I had a camera to take a photo of that and blog it. It was funny though.

So I went out and bought a new wireless router today, as ours is getting a little old, and the aerial is a bit knackered. So, into Currys Digital I went, knowing they had a sale on. I saw the Netgear router I thought I’d get before, took it to the checkout and paid (not before some weird girl grunted quite loudly and then went a very awesome shade of red and turned to her friends when she realised I was behind her).

So, the £50 was handed over, I left the shop and ignored the sirens that alarmed when I passed through the security scanner.

I got the router home and plugged it in, and wondered why it wasn’t working. I finally came to the conclusion that I needed to plug the modem into the router. Fair enough. However, our modem is USB powered and doesn’t have an ethernet port, so I couldn’t use the modem with the router if I wanted to.

I put it all back in the box, and set the other one up again. I then realised that I’d thrown away the recipt for the router I had bought. That always happens! If someone gives you the item you just bought with the recipt, it always ends up screwed up in your pocket and thrown away. If they put it in the bag then you’ll find you have it when you need it. Damn it!

Anyway, I came upstairs to wallow in the depths of the internet and then recalled going through all of this a few years ago, when we first bought a wireless router. We bought one, realised it didn’t have an ADSL modem built-in, then paid £30 more for one that did.

Hopefully I’ll be able to return the one I got today without the recipt. I still have the bag that says “Sale” on it, and hopefully I’ll see the cashier that I saw yesterday, hand over another £30 and get the right one.

Well done, me.

So, myself, David, Middle D and Tim were sitting in the pool room at The Globe. There was a band playing in the other part of the bar, playing some relatively cheesy song. I said to Tim “All they need now is someone to come out with the Every Rose Has Its Thorn guitar solo.”.

We went into a discussion about Every Rose, and what we thought about it. No more than 2 songs later, they start playing Every Rose Has Its Thorn.

Whenever I hear something, or think of something, I’ll see what it relates to in my mind. I think from doing this I remember things, and eventually have this web of cross-releations and general weird interactions with things going on in my mind.

I guess my mind always has to be doing something, otherwise I’ll get bored and start thinking I’m a duck, or something. Perhaps ducks have very active and numerological minds, who knows?

Anyway, what I mean by this is I’ll hear a number… 72 for example. The number 72 will stay in my mind, and then I’ll think “72… That’s like 7 and 2. 7 and 2 is 9. 9 is my lucky number. Isn’t it funny how I can get my lucky number out of the blue, just from hearing the number 72″, and so on.

Sometimes it’ll go into more depth. I was just wondering if anyone else made lots of thing relate in their minds, with numbers or anything?

I was getting a lift to my Dad’s by my stepdad, who’s a taxi driver. We were just generally talking, and I said “This car is weird. I miss your old one, the Saab. They’re using it again now, aren’t they? Or is the Saab they’re using now a different one?”

He replied with “No, they traded that in a long time ago for a Skoda.”

Less than a minute later we approached the level crossing and he said “Infact, there’s the Skoda they traded it in for.”

Well, merry christmas guys. I’ve become a bit of a scrooge in the recent years. I guess because everything has changed in the past few years, christmas just feels like a day where people eat food and give lots of presents. Which is cool, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not as it used to be.

Well, I got a very nice long coat (thanks Mummy! (and Rob!)), which is awesome. Amongst some other stuff, including a graphics tablet, some fingerless gloves, a cool hat and other things.

It was quite an odd day really. Woken up at 8am; torture!

Hope you all had a good day and enjoy the new year.

I thought that now that I had made this section of the blog, I wasn’t actually going to have any more occurances of freak coincidence. However, one just happened.

After getting home from work yesterday, I was so tired. I headed to bed very early in the evening and just got up at around 2:45 am. A friend of mine is living in Japan right now, and we speak for a while whilst he’s online before bed and I’m at work.

I got up and went downstairs to make a drink before sitting at my PC. Just before sitting down I thought
“I wonder what time it is in Japan right now. It’s Saturday there, I imagine it must be around 3 in the afternoon, perhaps he’s online”.

So, I turned my monitor on, and just I did so I saw him sign in to MSN. Weird.

Incidently I was a little out, it was actually 12pm there, but never-the-less I am being haunted, dammit!

Magic.

How unlucky does a guy have to be to miss 5 buses in under 3 minutes?

We left work early yesterday, after our christmas lunch and secret santa, which was great (yay holiday!). I got a lift into Exeter because my bus wasn’t due for another hour(ish). Upon getting out of the car, I noticed that the traffic going in the direction of home was pretty congested; I blame that on christmas.

Nevermind, I thought. I can relax on the bus home and listen to some music. However, infront of me I saw the F1, an F2, another F1 and two E buses. Those buses are meant to be around 10 minutes apart (and are never on time). I missed them, because of the fucking evil traffic lights which make you wait for half a decade before they change.

I mean, seriously, how unlucky does a guy have to be to actually miss 5 buses home in under 3 minutes?

So I stood at the bus stop looking angry, feeling like Stagecoach had almost ruined a pretty damn good day. I was getting annoyed with some parent and her kids screaming, so I put on my hoodie and started to walk home. After about 5 minutes, I got a bit cold and thought “fuck it” and walked back to the bus stop.

Having waited for about 5 minutes, 3 A buses went past. Wow, incase anyone needed one that badly, because they were all empty.

I waited a little longer and I saw an E bus in the distance. Hurrah. However, upon arrival it was full. And then another one came around the corner. The people who didn’t manage to get on the first one got on, and just as I was about to step on I saw an F2 come. So I flagged it down and got on it, and made it home eventually.

I guess it is because of christmas, more than Stagecoach, really. But having buses coming in groups like that is so bloody annoying for the public. I was so annoyed when I had missed that many buses.

Nevermind, at least I am on holiday now. Although, when I got home I was so tired that I went straight to sleep. I was being a little snappy with people before (sorry to anyone I was talking to, I love you really). Now I’ve just woken up at 2:45 am.

Yay!

Well, like most companies, we did a secret santa at work this year.

I think I’m really crap with gifts, which is strange because I think I’ve got a great imagination. I can never really think of what I want to get someone. Or if I think or something, it doesn’t actually exist, and I don’t have time to go and invent and create it.

So, out of the box I picked the person I’d have to get a gift for. I was quite happy with my selection. The person I got was one of the easier people to get a gift for. However, this time last week I still hadn’t thought of what to get. Eventually I came to the decision that I’d make an image gallery with an admin panel for his website, so that it would be easy for him to upload the drawings he does. The current one he has isn’t so easy.

Thanks to a very magical friend of mine, who we shall refer to as Middle D, I managed to get the majority of this knocked up. Now, looking at it, even though I’m having PHP errors, I’m really glad that I thought of it. I think it’s a very imaginative, useful and original idea for a present. Why buy something someone can use when you can make them something they can use, and can’t make themselves?

So, hopefully I’ll clear up the PHP errors soonish and get it all running. Then I’ll do some tweaks to it over the coming holidays. I just needed to get it working for today.

Hurray!

Taken from a forum post by my friend David

Schizophrenia

Do you hear what I hear?

Multiple Personality Disorder

We three kings disorientated are

Dementia

I think I’ll be home for christmas

Narcissistic

Hark the herald angels sing about me

Manic

Deck the halls and walls and house and lawn and streets and stores and office and town and cars and buses and trucks and trees…

Paranoid

Santa Claus is coming to town to get me.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Thoughts of roasting on an open fire.

Personality Disorder

You better watch out, I’m gonna cry. I’m gonna pout, maybe I’ll tell you why.

Attention Defecit Disorder

Silent night, holy night… ooh, look at the froggy! Can I have a chocolate? Why is France so far away?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells…