Right, you don't normally get an update on a Saturday, but I'm panicking because someones about to read this, and I need a distraction from yesterdays bag of "life suxx!!!!1"

Note ye well, first time visitors are legally obliged to look at the archives, and to remember what I've already told them.

So...

Look at this and tell me it isn't funny.

Then tell me why...

In what seemed like a moment of jubiliation, I wrote this on my return from my days wanderings. Evidently tho, I am very muchly mistaken. So, read ye now about "The One That Got Away"...

None of my guest updaters have sent me anything this week, so I would be fucked, did I not have something to write about myself.

Yep, I'm not going anywhere near the "life suxx!!!!11" brigade today, because this day, I do believe I'm not single.

Be forewarned, we have a "Cheese" forcast for today...

Today was, in fact, the very last day of school I will ever have to do ever again. Until I go to Uni. Or exams. Or leavers lunch. Or... oh shut up! The last academic day of school. Obviously, no one had any lessons, as time is better spent sorting out Prom tickets, leaving rotten fish in the common room, or just chilling on the field.

I fell into the latter category, chilling on the field with my bitches (Tiny1, K80, et cetera). Now, we all know my taste in women, and being on hugging terms with just about everyone, and flirting with roughly the same, it should not have been unsuprising for me to unleash Massive Chyld Tickling Attack on K80's sides at least once.

What was not expected was this tickle to turn into an extended cuddle. You know the sort, sitting wrapped around a girl. The sort of thing I haven't enjoyed for far too long.

Mysteriously, everyone who we were with started vanishing. Much of my crew went off to find our Head of Year to sort out Prom Tickets, Tiny1 went off to find them after they did not return, and eventualy, The Elusive Nick fled, scared by the rampant flirting.

And it turns out, everything I've ever hoped for is actually still quite true. My arguement that it's been too long since I've kissed a girl became comically invalid.

And that is where I draw my line opn what I'm spilling. You perverts.

There, not really funny, but fuck it, like I said two days ago, I love her. And so it seems, vice versa.

Now, other news. I'm not going to be here on Monday, I'm going to be a-visiting my granma. Therefore, I can't get Big Brother to do it. If a guest updater wants to step into the firing line, I'll sort it so that they can upload some witterings.

I've still had no word from Keenspace either, so it looks like the webcomic is still on hold. Fear not! I've written a load of material for it, and one day, it will exist! Don't knife me, I'm on a roll for crap...

On such a note, I'm off to praise the Goddess of Boobies for my babyklopian avatar. Spelling? Pass. You task for the weekend is to check my spelling of those words, find out what they mean, then giggle like a naughty school girl. Then sacrifice a goat. Hop to it!

Right, the Slipknot theme has now officially died on its arse. Ghey.

But now then. Superstitions, indeed.

Back when there was no science, there was mythology. The world was not created by massivly improbable explosions, it was created by Zeus/Odin/Ug/God. And with that, came superstition. For example, the Greeks believed you could read the future in the guts of a raven. Obviously, it didn't work, as there are still plenty of ravens alive in the future. I wonder how often they predicted that then...

Nowadays, we still get some superstitions, lurking like a fart in a car. Lets have a looksy, and see what fun we can poke at them.

Magpies

When your longest standing girlfriend feels obliged to pass the time of day with any lone magpies, it does rub off. As do other things. Hehehe. Oh never mind.

So, the idea is that it goes something like this:
One for sorrow, two for joy,
Three for a girl, four for a boy,
Five for silver, six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told.

I have a feeling someone was trying to make it rhyme. I assume that "Seven for your wife to leave you and your trousers to fall down in public" didn't fit. Hasn't happened to me yet, but knowing my luck...

Besides, what genius decided one magpie was bad luck? If you follow this system of superstition, then half the time, you're down for bad luck. Unless you tell said magpie to pass your regards onto his wife.
1.) What do you do if it IS Mrs Magpie? Mothers get offended if you don't know what sex their ugly new baby is, maybe magpies are the same. That wouldn't be good luck at all..
2.) It seems to be like Catholic Confession, too much of an easy cop-out. If you're going to declare that one magpie is equal to bad luck, you've got to see it through. Tish fiddle and all.

Umbrellas

"Don't open umbrellas inside". they say. Sounds like the common sense brigade decided to try and make it a law. But obviously, the No Umbrellas Inside Act of 1425 was not passed, so they decided to force bad luck on anyone who did it.

Okay, so you don't usually need to open brollies inside, but lets factor in leaks. If a ceiling decided to leak while you were under it, you'd be a bit fucked.
"Fuck, I'm getting wet and my gel's running. Thank god for my umbrella."
"Don't fucking do that! It's bad luck!"
"Well tush diddly, looks like its Brylcream down my face then."

You could make a case for using buckets, or just moving, but that's the easy way out, like Confession or Saying Hello To Magpies.

Ladders

"No walking under ladders." Who the Dickens makes up all of these superstitions, anyway? Let's script some possible origins...

One Sunny Day, there is a ladder and a grand piano suspended from a rope.

Enter Silly Man

Silly Man: Hello everyone! I am a very silly man!

Walks under a ladder

SM: That's rather odd, that ladder wasn't there yesterday. Hey ho, never mind.

Walks under piano

SM: Oh look, a piano. Well, it creates a nice shady patch...

Piano falls and squashes Silly Man.

Enter Other Man

Other Man: Egad! The grand piano I suspended in the air has flattened my good friend, Silly Man! And it seems he walked under my ladder! I conclude that it's bad luck to walk under a ladder!

Anvil falls on top of Other Man

OM: Well fuck me diddles.

Gotta love that piece of filler...

The Scottish Play

In theatrical circles, saying "Macbeth" is very unlucky, so it is "The Scottish Play". It actually seems to work in practise (Death By Macbeth probably going onto death certificates nowadays), but imagine if the real Macbeth had suffered that problem...

"Hello, Scottish Play!" declared Lady Macbeth, as her husband walked through the door.

"Hello, Lady Scottish Play!" replied Macbeth. "I murdered Duncan today."

"That's nice, dear. Now help me fill in these tax return forms."

"Right. You need to stick my name in there..."

"The real one, or the assumed one?"

"Macbeth, you silly woman!" cried Macbeth, just before a one tonne weight fell on him

"Oh crap."

There, wasn't that fun? Its amazing how many other daft superstitions people came up with while I wrote this. We may have another update in line, it seems...

The Slipknot theme for the week comes crashing downa around my ears, as we present something slightly different.

I'm always listening to songs, and thinking "that's on my Top 10 favourite songs list." Recently, I've occasionly stopped and thought "That's a lot of songs for a 10-song list." So I'm actually going to make a proper list, and comment on it.

So, My Favourite Songs Circa Late May 2004, In No Real Order.

-Skindred "World Domination"

Of course you've never heard of them, unless the name Dub War rings a bell, since its practically the same band. The upshot is that it's a metal/punk band, fronted by a guy who looks more at home doing ragga/reggae. And it is amazing. Pounding guitars, machine-gun rapping, screaming that'd emabaress Corey Taylor.

But World Domination. Takes the entire biscuit factory. Rap metal gets a bad press, but this one song blows it all away.

-Transplants "Tall Cans In The Air"

You know it's going to be a good song, when a song starts with a gnome-like voice declaring "Nobody move, nobody get hurt!"

The side project of Tim Armstrong (Rancid), his roadie, and Travis of Blink 182. I'm sorry, you could have a line dancing gangsta group of pink turkies, and if Travis was drumming it'd be immense. The man is a titan.

But the song. Built along the same lines as a Skindred offering, only less reggae, more punk. Lovely.

-Raging Speedhorn "You And Me Man"

Just in case you all think I've become a punk man, we have the Corby bruisers. Their first album was shit. I'm sorry, I like many "alternative" bands, and it was nothing but two men screaming. Then came album two, a slab of grindcore genuis. Any album that starts with a man screaming "I hate you ALL!" deserves two big thumbs.

But You And Me Man, is a massive song. Shows exactly why having two frontmen and using them well is great. Plus, it has a solo only surpassed in contextby...

-Metallica "Master of Puppets"

Well, I'm a metalhead, am I not? Can't have a favourite songs list wihout Hetfield and his crew. And eight minutes of manic guitar wanking can't go wrong. Apparently, at his fastest, Jamey H manages 17 notes a second. Seems like nadgers to me, but it speaks volumes.

-Satyricon "Fuel For Hatred"

Officially credited as the first ever major label black metal album "Volcano" saw Satyricon actually noted... by people who like black metal. And the Norwegians. Hmm. Well, everyone else is missing out. Ten tonne riff, growly vocals, best drumming for miles, and a video with a snake and a naked blonde... being beaten with a stick. Powerhouse mysogonist rock. Hurray!

-The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster "Giant Bones"

You weren't expecting Chyld to miss them off his list? The coolest band ever?

This was the song that got me into the Eighties..., and still my favourite. One and a half minutes long, and barmier than six hamsters on an acid trip. Listen to this song, and argue the point. You wont be able to.

-Slipknot "Spit It Out"

Obviously, we've got to keep some semblence of theme this week, so my favourite song from my second favourite band ever...

And once again, the staples of a Chyld-supported song. Crazy rapping, mad screaming, bellowing guitars, frantic drums. And the line "Fuck me! I'm all out of enemas!"

-Sepultura "Roots Bloody Roots"

If you like Soulfly and not Sepultura, or have never heard of the latter, you're a poppy nutjob who needs beating, since they have the same frontman, and Unit B came out ages before Unit A.

The lead track off of their most famous album. Igor Cavalera is an underestimated drummer, Max a good frontman... and the other ones too.

-Disturbed "Voices"

Perhaps the least favourite of my favourite ever songs. But you gotta love that riff, and that man's voice. And its quirks. Huack Huack!

-Stone Sour "Get Inside"

What Slipknots frontman does in his spare time. People are quick to slate Corey T for being little more than a screamer, but Stone Sour shows how much he can do: scream, roar, rap, croon, sing, the works. And this song's just loud and rambunctious.

And now, our special "life suxx!!!!11" award:
-Daniel Beddingfield (sp?) "If You're Not The One"

Yes, its a crappy, one-dimensional piece of pop turd, with lyrics as deep as a puddle in the desert after a drought. But, when I was last going out with K-80, it was our song. You know what I mean, the song that makes the girl go "Ahhh..." and mushy, and the guy bright red at admitting this sort of crap. But fuck it, when I hear that song, it makes me think about the amazing thing I lost.

While deep and insightful, this isn't a good thing when one is trying to mark a paper round. But, as has been said before, fuck it, I love her.

Sorry for ending the guitar-praise on a love note, but the truth will out and generally does.

Following on from our Slipknot-based update of yesterday, I must apologise for my inability to write a review of anything. Sorry.

But just to maintain a theme, I've got a picture-based update for you. Take the track names from The Subliminal Verses, add stick men, and batently plagurise other paint-based concepts, and you have an update.

Yes, its short and unfunny, but it took me as long to draw as a regular updae does to write. Leave me alone.



There. Now go away.

Right, few things to clear up before we begin today's ramble, then we can clear up the other few things.

My latest mad invention is The Adventures of Henry Skull, my webcomic. It's not existing yet, but I shall release it next week once I have finished the prelimiary weeks-worth of comics. For all of next week, you'll only get half updates, as releasing a comic a day is quite enough for anyone. Thereafter, you'll be getting one to two comics a week in addition to the regular cycle of updates. Lovely.

So, I spent four and a half hours in what amounts to be a cupboard today, editing my video for Media Studies. Like I said a couple of weeks back, its an alternative video for Psychosis Safari, with completeness drinking lots of whiskey and having flashbacks/hallucinations. And very weird it is too. If I can work out how to, I'll upload it onto my laptop, and whack it up as an update. If anyone can tell me how to get a regular video cassette to turn into a video file, you know my e-mail address.

Right, the meat and potatoes of today's update, the first reference to anything vaguely contemporary.

Slipknot released their new album today, and I bought it.



There's quite a lot of update material I can get out of this fact. I can do my first ever online review, I can ridicule the close-mindedness of the populace, I can talk about my precognative dreams. We'll do that in reverse order, while I listen to the album. That gives me an hour and 17 seconds then.

1.) Dreams

I've told you all before that I have dreams, and they come true. So the big daddy was one I had about this album. I dreamt that I was reading a review of it in Kerrang! magazine, that it was called "Faces", and featured a picture of the entire band on the cover. The same picture was used in the review. I think it got 3/5, but it could easily have been 5/5.

I knew that if I dreamt this right, I should hand myself in for examining. See The Future Boy, they would say, he knew. I would be locked in a cage, and prodded with sticks, until I worked out next weeks Lottery numbers.

However, it would appear I am safe from prodding sticks. Just.

First of all, they decided to call it "Volume 3: The Subliminal Verses". However, there is a face on the cover. Admittedly, its a mask, but give me some points, will you? Obviously, this disproves the other part of my dream.

However, the review did contain a picture of the band, and did get 5/5. But since they changed the layout since my dream, I don't lose too many points on that account.

In conclusion, don't expect me to pick your lottery numbers for you

2.) Ignorance

"Why are you buying that shit?" asked Tadpole, as I emerged from the CD shop, my shiny new CD clutched in my hands. And this is a summary of the mainstream view of Slipknot.

I actually looked at the Daily Mail's website (an experience comparable to being violated by a wood rasp, I assure you), but couldn't find any reference to how they printed an article blaming the best thing to come out of Iowa for inspiring the German Hereford School Shootings. Apparently, it was a song entitled "School Wars" telling the listener to "spank your naughty teachers with a hand gun." Utter bollocks, for the obvious reason that said song doesn't exist. And writing about schools is like writing about bunnies - a waste of guitar strings.

Many see the boiler suits and masks, and think "Gimmick." Shut up. That's the point. By taking away the identities and individualities of the members, you're supposed to focus on the music.

Then we have the "Wood For The Trees" party, who seem to hear nothing but screaming. Well really, these are the people that listen to Drowning Pool and Disturbed, and claim that Avril Lavigne has any measure of musical talent at all. Think about this for a moment. The woman makes me sick.

Then there's those who wouldn't touch a metal band for a million pounds, let alone a good one. Death is too good, for there is no converting these people...

In short, open your mind and shut your mouth. Here's why.

3.) Review

Well, we all know why Slipknot are famous now, don't we? Nine angry Iowans assaulting their instruments and making the most delightful din in the universe. So when the intro contains melody, you know you're in for something special.

Typically, a Slipknot album is defined by "Bizarre electronic opening with edited vocals, followed by the heaviest song on the album, closing with a slow burning epic." The Subliminal Verses seems out to set that aside. The intro, "Prelude 3.0", is a slow burner, at 3 minutes, with Corey telling us "now it's over" repeatedly. No sampling, no rabbits saying that anything is sick. Think "Gently".

No suprises with the next track though, as "The Blister Exists" is another bastard-heavy metal stomper. It does feature an odd snare drum solo in the middle, however.

Vocally, this album hearks back to "Slipknot" itself. We all know that Corey is the perfect frontman, able to scream, holler, roar, sing, rap, croon, and any other vocal style. We see this in "Three Nil", which features a riff the size of a house, and shouting that'd turn a mans lungs inside out. After that, returning from being stuck on repeat on my laptop for months, is the single "Duality", which is quite catchy enough to perhaps lure in the heavier-inclined of my Slipknot-hating posse, while still being as heavy as a large elephant wearing a divers suit.

Then, five seconds of proper guitar widdling greets us for the opening of "Opium of the People", which seems like the bastard child of "Eyeless" and "My Plague", with said guitar fiddling instead of Viagra. By this point, the sex metaphor had run out, which is probably good, considering we're talking about a band who used to keep a dead crow for the audience to snort. We like the singing here.

Then, we get a shock. An acoustic guitar. Corey crooning. Orchestral strings. What happened, did Corey leave the tap on after he recorded "Bother" for Stone Sour? To be fair, its a good song, a very good song, but... let's put it this way. Imagine Picasso painting an amazing landscape scene. No matter how beautiful it is, it's not what you want from Picasso. Admittedly, it does turn on the drums in the last thirty seconds, but still.

Still, its a good song. Just unexpected.

"Welcome" returns us to what we paid £12 for, double bass pedals, machine gun rapping/shouting, and guitars that would rip a house down. Echoes of "Sic", you could say, but with more of the earlier guitar widdling. Scrap that, practically a solo. That's new too.

This is followed by "Vermillion", a faster version of "Gently", and an angst song about a girl. Not a theme they usually touch on. More melodic singing too. I'm quite sure if I paid this album to my friends, they'd like it. After I beat them with a cattle prod. Ho ho ho, because violence is funny. Just in case you were getting worried, we have "Pulse of the Maggots", your typical 'knot pattern stomper. With added widdles and soloism! Honestly, all we need is a change of bassist every other decade, and some sideburns, and we have Metallica In Boiler Suits.

"Before I Forget" is another melodic/shouty song, and I'm sure I heard a piano amongst the guitars. Then "Vermillion, Mk. 2" comes in with the acoustic guitar anmd crooning again. They certainly are broadening their horizons. However, the latter song is a facsimile of how I feel about a certain girl, so we'll let it off with another raised eyebrow.

"The Nameless" uses the same principle as ice cubes on nipples. Yummy, nipples. Need sex...

Sorry, side tracked. Damn hormones.

The point was, that it alternates from your typical shouty Slipknot masterpiece, to gentle strings and singing in between. And like ice cubes to the nipples, the cold and quiet moments heighten the hot and noisy ones. Its quite nice. Perhaps unlike frozen nipples.

See, I thought I could work more sex into this review.

However, shock horror - there is no gigantic outro.

We have "The Virus of Life", which is like "Scissors", only a bit noisier, and three minutes shorter, and "Danger - Keep Away", which is slow and melodic, and has a drum beat I could do one handed. But damnit, we want our long and pointless closing song! "Iowa" people, "Iowa"!

With the benefit of having heard the entire album, we can now say "Expect Nothing". Yes, the bastard heavy songs are as bastard heavy and cool as you'd expect Slipknot songs to be. But hit singles and To My Suprise have opened chinks in the boiler suits. There are melodic songs. If you're prepared to like them, its a audial delight. To those just after a heavy metal fix, get out "Iowa" again.

If you wanted a score out of anything, you'll be sorely disappointed. Just buy it, damn you!

Now, you can see how bad I am at reviewing things. Just wait until you see my 10 Favourite Songs Of All Time list. Your eyeballs will bleed in embarrassment...

Have I ever explained the Chyld Principle of Insanity? Basically, everyone I encounter is, by default, certifiably mad. I'll look into it properly one day. For now, Supermarct makes his bid to prove it, since no one else sent me anything...

How to become a schizoprhenic? Meet my gang:

Vakman (Handyman): is tall and sings a lot, besides that he is crazier than yours truly. To give you an example, one day we bought a necklace on the market with the word ‘sperm’ on it. We thought it would be funny if a girl would ask: “Hey, wants on the necklace?” and we would answer: “it’s the name of my girlfriend.” Then the reader would ask “Sperm?” and we would wet our pants because of the laughing. Besides this we would want to know of the necklace-salesman would be crazy enough to actually make us a sperm-necklace (Wow! That sounds filthier than expected). Oh Myself! This guy is going to be a father soon…

Bacarie-Cola (Coke): his real name is Arjen, a long time ago we change it into Arie. No one actually knows why, but we are a gang who does a lot of things without any purpose. The name soon changed into Bacarie-coke because he always drinks Bacardi Coke. Oh help! The worst semi-joke ever. Anyway, he is also quite tall (Now, I’m writing this I try to figure out why I only have tall friends. I myself I’m tiny and that’s why Jess would be a great girl for me…). I can actually talk a whole night with this goon and another one and the third person wouldn’t have a clue where we talked about. We have a specific kind of humour which no one understands, mainly the jokes are that bad that the are just un-understandable. We once went to a club and pretended that I was a Russian guy and we made it quite believable. Somehow girls like to talk to foreign people. After a few weeks we were wasted ourselves at a bar again sprouting bullshit as usual when I felt a tad on my back. “Yes my dear?” I said and realised it was the same girl again. “Hey? You can speak Dutch?” Even though I’m a smooth talker even I couldn’t save my sorry ass and I never talked to the girl again.
We even plan a radio show on the local radio station together. But we still have to make a demo tape. One day! Mark my words… One day!

Dickey S.: sounds like a porn-criminal. But the reason of his lame nickname is that this guy is pretty boring. The only thing he talks about is football. I don’t believe he ever had a girl which is pretty pathetic if you reached the age of twenty-two. So, there isn’t anything to say about him actually. We did have quite some adventures though, I’ll tell you the best. Every year we have a local party through our entire city with bands (well, people that make music). We went to the worst music group (I refuse to call it a band) ever and we started shouting they were the worse thing ever, which wasn’t a lie at all. After a while the singer of the band leaned to us and asked us to leave or be quiet. Did we shut up? Nope. Did we leave? Nope. All the joy of the band left and after a while he got so pissed at us that he said: “If you think you can do it better, go ahead!” Well, I don’t think he ever said something this stupid. We climbed the stage, I grabbed the bass and Dickey grabbed the normal guitar. And we started shouting obscene words in the microphone. It took around three minutes when the security kicked us off the stage…

Bambi: is our very own country defender. His name means to us something like a sissy John Rambo. He doesn’t really belong to our gang, but he just follows us around and as long as he buys us beers we won’t tell him to get the fuck out of sight. He has a tattoo on his biceps, but on the inside of your arm the tattooing hurts the most. Our rough and tough warrior didn’t dare to complete is on the whole arm. Now he has a half-finished tattoo on his arm, sissy! But I did have quite an adventure with him too. At the time he had a girlfriend and some sinister dark figures had hit her. I was the only one around in the club he knew. So he asked me to come which is a pretty stupid thing to do. A) I can’t beat up a cockroach and B) with my big mouth we always end up with more thugs than we started with. Anyway, Bambi pointed the guy who hit his girl and I walked straight to him. I said “Can you please step out of your shoes, because I like to take a piss in them. Then at least your feet start to smell a bit better.” Before I finished my sentence I lay on the ground and felt someone kicking in my stomach. I somehow managed to grab his leg and pulled him on the ground. And even though he easily could kick my sorry ass he was scared because I did it and he left. And I was the hero of the gang for an hour.

Hoef (no translation possible): If I’m getting into an argument I’m always happy if my good friend Hoef is around. He is a 250 pounds skinhead. Somehow when he is around and don’t end up in troubles. One time we did end up being trouble when I had to yell something to an inhuman big goon. We were at a fancy fair and riding crash cars (the thing where you bump to other cars, capiche?). He wanted to hit us hard but when he missed us I shouted that you need brain to hit someone. When we ended our ride he pushed us in to the canal. But we were to drunk to actually notice. Hoef also is the guy who all the time ends up on stage when a strip act is held in our hometown club. One time he ended up sticky because the strip girls throw custard and jelly on him. He was so wasted Niels and I had to bring him home. When we arrived at his crib his mother was still awake… You’re quite a smooth talker to explain that one… I didn’t succeed.

With such friends, you want to spend as much time on your own as possible. But then I became lonely and needed some company. Luckily the voice came and I had a great time together...

Amen. Incidently, I've done the first ever Adventures of Henry Skull Comic, and if I feel like it, you can see it on Monday. Bye bye, boys and girls...

I've nothing really huge to talk about today, all the updates I have are half-finished crap. So I'll talk about stuff that comes into my head within the next ten minutes.

By the time I've finished this, it'll be time to get ready for a band practise. Yes, en masse covers of stuff too slow for me to drum along to, here we come. It's only really so that we can have photos taken for someones A-level coursework, so that's fair enough.

I haven't talked very much about my drumming on this here blog. I've covered green several times, had many Dutch ramblings (someone needs to send me a guest update for tomorrow, anyone who promised me one), and even talked about my love life. But there's nothing to say about drums. Except this. Why is a cowbell called a cowbell nowadays? Indeed, it was once based on the bells found on cows. But it's now strapped to a drumkit, not a cow, and doesn't have the clapper inside it, therefore requiring whacking with a stick. Hence, not really a cowbell anymore.

And we're not really covering any nice fast songs. "Fuel!" the lead guitarist keeps bandering round, before playing Bryan Adams. But I'm all for speed drumming. I have a double bass pedal, for gods sake! Doesn't this imply anything? Humans are stupid.

The sun that teased us earlier this week and turned me brown is now hidden behind thick clouds. While I am proud of my country, weather is not included in my sphere of patriotism. Typical that, we imported all the criminals to a large and sunny country on the other side of the world, and stayed in the small and foggy one. Good one, Mr Cromwell. I assume it was Cromwell's fault?

Just listened to Summer of 69. Well, I'll get shouted at if I can't play it! Makes you think, last summer before uni. I have a shitload of high times planned before then. Reading Festival, on which I have already spent an update wittering away, is biggest of all. A barge holiday with my more mainstream friends. If they expect me to spend four lazy days on a boat without lighting up at least one spliff, they're totally batshit bonkers. Also, the family's going to Kos, so that means sun, sand, and hopefully wasy women. Yummy.

All this, coupled with the inevitable getting stoned, means that there'll be vast swathes of time where there's no updates. Fear not, I'll sort something out. Maybe show Big Brother how to convert Notepad documents into updates. He'll still cock it up, I reckon. The spawn of my blood is dense as lead. You really do have to live here to understand. One day, I'll sample his diaries and upload them as an update, that'll be a laugh.

Another paragraph, and we'll call it a day. It is very scary, actually, how little time I have left of formal education. One day tomorrow, with maybe one lesson at most, a week of a few lessons, then a month of exams, and its all over. For ever. Very scary for me. Considering how I've done no revision at all. I learn like a sponge - take it in quickly, and let it out as soon as removed from the source. Hopefully, I can spill some onto the right exam papers. I can do it, I just need to bother.

I did it, I just rattled off a load of crap in 15 minutes, and called it an update. Fucking amazing! Tomorrow, its either Da Skorpian or Johnny Napalm wittering away. But neither has sent me anything. Hurry up lads!

So, I have this blog, right? Typically, blogs are about the author, and all I do is chat rubbish all day long.

So, to heighten the rumours that I'm self obsessed (and the fact that there's nothing else worth putting up), I'm going to do the equvilant of one of those stupid e-mail circular things. Although I'm actually using questions Kerrang! magazine asks its assorted rock stars in a column every week, as since I have half a brain, most circular e-mails are wiped off of my e-mail like shit down a toilet.

So, About Chyld At Ten O'clock Last Night...

1.) HOW ARE YOU TODAY?
The sun was shining, I had a beer (but sadly not two), and the girl I love/fancy agreed to be my prom date. While a million and one things could make the day I've had better (An ounce of free weed? Lots of pre-marital sex? A girl declaring undying love for me?), it's hardly been a bad day.

2.) WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?
Nothing. At time of writing, its half ten at night, I'm in bed, and it's boiling. So nekkid it is. Oh, you might have wanted to turn off your imagination there...

3.) WHAT SONG IS IN YOUR HEAD RIGHT NOW?
Currently, my head is tired and empty and full of cotten wool. If anything, i'd be either "Set It Off" by Skindred, or "Think" by Drowning Pool. This line of thought isn't helped by searching my CD racks for something to satirise...

4.) WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
Dinner, probably. Chicked breast, oven chips, and colesaw. All good shit.

5.) WHAT CAN YOU COOK?
I do a mean cheese on toast. Not good enough? How about blue instant custard? Nope? What do you people want, flambe cooking?

6.) WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU SPOKE TO ON THE PHONE?
More than likely, my paper round boss, talking for a minute and still not actually telling me if I'm needed in tomorrow or not. What, were you expecting "I spent four hours talking to the girl I love"? Get real. She's too busy leaving her phone that she never lets leave her side in her room when I try and call her. Odd creatures, women...

7.) WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX?
In this rough order; face, tits, arse, face again, wall a foot to the right of girl. I'm such a romantic.

8.) GIG OR PARTY?
You can tell these questions are aimed at rock stars. Parties get gate crashed, and proper gigs cost too damn much. In an ideal world, it'd be getting stoned in a field, then going back to someones house for beers.

9.) FAVOURITE TOUR BUS ACTIVITY?
I like to knock up a couple of groupies, snort a line of coke off of a toilet seat, then jam with some guys who may be my band. Then awaken from my reverie. Because I don't even have a serious band, never mind a tour bus.

10.) WHAT DID YOU DO LAST NIGHT?
Much the same as I'm doing tonight, bollocks on my laptop.

11.) WHAT ARE YOU SCARED OF?
Myself. I have no idea what kind of crazy shit could happen if I properly lost the plot. If that's a crap answer, say heights and be done with it.

12.) LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
I omitted this question, as I actually couldn't remember.

13.) WHAT WAS YOUR LAST SHAG LIKE?
Crap. And too long ago. Mr Weiner and Mr Hand are too well acquainted...

14.) HOW DO YOU WANT TO DIE?
Taking the bastard who killed me down with me. Or something spectacular. Whatever.

15.) TELL US A SECRET
All the best and juciest ones are sworn to secrecy. So here's one. I dream, and it comes true. Literally.

16.) WHAT'S YOUR BEST QUALITY?
I try and be nice to all people all the time. The world is full of haters. Old friends are falling apart, even good friends are having arguements about absolutly nothing. I try and be a lover. Obviously, there are exceptions, but only really for the scum of the Earth.

17.) AND YOUR WORST?
I smoke too much weed. It'll kill my lungs, one day. But you've got to have your vices...

18.) WHAT'S ON YOUR SCREEN SAVER?
It;s just a shitty Marquee mesage, so we'll talk about my desktop and pretend I misunderstood. The people who normally fill this in get away with it. It's currently my cat, Amy, lying on the lounge floor by an inexplicable roll of carpet we recieved one day. No one will ell me what its for...

19.) FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
Where's that sodding beeping sound coming from? Damn phone. Right, alarm off, time for bed again. SEVEN THIRTY?!? Jesus...

20.) I'LL DO ANYTHING FOR LOVE, BUT I WON'T DO...
This for an update again for a very long time.

I've got my prom date sorted. Have you? As far as I'm aware, only if you're incredibly small, didn't come out for a beer in Period Four like you said you would, or not reading these words. Or me. We're only going as friends, but hell, works for me.

Right, time for the most useless update so far. Not a rant, not intentionally funny, more a doomsaying ramble.

On every road, on every street, in every car, you see them. Cars. While I could spend an update on them alone, they're not my point. Amongst these cars, one keeps appearing. And it's scary.

The Vauxhall Corsas.



There's nothing wrong with Corsas. They're small, cheap, and all those other things us impoverished students need from a car (although as I typed this, a friend of mine I haven't designed an alias for yet decided to morally undermine me by declaring to the room that they are shit). But there's no special reason why so many people have one.

For example, Minis are small and cheap, and the old ones are extremly cool and little. Unlike myself. All I want in life (aside from a good woman, a double bass drum kit, an island covered in cannabis plants that I can make a secret base on...) is an old-skool Mini, in matt black, with flame decals. And many people agree with me. But you don't see Minis literally every five minutes when near a road.

So, why are we being swarmed with Corsas? There are several useless theories I can come up with in order to fill space.

1.) The Consumers Are Being Brainwashed.

You could imagine this, couldn't you? Vauxhall has taken over the Government, and forced subliminal advertising into every advert on TV. "Buy Vauxhall Corsas!" they say. "They'll give you a massive penis/pair of breasts! Go on, hop to it!" Result? Flooding of cars.

And yet, such bribery/take-overing requires huge amounts of money. Assumably, the biggest earner for Vauxhall is Corsas. See the paradox yet?

2.) Corsa Laundering

Maybe its a bizarre marketing tactic?

Look a this this way. You go to bed one night, sad in the absense of a genric little car you can bundle a couple of mates/wimminz off to Tescos during lunch break in. But you wake up and find there's one there.Ah! Kudos to Vauxhall, you think. And so does everyone else who believes that you didn't steal it.

Of course, there's also offering them in competitions, with similar effects, but I can't remember any such competitions, all of which seem to be for Minis nowadays, and saying "Won In Competitions" isn't really as funny.

3.) Won In Competitions

But it does fill up spaces when you're frantically trying to get a full update out of a two-paragraph idea because a guest updater is threatening to cover the same ground.

4.) Parallel Universes

An alternate universe, where the only cars avaliable are Vauxhall Corsas, is slowly being squashed into ours due to time distortion. As a result, more and more Vauxhall Corsas are being created as the two universes merge.

Unless some brave hero undertakes a suicidal mission into the alternate universe, and destroy the machine compressing the two realities, we shall eventually be drowned under a tide of small cars.

5.) We Are All Sheep

Well, I wouldn't ignore this theory. See yesterday's update.

And now, a word from our sponsors on the matter:

"porn"

Thanks for that, Miles...

anything slightly different in their closed world. And it allowed me to segue into an update I started weeks ago, and here it is.

Fashion is the biggest load of bollocks in the Universe.

I myself have never been one for spending either massive amounts of time or money on my appearence. All my favourite pairs of trousers are products of dodgy market stalls, frayed round the bottoms, and usually falling off. All but one T-shirt I own is black, and they are all festooned with band logos, offensive slogans, or nothing at all. My hair is either forced crudly into spikes with enough gel to armour plate a small car, or wrapped by a beanie, which it flares out from.

I am the one the fashionatas hate. And I don't care.

I will always be dressed how I want to, and not how either some marketing executive, or some twat in a white hoodie (with no offense to sane people in white hoodies, you're both very nice people) wants me to. I refer, obviously, to the Great Cunt itself, the one the entire RL Less is More crew reviles with a passion, as derided by Johnny on Friday. Apparently, I am filthy, dirty, and lower than life itself. But I have integrity, which is better than a pair of tight-fitting jeans anyday.

Plus, the cost of being seen in "the right clobber" isn't just pathetically exorbiant on this end of the production. Its been covered by the bleeding hears infinate times, but I for one am quite happy without wearing a T-shirt made by the toil of fifty underpaid Vietnamese slave boys. To have a soul suffer so you look "cool" is so uncool you wouldn't believe it.

There's enough shit to get through in this life without worrying about what other people think about how you dress, whether what music you listen to, etc. Find something you're comftable with, and stick with it. Don't bow down to the close-mindedness, fight it. Preferably with a knife and a knuckle duster, but verbally if you like.

Right, that's enough ranting for the day. So, any notices?

Nope?

Well, that makes for a short update then.

Right, time to go back to your horny daydreams. Knowing the demographics of my readership, I'm not wrong at all.

I have had the absolutly maddest two days in history, and I'm ad libbing an update out of it now I've just got online. Be thankful, the alternative was an update on Vauxhall Corsas...

Yesterday morning, I went into school for my one lesson of the day. As our regulars know, my laptop went down in smoke on Monday, and while I was in Maths, it was supposed to be miraculously fixed by Dad's uber-techy friend.

After realising the pointlessness of a lesson which I had no paperwork for, I went home. As everyone had declared already, the hard drive was kaput. Thank God however that the data on it could be saved. Fucking hell that it would be too late for my Media Studies coursework essay, making up about 15% of the mark for an entire A-level, to be in...

So, the biggest writing frenzy I have ever tried began. 3000 words on how Futurama is a sci-fi program. There but for the Grace of God, I managed 2200 words by sundown.

Next day (ie, today), I decided I had a choice. Go into English to do intolerable essay, OR do vital Media Studies essay? Choices, choices...

Finally, by 10:30am, I had it. 2825 words of pure speed-typing genius. Consider that this is an essay that should have taken four months to write, rattled off in six hours. Go Chyld! Then, I prepared to actually go and hand it in...

11:15am, and I had handed it in. Nothing to do for the rest of the day.

She (you all know who by now, and I need to think of a better psudonism than Her) proposed a casual walk to the town she lives (only half an hours walk, a nightmare in skate shoes) and a pub lunch. Fairy nuff, said I. Despite our beseechings, Amyjay would not join us, and neither would She Who Is Small. So, off setteth Chyld and K-80 (does that work? Or is it too obvious?)

However, "not that far away", when talking to women, evidently means "we're sodding miles away". The first was how far the pub was away in "K-80 Time" at five minute junctures (considering that Chartridge Lane, the road it was up, is practically inclined at a 60 degree angle), and the latter is the real-life version.

Plus, when we were at 2Xm away from the school (X being the distance in hundreds of meters, where you actually can't be arsed to go back and do something importent), Her phone rang. And for some reason, it was Crazy Australian Psychology Teacher (since half of you do Psychology, you know who I mean) asking for a piece of paper K-80 had, but could have handed in when not in the next town about to have lunch with Chyld. Ho hum.

So, with a combination of "nearly there"s, and rushing to get She Who Is Small (bless) to help get pieces of paper ferried around, we only had time for a pint each at the pub.

Eventually, I got home, with laptop fixed typically too late. Then I had to fight to get the internet to work.

So, what can we learn from this?
1.) Vans are not walking shoes.
2.) Never trust K-80 Time when you desperatly need a pint.
3.) Don't run when you're dehydrated and only have a pint of Carlsberg in you.
4.) Australian Psychology teachers are disorganised people. BEWARE!
5.) Unplugging modems = increased efficiency!

Yes, I'm sorry if this is shit, go away. I am doing practically an hours worth of work a day for no pay or otherwise. And at any rate, Johnny Napalm promised me a guest update, and hasn't provided yet.

God, I need to get out of this house...

Yep, its almost time to have another go at the base stupidity of my family again. Today, its telephone messages.

First of all, an update on updates. The hard drive is totally and utterly sodded up; thanks to everone on Black Orc and Fully Ramblomatic who told me as such. However, the data on the hard drive is salvagable, but it'll take a few days, or maybe a few more hours on top of what it's had. Either way, a bit late for my Media Studies essay. Can you spell "bunk a day"?

Also, I've bitten the bullet and created a Cafepress store. All we have right now is T-shirts, caps and underweap, but its got Henry Skull on it, and lots of rampant blog-plugging. Its better than that Adidas crap any day.

And last of all (you all really just want to laugh at my brother), I'm thinking of supplementing my written missives with a webcomic. Well, I've been thinking about it as long as I've been thinking about making a blog, but I've now got a cast of characters, a few ideas, and I know where to host it. Expect it within the next few weeks.

But, the update now. So, telephones.

Nowadays, I can be quite easily contacted by MSN, e-mail, text, or simply by phoning my mobile. I am your typical Gen-X kid in the communication stakes. Generally, therefore, I do not need to be conacted by home phone. Sometimes, however, important calls, random stoners and paper round bosses force such things onto me. Back in the old days, before such nifty devices came along, tales abounded about how my family answered the phone, and these were frequently passed onto me. At my expense. Hey, its not my fault my family are mad!

So, Big Brother...

(Note: each "..." represents a pause of about three seconds)

Ring ring, ring ring, pick up.

...

BB: "Hello?"

Caller: Hello, [brother]?

...

"Yes?"

Is [Chyld] there?

...

"Yes."

...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...

[Brother]?

...

"Yes?"

Can you get him?

...

"...OH! RIGHT! Just a second..."

This already long and pointless updae doesn't end there! Oh no! There's still time to cover my darling mother hollering up the stairs...

Ring ring, ring ring, pick up.

Mum: "Hello?"

Caller: Hi, can I speak to [Chyld] please?

"Just a mo..."

"AAAANNN-DROOOOOOOO! AAAANNN-DROOOOOOOO!"

(once the local glass has finished shattering, and the dogs have finished howling, I take the shattered remains of the phone, and conversation ensures)

That's quite enough twaddle for one day. Buy a T-shirt right now! Or buy me a hard drive...

First, great news everyone! Due to my inability to respect technology, my laptop has packed up. Refuses to recognise the C Drive, and clicks like a dolphin on viagra. While I totally forgot to back up my vital coursework due in for Thursday, I did save my collection of updates. How very organised of me. However, this mean that once I exhaust my (limited) backup supply of updates, I may be stuck.

However, my dads taking it to his clever computer tech man, and hopefully it will be sorted by tomorrow. Meaning I can rush 2000 odd words on Futurama before it has to be in, and I can get back to writing my nonsense.

So, today's scheduled update.

Well now, how do I earn money for all my drugs, CDs, little plastic men, etc, then? I work in a chemists. Some of you may call it a pharmacy, some of you may call it a drugstore, some of you may call it a twattybollocks, its nearly all the same thing.

Now lets milk this idea and turn it into an update.

At about 9am every Saturday, I come plodding in, having spent two hours doing my paper round, twenty minutes steaming home, half an hour getting ready, and ten minutes driving there. Add forty minutes if Dad's away, because Mum seems to forget that I can't drive.

Then, I indulge in an exercise in determining how hungover I am; loading precise amounts of purified water into our photo developing machine. I get this right if I'm sober, and spill loads if I spent the night before drinking. Although one night, I had ended up smoking so much weed I was still stoned the next day. Made it an interesting morning, I can tell you.

Then I start shifting glass bottles, paper bags, and titanicly large tins/boxes of baby milk from the stock room to the shelves on the complete opposite end of the shop. Being a 6 foot bloke may be good in some aspects, such as being able to see over small things and tower over the short, it does mean that all the heavy lifting and high shelf stacking lands on me, everyone else either being too female, or too occupied doing clever things with drugs to do it.

By then, someone will have dropped off some photos to be developed. This job gets delegated to me because 1.) Hot Girl I Work With is doing clever things with invoices 2.) I know how to do it and 3.) Nobody else can be arsed to.

Converting films into wodges of photographs is done like this:

1.) Take film.
2.) Spend half an hour trying to fish the end of the actual film out of the plastic case, using a suave film-grabbing doohicky.
3.) Tape end of film to a sheet of plastic and run it through developing machine.
4.) [Insert twenty minutes to twiddle thumbs.]
5.) Chop off end of film, and stick it into photo printing machine.
6.) Marvel at pictures of dogs/flowers/buildings/tits
7.) Adjust colour, misframed pictures, etc.
8.) Print.
9.) Get shouted at because its printing on the wrong sort of paper.
10.) Change paper.
11.) Print (again)
12.) Chop up negatives with cool negative-chopping machine (basically, a lightbulb, a razorblade and a ruler, with plastic sheets)

Once that's done, its a brisk walk across Chesham to pick up repeat perscriptions. Once I return, I bandage up the sixteen knife wounds I recieved on the way there, then...

Nothing.

Save serving the odd batch of customers, developing other films that come along, or [sick]dust shelves[/sick], there's little to do until lunch.

Then I fill my arteries with wodges of MacDonalds brand fat, and continue with the mornings Nothing.

At some point, everyone will hide in the dispensary out back and start a convosation about either pet care, hair care, or obscure technical car things that goes completly over my head. Whats wrong with saying "a mini. A black one." is beyond me.

In the late afternoon, once the scheduled allotment of car-jargon has been used up, I either end up vaccuming the shop with a vaccum that I swear is older than me, or wash up the seventeen million cups, twenty thousand spoons, and one hundred and two plates that four people generate in eight hours.

Then I phone my Dad, for predictable reasons and with predictable results. Take this example as being done a 5pm on the dot (although it will vary by half an hour either way...)

"Hi Dad, can you pick me up at quarter past five?"

"Rightyo. See you in fifteen minutes!"

Forty five minutes later, my Dad will arrive. I wake up everyone, and then I go home. Then pizza. Yum, pizza. Then, either the Saturday Getting Stoned Session, or the Saturday Gig. Or, as it may be, sleep. Its hard, lifting six cans of baby milk, at once.

1.) First off, some major changes have happened. To be honest, I've never liked the olive/green "we're in the jungle" theme of this blog. Well, inspired by the need to replace the logo (as removed by not enough bandwidth on my image server), I decided to just overhaul the entire image of the site. From "jungle camoflage" to "on the Moon camoflage", maybe, but I like it. Shouts out to these guys, who took hours of of the process of working out what colour does what. Of course, you won't be able to read all the white text without ruining your eyes, so you could be buggered there.

As to the banners I put up last week? They're on the old host, and now totally out of character, except for the last one. I'll be redoing them when I have a moment, but for now, feel free to use the new title image (with Henry Skull as drawn by me, and letters by Sepultura) as a banner.

The forum has not remained unravaged either. I've actually had a mess around, and now its all in character too. So you can mass spam/flirt with my friends in monochrome too!

2.) Tits. While I think they're fasinating myself, I can't actually see the fasination. They're two well-supported mounds of fat with some form of milk producing glands. Hormones have a lot to answer for.

For example, there was an "article" in The Sun this morning, about how Jordan is doign something in relation to Celine Dion. I can't remember what, I only noticed it because it was on Page 3. Now, alongside this thrilling piece of journalism, some sad twat had rewritten that annoying song by Ms Dion, going by the title "My Breasts Will Go On". If you can't realise the connections, you need to get out more.

So, there's people dying of AIDS, racism and crime in this very country, war and torture in the world, and people are being paid to write "poetry" about some stupid woman with titanic chesticles? I hate our species.

3.) Right, so there was I, casually uploading SuperMarcts first guest update one evening. Then, since it was several days before Friday, I set the time to 6:00pm, the time I aim to stick updates up. Then I suffered deja vu.

What kind of a stupid thing is that to have deja vu about?I believe that most of my deja vu is connected to dreams I have, and I have it too far often.But why was I dreaming about updating a blog and adjusting the time on it? WHY NO NUDITY?

The same thing also happened when re-arranging the timescale on the update about Reading Festival, and today in the middle of a Maths lesson. Is my life boring by coincidence or fate?

4.) I like my laptop. It's small, big in all the right areas, bloody useful, and quite sexy. Just like a good woman should be... sorry, going off on a tangent.I like to keep tabs on eBay. For a start, I bought the damn laptop off of the worlds most hyperd-up auction site, and I like to keep tabs on it to see if I can find useful things, like CD-RW drives, drum parts, and nail studded dildos. But I did find an auction for the same make of laptop as mine the other week. Have a read of this piece of spiel.

"no operating system loaded-formatted and ready to be installed. no cd rom or floppy drives..."

The first person to spot the reason why it had no bids will be certified "Sane."

5.) So I was stuck for an idea for a update, and Amyjay suggested "digdoo the deddle dater." Interpret that as you will.

6.) No, seriously, what use is knowing the differential of y=(Sin squared)xlnx actually going to be in real life? My stupid for doing A-Level Maths, but still. Or finding out the binomial series (1+x)(to the power of -1) up to (x to the power of 4)? Do you even understand what that meant, because you might want to tell me. I've got to pass an exam on it.

Enough already...

I haven't had time to proof this at all, since I need to do work myself, and prepare to, erm, "go to the pub". Yes. All I can tell is that its SM and his womanising, which seems to extend beyond my close friends. Don't worry, I'll be back on Monday. Chyld

I’ve never been a woman, so this probably is going to be a kind of guy thing. All the girls can ridicule me when I’m all wrong. Here we go:

When are you actually a good flirter? When you always get the target in bed? I think not… Even better I think flirting has nothing to do with love at all? Flirting is all about having a good time and just fool around a bit with the opposite sex. Well, that’s what it used to be. Nowadays the opposite part is not must for everyone. We life in a modern world, children. Anyway… You can’t convince me you home with someone because of a wicked one-liner!

People who have friends that are single make up those one-liners. I lost you here? Let me give you an example…

The guy says to the girl: “How do you like your breakfast tomorrow morning?”

Or another one:
A guy walks to a girl, looks her in the eyes. Then he puts a finger in his mouth, wets it and wipes it off on the girl’s blouse. Then he says: “You don’t want to get ill, let me help you get rid of these wet clothes!”

The point is, when a complete brain-dead psycho says something like this to a girl, it’s ten to one that the girl smashes him with a barstool or something heavier on the head. And that, my children, is fun for spectators! So, people who already got a girl/boy make the one-liners all up.

So, those stupid one-liners forget about them. They are stupid, pathetic and won’t ever work.

Now, what is a good thing to do? Maybe it’s better if there are any girls reading, that they stop reading… this is some guy-only info… You cute girls can read further at the next paragraph…

You see two friends chatting and drinking in a club. The first is really cute and gorgeous and hot and things and you want her. You don’t just want her, you really, really want her. Her friend on the other hand is not that cute and pretty. As a matter of fact she is kind of fat and has red hair (-this is something personal). Now, to whom are you going to talk first?
I’ll just give you some time to think… take your time.
Of course you’re going talk to the fat redhead! Why you ask? Because then the hot girl thinks: “Hey, that’s a nice guy. He even talks to the hobbit I brought with me.” And that’s the moment where you strike! Good job!

But let’s get a bit serious. When are you a perfect flirter? My answer is: BE ORGINAL! But, at all times, stay you!

The other day I went with my class partying. The whole class was there, and things were boring as never before. And what will happen as things are boring as hell? Indeed, the schizo enters… My good old friend Meat Loaf just started his Paradise on the Dashboardlight and so I took the hand of a cute girl and we went dancing. And all the tough guys laughed and pointed at me. But halfway the song, which by the way lasts an astonishing 8 minutes and 29 seconds, some more girls joined me… and some more… and some more… In the end it was just I and around twenty-five girls on stage, and all the tough guys? They didn’t point and laugh no more. What’s the lesson? Do something original and laugh in the end at the pathetic losers who act tough!

This is it for now. Go practice my little Casanovas!

So, I've been in Sixth Form for two years now. A fortnight of lessons, a dozen exams, and I'm free of formal schooling forever. Quite scary, really, but fear and funny blogs don't mix so very well. Lambasting my lessons and teachers and making in-jokes only my real life friends will get, however, is perfectly on the cards.

Besides, unless I do it now, the inspiration will vanish, and I'll have to write about smoking weed. And lets be honest, I have all summer for that. So, lambasting.

Media Studies

Media Studies has a horrible reputation. Apparently, all we do is sit around and watch episodes of Eastenders. Anyone that thinks I'm going to watch Cockney morons beating each other up willingly, without being suicidally bored, is probably being held underwater by divers boots. Instead, we alternate between two teachers. One is presently letting us bugger off to film videos, despite there only being three cameras Actually, to fill space, here's the videos our regular readership/sponsers are doing:

Chyld: Music video for "Psychosis Safari", an Eighties Matchbox... song. It involves CompleteAnarchy drinking lots of whisky, being beaten up, harshly rejected, and hallucinating.A typical day in my life, then.
CompleteAnarchy: Music video for "The Reefer Song". The meaning of the song is fairly obvious, as is the material filmed for it, and the cast. I also had a cameo as a guitarist...
Amyjay: Opening of a "romantic comedy". Unfortunatly, its not funny enough to lampoon properly. But the out-takes are quite funny. Old women coming out of shops, not recieving texts in time, and other such oddities...
Her: A childrens story. Laugh at Chyld in a horrible wooly jumper! Jump in fear at Amyjay dressed as... a witch! My co-star nearly took out my eye with a stick during the filming...
Jonny Napalm: No one knows. Least of all, himself.

The other teacher lets us go early nearly always, which we like.

English

I wanted to drop this subject, partly because it sucked, partly because people I wanted to spend time with had a free period then. However, since one of the teachers is our Head of Year, and she didn't want me to drop it, I joined the overworked hoardes doing four A-levels. Her lessons involved her alternatly deriding my lack of effort, and praising my amazing commitment. Now its a free, due to the amazing lack of work left to do.

The other significant teacher we have is renowned for never smiling, and I attribute this to being an English teacher. She doesn't give us enough work to actually pass the time, yet too much to actually have a reason to bunk the lesson. Typical.

One of our Media Studies teachers also has us for an hour a week, but I've no idea what we actually did in his lesson this year. The previous year, he spent an entire year reading us a single book, specifically missing the funniest parts. IE, the sex. Meh.

Maths

Ive considered doing an update on just how useful this subject is, but I got bored. And anyway, I understand the simple dances of numbers, and how everything is equal and balenced. However, this does not seem to apply to anything I'm doing at the moment.

It doesn't help that fully 2/3rds of the teachers we've had for the suject are/were useless. One, The Oompa-Loompa Lady, decided that since mankind is already a telepathic species, writing the answers to questions on the board and not explaining the process involved is a good way to learn. Needless to say, I only did one piece of homework over one and a half years for her.

Then, we were given Inept Canadian Teacher, who we still have for half our lessons. Apparently, she threatened to quit unless she was given an A Level class to teach. With the amazing despondence of Maths teachers in this fair land, we were lumped with her. Typical bloody Americans. And yes, there's a difference between Americans and Canadians, but it annoys them both, so its staying up. These lessons are characterised by the two extremes; her launching incomprehensable mathematical jargon at us, and her being patronisingly condesending about addition (as an example). Needless to say, I haven't done any work for her ever.

Drama

Ah, the Performing Arts! Always been something I've enjoyed, but something I've somehow become crap at. Meh.

There's suprisingly little that's that funny about this lesson, apart from that our teacher is actually an Egyptian mummy. Thus far, however, we have neither seen a sarcoughagous, nor heard a moan of "Brainssss..."

Right, that topic fizzled out quite quickly. I'm now going to wonder why some women can't seem to get along with anyone...

Simply because I haven't finished any other updates (although I have stared about five), here's some of the milkings of my Totally Not Secret "Short Stories" file. Not long enough to be proper updates, not short enough to be dashing one-line observations, just right for tying together and throwing up under the pretense of an update. Enjoy...

1.) Computers are lots of fun. They can land spaceships on the Moon, calculate Pi to a million decimal places (why anyone would want to...), and they let me post this twaddle up on a regular basis.

The other day, for no other reason than boredom, I went out and downloaded some GIF animation software. For those of us not so technoliterate, that means I can make PICTURES THAT MOVE! And I have. Here now are some pointless twattybollocks banners I drew in Paint. Download them (no direct linking, I trust you all more than that, but I need the bandwidth, damnit!), and stick them in your sigs/websites/AVCE coursework. And link back to me! I like the ego that comes with hoardes of people I don't know looking at my little blog, and thus far, Google isn't helping much. Unless you actually search "Less Is More Chyld", and then you end up finding a Lord of the Rings forum.

So, without further ado...





2.) Due to my incredible lack of money to spend on a new phone (mine keeps freezing...), I'm involved in a pointless exercise in human pikiness. I've paid this wesite £20 for a CD of phone-type things. I was then added to a monolithicly huge list of people who had done likewise. For every 28 people added to the list, the top person on the list is removed, and given a phone of their choice free. Hence, a phone and a useless CD for £20. Plus whatever you wasted on eBay to get the URL. (Some morons pay £50 for such "information". I paid a fiver. I'm still a moron.)

How did they get the phones? Despite their claims, it can't actually be legal...

[ringing phone]
[/ringing phone]
Mr Phone Company Boss: Hello?
Mr Website Man: Hello, I'd like lots of cheap phones to give out free to people who buy this CD from my website, and...
MPCB: I'm sorry, we don't do business with smacktards. Good day.
*sounds of security being called*
MWM: We'll talk terms on Monday then...

3.) My floppy drive seems determined to drive me mad. In one evening, it caused three crashes, one broken floppy disk, and upteen rude words as I tried to transfer useful information from laptop to internet-wired computer via useless husk of metal and plastic.

The other day, I bought me a USB pen drive off of that wonder of the internet, eBay. Such a lovely miracle of electronics can hold many essays, dance between computers like David Beckham through women (if you'll believe the tabloids), and actually hold a MPEG filesworth of porn (talking about that will probaly scar 105% of the readership for life), and the sooner I get it the better. Here's the other reasons why:

-Smaller/lighter
-Holds more information
-Easier to use
-Won't snap when Chyld gets pissed off and needs something to break.

4.) Finally, here's a quote from a conversation I had with CompleteAnarchy the other day. 27th April, when I wrote about my stoning exploits of the previous Saturday. I'm the one shamelessly plugging my website...

http://less-is-more.blogspot.com/ - Stairway to heaven says:
o yeah, you might want to look at my blog 2day - its all about what we did on saturday
OB says:
haha safe ya shit tell me the website
http://less-is-more.blogspot.com/ - Stairway to heaven says:
it's in my name, CA
OB says:
lol o ya

Speaks for itself.

Now click "Forum" and give me some more for the archives...

Reading: 1.) The present tense of "to read" 2.) A town in England.

Festival: An large and exulant gathering of people.

Reading Festival: Heavy metal, drink, and vast volumes of ganja, streached out over three days and thousands of tents.

Yep, I'm going to this year's Reading Festival. It promises to be fun. Until last years festival, I hadn't seen a live band that wasn't local. Over those three days, I...

+Saw a good ten plus bands, including
++Electric Six
++Less Than Jake
++Blink 182
++Hundred Reasons
++THE EIGHTIES FUCKING MATCHBOX FUCKING B-LINE FUCKING DISASTER! (Only the best band IN THE UNIVERSE!)
++And five minutes of The Darkness. They rescheduled their set while me and CompleteAnarchy were waiting for Electric Six.

+Actually PULLED and GROPED a random girl I met while watching Blink 182. You should all know by now my track record with women is bad, I wrote an entire update on it last week.

+Drank a bit. Not so much, because I intended to smoke a load of weed.

+/-Smoked insufficient weed for the event. CompleteAnarcy forgot to pick up beforehand, and only finding a nice but lost man with stuff saved us.

-Singly failed to sleep with Random Girl. Partly because I couldn't find her on Sunday, partly because neither of us had working phones, and partly because...

-Had to share a tent with Big Brother, CompleteAnarchy, and three mens stuff. In a two man tent. I've seen anorexic lobsters wider than the space I had to sleep in. And that wasn't all...

-Due to the fact we came far too late (I said "Get there early", but NOOOO! No-one listens to Chyld!), this is what was wrong with our "campsite".
--Camped in a space barely large enough to put our tiny gas cooker, bugger a large campfire.
--Camped 100m away from the festival bogs, those paragons of aroma, cleanliness, and volumes of toilet paper. However, we didn't end up vomiting because of the constant smell of burning cannabis. Not the smell of my burning cannabis, just the general smell...
--Camped by a road. CompleteAnarchy explaining away a legal weed alternative to a policeman by saying "It's the legal shit, officer" is now legend. Plus, two of our friends had their tent thrown up on. They may have been in it...

THIS YEAR, its going to be different. Why? Let me tell you in order to fill space.

+My own tent. CompleteAnarcy thinks he's too cool to hang with us this time round, and I refuse to share a tent with Big Brother. And I'm getting a tent as a late present from Friend Who Works At Foxes.
+More cannabis. Obviously now CompleteAnarchy's being a proper dealer, this won't be hard to sort out.
+I might SLEEP with a GIRL! (Talk of flying pigs will not be tolerated)
+If we get there early, we can set up a campsite, out of the way, with a camfire-space to drink/smoke/grope around.
+The Darkness. For more than five minutes.

In addition, every night before I go to bed, I pray. I say "Dear God, thank you this day for your blessing. Please let Slipknot and The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster play Reading. Thank you."

There, short but sweet. Join us again tomorrow for some lovely short stories. Probably.

So, ducks and cats.

Debates have been ranging across the forums (straying so close to spam I've been tempted to flex my moderati muscles) upon which common farmyard animal is better. This should hopefully resolve your barmy arguement for you...

Ducks Vs. Cats: The Great Showdown Update Thing

Getting Around

Ducks: Ducks can fly. That's a good way of summerising it. Flying > everything else. They can swim too! And they waddle, but magpies do it so much better.

Cats: Well, cats can jump proporionatly as high as a house or two and crawl through tiny holes. But that bird they're hunting can fly away, and its bad enough if they fall in the bath, let alone try swimming properly.

WINNER: Ducks

Strokiness

Ducks: While you can stroke ducks, and I suppose it would be an enjoyable experience were the crazy bird not trying to eat your fingers, you couldn't have a duck on your lap. It'd either fly off or poo on your evil villan's suit.

Cats: Cats were created to be stroked. If they're not enjoying it so much, they claw you. Or, in my case, leaving enough fur to fill a large pillow on your nice clean T-shirt.

WINNER: Cats. They're both quite nasty really, but cats are actually jointed right to sit on your lap...

On Roads

Ducks: One sunny day, I was riding my bike, and doing a paper-round, because that's how I made my drug money before I came to work in a chemist. Irony, they said. But anyway, I'm going down a road, co-incidently the road my house is on, and there's a duck sitting in the middle of it. I had to gently toe-punt the little bugger onto the pavement. (I don't know how vicious ducks are, and I had no wish to find out at 7am in the morning.) I assume he flew off and lived happily ever after.

Cats: Two of my cats have been killed by saying hello to the cars on my road, and one broke her leg. Gave my girlfriend of the time (Her, should it be importent in court) a shock, if nothing else. The conversation we had later in the evening...
"Heya hun, how's stuff?"
"What, aside from being a panto cow, being shouted at by drama teachers, and a car hitting my cat?"

WINNER: Ducks

Shit

Ducks: I won't even count the number of times I've been camping with the Scouts (that was all in the past! Leave me alone!), where I've been dodging duck crap for half the time. That, and having all my matches/batteries/other things stolen by everyone else...

Cats: Cats either drop it in a tray full of clay, or make like a politician: bury it outside and hope it goes away. I could make a sweepingly bitchy remark about our Goverment, but we're not delving so low yet...

WINNER: Cats

Obedience

Ducks: My mother, on hearing about this update, decided to regale me with a tale about one of her patients, who lured a duck away from a road and back to a pond by putting its ducklings in a box and carrying them to a pond, duck in tow. Whether this is maternal instints, duckish obedience, or some other perverted thing, I can't be arsed to study. I'm a blogger, not a duckologist.

Cats: Everyone knows cats do what cats want. Even the cat lovers. Unless it involves a stroke or a warm lap, and then they will overstay the party.

WINNER: Ducks

Edibility

Ducks: There's nothing nicer than a duck on pizza from Cafe Uno. Delicious. Costs a fortune, however, and you can't really just pluck a duck off of the Misbourne and cook it up...

Cats: I've never eaten a cat, and Cod help me if I ever do...

WINNER: Draw (Is it good to be delicious? I don't know)

Noises

Ducks: While there is nothing funnier in the animal world than a good "quack", that is all you will get from a duck.

Cats: I don't suffer from caterwauling, mainly because my cat is spayed, and not after some well-hung tom every month. And while there is nothing quite so relaxing as a purring cat, the opposite can be said for a cat that hops onto your bed at three in the morning and meows at you. Especially when you're eight and its next doors cat...

WINNER: Draw (Ducks are funny, cats are extensive)

Famous Ducks/Cats

Ducks: Obviously, there's our long-suffering friend Donald Fauntleroy Duck, and his three nephews. Nothing special, otherwise. Hark! I hear a guest updater quitting in protest!

Cats: Quite simply, Garfield. And for those who missed my point, Garfield. Comic genius.

WINNER: Cats

There! That leaves it nice and inconclusive, so I can pretend to have resolved the arguement, and you can all carry on filling my forum with animal-related spam! Everyone wins!