Working from home

I am working from home today, because I had a hospital appointment to scan my broken shoulder* and it didn't seem worth going in afterwards.

Anyway, my girlfriend is also working from home because she came with me. I'm in the office in the basement and she's upstairs in the lounge. So I am e-mailing her with questions, just like I would if we were both at work in different towns. I really can't be bothered to walk or shout upstairs.


*No sling! Woo! I think it's still way too sore for washing up though.

Irrational Anger Issue #412

Ok. I'm going to admit something...Sometimes I get really angry about stuff. Not angry enough to start shooting things, but angry enough to yell and scream. This happens anytime from driving to having the batteries on the remote control die. It's often very random and frequently depends on how much I've had to drink. I'm not an angry drunk or anything, I just don't like people, things, mother nature, the forces of fate, random chance, or bad luck fucking with me when I'm hammered.

So what was I angry about this time? Food. And hunger. If I make a microwave meal, by God I'm being lazy for a reason and I want to get right to eating, dammit. I don't want to fuck around with extra food prep and shit like that. If I wanted to do that, I would have made dinner from scratch and been screaming at my frying pan and stove. Totally different story there.

Anyway, I ended up microwaving some Stouffer's Lasagna. It's tasty shit. But fuck Stouffer's and their cooking instructions. Why are the instructions geared to making the lasagna so fucking hot that you have to either a)Let it cool for 10 minutes to the point that some parts of it are cold, while the center and sauce is approximately the temperature of magma, and you've already snacked on other shit and have lost your appetite or B) Blow on your food like you're fucking 3 years old and have to have mommy wipe your face so you don't get sauce on your stupid ass Bob the Builder jumper? Fuck that. I WANT TO EAT! I'm a grown man god dammit, I shouldn't have to blow on my food.

Really, it's not the hot cheese that drives me over the edge. It's the blowing that gets me angry. Makes me feel retarded. Like I'm a caveman being thwarted by a soda bottle with screw top. For some reason I start blowing on my food and it pisses me off so much I start yelling at my lasagna. FUCK YOU, YOU PILE OF PASTA! WHY ARE YOU SO HOT!? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU! WHY WON'T YOU LET ME EAT??!?!?!?! Christ, I'm angry just thinking about blowing on my food. I might have some issues here.

Maybe it's like Rain Man, I was horribly burned by cheese and that caused me to have some kind of irrational fear of overly hot pasta. Except I can't count cards or matchsticks.

Final note: Yes this actually happened Monday night.

I think I might move to Wales

I've seen a couple of stories in the last couple of days that have made me think that in Wales even the fuddy duddy old establishment types might be quite cool.

The first story was about a drunk in Anglesea who leapt over a wall shouting "Darth Vader!", to attack members of a newly formed Jedi Church. He was unconvincingly dressed a black bin-bag. When he didn't turn up for his court appearance the Judge issued a warrant for his arrest and said "I hope the Force will be with him soon." Arf.

Then we have the vicar in mid Wales who's applying for a drinks licence at his church! "I'm just off down the church for a pint." Huh?

If ever you feel a bit down in the dumps...

Go and read this post from the excellent if you like it so much why dont you go live there blog.

It makes me laugh every time. I don't know why. Really, it's so cruel. I think it's the idea that this guy thinks that having a petition sent round saying you are too ugly to come to school is a traditional form of bullying.

I know all there is to know about the driving game

Here's a rambling thought that came to me at lunch. It's about one of the games that I play when driving. As a matter of fact, I think most drivers play this game. Those poopheads out there that ride trains instead of driving, well, you can just fuck off and not read this.

When I pull up to stop light on a multilane road I always try and figure out which lane is going to go faster. Take a quick look at which lane has fewer cars, fewer minivans (because people who drive minivans have given up on life and have no desire to go anywhere with any speed), newer cars, faster cars or more sports cars. So I can be in that lane. I don't want to be stuck behind some assclown going 10mph below the speed limit.

I'm trying to think of an equation or something to help quantify this process.

One of the lanes empty? 100x multiplier. Is the driver a woman? -5x multiplier. Driving a minivan? -2x multiplier. Is it a dumptruck? -10x multiplier. Is the dumptruck loaded down? -25x multiplier. Etc, etc, etc. So on and so forth. It's a bit rough around the edges still. There's a lot of possibilities, and I'm very lazy which is why I haven't invented this yet.

Today's real life example: At lunch I was behind a minivan and a conversion van coming up to a traffic light. I was excellently positioned to get in either lane. So...conversion van...new... versus minivan....probably driven by a woman.... I chose the conversion van. OH how wrong I was! Suprise! The minivan was slow, but it was driven by a man (aka Mr Ladyboy)! The conversion van was also slow, but driven by a woman (aka Mrs Van Dyke)! In conclusion, I was hungry so I yelled at them both until the minivan changed lanes and got out of my way.

The End!

As an aside, this is post #200! Way to go LazyView! That's 194 more than I thought we'd make.

Market Kitchen

Regular readers will know I'm an avid fan of crap tv cookery shows. Yesterday I decided to watch Market Kitchen, mainly because the Hairy Bikers were on. If anyone doesn't know, these are two er... hairy bikers, who travel around the world on motorbikes cooking. Generally big meaty manly dishes, cooked outside in Keith Floyd style cooking sketches. Anyway they are great, but Market Kitchen which is UKTV Food's* own home made daily show along the lines of Saturday Kitchen, is pretty shit. I don't know why really. It's got all the ingredients (unintentional pun alert) to be a great show, but somehow like Saturday Cooks/Daily Cooks on ITV they've just slightly missed the target.

Anyway, why is all that relevant to LazyView? Well. Someone on an internet forum I frequent just asked someone if they'd read a book and suggested they get it from the library. Brilliantly helpful I'm sure you'll agree. Anyway it reminded me of one of the annoying things they do on Market Kitchen. After every recipe they read out what ingredients you'll need to make it at home. eg.

To make Si's Scallop Spring Roll's you'll need

12 king scallops, 24 queen scallops - From the fishmonger
12 sheets of spring roll pastry - From the Chinese supermarket
pinch of five spice, powder - From your storecupboard

etc.

Now I'll admit that some things are slightly unusual and you might not know where to find them but then you have "From your storecupboard" what if I don't have any five spice powder in my storecupboard? Is my storecupboard inadequate? What if I want to replenish my inadequate storecupboard? Where do I get more five spice from? Presumably not from the dreaded supermarket. Ok so I do have five spice in the storecupboard but that's not the point.

And what about when they say

1 organic or free range chicken - From your butcher.

Chicken? From the butcher? Are they on crack?

3 lemons - From the greengrocer?

What!? Fruit and veg from the greengrocer?

It's annoying because aside from the stupid idea that you need to tell people where to get things like meat and veg, and the patronising way they do it, there is the repeated implication that whatever happens you mustn't get this stuff from your supermarket. Now even those of us with the best of intentions can't avoid getting stuff from the supermarkets sometimes. We don't all live in a wonderful leafy West London suburb surrounded by beautiful local butchers greengrocers and international delis (sadly). The local shops also tend to only be open when we're awake unlike the brilliantly convenient supermarkets. I'd love to go to the local butcher and pick up a chicken on my way home after work, but it's shut. Sometimes you can plan ahead, sometimes it's not practical or I just can't be bothered.

Just little things like this can ruin a potentially great program. Ah well. If you want to see for yourself The Hairy Bikers are on for the rest of the week, 8pm UKTV Food.

*specialist channel of the year!

So is breaking your clavicle a good idea for being lazy?

On balance, no. It's rubbish. Sure you can't do a lot of crappy things like cleaning and washing up that you don't want to do but you also can't do a lot of the fun stuff that you do want to do like sleep or going out. You really don't notice how much people wander around bashing into one another in a busy town or station until it really hurts when they bash into you.

I can now type two handed with a keyboard set up that makes me look a bit like a tyrannosaurus so that's ok. Er... but that doesn't give me much reason for not having blogged yet this month. Really it's because nothing blogworthy has happened. All I've been doing is sitting at home and watching TV. Rubbish.

Leaving once again

I'm leaving town once again. Hopefully with the police not chasing me for once. I know, I know, I know...what's the difference when you're here and when you're away? Well, now I have an excuse why I won't blog for 5 days other that being a lazy git. I had so much to blog about too. People and things being "much vaunted", my return to Freecell, a follow up on the fattest man in the world, lazy governments, and more.

Assuming I make it back, maybe I'll blog about some of those things. Maybe if I return with a work ethic I'll blog about all of those things. Maybe Stalin will rise from the grave with an Army of zombie commies and we can have a cool, alternate, real life version of Command & Conquer: Red Alert.