DISCLAIMER: This is not the proper update I promised

  . . .And neither is it at all good. But here it is anyway:

  One time, shortly after I’d stopped believing in god, but before I’d mustered enough courage to stop serving at my local church (which I only ever started doing because I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘no, I don’t want to throw away all my Sunday mornings doing something other than sleeping’), it was somewhat hot. Shortly before leaving for church I’d realised I was wearing a T-shirt which would probably offend certain religious types, so I quickly put on a jumper. This was a mistake. Throughout the service I felt increasingly ill until eventually, whilst arsing around with a candle, I suddenly lost my vision. It couldn’t really be described as blackness; more a giant blind spot which had grown to consume my entire field of vision. I actually suspected that I was dying. I wasn’t really scared, but a little disappointed. Anyway, I was meant to be walking behind some ponce, but not being able to see that he’d started walking, I stayed where I was. People evidently cottoned on that something wasn’t quite right, and I was taken outside. After some time my vision returned. Since then I’ve occasionally suffered a very brief recurrence of this, particularly in hot weather and when standing up suddenly. I will not be able to see anything for a few seconds and will feel a little dizzy.

  I’m not sure if this is common. If so, this must all be very dull. On the off-chance that it isn’t, I shall continue. Today it’s been very sunny. I find excessive sunniness quite annoying, especially when the sunlight that gets around the edges of the blind falls on my computer’s monitor, for obvious reasons. This was happening when it suddenly went overcast. I was initially pleased, but then I realised I could barely see anything, and had a strange sort of pressure feeling in my head. A similar ailment to that above.

  And there is one more manifestation: A year or so ago, when I was staring at my glorious face in the mirror, it suddenly got darker outside, and whilst it would be expected that parts of my face would fall into greater shadow, this seemed to occur to a degree greater than might be expected. Through some experimentation, I found that if I stared at one point and relaxed my eyes (isn’t that what you’re meant to do with those 3D picture things I could never get the hang of?), other parts of my face would gradually fall into a flat grey shadow, until only the part I was focusing on was still visible. It’s quite hard to reach quite that degree because the eyes have a natural tendency to flit around the place, but when actually done properly the effect is quite strange. To be looking at my own face but to have it disappear into shadow is more than a little unsettling. The same thing could probably be done with anything else you might be looking at, but I happened to discover it whilst gazing vainly at myself, and I found the ensuing effect quite profound, somehow. I’m almost certain it has to do with the relatively small area of concentrated cones in the centre of the eye, which are what allow the detection of colour, as opposed to the higher density of movement-detecting rods around the outside of the eye (which is why you see movement from the ’corner’ of your eye) – I remember doing a test in a textbook where there was a cross shape formed by letters and you were instructed to focus your eyes on the centre letter and see how far outwards you could read. The best I could manage were the letters immediately adjacent, if that. The point of the experiment was to demonstrate how much your eyes move and how much your brain fills in itself. This is the same effect, but in this context it was completely unexpected, and as such came as such a surprise. I wonder if it has anything to do with the other things mentioned above. Anyway, give it a go. I dare you.

  I’m not sure what the purpose of this entry is. It wasn’t to patronise those of us with a GCSE Biology education. I’m sorry for blabbering inexpertly about facts that you already know. I know that there will be plenty of people out there who don’t know these things, though, and it is my mission to enlighten these morons. No wait, it isn’t. It’s my mission to insult them. With this in mind, may I inform those of you which did not already know the above that they are complete imbeciles who should probably not be allowed into the same communities as the rest of us. Thanks!

  Really, what the fuck am I talking about? Jesus. . .
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I feel tucking ferrible

  I accidentally stayed up until past four this morning (that was not part of my sleep-fixing plan), and was woken a few minutes ago by the builders again. That’s actually probably enough hours of sleep (eight), but for some reason I have a massive headache. I might take a paracetemol or two if it doesn’t go away soon. I’m always a bit reluctant to take those things, though.

  Expect a proper update later. That’s not to say there’ll be one, though.

At last, something of substance!

  Actually, you’d better be the judge of that. Reviews of this entry should be written on the back of a stamp (simply ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ will do), which you must stick on the forehead of the next person you see asleep. Do it or die. So anyway, hopefully this should turn out to be a large volume of text with a low density of content.

  So anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, my sleeping habits are shocking. It’s a good thing that I could get away with minimal attendance at university, because I quite frankly wasn’t awake for most of it. Things have been getting particularly bad recently. A few days ago I tried sticking it out until the evening, but failed miserably – I passed out on the sofa sometime around noon while my friends watched Formula 1, only waking up long enough to get to bed, safe from any eyebrow-shaving schemes they might have been formulating. This was really an apalling performance, considering I’d only woken at five the previous afternoon, which I can only put down to the exhausting sunlight and the unreasonable boringness of the day in general. I had actually gotten a bit of sleep before then – I’d attempted to go to sleep at about four in the morning, but was rudely awoken about five minutes later by excessive head and light, the latter being barely obstructed by my blind at all; even less with the window open, as it had to be due to the intolerable heat (living in the roof, the blind is attached to the window, which opens upwards, meaning that if the window is open, I am necessarily exposed to the outside world and whatever it has to throw at me). This was shortly followed by the builders, who seem to work exclusively in the early morning. Within the hour I’d decided that sleep was an outrageous prospect, and that by the time I’d be exhausted enough to sleep through such conditions it’d be late enough that sleeping would no longer be a good idea. This is why I attempted to stay awake.

  Anyway, I awoke at about nine that evening, and decided that things were really getting out of hand. I arsed around for the night, then decided that I needed to do some shopping, and that I ought to do it before I got too tired. I often intend on going shopping only to realise that the shops have closed, especially on a Sunday, which is what it was (I haven’t mentioned the actual day on which most things happened because, to be honest, I’m not sure what they were. It’s very easily to get disorientated when the days aren’t separated by sleep). On this particular occasion, I was actually there too early. We were let into the shop, but apparently they couldn’t actually sell us anything until eleven because of Sunday trading laws. I finished my shopping at about a quater to, so I went to stand at one of the checkouts. After a few minutes the shelves I happened to be looking at appeared to be drifting backwards and forwards, or perhaps lengthening and shortening in an unnervingly organic manner, not entirely dissimilar to breathing. Things appeared to be getting to me. This was a bit strange, because I’d been awake for less than fourteen hours, which people do all the time. I imagine erraticism played some part in it, but it was still a bit weird. Anyway, they finally allowed us to give them their money (which was at five minutes to eleven, the goddamn law-breakers), and I made my way back to the flat. Things were relatively boring for a while, until I decided that I needed to make myself some food. I was in a bit of a strange predicament: to me it was evening, but it was decidedly daytime outside. It just seemed wrong to be having a proper meal. I can quite happily have cereal when I wake up in the evening (or at any time of day and any time between my waking and going back to sleep), but there was something telling me that to eat a proper cooked meal at this hour would be weird. A lot of people have a proper meal for lunch, but it still seemed strange for me. Anyway, I decided that, despite my reservations, I was going to go for it. I went to the kitchen, and everything suddenly seemed smaller than it should be, or perhaps slightly further away. It’s a strange sensation which I’ve had before. It’s quite subtle, and I’m not sure exactly what’s behind it, but things like this intrigue me and I have to say that I quite enjoy the experience of the real world not seeming quite right somehow.

  I found three turkey escalopes in the fridge which were on the verge of going out of date. Eating these, I decided, would not only be pleasant; it would be downright necessary, in the name of efficiency. I also had an almost-finished back of chips in the freezer which were just taking up room. It was not until I put this into the oven that I realised that three escalopes alone is a stupid amount. But they were in the oven now, so I might as well give it a go. I did manage to finish it, although it was a struggle. Ted, whose pizza my food had shared the oven with, barely managed to get half way through his dinner, which consisted exclusively of the aforementioned pizza. I may be a pig, but that man is a little girl (no offence to the little girls with perfectly healthy appetites out there).

  Not a lot happened for the next few hours. I had been hoping to get a couple of hours’ sleep and then be up again for the evening, so that I’d be tired enough to get to sleep at a proper time like one or two, but in the end I got waylaid doing largely pointless things and talking to largely pointless people (HA!), and by the time I actually resolved to get some sleep it was too late, and if I had, waking up a couple of hours later would either have been a downright painful occasion, or simply would not have occurred at all. I was extremely tired by then, and fully expected to pass out at any minute. I did actually drift off a few times whilst working through some terrible online test, but it was only few a few moments at a time, and I was eventually snapped out of it by some music suddenly starting (hurrah for secret tracks!). For the next couple of hours, I felt surprisingly alert. Eventually, however, I started to get tired again, and at about midnight I decided to finally go to bed. I had been awake for something like twenty-seven hours. I’ve been awake for the best part of two days in the past, but such cases have always involved some sort of nap part-way through. I’m sure a lot of people have pulled off a lot more impressive feats, too, but I was still quite pleased with myself. And the important thing was that, at nine this morning, I woke up. Granted, this was because I’d forgotten to close the blind and light had filled my room, and granted, I eventually fell back to sleep for two more hours, but before I did I felt strangely serene. It was partly tiredness, and partly the fact that, whilst it was bright, it wasn’t burningly so (something which I find unpleasant), making the bare walls of my room vaguely aesthetic, which of course is quite unusual. And there was the sense of victory. But mainly tiredness. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be back into my old habits in time for my final exam on Friday, and when I properly woke up at eleven I felt quite rotten, but it was nice while it lasted. I have to say that the first half of the day is massively overrated, though. Absolutely fuck all happens. It’s pointless.

  I had a couple of other topics lined up for discussion in this entry, but however proud I may feel of a nice big long entry, they seem to put people off a little, and it would make much more sense for me to string these out, thereby keeping me in the most recently updated list and ‘hopefully’ attracting some more of you plebeians to this most hallowed shrine to my brilliance.
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Another great email

  This one’s from Sweetie A. Disinherited. Exactly how porn could be ‘stupid’ and why it’d be something you’d want to advertise is beyond me, and I don’t think I want to know what is meant by ‘baseball bat ass’.

The best email ever

  I just checked my old email address for the first time in weeks, and I discovered the greatest email I’ve ever received. The content of the email is pretty good, but just look at who it’s from! Forgo V. Eagle. That has to be the best name I’ve heard this year. Forgo V. Eagle. That’s just fantastic. Seriously. I want to be Forgo V. Eagle.

  As I said, this email address is now largely defunct, so please feel free to spam it. It’d be a waste of time, but if you’re the type of person who wants to abuse someone via email, I’d rather you spent your time on something harmless like this.

Bloody hell

  Last night I realised that I hadn't left the flat since Monday. I'm looking pale. I'm also pretty sure that most of my waking hours have been after sunset. I've decided I'm going to spend the next few days sorting out my sleeping patterns a bit, and I might even go outside for a reason other than shopping. JESUS CHRIST, that's OUTRAGEOUS! Yeah, I'm cool. Also, yesterday I ate nothing but chocolate bars and bread.

  In other news, the new series of Big Brother starts tonight. It would be horribly unoriginal of me to rant about that, but unless inspiration strikes me, I might have to for the simple purpose of padding this bloody place out a bit. Even then, I don't really have much to say. It's vacuous programming. It's well and truly eschewed whatever genuine appeal it might have had by now (I seem to remember it made claims of being some sort of psychological experiment, but strangely it always seemed to just be megaratings-seeking television to me). It will be hugely successful and I will despair about it as if it's about principles and not just my personal dislike of the programme. It seems to epitomise all that's wrong with the celebrity thing. These people enter this often degrading competition at least partially in order to get on television (I believe there may be prize money involved too, but I'm not sure about that). I'm sure they all realise that they're bound to wind up earning more money from vapid interviews with detestable publications than they will from whatever winnings they may or may not walk away with. Afterwards they're all over the media as though they did something important. Then again, a lot of the people all over the media never did anything important. But I suppose that's my point. Why is it when some knobs sit around in a house for a few weeks we suddenly care what it's like for them to be pregnant or leave their partner or battle with cancer or whatever? Why would we even want to watch them sleeping or having inane conversations anyway? I mean, a lot of the conversations I have with my flatmates are pretty pointless, but seriously, in a fight they'd beat the absolute shit AND piss and probably tears and blood and maybe even earwax out of the conversations these people have. Fucking hell.

  Speaking of fucking hell, that was the original title of this entry, but apparently there's restrictions on that. Anyway, my entry titles rarely ever seem to be at all descriptive. Is that a problem? FUCK OFF.

  So anyway, Big Brother. Is it not somewhat ominous that the whole concept is named after a device used by a totalitarian regime in a work of dystopian fiction? I suppose you could say similar about Room 101, which I have enjoyed on more than one occasion, but it's hardly the same thing. Room 101 is not real, and is all done in the name of humour. Nothing is actually banished. In Big Brother, though, we are actually watching people. They're not doing much, but it still comes across as a little warped to me. I admit that I watch a lot more stuff happening on TV than actually happens in my own life. But at least that's what I'm doing, rather than watching NOTHING happen on TV. Is it really that exciting to spy? Maybe it is. Maybe I'd get hooked if I gave it a chance. I'd rather not, though.

  So, that was a pretty aimless rant. It really did lack a unified focus, didn't it? Oh well. It's some text, and that's what matters. Volume is what's important. Who cares about actual content? To be honest, I'm quite sorry I even acknoweldged the fucking thing. It'll annoy me for months to come, though. Can't they just give it its own channel? Or at least put it on Five. Fucking hell, though. It pisses me off that they can make such a big deal about it. Jesus. What? Oh, I started ranting again. Damn.

  My right middle finger hurts. This makes typing slightly painful. I'm alright, though. Don't worry about me. Bastards.

  Well I'm sorry that I haven't had much of interest to say recently. Maybe it'd be a bit easier if people weren't demanding to be mentioned. God damn you, mention-demanding people! You're ruining it for everyone!

  By the way, I've had about two hundred hits since the name-change. Not a huge amount, but a little more than I was getting before, especially considering the fact that I haven't been updating much. We'll have to wait a bit to see how things pan out.

  Oh dear, it sounds like my flatmates are watching it. I'm greatly disappointed.
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