Sunday, November 26, 2006

Here is a list of ten things that I do not like

10. Drinking Fountains
I don't mean the act of drinking fountains (how do you drink a fountain anyway? With a curly drinking straw?); No, I am referring to the metal things in the toilet that you press a lever and drinking water comes out of. I am annoyed by them. Or rather, the small children in my school who choose to fill up their water-bottles at the drinking fountain (a process that takes like ten minutes because water comes out of the drinking fountain at about one drop a second), when they could just use the tap in the sink which would take about TEN SECONDS. I think that they actually believe that drinking fountain water is somehow different from tap water. It's not. IT'S THE SAME WATER. This annoys me. Not sure why. I mean, I don't even use the drinking fountain. Firstly it is too close to the door of the bathroom and secondly I think that it is far too low; the drinker always ends up bent over in a kind of gay manner mooning the rest of the school as they walk by. Plus it's impossible to get a decent drink out of the drinking fountain. If I am in the mood for water - and to be honest I am always in the mood for water - I either fill up my water bottle (at the sink!!!!) or I cup my hands and drink from then. This allows me to maintain my dignity by not being bent over and also lets me have more water quicker. Also I can use the moisture left on my hands after drinking the majority of the liquid to give my face a little wash - everyone's a winner.
Actually I think there was a greek myth about a king who told his army to have a drink at a river. All the soldiers who drank (like me) with cupped hands were given golden hats. All the soldiers who drank like pigs on their bellies at the drinking fountain had their heads cut off. Seems a bit harsh to me but then hey, I am not a greek king.
Have I already written a blog about drinking fountains? I can not remember. But anyway there is another one.

9: The Child in Time
This is a book written by gay scottish author Ian 'The Party Animal' McEwan*. We are studying it for English. On the surface, it is a book about loss and grief and the effect that time can have on people. In reality it is about Ian 'Fifteen Incher' McEwan showing off how clever and what a God's gift to literature he is. It is also notable for having about a million references to time in every paragraph. Basically McEwan is saying 'Hey check it out this book is about time - see time is in the title; woah man I just changed tense I JUST CHANGED TENSE!!! AND LOOK I MADE A REFERENCE TO TIME! WOAH THERE'S ANOTHER ONE FLASHBACK TIME!!!! I FLASHED BACK AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE THE JOIN!!! Oh shit man I just flashed forward OH WAIT AND BACK AGAIN you didn't see that coming did you? LOSER! I am very good at writing things."
It is annoying and I have to write a coursework piece on it and pretend to be impressed at the 'subtle' interweaving of the time theme. Subtle? The main character's mother's maiden name is Temperley. THAT MEANS TIME. That's about as subtle as a crowbar.

8: Henry James
I started reading the Henry James book "What Maisie Knew" for my upcoming Oxford interview. It annoyed me because Henry James is a very abstruse writer and his sentences are all about fifteen hundred clauses long. I eventually got bored of reading about some little girl who refuses to be corrupted and started reading "American Psycho" instead, which is about this joker who murders people and talks about suits a lot. In the four weeks I spent reading "What Maisie Knew", I managed to read 118 pages. I have been reading "American Psycho" for two days and - HAHAHA I just opened it to check - I am on page 118. That is so cool I am not even lying. What a crazy coincidence. I love life.
The fact that I an unable to read Henry James means that I am probably not going to get into Oxford University for smart people.

7: The guy who wrote the Eragon books
Maybe this just links to my dislike of young people being talented at things, but there's this fifteen year old who wrote a series of books about gay flying dragons who fly about being clichéd. Seriously, what a knob. He just makes the rest of us look bad. I mean, we have all wanted to write a crappy science fiction swords and sorcerors book at some point, but most of us listen to our internal editors and decide against it. Of course, when I say "we have all" I am naturally referring to myself. I once got 27, 932 words into a three book epic which I tentatively named "Corruption" about a mythical land called Angelterra before realising that it was complete crap. Don't believe me? Here's a sample paragraph:

“Yes, my lord, but, well, some demons suck in the sun to provide them with life. Our men, although they outnumber the demons, cannot match the fighting abilities of them, and they have Tarces to help them. And, you are also mistaken about Chfer. He has no heart to rip out, and as for destroying his cult, I know of another Demon ready to take his place. His name is Syn, and already he nearly matches the power of Chfer. Other than that, we have a fifty-fifty chance of winning. Oh, and before you say it, no, I don’t know where this other demon is.”

Hahaha fifty-fifty chance. Oh man it actually sounds so exciting. I wish I had finished it now. Annoyingly, I can't really remember what happened. I think that the 'lord' mentioned died eventually. Can't remember who Tarces is. Ooh, Chfer got killed by Syn. Syn was a fucking legend - he could melt and transform and he had these wicked sharp claws that were like a metre long. Unfortunately he was then melted by the onset of some other random demon who took over the fair land. HE then got killed by some little kid with a magical crystal and replaced by a big brown cloud monster who represented Corruption who was then killed by some passing angel.
Ahh, memories.

So yeah, this guy decided "you know what, I am just going to ignore my internal editor, churn out a load of shit about gay dragons, get my ultra-rich parents to fund them for me and become a multi-millionaire after the forgettable and badly-made film adaptation comes out". What. A. Knob.

Jealous? Me? HAH hardly! The guy who wrote Eragon (I can't remember his name, so I will just refer to him as Pimply McVirgin) may have millions of dollars, but I still have my credibility.

Thinking about it I probably would have prefered to the millions of dollars.

6: Accidentally annoying lesbians by writing blogs about them
Sorry to any readers (lesbian or otherwise) who were accidentally annoyed by my previous lesbian-related post. If you read the post carefully, I wasn't actually making fun of the lesbians (other than that bit about lesbians wearing tin hats), I was making fun of myself saying lesbian by accilesbiandent. Basically it was a piece of complicated social irony that you do not understand because you are too busy lusting after the boobs on the Angel of the North. Sorry sorry sorry. Please don't hurt me. Here, I painted you a picture to show how sorry I am:


5: Kiddy Kong
I have started playing all the Donkey Kong Land games on the gameboy in recent weeks, and have noticed that as the games progress, the characters that you play as get crappier and crappier. In the 1st, you are Donkey and Diddy Kong - legends. Then Donkey gets fecken KIDNAPPED in the second game and replaced by Dixie Kong, who for some reason can fly using her hair. She is ok but a bit annoying as she is a girl and thus is by definition of the weaker sex (amusingly she was killed off or something and replaced by Tiny Kong in Donkey Kong 64). Then in DK3 even Diddy has fucked off somewhere, to be replaced by Kiddy Kong, who is a baby monkey and looks like THIS:


Look at that. What a total shambles. Looks like a fucking frog. This character is so annoying that I always make him headbutt the giant chainsaw bees every time I get a chance. Amusingly, he too vanished and was replaced by Chunky Kong in DK64. I know too much about old video games.

4: The Water levels on Donkey Kong Land 1, 2, and 3
Water levels are boring, I always accidentally float into the fish, my fingers get tired from all the pumping of the A button to swim about, the fact that I you can go anywhere and everywhere means that it's impossible to find the bloody DK coins which are always hidden in some tiny corner of the map through a see-through wall, how can the damn monkeys swim for so long with their breath held anyway, fish are gay. Fuck water levels.

3: The fact that I have spent the last two weeks playing Donkey Kong instead of working on my Oxford application
Pretty self explanatory really. It is my interview to get into Oxford University (to study English) in about a week, and I have so much stuff to do. I apparently have to find out the names, ages, favourite books, areas of study, sexual persuasions and star signs of every single don in Oxford in case any of them happen to interview me and bring it up. I have about 6 thick-ass books that I really need to have read. I need to think up a really persuasive explanation for my desire to study English @ Oxford University. This is added to the coursework that was due in 5 weeks ago which I have not started (why oh why did I decide to do my coursework essay on Karl Pilkington????) rowing, and the rest of the crap I have to put up with in my life (reading all the shite syllabus books necessary, normal homework, talking to my girlfriend, writing blogs about how much work I need to do, doing the crossword).
I am basically screwed for Oxford. They are never going to let me in to do English. Unless... I print off the whole manuscript of Corruption thusfar and present it to them on the day, with the promise that I will finish it if they let me into the university? I mean, they are guaranteed to be swayed by high-class and dramatic dialogue such at this:

Shivering, Nettle crept forward.
“ I know you’re out th-aaagh!” A dark shape leapt out from behind the moss covered tree and pinned him to the ground, before battering in the face and screaming.
“AAAAAAGH!”
“AAAAAAGH!”
“AAAAAAGH!”
Nettle rolled into a small ball and was promptly beaten unconscious by the dark shape.


It goes on like that.

2: Hatchet Zombie
Hatchet Zombie was a little mini-blog I started over the summer in an attempt to persuade myself to blog more than once a week. The idea was that I would just post random shit up there every day. The idea did not work and I have not written anything on it for about two million weeks. I am depressed by this symbol of my failure and so Hatchet Zombie has now forever been banished to the netherworld of 'not listed on Blogger'. It might come back one day (it won't).

Now let us never speak of it again.

1: Oh crap I miscounted there are only nine things that I do not like and I cannot be bothered to change all the titles

THE END ...?

Today's Lol of the Week:

^lol

*Description and nickname may be made up

Monday, November 20, 2006

I met a lesbian the other day

It was bare exciting. Well, not from a sexy point of view - she didn't bring a fit girlfriend and start lezzin away just for my entertainment (once again the internet has lied to me... curses). But from a social point of view it was FASCINATING. Ish.

As you know, I am a very polite and considerate young man, and - actually - I was unsure of the social etiquette of talking to lesbians. I mean, what do you say? Do you actively raise the subject of lesbianity, or do you just let it slide? Is it taboo, or do you treat it with a knowing wink as if to say - "Hey babe, I know you like the women and hey, so do I - we are mutual sailers through the curvy seas of femininity; it's cool, you don't have to worry about your dykish ways around ME". I just didn't know what to say, so set about creating an analogy to describe my feelings. I suppose it boils down to two options - do you treat the lesbian like she's just got a new tattoo, or like she has an obvious and disgusting deformity? Let me explain.
If you met a girl with a huge tattoo on the side of her neck (perhaps it's a lesbian; many lesbians do have tattoos; I think it's part of the hormonal makeup), you would assume that she wants you to comment on it - after all, she wouldn't go out and get the tattoo just to entertain herself - she wants to get people talking about it. Thus any passer-by would be expected to say "Oh hey, shit, what's that thing on your neck? It looks like a rose! That's awesome." That would be socially acceptable.
However, if someone, say, had some illness that manifested itself with a huge red oozing skin lesion (say, the Black Death; many lesbians do have the Black Death; I think it's part of their hormonal makeup), I reckon that it'd be the height of rudeness to say the same thing. And the thing about people with tumours is that they often have superpowers due to their prior contact with nuclear waste. These superpowers can manifest themselves in the ability to jump over tall buildings, laser breath, and spikes, and if they take offense at your careless cussery of their illness they will take you down. This just goes to show - you can never be too careful with lesbians and the language you use to talk about their lezzic antics.

This reasoning, coupled with my uncertainty as to whether this particular specimin had come out of the cupboard or whatever it is those homosexuals do, led me to decide to not broach the whole lesbian subject at all. Plus, she looked like one of those angry lesbians that I have read about in The National Enquirer. Better to just not mention the subject and to let sleeping dogs lie.

Not that I'm saying she was a dog. As lesbians go - and my knowledge of lesbians is pretty much limited to two ladies I saw holding hands on the street once - she was a fairly atypical subject. I mean, she wasn't wearing one of those little tin hats that all lesbians have to wear - you know, the ones with the pink flags and the propellors on top. Neither was she sporting hiking boots and reading a book by Germaine Greer. I mean, she didn't even have a tattoo on the back of her ear to highlight her availability to other lesbians. For a second I was confused, disturbed even. If I hadn't been specifically informed of her swinging tendencies by a third party, I would not have a clue as to her abnormality. Had the National Geographic lied to me? For if this relatively normal-looking person was as bent as a roundabout, who else was secretly enjoying the company of other women? Luckily, my girlfriend is not allergic to cheese, so that scientifically rules her out, but when I think about all the other females I know who could be filthy raving gays... it makes me shiver.

I decided that I had to talk to her, just to see if there was anything obviously different between her and other girls. Maybe she lisped or mispronounced her rhotic r sounds or clicked her tongue after every sentence or something. I just had to know.
Of course, I had to mentally prepare myself for the controntation. Firstly, I glued a fake moustache on my face, just to stop her from thinking that I was a woman and thus trying to have sex with me in a fit of uncontrollable lust (this happened to my friend Hilary... he never walked again). Having decided not to mention the whole lesbian thing I then thought up a few good lesbian conversation topics:
  • Women and all their crazy foibles.
  • Ellen Degeneres.
  • Tampons.
  • Those lesbians glamour models who were in FHM a few months ago.
  • Jo Brand.
  • Boobs.
  • Jo Brand's boobs.
  • Hiking boots and fleeces (damnably, I had forgotten to wear both my hiking boots and my huge comfy fleece to this event, meaning that I was crucially unprepared to swap fashion tips)

    Once this was done, I had a few drinks to get my courage up, then sidled up. I can't exactly remember the specifics of the conversation, but it went kind of along these lines.

    Me: Hi there! *Give a knowing wink*
    Her: Hello.
    My Mind: Ok, going well, haven't brought up the lesbian thing yet. Nice work, Tom.
    Me: So... wassup? Done anything fun today?
    Her: Not really.
    Me: Oh, that's a lesbian.
    My Mind: Shame. Shame. Shame. I meant to say shame. Did I just say lesbian?
    Her: What?
    My Mind: Abort. Abort. Abort.
    Me: Well, I have to be off. See you les- later.
    *I run*

    Smooth.

    So what did I learn from the whole experience? Absolutely nothing, except that lesbians smell faintly like clocks. Remember that, children - if you smell clocks, fall to the floor and adopt the foetal position until the lesbian goes away.

    The More You Know!

    By the way, if you think that you are the lesbian featured in this post, you aren't.

    (Fun Fact: the preceding post is 1043 words long. The word 'lesbian' is featured 23 times. This means that for a post devoted to lesbians, they only take up 0.0220517737% of the actual content. The more you know!)
  • Thursday, November 9, 2006

    Ameriblog 2 - The Hockey Match

    On about the fourth day of the trip to America, we went to see an 'ice hockey' match, between the home team known as "The Boson Bruins" (FUN FACT: a bruin is a type of bear), which had a stadium full of fans and which, the commentary implied, were a force for good and a shining beacon of civilisation over the 'ice hockey' world, and the 'Calgary somethings' (Can't remember) who had about two fans, wore cowboy hats and were, the commentary implied, evil.

    I was a bit annoyed as I walked into the hockey arena, for two distinct reasons. The first was that, on the coach ride to the rink, we watched the remake of Godzilla, and I was really annoyed at the ending. Yeah well done Mattew Broderick and Maria Pitillo, you killed all of this creature's children, then when it got (quite justly) annoyed at you, you ran away and got your mate with a helicopter to blow it up. Wow you heroes. I mean Godzilla didn't even TRY start a fight on you. It didn't eat meat it posed no actual threat to the people other than the fact that it was big and a bit clumsy with its tail. And we were meant to feel happy when they killed it at the end. Fuck that I hope they all get AIDs and die.
    The other reason that I was annoyed was that I had just been given a free tshirt. Now usually this is a cause for jubilation and celebration - free things are always good, free tshirts 100 times more so. But firstly the tshirt was made of what I can assume was paper. It was also XL size, and we're not talking British 'Slightly Podgy' XL sizes, we're talking American "I drink a bucket of bacon fat every day for breakfast" XL here, thus the shirt was easily big enough to fit over my head and the four layers of clothing I was wearing. However what really annoyed me was the logo printed on the shirt, which proclaimed that I was now "Property of the Hub of Hockey". HOW CAN YOU BE PROPERTY OF A HUB. It made no sense and it annoyed me. But whatever I still wore the shirt because, to be honest, it was free and anyway I soon forgot my annoyance when I walked into the main rink area itself.

    I mean, wow. It's hard to find a decent simile to describe this rink. I suppose if you're American you have probably been in an "ice hockey" rink at some point so I suppose you know what I'm talking about here, but we are British and the most extreme our sporting arenas get are perhaps having some Mozart piped over the rugger at half time or having - on really wild days - a performance from the Queen's bagpipe regiment. But we have NOTHING like this arena. Christ man, it was like being trapped inside a giant pinball table. A giant japanese pinball table. A giant japanese pinball table inside a huge commercial break.

    I had already intuited that America is a country that runs on advertisements, flags, and being generally over the top, but fucking hell... literally every seat, every barrier, every player, every surface, EVERY NOUN YOU CARE TO MENTION was covered in huge LCD screens advertising beer bank accounts mobile (sorry, 'cell') phones mcdonalds kfc dunkin' donuts tv stations radio shows more beer coca cola upcoming games applebees pepsi ice cream. Interestingly, I noticed that there were few, if any, adverts for "Get A Life", the latest novel from Nobel-Prize-winning South American author Nadine Gordimer. My ears were bombarded with a thousand different (and equally tacky noises) - adverts blaring, children crying, ten-second snatches of hip-hop flashing, virgins dancing, hard-rock blasting, electro blooping... it was like one of those films when the main character gets the ability to hear people's thoughts and then there's invariably a scene when he's in Time Square and he suddenly hears EVERYONE'S THOUGHTS AT THE SAME TIME and he's like "Stop it stop it" because it's just a dinnish cacaphony of sound pollution and then he starts crying and he puts his hands to his ears BUT THATS NO GOOD because the sound is INSIDE his mind. Like that. And this was even before the players skated on. This was like the warm up noise.

    When the players came on, I was rewarded with yet another interesting glimpse into the psyche of the American people (about three seconds in I decided to take an anthrologist's view of events) - they have literally no concept of fair play. I mean, they don't even pretend to be impartial. The home team each came on seperately, each greeted by a personal introduction, their own soundbite, a little fanfare, and raucous fan applause. They got to skate about a bit. The commentator was basically orgasming over them.

    Then the opposition came on. All at once, with no introduction, to the gusty booing of the assembled fans. But I mean, I was a little confused. I didn't even know that they were the opposition. I mean, how was I to know? There was no hint. I wish that they'd, like, signposted it more. I dunno, they could have played the Imperial Death March from Star Wars when they came on. Or, like, made the entire rink go ominously red and flashed skulls on the huge video screen? That would have simplified the entire procedure up and really showed me who to cheer for. OH WAIT THEY DID. It was so ridiculously biased.
    This interesting one-sidedness continued into the play itself. Every time the Bruins piloted the puck into the back of the net, all the lights in the stadium flashed on and off repeatedly, the American Flag appeared on the video screen, and the commentator screamed "BOSTON SCORE! WOO!" (NB: he actually said woo. It was a properly excited woo. WOO) However, whenever Calgary blasted a puck into the back of the net, all the lights sort of went sad - not sure how lights can go sad but trust me they did - and our commenter was like "Calgary - sigh - score" as those he had to announce that his mother had just been raped by a cactus.

    (Sorry I just have to pause here. I'm typing this in the library and a guy wearing a huge mustard yellow and ketchup red checked scarf just walked past me. He looks like such a fucking mug)

    It was actually hilarious. Because I consider my political ideology to be 'contrarian' and because I felt so damn sorry for them, I started to cheer for Calgary halfway through. The yank sitting in front of me actually turned round and glared at me as though cheering for the opposite team was a display of bad sportsmanship. He was pretty hefty looking and looked like he could take me in a fight (who am I kidding Dale Winton could probably take me in a fight), so I shut up. Luckily, at that point the game also stopped, so it didn't really look like I had backed down on my contrarian principles. When it restarted again, after like fifteen minutes of adverts, I cheered under my breath (Go Calgary) and nobody noticed.

    Oh yeah I forgot to mention; the game consisted, as far as I can tell, of three twenty minute long thirds. We were in that rink for literally two and a half hours. You know how in football when there's a red card or something, they pause the game for a few seconds to sort it out then get right back into it again? Because they know that people come to football matches to watch other (better paid) people play football, yeah? It seems to me that people go to 'Ice Hockey' matches just to watch adverts. They would play hockey for ten minutes, then all the lights would flash and an advert would pop up on the big screen while people ran around the rink with brooms. These ads were so weird - they basically consisted of display the company's logo on the screen next to crowd footage. They pretended that they were just free fan giveaways - "Papa Joe's Pizza wants to award a free seat upgrade to THIS PERSON *show video footage*" and everyone just lapped it up, but I knew better. I. Knew. Better.

    This doesn't sound too bad, but turst me: it reached preposterous limits; about halfway through the second third, the lights came up and an advert for, like "KFC's Special Fan" or something came on. "Jimmy Squashinger" boomed the commentator (can't remember the actual name) "Is tonight's KFC special fan: Jimmy has a rare terminal neurological disease that has crippled him and has limited his life severely... SO IN CONJUNCTION WITH KFC WE ARE GIVING HIM FREE TICKETS!!!"
    Then the screen showed a shot of Jimmy and his family just hangin' in their seats. They all waved enthusiasically. Well, Jimmy didn't, because he was just some fat slug-boy in a wheelchair. He was pretty much staring into space. SO HIS MOTHER GRABBED HIS ARM AND MADE HIM WAVE AT THE CAMERA TOO.

    Everybody in the audience cheered.

    I wanted to cry.

    I still do. But mainly because I'm hungry. But on the other hand, I made up a new slogan for America.

    "America: we go beyond self parody."

    Wednesday, November 8, 2006

    Wednesday, November 1, 2006

    Ameriblog (Part 1)

    This is the blog that the world - nay - the UNIVERSE - has been waiting for. It will answer one of the ultimate questions of our time. What did I think of America? I bet you are all DYING to know. I bet you're just WAITING for me to skewer this awesome iron giant with the white hot slithers of intellectual shrapnel whizzing away from the cataclysmic detonation of my white-hot wit. You're not? Well tough fuck off then you gays.

    But I can't be bothered to write a good introduction to this blog. What does it matter anyway anyway you people only read this hoping I'll make a spleling mistake so you can point it out on the comments and feel smart. So just imagine the three-hundred word description of the fact that I went on a rowing trip to America, got searched a million times, managed to piss off the VISA inspector man and got my name typed into a computer, did some rowing, toured the USA and came home again. Now I'll get to the meat of the post.


    I just don't know how American people do it. I just don't. I don't know how they can manage to all stay so happy and jolly and generally legendish when they live in that country. In the whole two-week trip I came into contact with millions of Americans and they were all jolly and smiling and generous. For example my chum Fudge (so called because his second name is Packer, natch), tried to buy something at a shop. He HAD the money and was getting out of his pocket, when the dear old cashier said "Don't worry son" or something and pressed a button on his till. A LITTLE DRAWER POPPED OUT OF THE DESK AND MONEY CAME OUT WHICH THE CASHIER GAVE TO FUDGE TO PAY FOR HIS SWEETS. I mean dude wtf. We all just gazed at the cashier and our faces were like :o. And he gazed back and gave a little wink. I felt like crying "Jeepers!". But I didn't. That's just an example of the level of safeness that we're dealing with here; Back in England the cashier would probably wink at you but then you realise that it's just her miserable NHS-prescription glass eye collapsing under the weight of the misery of her pathetic minimum wage rainy-day existence. Sheesh.
    I would say that in the entire week, I came into contact with, like, 30 safe Americans and about four twattish ones. But fair do's I guess; all bar one of the twattish ones were shopkeepers who were unamused when we asked how much of their stuff was for free. The other twat was a rower who tried to punch our coxswain. This was while they were both sitting in different boats. Following our mid-race crash in which both of our boats had stopped dead and our stroke man had punched the aforementioned rower in the face with his oar. So yeah I guess perhaps the twattishness was warranted.

    Wait, that means that there were literally ZERO non-nice Americans in the entire of the USA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, the bits I saw - Boston, Philly and EN-WHYYY. Which surprises me hardcore because, in my opinon, America is literally the most polluted country EVAR. Now I don't mean environmentally polluted - although seriously guys not every single one of you needs a 4x4 you LIVE IN NEW ENGLAND NOT THE MOON - I'm talking more on a moral, cultural and ethical basis.

    I just don't understand how they can stay so CHIPPER when they live in such a cultural wasteland. I'm sorry but America has no culture whatsoever. Unless 'The American Flag' is a culture. Because they sure like their American flags. An awful lot. I wouldn't be surprised if all of America had sex with their flags just before they go to bed at night. Either that or the flags are actually sentient beings who are slowly invading the world, starting at the major superpower. Perhaps they sprount from the ground. No shit; we were driving along and I saw this flowerbed. Except it wasn't planted with flowers. Oh no. Oh NOOOOO. It was planted with - get this - GET THIS - YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT - American flags!!!!! No shit. Just a flowerbed filled with minature American flags. I saw this and buried my head in my hands. When I unearthed it I was just in time to see the petrol station with literally twenty mini-flags mounted on the top. I mean shit, why go for one BIG flag when you can really break the bank and wang out LOTS OF LITTLE ONES? I can picture it now in my brain. Actually, shit, no I can't. I think I've forgotten what the American flag looks like now without my minutely reminder. Oh wait there's one:

    Wicked. But seriously I mean, ok, we get it lads, you are a country with a flag now for the love of GOD please stop reminding yourselves. Seriously, what would England be like if everyone stuck

    Union Jacks up wherever they wanted? I'll tell you what it'd be IT WOULD BE A HELL. We English are plenty patriotic enough anyway we don't need a (to be honest, pretty goofy-looking) piece of cloth to remind us that we have been chosen to live on some big rock in the middle of the sea. I mean, check out our football (sorry, 'soccer') hooligans! We totally reamed those Spanish Resteraunt Owners during Euro 2000! Go England! Throwing plastic chairs at Germans and breaking windows; that is my idea of real patriotism - not some dumb flag which is just another example of the quasi-patriotism in the fake shell of the American ideal in what is essentially a total quasi-shell of a quasi-country. I don't even know what the last sentence meant but boy it did sound deep and prophetic, didn't it? I believe I'll leave it as is and if anybody asks me what it means I will just nod wisely and stroke my beard. My beard is blonde and like two milimetres long. I am going to let it grow and see if I end up looking like a Man. But I digress. I think I could probably sum up the

    previous few paragraphs in fourteen words: America is totally phony. That's only like four words. Ok, NOW it's fourteen.

    I'm pretty sure that I didn't see one authentic shop in the entire fucking country. The small shops all had weird exotic names that implied that the owners were Native Americans, Martians, or Irish (no shit I saw a pub called Finnigan's Wake... with a leprechaun painted on the door!). Although, I was amused by the "Wok King" diner placed directly next to "Dairy Queen". THEY COULD GET MARRIED. I see the humour in everyday situations. I am a true comic.
    In the meanwhile, the big shops either had names like "Mom & Pop's Cornershop" (not owned by anyone's MUM or DAD) "The General Store" (not true you could not buy generals there), "The Village Bakery" (I don't know what sort of bakeries you have in your village but I have yet to see a bakery that is like four stories tall) or "The Fishing Shack" (not a shack). They were all TOTALLY FAKE I actually felt my soul being sucked out from under my feet at the sight of the Store Associates cheerily handing out Free-Samples-Of-Lite-Non-Trans-Fat-Liteweight-Turkey-American-Cheez-Wotsit-Slice-Bites-Plastik while waving the American flag and listening to The Star Spangled Banner muzak being piped through the intercom at a low-level drone.



    At least back in England they give their stores depressing names and get on with it. You go to Budgens, you know you're not in for fun. But you go into BEST BUY, there's an implication that you might just have the best buying experience of your entire life!! Not true. They didn't even have Bonkers 11: Forevolution in the CD place. NO BONKERS.
    So in conclusion, Budgens = British Sense of Acceptance of Place and the Essential Misery of Life.
    Best Buy = American Fake Piped Optimism In A Jar.
    I mean, seriously, would you be able to trust a country that produced THIS as a serious NON-IRONIC piece of art?


    Ok I can't be bothered to write any more that's it for part 1 of the Ameriblog. In the next installment, I'll probably discuss how shit America is some more, featuring a hockey match, a terminally ill young boy, America's complete lack of grasp of the concept of irony, and my face going like :o. Hope to see you there!!!!!!!!!

    OH FUCK THE FLAGS ARE ATTACKING



    we will exterminate you








    all hail bezalaroth, king of the flag people




    noooooooooo