The Joys of Modern Travel – Part 7 – Karma

July 8, 2013January 6, 2015 The Indecisive Eejit2 Comments

Karma is a law in Hinduism which maintains that every act done, no matter how insignificant, will eventually return to the doer with equal impact

Ticket day today….so what would you like first, the good news, or the bad news!

There was no one at the station again, so I had my usual two options, jump off at a manned station, purchase ticket, jump back on and away we go or jump off at a manned station, take my time, have a cup of coffee, kick back and relax and wait for the next one. I opted for the former, after all I did have to get to work.

After my previous encounters with the guards at the station and on the train where they had apologised for not waiting, I felt assured that today there would be no repeat performance. I spoke to them on the way through and said I need to go and get my ticket and they nodded as there was a gentleman in front of me in a similar position. He went first and paid for his and as I stepped forward to the counter I heard the all to familiar noise of the doors closing and the train departing from the station. “Ah feck” says I, rolling my eyes and thinking not again.

So I was a little miffed to say the least but it’s not like I could run up the track screaming and waving my fists now is it, so best to concentrate on the task at hand.

“Is there any truth in the rumour we get an extra day on our tickets because of the strike last month?” I asked. Being miffed had made me a little braver than normal. “No, no truth in that rumour but if you give me a second or two I will tell you what you can get” was the reply and he proceeded to stab the shoite clean out of his wee calculator. “You get a £3.80 discount” he said looking a little ashamed. “Fair enough, I’m happy enough with that” I replied and watched the relief wash over his face. Anything is better than nothing.

So with my ticket bought, 30 minutes to kill and at a loss for something to do I did indeed purchase a cup of coffee and wandered out to the platform to kick back and relax.

Whilst sipping my coffee and enjoying the sunshine I happened to notice that the train I had vacated not 15 minutes previously was sitting further up the line at the next station, which is not more than 3 minutes away from where I was. At this point I actually did consider running up the track, arms a flailing screaming WAIT!!!! at the top of my voice, but a sharp twinge from Alien Leg brought me sharply back to reality.

After another 5 minutes or so I began to realise something was wrong and that’s when the notion of karma hit me. The conductor didn’t wait so his train had broken down, was it really so bad that I had a little inward chuckle! After another 5 minutes it disappeared off into the distance, albeit at a very slow pace.

My next train pulled in and we started on our journey. Two stops along we picked up all the passengers from my original train.

It turns out there were 3 faults on the train when it left the first station. They called a mechanic to travel on board the train and proceeded with the journey, sadly not making it past the 7th station. Would it not just have been better to send out another train in the first place ffs.

No offence but your announcements of NIR apologises for the delay and inconvenience it may cause, is, as my mate would say a bit like shouting toilet after you’ve shit yourself!

Candy Crush Catastrophe!

May 30, 2013July 14, 2013 The Indecisive Eejit3 Comments

I’m beginning to think that Candy Crush is a bigger epidemic than bird flu!

The number of hits I have had has been staggering, the wording of search terms amusing.

I have had hits from all over the world all asking the same thing, Candy Crush quests, why am I addicted to Candy Crush, more lives, new sweets…..its never ending! I’m starting to worry for the world as a whole, that we are being sucked into a huge sweetie coated vortex!

What if they start to send out subliminal messages via the game. Unwittingly we will be cast under a blanket spell, at the mercy of the kings at King.com. Candy Crush Zombies will start to appear in multi coloured clothing, chomping their way through everything in sight, excreting striped, wrapped and spotted candies.

People will re name their houses things like, Chocolate Barn, Caramel Cove and Gingerbread Glade.

Tofette will become the most popular girls name ever.

Seriously people, it’s a game! Admittedly it is a very amusing and addictive one, but it is a game none the less.

People have racked up huge bills buying lives, boarding tickets and other candy crunching accessories. If you have Facebook you DO NOT have to pay for anything, you just need to have patience. One of the charms on my app costs £27.99. I was so horrified I removed my details from Play just in case I would accidentally hit the button and purchase one, I certainly would never intentionally pay that amount of money, I couldn’t afford to pay that amount of money!

It’s also made us very antisocial. We don’t sit around and talk anymore. We tap, sigh, point and poke away the hours. I’ve known couples to converse via text or even worse via Facebook.

Am I a Candy Crush addict? I’d say no, but isn’t that what all addicts say. I like to play to pass time, but not to waste time. My removal of mysself from Facebook and subsquetly out of my CC family has not caused me any anxiety or extra grey hairs. I play my 5 lives and am quite content to wait until they refresh. I do however refuse to pay to board the mode of transport required to take me to the next level, for that I may indeed have to swallow my pride and return to Facebook.

My point, I don’t want to be a Candy Crush Zombie, I can take it or leave it, can you say the same?

Candy Crush – Sweet Search Terms!

May 24, 2013May 24, 2013 The Indecisive Eejit5 Comments

I just love checking out the Search Engine Terms on my Stats Page. Some of them are hilarious, but none more so that the Candy Crush ones, so my sweet addicted pals, here is my take on your searches:

Candy Crush – Do you really have to wait 24 hours between quests? : No you don’t! You initially get 5 lives, you lose one every time you fail a level. You gain a new life every 30 minutes (on my app anyways), however if you are connected to Facebook you can hound your friends until they eventually send you one just to shut you up.
Candy Crush for Xbox? – Not out yet as far as I know. Not even sure if it ever will be. Please don’t release it on another platform or I’ll be a total lost cause!
Candy Crush 7 Windows Firewall Setting? – Say wha?! is there something I am missing here, can it be played somewhere else on a PC bar Facebook?
Candy Crush Mistakes – The biggest mistake of all is ever starting to play the damn game!
Candy Crushing Equipment – Usually your teeth are the best weapon, however your dentist is going to be none to happy! With regards to the game, I have noticed additional tools are not available on the Apps, however when the game is played via the PC you can get various Candy Crushing aids to help you on your quest, one, funnily enough being a set of teeth!
Candy Crush Depression – I’m suffering it at the minute for two reasons. The first is I am again stuck, level 323 this time, it’s a total nightmare. It makes me want to jump up and down, curse, scream and bounce my shiny Google Nexus against a wall. The second reason is, when I reach the end of this pathway there is a Spanner. I can go no further. No more Candy Crush. FFS. Well not until they build the next levels anyway.
I think Candy Crush may be taking over my life – If you’re worried enough to Google it then you are probably correct. But admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. Welcome to the fold!
Tickets to Candy Crush – Ask your friends or buy them. Remember though buying things can be VERY costly. It might not seem like much at the time but it all adds up. I personally pester people on Bakebook.
Addicted to candy crush saga, wanna learn how to make a candy crush cake – So am I! I don’t wanna learn how to make a cake though, sorry, but I’ll certainly help you eat that bad boy!
Goodbye Candy Crush. Before it’s to late. Uninstalled – This one has to be the winner! It’s so dramatic. Wonder how long they lasted.

Keep them coming, I love having a giggle at the things people search for which ultimately leads them to my Blog!

Picture Credit – Ian Hughes (click the picture for his link)

Planes, Trains and Bloomin Computers!!

May 7, 2013May 7, 2013 The Indecisive EejitLeave a comment

In order to get to work I’ve decided I am going to make myself a pair of wings or a little plane and learn to fly! It should be easy enough if I can fashion the right equipment because I am pretty good at getting myself in a flap!

No guard at the station this morning again, and one monthly ticket required so I once again had to alight at a manned station to purchase same. Due to the price rise I knew it was going to be a little more expensive than last month, but I have to say I still buckled slightly at the knees when she said £150. To be fair even she looked sheepish, so much so that I felt the need to console her, “It’s all right, I checked this morning before I came out, so I knew how bad it would be” was what I said. “At least Dick Turpin wore a mask” was what I thought.

I went and bought myself a coffee and proceeded to play Candy Crush for the 30 minutes while I waited for the next train to arrive.

Where do computers come in I hear you ask. Well if you cannot already tell, I am a little on edge this morning. That would be due to lack of sleep, which in turn has to do with my computer.

Computers are a marvellous invention, of that there is no doubt. When they work they are nothing short of fantastic. When they don’t they make you want to bang your head repeatedly off a wall.

Yesterday I made the fantastically ill informed decision to format mine. For months it’s been skipping music and generally getting slower. After about an hour of use the mouse starts to act like it’s swallowed a 2 week supply of Diazepam all in one go. It’s there, but in body only. Apparently my hard drives are healthy and so is my ram but still it persists to get on like a goat!

At 1pm, after everything was backed up I proceeded to Alt and F10 while booting up the PC. Nothing. Three more attempts, still nothing. Ok plan B says the very knowledgeable Paul, your boot sector is obviously corrupted, F12 and use your back up discs. Righty ho, F12, first disc in and away we go. This is not as bad as I thought, I’m thinking to myself and 45 minutes later it says it’s been successful. Yipee, get everything reinstalled and lets blog. Then it starts to update, update some more and sure enough there’s another couple of updates on the side for good measure.

Fast forward 1 hour and 30 minutes, time to reinstall my Anti Virus. I’d been on the net, checked it was networked etc and all was fine. After copious amounts of pressing next and agreeing to various terms and conditions Internet Security was finally installed, just the last little bit, fill out the online registration and we’re good to go.

NO INTERNET, LOCAL ACCESS ONLY!! WTF!! Eh, what’s going on here, I had internet 5 minutes ago. I then tried to open up the security program to tweak some settings in case it was the firewall that was being a funny bugger, but like my mouse it was there in body only. Each click brought me back to the registration screen, only I couldn’t register cos yep, you guessed it, I have no fecking internet. I then tried to uninstall the program and the whole thing locked up.

In a panic I rang Paul, giving off bucket loads and he says you’d be better to start again. I swore an awful lot, like an awful, awful lot but deferred to his superior knowledge and trotted off to reinstall. That was at approximately 5.15pm.

At 7.30pm it was busy installing update 17 of 120. At 10.30pm we had progressed to 50 of 120. Eventually at 12.30am it was done.

Retry internet security. Same thing. No Internet, local access only. I didn’t get angry, I didn’t get mildly annoyed. I didn’t even swear. I simply went to bed because I was thoroughly pissed off.

I’m going to tackle it again when I get home and if it doesn’t play ball I am going to kick it up and down the lane, well as much as my good leg will allow anyway.

Candy Crush…the continuing saga….

May 3, 2013May 3, 2013 The Indecisive EejitLeave a comment

I may be approaching the stage where I spontaneously combust.

I think Level 285 has me beat. I’ve been playing for what seems like weeks and I am getting nowhere! Usually I can see some kind of progress, some chink of light leading to the end of the tunnel! Not this time, the black out curtains are completely drawn, there is nothing but darkness and despair ahead of me on my Candy Crush journey and I am losing the will to partake of my 5 lives!

My trauma is like a mushroom of despair, fanning over my friends. I may even be suffering from Candy Crush depression. I no longer send lives, I have adopted the If I am not going to progress then neither are you attitude. It’s all I can do to not stamp my feet and throw my teddy out of the pram.

Too add to my situation I discovered a grey hair on my head, I definitely did not have that when I was on level 284! I am doomed……..

Last night I had a nightmare that I was being squashed between a striped and a wrapped Candy, they were choking the life out of me. Then spotty fish came and I had palpitations and fell out of the bed!

I rang the CCCS this morning, I was desperate. I found their number in the Yellow Pages. How was I to know they were all about free debt advice, I thought it stood for Candy Crush Counselling Services and not Consumer Credit Counselling Services. She informed me they are now called Step Change. I apologised profusely and said yes I understand, I am going to have to make steps to change as well or Candy Crush will be the death of me.

Candy Crush

April 23, 2013April 23, 2013 The Indecisive Eejit4 Comments

Candy Crush is taking over my life!

It all started in the middle of Phase One of leg rehab! I had a series of leg strengthening exercises to do while lying on the bed! There is only so much surfing the net and reading the news you can do, so one day I made the mistake of accepting an invite from Facebook in relation to Candy Crush. It became my new guilty pleasure, strengthening my muscles while crushing multi coloured candies whiled away the boring hours.

It’s entertaining but it can also be extremely frustrating, I have lost count of the number of times I have wanted to smash my tablet against the wall, mind you I have also had that feeling while playing the Xbox too, my poor poor controller. I’ve not yet followed through on either, but I’m smart enough to never say never.

There are levels that you can breeze through and there are levels that have taken me two weeks. I’m adept at begging for tickets to board the train and extra lives. It’s infuriating when you run out just as you think you are getting somewhere. I’ve been so desperate to play on I’ve moved my tablet on 24 hours just to get 5 more lives, then 24 more and 24 more. When I eventually returned it to the original date the little timer had had a nervous breakdown and told me I could not have another life for 2354783 hours! Uninstall and reinstall, all back to normal.

I’m currently at level 275 and I’m starting to panic that I may run out of juicy levels to play! I think having to cope without Candy Crush would be worse than trying to give up cigarettes. What else would I do on my daily train journeys.

Everyone should try this game at least once, but I urge you to exercise caution. Be prepared to kiss goodbye to valuable minutes, even hours of your life!

Any problems contact me for Candy Crush Counselling! I accept payment in Candy Crush Currency…errm I mean Google Play Vouchers!! lol It’s a good job I’m only joking cos I’d be no help whatsoever, you’d be better calling Ghostbusters!!