Nutz: Chasing a Noodle

I used to be indecisive... now I'm not so sure. 

My Rants

Welcome to the My Rants blog archive, containing all of my recent blogs about this subject.


 

The Handbag of Fire!

Last Thursday evening I was sitting in a wine bar with a couple of friends, partaking in some 'man chat' (travel, women, football… what else do men talk about? Ah yes, Top Gear). Across the room sat a table of ladies, enjoying a Christmas party. They, too, were busy drinking and chatting (travel, men, netball… what else do women talk about? Ah yes, the X-Factor ;) ).

As we approached the end of the evening, my friend pointed across to the 'table of ladies' and casually muttered the words "there's going to be a fire in a minute." I glanced across to observe that a handbag, belonging to one of the girls, was perched precariously close to one of the table candles. It seemed that every time the lady leaned over to talk to her friend, her elbow pushed the bag nearer to the candle.

Sensing the danger, I leapt up, as if I'd been bitten on the bum by an steel toothed antelope (quite impressive to behold, believe me), and scampered across the room, in a scene reminiscent of the film Backdraft (for those who don't know, Backdraft was a film about fire fighters, not a documentary about flatulence). The way I saw it, I had three options:

1) Give them a rendition of my cleverly adapted Kings Of Leon song… "you….. your bag is on fire…." (that's the first time I've ever exchanged sex for a bag)

2) Nudge the bag away from the candle flame and then give her a lecture on how she should be more careful with her incredibly (in)expensive bag.

3) Grab a fire extinguisher and enthusiastically spray foam over the bag, table and everyone sitting around it (just to make sure that the fire doesn't spread). Not only would I put the fire out (with any luck), but I would also fulfil a childhood ambition.

Approaching the table, I realised that the handbag was already on fire (the handle was alight). So, no time for option 1, and option 2 went straight out of my mind - it was time to be Russell Crowe, not Russell Grant. I grabbed the bag with both hands and shook it to fan out the flames. Within a few seconds, the flame was extinguished. Wow, what a hero. I stood back and waited for the gratitude… but like a British Airways Christmas plane flight, it didn't arrive.

Instead of rapturous applause and a big kiss on the cheek (from each of them, apart from the one that looked like a man!), the group of drunken girls just sat there, staring at me. I imagine it took some of them a little while to fathom out what had just occurred. It probably also took some of them a little while to focus on my blurred figure, having just consumed their twelfth Mojito. Sensing the awkwardness of the situation, I didn't stay around to chat; instead retreating to my table to discuss my "heroics" with my friends. It was at that point that I started to remember about how precious handbags are to women.

Separating a woman from her handbag is a bit like trying to walk off with her arm or leg. Handbags are a precious part of them and they don't let them out of their sight easily. So, me going up and grabbing that lady's handbag was probably a little bit like me wandering up and clutching a handful of her breasts - quite shocking, I imagine.

To sum up: I had saved the lady's priceless £10 M&S handbag from a trip to handbag heaven and stopped the rest of the table, ceiling and wine bar from going up in smoke. My reward for all that: being looked, and giggled, at like I was a pervert at a pool party. Maybe I SHOULD have grabbed her breasts after-all... it seems I was destined to feel a tit either way! ;)

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The Self-Importance Of Being Social

Is Social Networking Breeding a New Culture Of Self-importance?

So, you've got 200 Facebook friends and 20 Twitter followers. You feel important - right up there, in celebrity status, alongside Tom Cruise, Pope Benedict XVI and… Susan Boyle. People seem to want to follow your every move - and you oblige by telling them when you eat breakfast, visit the toilet and wash your best pair of pants.

Then, one day, you go through your friends list and it hits you - 195 of your 200 Facebook friends are actually made up of the following:

1) Former classmates from school (who you didn't really know because you were busy studying in the library or hiding in the janitor's cupboard whilst they were fighting, smoking and having teenage sex behind the lockers)

2) Old work colleagues (who regularly taunted you for your unusual dress sense and over-large nose).

3) People you met once at a social occasion, but never really spoke to. You just remember their name and the fact that they like bird watching.

4) People who mistake you for someone else (well, you did put a picture of Scooby Doo as your profile photo) and then can't be bothered to remove you when they realise you're not who they thought you were.

Despite discovering all this, you still find yourself needing to log on to Facebook and Twitter at every available opportunity to check whether someone has written on your wall (technically, graffiti), posted a follow-up to your comment, or to see if someone has re-tweeted your earlier 140 character creation of genius. Later that day, your only real friend goes through your Twitter followers list and breaks some extra bad news to you: 18 of your 20 Twitter followers are actually just porn pedlars.

The Lives Of The Self-Important

So, why do social networking websites make people think that they must share everything with the world? Perhaps it is down to the questions that they ask: "what are you doing?" or "what's happening?" (Twitter) or "what's on your mind?" (Facebook). It's a dream come true for people with over-inflated egos.

I’m amazed when people tweet that they’re sitting in traffic on the motorway, washing their hair or about to go out and buy a new pair of knickers. Now, if they were about to meet Pope Benedict XVI (or Susan Boyle, I don't mind which) and present him (or her) with the fore-mentioned pair of knickers, I would be interested (and would probably even re-tweet it to my own *tens* of 'interested' followers). For me, these people put the "twit" into Twitter.

When out in public, the behaviour of the self-important is extraordinary to watch. I observed one such person on Friday night. I was in a busy cocktail bar and as it got towards the end of the night, I glanced to the side of the room to observe a rather inebriated man sit down at a computer screen and log in to Facebook. You could tell he was drunk - it was a real struggle for him to locate and type each letter of his username and password. If that wasn't a complete giveaway to his drunken state, his next action certainly was, as he got up shouted out "I've got my lasagne" and then proceeded to pull a small plastic bag out of his pocket (containing said lasagne) and whirl it round and round his head in celebration… 

Now then, at that point I could have considered it to be a monumental moment worth sharing with the Internet world, taken out my iPhone and tweeted 'just stood in a cocktail bar and watched a man whirl lasagne around his head". Did I? No… damn, why didn't I?

To conclude this rant, an idea: Perhaps Twitter should change its initial question to say: "so, what makes you think you're so bloody interesting today?" 

Maybe someone should also start a list of 'self-important people' (not to be confused with 'self impotent' people - that's a different blog post altogether), gather them all in the same place, with their computers and mobile phones, and see what happens. Forget the Hadron Collider and the Maya 2012 predictions  - this idea could really cause the destruction of the world!

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Traditional British Pub Quiz Night

Can I have a 'p' please Bob? No, you bloody can't, Bill, you'll just have to wait for the interval. Monday night wasn't Blockbusters for the over 70s, it was Quiz night at a traditional old pub in Hastings Old Town.

I joined a team of regulars to do brainiac battle, in what turned out to be a rather competitive and controversial contest of knowledge and wisdom. Just to clarify the difference between the two - knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting one in a fruit salad. Got it? Good.

After sitting down with my new team mates, I was handed a piece of paper and a pencil. This, I was told, was not for me to draw funny caricatures of my team mates, but to use to write down my answer to each question, before showing it to the team captain. The idea was that it stopped us from all shouting, at the same time, "I know the answer, it's errrrr, what's his name, you know, the guy with the funny limp and the glass eye" or blurting out the answer in earshot of the other teams. I did attempt to use the 'accidental blurting out of the answer' as a tactic to put off the other teams, but they saw straight through my "it's a seagull" answer to the question "what bird is traditionally used by Asian fisherman to help catch fish?"

The quiz lasted eight rounds, each consisting of six questions. Eight multiplied by six, that's…. err…. nearly a thousand questions. Wow, it went fast. The rounds ranged from the usual 'general knowledge', 'sport' and 'geography' to 'murder' and 'initials'. I had hoped that the 'murder' round might have been the perfect opportunity to bump off some of the other teams, but, alas, they spoiled my fun by reading out questions instead. I have to say that none of the rounds were really in my specialist field of knowledge. But then I guess I shouldn't expect quizzes to have rounds like 'famous tiddlywinks champions of the 90s', 'fruits beginning with the letter q' and 'indoor decorating for eskimos'.

A short way into the quiz, it become apparent that I was about as much use (to our team) as chopsticks in a soup kitchen. The other team members - serial quiz buffs - were doing very well without me. It didn't help that all the questions seemed to be about the two billion years leading UP to the 1980s. It's not that I didn't know some of the answers. For example, I knew that the acronym NATO stands for the 'National Association of Transexual Organists.' It's just that the other team members knew the answers already - damn them to hell!

To give you an idea of my quiz prowess - the last time I took part in a pub quiz was about five years ago and we relied  heavily on a great new tool called WAP (Internet on your phone). Some of our team members sat drinking beer and looking down under the table. Others sat drinking beer and then took regular toilet breaks. We must have seemed like a load of depressed alcoholics with bladder problems. The reason for the 'depressed look' was that our 'WAP' members were madly typing into their mobile phones under the table, trying to get answers from Yahoo! The pub owners were gobsmacked at how a bunch of drunk twenty-somethings managed to win the contest several weeks in a row. In this week's quiz, however, we had a much more useful tool than WAP - his name was John (his surname may well have been 'Wap' - I didn't ask!)

Going back further in time, like Doctor Who on an episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?'… in the first pub quiz I ever attended, we didn't take things very seriously at all. If we didn't know the answer, we simply entered something ridiculous. In fact, I recall one quiz night where we entered nearly every answer as Danny La Rue (the drag act). This got a few murmurs of hilarity from the other teams throughout the evening, so it was worth the little effort involved.

So, how did we get on last night?

Well, there was a moment of controversy that lost us the contest. The question "name the longest river in England?" had our team wondering which of two answers to go with. Without boring you too much, there is the River Severn, which is the longest river, but it flows partly through Wales. On the other hand, the longest river to flow entirely through England is the Thames. So, we went with Thames (but also added that if it included Wales, it was the Severn)… and the answer given was Severn. Now then, try a Google search and it leads you to several pages that tell you that the Thames is the correct answer. In actual fact, we were 100% correct with the answer we wrote, as this article proves.

Despite much protest from our team, and much more protest (leading to hatred and utterances of an unpleasant nature) from one particular team member, the Quiz Master stood his ground, like a fat man at the dessert trolley, and wouldn't give us the point. We ended up losing by that single point. If only we were able to obtain proof that we were correct. This got me thinking, in my own mischievous way…

With the power of Wikipedia being all about human editing, how easy would it be to look something up on your mobile phone, change the information for that entry, then present it to the Quiz Master and say, with an honest face, "look, look… this says that I'm right?" I found a good example of that just the other day, in fact. Someone had altered Wikipedia's entry for Lumber to include the words genitalia and penis (see screenshot below). To be honest, I can't see a question about that coming up in a quiz contest anytime soon.

Anyway, to sum up: We lost by a point and by the end of the night my piece of paper was as blank as a Blankety Blank cheque book (and pen)...

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All I Want For Christmas

We are coming up to that time of year again and that can only mean one thing. As the Andy Williams lyric goes, "it's the most wonderful time of the year…" No, parents, it's not the end of the school summer holidays…

For those of you who can't decide what they want for Christmas, I've come up with a helpful list of ideas. However, so-as not to be labelled 'boring', I've made things a bit more fun. I have taken all of my ideas from the first few pages of Google's search engine results for "All I Want For Christmas Is…" So, here's the list to choose from - take your pick…

All I want for Christmas is…
  1. "You". Well obviously, and it's nice of you to say so. But you can't have me, Mariah. Much as I appreciate your Festive hit, I'm not sure I could cope with a Christmas full of your high-pitched warbling!
  2. My two front teeth. No problem. I'll even wrap them up for you. Now then, where did I put my hammer…
  3. A PSP viral marketing campaign. Be honest with me now, who doesn't want one of those? I don't think anyone of sane mind desires anything viral at Christmas time… especially not Herpes or Chlamydia. Office Christmas parties… they're fun, aren't they!
  4. A Beatles gift collection. Nothing funny about that. In fact, that's way too serious to be on my list, take it off…
  5. A job. Is that a job or a McJob? I reckon there's quite a few people out there wishing for one of those at the moment (not the latter one).
  6. A Duckla Prague Away Kit. A what? It sounds like clothing worn by a choir of operatic mallards from the Czech Republic. Actually, it's a 'B' side by Punk group Half Man Half Biscuit (as opposed to the Pop group Half Woman Half Twix).
  7. A baby. You're not getting one of those from me, so don't even try it missus…
  8. A pair of swim shorts. The ideal present for anyone planning on a New Year dip in the sea… The present comes with a free packet of Nurofen Cold and Flu and a New Year's resolution not to be so stupid to do it next year.
  9. A vampire. A nice idea, but you won't find many blood sucking creatures around here (ex-girlfriends excluded) - Buffy and I are out every Saturday night seeing to that…
  10. A bombed-out Dollhouse. Getting hold of one of those might be quite difficult, unless someone accidentally posts Barbie's New Year house party plans onto Facebook…
  11. To be sucked into a black hole. As long as the black hole isn't inside Katie Price's head - sure, sounds great. Just to check - there is a Starbucks there, right?
  12. A tail. Yes, yes, I want one of those too!
Finally, some ideas of my own (feel free to thank me)
  1. Some Facebook friends. In a world where popularity is becoming increasingly determined by the number of friends you have on social networking websites… here's an opportunity to increase your popularity and feel like you've really achieved in life. Congratulations.
  2. The CD 'The Greatest Hits of John and Edward' (not available for download as the Internet isn't ready to cope with it)
  3. Christmas in Prague with some operatic feathered friends. I think you'll be pheasantly surprised how enjoyable it is.
  4. A Swine Flu jab. Well, getting swine flu seems to be as inevitable as death and taxes. So, what better present to give to someone than a needle in the arm? (as one drug addict says to the other)
  5. A clove of garlic. Why? For the same reason as above, believe it or not. The price of garlic has gone through the roof in China after rumours that it helps prevent swine flu. Perhaps swine flu is spread by vampires? Hint: when combining presents, don't combine this idea with number 9 from the first list.
  6. An E-Book Reader with Michael Jackson Biography. Bringing the two most talked about things of the year together. One birth and one death.
  7. The rest of your teeth (accidentally knocked out when I was trying to get the front two out for you - sorry, I didn't have a *small* hammer!)
  8. Spinach doughnuts Hey, these appear to be getting a mention in EVERY blog post.
  9. The bum and thong pillow. Apparently, it's the 'must have' item this Christmas (according to me)…

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The Humorous Side Of Japanese People

"If I was to punch that rich looking guy, would he sue me?" That was the question I put to my brother whilst we were walking around our Onsen Hotel in Kotohira, Japan. His response was quick: "No, he'd probably apologise for walking into your fist." 

It's funny, but it does actually make an interesting point about how friendly Japanese people are. My brother is right - the man would probably stand there and apologise and bow profusely. To get him to stop bowing, I'd probably have to punch him again… harder… somewhere in the chest cavity… with some knuckle dusters

At times it seemed quite bizarre to me, as a Westerner (oh no, I used *that* word). Walk in or out of a hotel, restaurant, shop or cafe and you will find the staff thanking you, bowing, smiling - sincerely happy to see you (but not glad to see you leave). Yes, it's nice but come on - I should be thanking you for my nice meal or service or for allowing me to look around your lovely shop. I feel like giving them a violent shake - no, not a liquid refreshment made of milk. What does a violent milkshake look like anyway, for goodness sake? Is it served with a machete instead of a straw?

Anyway, back to my point - what a difference this kind of service makes from the brand outlets in the UK, where they serve you in a shop, mumble the price, wipe their nose on their sleeve (well, at least it's not your sleeve) and then stare at you as if to say "go on then, I've done my bit, you can put it in a bag yourself." I want to be served my spinach doughnuts with a smile, not with a snarl and a fart from Mr ASBO.

Now, onto another point about service. When you're out somewhere (a bit of a non-specific statement, I know) and a Japanese person goes above and beyond for you (like cleaning your windscreen in the petrol station), they don't expect a tip for it. It's all part of the service. Go to give the man a tip and he wont know what to do with it.

Question: when is green not green, but actually blue? Hint: It's nothing to do with a convention of colourblind frogs. Answer: At Japanese road crossings and street lights. Yes, despite the light being as green as a mouldy apple jelly baby sitting on a plate of cress in Cafe Vert (note to self: don't go there for the 'dish of the day!') , the light is blue blue and it's a blue man, not a green one.

Whilst on the subject of the green (or blue) man, I found it highly entertaining to watch Japanese people at crossings. In Japan, the 'stop, look, listen' rule has been replaced with 'stop…. stare at blue man…. hope….' Despite the fact that a car hasn't been spotted in either direction for months, they stand there… waiting for the blue man and the inevitable muzac (probably the tune of The Proclaimers 'I Would Walk 500 Miles… But There's A Red Man Stopping Me'). I was told that it is considered shameful to cross when the red man is showing. So, people wait… and wait… and then suddenly one man thinks 'sod it, I'm going to be late for my chiropodist' and goes to cross. Like wildebeest waiting to cross a crocodile-infested river; once one goes, suddenly they all go. It's obviously less shameful to cross on the red man once someone else has done it. There's comfort in being shamed as a group... just ask X-Factor duo 'John and Edward'.

On to Japanese women now (about time too!). One thing I admire greatly about Japanese women is their effort in wearing short skirts and shorts in any weather. Amazing…. ok, enough admiring!

Oh, and whilst it comes to the opposite sex, I found out that in Japanese, the words for 'hot' and 'thick' are the same. As are 'tall' and 'expensive'. So, next time you hear your Japanese friend saying that she has met a tall, hot man… you might want to think twice before seeking an introduction and asking if they have any similar friends.

So, why do such a high percentage of men find Japanese women so attractive (apart from the way that they dress?). Well, I have a theory, and it's all about pupil dilation. It has been scientifically proven that people become more attractive when their pupils dilate - it's a sign that someone is attracted to you (or that someone is incredibly drunk). With Japanese women, their eyes tend to be very dark, which makes it seem as if their pupils are dilated (or they're hammered!). So, if you're not gazing at their legs, you're gazing into their eyes. Well, that's what I find, anyway. I mean, check out the image below. Her eyes.... are amazing.

Japanese-beachball

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Misfortune Favours The Unfortunate

I'm not greatly into the whole 'fortune telling' thing (to say the least). But, yesterday, Liz and I paid some money into a little fortune telling machine here in Kyoto. Hey, it looked like fun, what harm could it do? I've attached a small video to this blog post, so that you can see what it was like. I've also included a photo of the fortune itself. 

Quite simply, the fortune machine included a wooden lion dancing robot mask thing (great description, eh? Mark came up with that one after I asked him what it was!). After we put our money in, the 'wooden lion dancing robot mask thing' danced around a bit, bowed several times and then grabbed a fortune and dropped it down the hole. Liz and I immediately unwrapped our fortunes and read them. Mine was said to be an "excellent" one. So, no need for me to locate a tree and tie it to it… or so I thought. Here are some of the things it said (my comments are in brackets):

Business: "Take your time"
(ok, I will. Thanks. I now have an excuse for being a bit slack with getting projects done!)
Study: "All right. Continue studying."
(ok…. goooooooood…. what studying is that then!?)
Speculation: "The market is fluctuating now. It's time you make it"
(isn't the market always fluctuating - that's just the economic cycle, surely? It's a bit like saying "time is ticking by" or "the post men are on strike...")
Game and match: "Depend on your partner or team mates"
(sounds pretty normal to me)
Childbirth: "Keep regular hours"
(I wasn't aware I was going to be giving birth any time soon, but thanks for the tip!)
Wish: "It will surely be fulfilled later."
(super… would you like to expand a bit more and give me an estimated timescale on when I can expect my extra arm to grow?)
Missing Thing: "It's hard to be found. It will fall into other hands."
(that's the amazing thing about missing things - it's always so hard to find them. I guess that's why they are called "missing")
Expected Visitor: "He (or she) is sure to come, even if later."
(hmm, it's rather hedging it's bets on this one - the expected visitor could be a he OR a she. Also, whoever he/she is, they are sure to come at some point, even if it takes them 50 years. Great, I'll put the kettle on...")

Now, at this point I can tell what you're thinking - "well, knock me down with a spinach doughnut -  how does that fortune telling machine know you so well?" I really don't know - it's amazing. But wait, it gets better - here is the really interesting bit:

Travel: "Little profit. Something bad will happen on your way home"

That's right - that 'wooden lion dancing robot mask thing' gave me a (mis)fortune that said that something bad is going to happen to me on Sunday, when I travel home. I have been thinking about it and the list of potential catastrophes is fairly large: everything from me choking on an airline pretzel to my plane crash-landing on a desert island.

So, what I need you to do now is to put your hands together in prayer, and lets hope that the 'bad thing' is just that I stub my toe on the plane toilet door.

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Purikura (Japanese Photo Booth)

Whilst in Kyoto yesterday, Liz, Sayaka, Mark and I tried out the latest in trendy teenage fads - Purikura. Purikura involves using a series of machines to take photographs (whilst striking up funny poses) and then decorating the photographs with all sorts of horrible, garish, pretty graphics. Liz had tried this ordeal before and had somehow survived. So, she was determined to get us all to try it. Let me take you through what happened:

The shop itself was a bit like an amusement arcade, only it was filled with teenage girls (photograph 2). I felt half like a pervert holding a bag of sweets and half like a granddad (does that give you a good vision?). There were several machines located around the room, so we walked around to try and find one that was free, which we eventually (thankfully) did.

The Photo Booth

This was stage one of the process, and proved a good opportunity to hide my embarrassed face away from the young female onlookers. Photograph 2 shows what you see when you walk into the photo booth. Essentially, it was a series of lights with a camera in the middle and a screen to show you what you look like. When we entered, there was an aroma of teenage girl sweat which made you consider vomiting in the corner right there and then (what a great photograph that would have made!). The machine took 6 photographs, with breaks in between so that we could move around and strike up different poses. The difficult thing to remember was to look at the camera and not at the screen. Once the machine had taken the 6 photographs, we sprinted out of the booth, like excited teenagers shoplifting for the first time, and moved on to machine 2…

Customising Your Photographs

Stage two involved using a computer pen to touch the screen and personalise the photographs. However, there was a catch. Everything was timed, which made the whole thing incredibly stressful. I could feel my pacemaker going nineteen-to-the-dozen and I found myself biting my Werthers Originals so hard that my dentures almost cracked and fell out. All of the instructions were in Japanese, with pictures to aid us and a big countdown clock in the middle (no sign of Carol Vorderman anywhere!). After adding all sorts of colourful graphics, the system gave us the opportunity to send the pictures to our phone. Once again, we only had a certain number of seconds in which to enter our details.

By the end of the ordeal, we left the place perspiring and I felt like I had aged another 20 years. It was sort-of fun, in a similar way to picking up a knife and sticking it into a hot toaster 'just to see what happens'…. and similarly shocking.

Photograph 3 shows us sweating outside the Purikura place and photographs 4 and 5 are two of the resulting photographs.

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