How did I miss Twenty One Pilots?
Month: April 2017
That’s sound advice that is!
All through your life people will offer you advice. Some will be asked for and some unwanted. Some will be good and some will be unbelievably terrible and often times catastrophic if followed. But at the end of the day, we choose the paths we take throughout our lifetime. I’ve cocked up many times and have no one to blame but myself. However not all the advice I refused to listen to had life changing effects. Here are some of my more memorable / funny ones.
- “Will you slow down, this is not a race car and you’re only learning.” This was said by my Dad approximately 5 minutes before I crashed his Massey Ferguson tractor into a concrete post which was the only thing stopping it falling down a steepish embankment. We had a long slow walk back to the house to get the digger to rescue it with. There were a lot of apologies on my part and a lot of silence on my Dad’s which meant he was less than pleased.
- “You’re going to end up getting hurt” – Again said by my Dad. When we were younger my sister and I used to share a room which had two single beds. One night when there was a strong possibility I was pretending to be Dracula or some other mythical creature with fangs, I can’t quite remember, I placed two straws in my mouth and decided to hop back and forth between the two beds. I was going great guns and having the time of my life until I fell against the bed and jammed the top of the straws into the roof of my mouth. I ended up with my head hanging over the side of the bath spitting blood and my Dad probably saying “I told you so.”
- “Don’t play with that, you’ll break it.” I’m not 100% sure if this is what my Sister said or not, but it was probably something along those lines, and it was in reference to the Sindy horse she received from Santa. I of course did not listen and proceeded to gallop said Sindy horse all over the house by holding onto it’s tail. Tail and horse seperated and I hid behind the freezer hoping no one would find out…or me for that matter me. There is another vicious rumour I fed her pippa dolls to the dog, but hey innocent until proven guilty!
- “Pull the brakes slowly, they are not working to well” – Said my friends father as I whizzed down the hill past his house on her bike. Of course I panicked, jammed on the brakes and flew Superwoman style over the handlebars putting my two front teeth through my bottom lip.
- “Never fall in love with a Scottish Dude” – It took me 3 failed attempts to realise the wisdom behind my friends words. What can I say, I’m a sucker for the accent!
- “You really do need to study for your exams. Stop looking at me like that, I’m serious, you really do, I wish I had listened to the person who told me” – Oh the arrogance of youth. I didn’t study very hard despite hearing this sentence repeatedly from various sources. I failed most of my exams and had to go back the following year and do them all again. See I wasn’t lying when I said I was not the brightest pixie in the forest :) Many times I have passed on the knowledge in this sentence to others who are sitting exams only to receive the same look that I probably gave. Emphatic pleas and hand gestures follow, usually to no avail.
I’m sure there were many more pearls of wisdom and nuggets of knowledge passed along to me, but being old and not having a very good memory, I cannot recall them at present.
If only I’d seen this 20 or so years ago:
Before you act, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try.
— Ernest Hemingway
New World Coming – FFF38
For this weeks Flash Fiction Foray Matt over at The Book Blogger very kindly used my music suggestion. Considering I had put it forward you would have thought I would have had a clue what to write, but no, it’s going to be as much of a surprise for me as it is for you.
If you would like to join in, clicking the link at the start of this paragraph will take you to this weeks challenge, or clicking HERE will take you to all the relevant information you require. It’s only 100 little words :)
Here is my entry.
Music filled the forest as the mist crept ever closer, it’s cold fingers reaching from the sky to the very blades of grass beneath Polly’s feet.
‘I don’t like this’ said Teddy. ‘We’ll only go a little further.’
‘It has to be around here somewhere’ said an exasperated Polly.
And it was, it was just around the bend, a little door at the foot of an old and withering tree, with pebbles for a path.
‘Are you ready Teddy, because once we go through, we can never come back?’
‘I’m ready, there’s a new world coming and it’s not good.’
I’d a couple of ideas for this one, I may or may not do another one. In the end though I chose my preferred characters, Polly and Teddy who I have had adventures with before.
It’s not as easy as it first appears this malarky, but after much thought and editing as far as I know I came in right on the 100 words!
Once Upon a Dream – Flash Fiction
The song played low on the radio, it had an almost tinny quality like it was being piped through a loud speaker.
Unconsciously Leah started to sway to the music as she cleaned the old beans from the coffee machine. She was a girl easily lost to daydreams and the familiarity of things remembered from her subconscious.
The bell above the door rang and turning around almost as if in slow motion she noticed him for the first time, his face unknown yet familiar at the same time.
‘Hey’ he said, ‘Don’t I know you?’
She smiled. A perk of the job.
This post was written for The Book Bloggers Flash Fiction Foray Challenge.
I love this song, it’s one of my favourites so I could not pass up the chance to participate.
If you would like to have a go too, click on the link above which will provide all the detail you need :)
Irritating Idiots!
Right time to vent!!
I’m a gamer, granted not a serious one, but a gamer none the less. Motion sickness makes first person shooters a non starter for me, so I miss out on all the good games like Battlefield, Call of Duty and the Bioshock series to name but a few. It meant I had to look for alternatives and no one was more surprised than I when I fell in love with Grand Theft Auto 5 after being coerced into buying it by that group of eejits I call friends, you all know who you are!
I was a late starter to the game, it had already been out for a while before I purchased it for the 360, eventually moving my character and all her associated baggage over to the One when I changed console. I’m level 300 online, not because I am good, but because I have put in many hours of play and have also managed to complete the Criminal Mastermind Challenge which netted me brownie points and a cool $10 millions dollars. I am a fan of this open world game and so far it has yet to lose it’s appeal. The one biggest drawback however would be the connection issues, that said, no game of that size and playability is going to be without flaws.
By and large being a female gamer I have been spared the onslaught of chauvinistic males, mainly because I was lucky enough to meet a really great bunch of guys and I tend to stay within that social circle. I do love a good war of words though, especially when someone thinks they might gain the upper hand simply because I am female. I have worked in predominantly male environments all my life, believe me, I can hold my own.
Reaching level 300 was my goal and after I achieved it I figured I might tweak a character and start again, jumping from mission to mission or into heists, something to pass the time until the whole group were on. My main reason in doing so, is that when you are playing solo online and you’re a high level, people either want to constantly hunt you down or recruit you into their teams. I wanted hassle free so being a low level cuts out all the tripe. I can still hold my own because I know the missions like the back of my hand despite the fact that my strength levels are that of a beginner.
Having time to kill the other night and seeing that everyone else was tied up in other games I jumped on for an hour to try and do a bit more levelling up. I started up a mission and quickly got the required four players. Things were progressing well, but just as we were nearing the end of the mission it told me the other three players had left. In GTA this usually signals that I, rather than they had been disconnected. I ended the mission and collected my RP and winnings, noting that I was on a par or slightly higher than the other three with regards to number of kills. Connection continued to be a bit sketchy so after filling up on snacks and body armour I decided to leave it for the night.
Imaging my surprise the next night when I go in to watch TV and find this message waiting for me:
“You’re a noob at GTA……..fuck offffffffffffff”
I was trying to remember the name of the person and think where I had met them, but to be honest when skipping from mission to mission there are so many you forget. So being the polite person I am I replied:
‘What brought that on?’
I then decided to check out his profile and was not surprised to find that he was branded by Microsoft as ‘Reputation needs work’. No shit Sherlock.
I was quite excited to see when I got home what the next exciting instalment would be, and it was to be honest quite disappointing. You can see the full conversation below. I have for obvious reasons blanked out his name.
I think my reply is polite and to the point. I refrained from swearing, even though I wanted to, like really really wanted to! Dry your f*cking eyes would have have given me much more satisfaction. I have no doubt this will not be the end of it, but that’s what the big block button is for. In the grand scheme of things neither his message or mine is that bad, but I mean come on was there any need for it. If I sent a message to everyone who had pissed me off I would never have any time to play the game in the first place. Apart from that, I may be a noob in levels terms, but I had more feckin kills that he did….
Rant over :)
Regarding Life
I love people watching, is that weird?
It’s amazing how many different people we can pass in just one day. Some we will remember and others we won’t. I tend to remember those who smile.
There are many missed opportunities in a day to converse with people, it’s weird I should write this considering I am an introvert and shy away from people I am not familiar with. Today I helped a lady and her little wheeled shopper off the train, she thanked me, but she held tightly onto the shopper that I lifted down for her. It made me sad, because this is the world we live in now, one where people are unsure and perhaps mistrust those around them. I can’t blame her because I often experience the same feelings myself.
As I stood on the train watching the world whizz past outside I took stock of my surroundings. So many people on their way to somewhere. I noted that I was standing, simply because I was reluctant to encroach on someone else’s space, happier instead to wait until a whole two seater became available.
Don’t get me wrong, I will speak when spoken to, but I rarely initiate a conversation. I am not however like others, who are so against having someone sit beside them that they fill the seat beside with bags, coats and any other barrier they can find.
Sometimes I miss the old days, when there was no WiFi and I used to actually converse with my friends. These days I look around and see the reflections of various websites flicker across faces as everyone becomes lost in the wonder that is modern technology.
I am more often than not immersed in it myself.
Think Before You Speak, Before a Beautician
So I need to tell you a story, I’m just not exactly sure how I am going to manage it, because I know it’s going to sound way better when told than written, but bear with me and I will do the best I can.
I’ve never been a girly girl, in fact when I was younger I was a downright tomboy. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve worn a dress (childhood excluded, I had no choice!!) and when I was forced into my new job as a personal secretary I was distraught at the thought I might have to wear a skirt everyday. Thankfully I have very understanding bosses who were content with me continuing to wear jeans as long as the top half looked semi presentable.
I rarely wear make up, but I can assure you I do shower everyday just in case any of you are thinking I am a total lost cause. Anyway, there is a point to all this, I promise. Sometimes where beauty is concerned a tomboy like myself will require external help, or if things are really bad perhaps divine intervention. Take for example my eyebrows, when they start to affect my vision then I know that it is time for a visit to the beautician. So I asked my friend could I tag along next time she was going and because she loves me, or is an eejit, she said I could.
Now you have to understand I know the beautician, albeit that I had not seen her for a very long time. She’s the daughter of the lady who cuts my hair and who also came to cut Mum’s every week before she passed away. So on arrival there are the usual pleasantries, haven’t seen you in ages and that kind of thing and we wait until it is our time to be seen.
Our time arrives and my friend and I go into the little room and at this point I’m feeling particularly brave, so I go first. First up is the dying of the eyelashes, piece of cake, next comes the waxing of the eyebrows, holy feck I think I’m going to die. This girl is good at her job, I mean really good, and I thought I had a good tolerance for pain, but clearly it doesn’t extend to above my neck. You’d need a face made of leather to not feel that shit! The pain is worth it though when she holds the mirror up and through your tears you catch sight of the perfectly poised brows that have replaced the caterpillars that used to reside there.
Next it’s my friends turn and clearly she has a face made of leather cos it does not fizz on her at all.
So while all this is going on I am sitting in the corner secretly distraught at the fact that I’ve made an arse of myself , being such a wimp where the old waxing was concerned. Anyway the front door opens and shuts and this girl walks up the corridor and I am convinced it’s one of my cousins, of which there are four sisters. So I said to the beautician is that Caroline (the name of one of my cousins) and she says no, that’s Christine (which is also a name of one of the four cousins) and I said, oh Christine Smith and she said yes. So thinking I’m being really funny I shout at the top of my voice ‘Oi Christine’ and there is silence, so I shout it again, only louder this time and from the other room comes this wee voice saying ‘Who me? and I shouts ‘Yes you, get your arse in here, NOW!’ extremely gruffly.
So here I am in the corner sniggering away and this girl puts her heard through the door and I look at her kinda stupid looking and she looks at me kinda WTF looking and then she looks at the beautician and then she looks at my friend and no one says a word. Eventually my friend breaks the silence, because what feels like 3 hours has passed and no one has said anything and directing her question at me my friend asks ‘Do you know this girl?’
It was one of those moments where I wished the ground would open up and swallow me because I had to say, now rather sheepishly might I add, ‘Actually, I don’t’. At that point everyone, including the girl who although she had the same name, was clearly not my cousin started to laugh. The problem was, they were not laughing with me, they were laughing at me and now my whole face matched the belisha beacon red of my previously tortured eyebrows.
Thankfully everyone saw the funny side of the whole incident and I was fine too, once the anxiety attack passed.
I get the distinct impression though that my friend will never let me tag along again!
~
Please note, for the purpose of this post the names of my cousins were changed to protect their identity. I have a feeling that they wouldn’t want to be associated with me either.
In my defence though, through my half opened, tear stained eyes, the doppelgänger as well as having the same name did look quite similar to my cousin.
The Indecisive Eejit 