timsellers.net/blog

30/04/06 : Well, hello there!

Ok, this is my personal blog - not about any particular subject, just life in general, with the occasional expletive filled rant thrown in for good measure.

So, a bit about me:

Name: gee, see if you can work this out . . .
Birth year: 1972
Location: England, south coast
Family: Married, 2 kids

Many blogs have a post called "100 things", where snippets of information are given about the author. This is my version, cunningly entitled "73 things". If I write a post on the subject of any of these "things" I'll add a link to that post by the side.

1. I'm an optimistic pessimist.
2. I expect the worst to happen but don't care enough to worry about it.
3. At my best, I think I look rather dashing.
4. I rarely look my best.
5. Employment wise, I do as little work as I can get away with.
6. People think I'm lazy.
7. "Non-depressive lethargic" is probably a more accurate expression.
8. Besides, I actually like spending time at home with my family.
9. And I'm against the whole concept of "wage slavery".
10. If I cared about politics I'd be a radical progressive liberal socialist type person.
11. I don't care about politics.
12. I tend to do what I want and let others get on and do what they want.
13. I like playing through old Nintendo games.
14. I suffer - fairly mildly thankfully - from OCD.
15. Before going to bed I have to go round the house checking that everything is switched off at the plug, having to stare at each plug for several seconds to really make sure it really is off.
16. I then return to check again a few minutes later.
17. I am fully aware that these things are switched off from the start.
18. I'm a very strong atheist.
19. I play the organ at a church ...
20. ... it is a very liberal church and they know I don't share their beliefs (although I don't imagine they are aware that I have a website entitled Religion is Bullshit!)
21. I like to cook.
22. And eat.
23. Italian, Chinese, Indian.
24. Cake.
25. I should be a bit on the podgy side.
26. I'm not.
27. I like real beer and red wine. And the occasional vodka and orange.
28. I drink lots of tea.
29. I am ... THE TEAMAKER ... I could walk into a complete stranger's house and within a few minutes would be making them all a cup.
30. I started piano lessons at the age of eight.
31. I passed my Grade 8 at fifteen.
32. I wasn't a good enough performer to go to one of the musical colleges and didn't get good enough A-level results to go to university.
33. I think my mum is under the delusion that I could have been a famous concert pianist.
34. As well as music, I took maths and physics at A-level.
35. Somebody told me that you could do anything if you passed maths and physics at A-level.
36. They didn't tell me that this is because you have to be a genius to pass maths and physics at A-level.
37. I failed maths and physics at A-level.
38. For several years I played keyboards in a rock band called Vagabond Kiss.
39. We could have been really good.
40. We weren't.
41. We played 80s style rock.
42. It was the mid 90s.
43. When the drummer left we decided to change style slightly and do without keyboards so that I could play drums. My greatest regret of the time was that the band split up before doing any gigs with me as the drummer.
44. On two occasions I have been arrested and had to spend the night in a police cell.
45. The first time was when me and a group if friends were chilling out on the roof of a building we had climbed on to.
46. Large numbers of police - with dogs - arrived to arrest us. They thought we were trying to break in.
47. The second time was when I lied to cover for a friend over a driving offense.
48. I had to be in an identity parade.
49. I was number 8.
50. The witness picked out number 2.
51. I bumped into number 2 in the pub a few days later.
52. The experience taught me that most police officers don't actually care about the truth, they just want to make an arrest and get a conviction.
53. I relate to "80s culture", presumably because I was a teenager at the time.
54. The fashions (and the music) were colourful and fun without the tackiness and huge-brown-flowery-wallpaperyness of the 70s. The politics might have been scary but at least that gave the alternative comedians some good material.
55. I was seriously into electronic music (Pet shop boys, Erasure, Depeche mode, Human League etc).
56. When the acid-house / rave / dance / whatever-you-want-to-call-it scene started I starting listening to rock music.
57. I also like 80s films, from teen stuff like Ferris Buellers Day Off to blockbuster stuff like Back to the Future.
58. I spent a lot of time back then sat in front of a computer (firstly an Acorn Electron, then a BBC Micro) playing games and writing programs.
59. I also spent a fair bit of time in video games arcades.
60. I like "britcoms" - from Fawlty Towers to Blackadder (I can probably recite the entire script to series II!) to Red Dwarf to Coupling, I'm Alan Partridge etc.
61. I was obsessed with Star Wars as a kid.
62. The Star Trek films were also good (although the original series seemed dated to me even as a kid).
63. I've got a bit of a thing for The Next Generation.
64. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is probably the best TV series ever made.
65. I feel more comfortable in the company of women that I am with men.
66. Perhaps because I don't like the "macho" thing - I don't care how "hard" someone is, or how many "birds" they've had (I have sex because it's kinda nice, not to prove what a man I am).
67. I can appear quite shy.
68. But I'm an extrovert ... on the inside ...
69. I like the expression "a dark horse".
70. I like night.
71. I hate morning.
72. My mum - a rare genuine person - thinks I'm a misfit.
73. I'm not a jigsaw piece!