Updates to Pages

Always wondered what this "aside" thing did — now's as good a time as any to try it out, I guess. I've updated my About Pete and More By Pete pages. In particular, I've redirected the defunct What They Play links on the More By Pete page to use archive.org's Wayback Machine so, as if by time-travelling magic, you can still read the articles, even though they don't exist any more! YAY~

#oneaday Day 968: Silence to 1K

As I draw ever closer to that elusive "1,000 daily posts" combo it becomes more and more difficult to think of things to write about each day. I'm very conscious of the fact that I have already repeated myself on several occasions as well as spent several posts on a number of topics where one would have perhaps sufficed (hello, Katawa Shoujo) but I have no regrets as to how things have gone so far.

I'm not saying there aren't 968 different things in the world to write about, obviously, it's whether or not I can say anything coherent about them — and whether or not I can actually think of any of them when it comes to time to write this blog, since I almost inevitably end up doing it as one of the last things I do each day. (Today is an exception — I've specifically decided to write this before I settle down to a bit of pre-bedtime My Girlfriend is the President). Sometimes when you have to write something, your mind just goes blank and the absolute last thing you want to do is write. I get it sometimes during my day job, when I play a game so unbearably tedious or awful that the mere prospect of writing about how tedious and awful it is fills me with a sense of deep melancholy. (Other times, however, it's fun to rip something that has clearly been crafted with no care or attention whatsoever a new one — or indeed to praise something that is worthy of praise.)

And yet despite occasional dalliances with writer's block, here I am, day after day, posting my inane ramblings to anyone who will listen. To my surprise, I have built up something of a small but apparently dedicated audience over the last few years I've been writing this. My distaste for the Facebook "Like" button is well-documented, but the WordPress "Like" button is another matter — it gives me the opportunity to see when new (or familiar) visitors have stopped by and felt the need to show their presence, which is genuinely nice to see. (WordPress' overly-positive emails make out that someone clicking the Like button is an absolutely massive deal on a par with being whisked away on a romantic getaway and proposed to in front of a sunset, but we both know you're just clicking a button.)

Believe it or not, as self-indulgent as this blog is more often than not, I'm very grateful to those of you who stop by and read/like/comment. I've said on numerous occasions that this blog isn't "for" anyone — the original remit of the #oneaday project was simply to get all the participants writing every day for the sake of writing, not for the sake of building an audience — but it is pretty awesome to see that, on occasion, something I post resonates with someone else somewhere else in the world. Ships in the night and all that.

Speaking of the #oneaday project, I have to toot my own horn a bit here — I'm pretty proud of myself for sticking with this for so long. Granted, with the number of words I've written across the last 968 posts I could probably have penned at least two or three novels, but that's not quite the same as having an "outlet". On more than one occasion I've been grateful for this blog as a means to share things I'm thinking or feeling with anyone who will listen — it's not always easy to do that face-to-face or over the phone, but bizarrely, announcing it to the entire world via the Internet is absolutely no problem whatsoever, largely because in that case you can simply express yourself and walk away without having to have any of those difficult "conversation" things.

But I digress. To my knowledge, the only other original participant of #oneaday's first year who is still going is the inimitable Mr Ian Dransfield of Play Magazine fame. Meanwhile, it looks entirely possible that the most pleasant Gemma Critchley is also about to start blogging again, which is nice to see. It's been a bumpy ride for daily bloggers, though — in the first year, a huge number of participants (including the "founder") dropped out within a week or two of starting; in the second year, I made a bold attempt to try and organise everyone via this "hub" site, relaxing the "rules" a little in order to (successfully) attract more people, and inviting readers to sponsor our efforts for charity. (In the process, I apparently pissed off one of the original participants who had not taken part since January of the previous year, who promptly posted an incoherent ranty post about how he was going to do things their own way, only going to prove my suspicions about said person. No, I am not saying who it was or what my suspicions were.)

This is now my third year of daily blogging and while the "community" feeling of blogging together with others is all but gone (for now, at least) it's still satisfying to know that I can look back on the last 968 days and know that at least some of this waffle is worth reading again. It may be narcissistic to do so, but I do sometimes enjoy just hitting the "Random Post" button and seeing what comes up. More than enjoying rereading my past posts, it's sometimes fun, sometimes sad, always interesting to think back on where I was in my life at that point — and where I might be another 968 days from now.

I guess I should start planning my 1,000 post party. Who can make a good cake?

#oneaday Day 966: Rest in Peace, Willow

This is Willow. She was lovely and cute and adorable and liked to bite people a little bit too much. She was a scaredy-rat but was slowly starting to come out of her shell. The first day we got her, she just sat in her box, too petrified to move, but over time she became more and more confident and started to assert herself more. Her cagemate (and possibly sister) Lara was very much the dominant one in their relationship, but Willow very occasionally managed to come out on top — more so as she grew older, larger and more confident in herself.

Willow died this morning. I feel like we had barely had time to get to know her — we'd only had her about two months or so — before she was snatched away from us far too soon. She'd been ill for around a week — she'd been out of sorts and dirty — but we'd been told that rats were prone to this sort of thing at times, and she'd probably get over it.

Unfortunately, she didn't. Last night, she was very shaky on her feet, but was at least walking around, unsteadily getting food and drinking water. When I came down this morning, she was lying on the floor of the cage, unable to support her own weight. I put food and water in front of her and she couldn't summon the strength to take it. Her sister was fussing around her, trying to clean her, obviously trying to liven her up. It was heartbreaking to see. Rats can't talk, but all I could hear in my imagination was Lara whispering "please don't die, please don't die." I was saying it to myself, too.

Half an hour later, she was gone, lying peacefully on the floor of the cage in silence. I don't know if rats feel emotions or not, but her sister looked sad, and was sitting in her little house, keeping away from the body. She looked at me with sparkling eyes and I just broke down in tears. Little Willow was gone, and poor Lara was left all alone.

I buried Willow in the garden and left Roger the squirrel, a garden ornament who had taken up temporary residence in our living room, guarding her. She's at peace now. I hope she didn't suffer too much.

I've often found the subject of death to be an interesting one to write about creatively — if you follow my "Creative Writing" category you'll find plenty in there — but I find it a terrifying prospect to deal with in real life. Not the prospect of dying myself, mind — that doesn't occur to me — but the prospect of having to deal with bereavement. Today was a potent reminder that I have had to deal with relatively little tragedy in my life compared to some people — but at the same time, a lack of experience in dealing with death makes it all the more difficult to know how to respond when it does happen.

You may feel that a little rat is not worth mourning or grieving over — particularly when we had so little time together in the grand scheme of things — but I get very attached to pets, regardless of size and species. It is perfectly normal and healthy to mourn the loss of someone or something that has been a "fixture" in your life, something you came to expect to see every day, which is why I feel great sorrow at Willow's passing.

Rest in piece, little rat. We loved you dearly and hope you're in a better, more peaceful place now. If you see Kitty wherever you are, I hope you'll be friends.

#oneaday Day 964: Where Everybody Knows Your Name

As someone who suffers from social anxiety, I've never really been one to just "go out" unless I had a very good reason, usually in the form of some friends asking me to join them. (I have, of course, tried going out by myself a few times in the past, but as chronicled in this post, it rarely ended well.)

As such, I've never really had somewhere that I could call "my local" with any confidence, there's nowhere that I could accurately describe myself as a "regular" of. I'm not really bemoaning this fact — I have plenty of better things to do than sit in the pub — but it's an aspect of life that I feel may have passed me by somewhat.

It was a little different back when I was at university, of course. We regularly frequented a wide variety of places that could quite politely be described as "dives", but all of them had their own unique charms.

In the first year, there was Chamberlain Bar, which was the "local" for a group of several university halls of residence in the area. It wasn't a particularly exciting bar, bearing a closer resemblance to the sort of half-hearted establishment that exists to make a few extra pennies for a community recreation centre than a jumpin' nightspot, but it was "home" for a while. It was where most of us discovered the "Juicy Lucy" (pint glass, vodka, blue curaçao or however you spell it, double shot of Taboo, topped up with equal amounts orange juice and lemonade) and the "Passion Wagon", officially the laziest cocktail of all time (shot of Passoa with a bottle of Reef emptied into it). It also had a tendency to throw crap events — our flat were the only attendees to dress up for "Seventies Night" and a Hawaiian-themed evening consisted of them turning the heating up full and serving nothing but the aforementioned Passion Wagons all night.

Southampton had one big club at the time when I was studying at the university. I'm not sure what it's called now, but it used to be called Ikon and Diva, as it was one of those weird places that was split into two separate mini-clubs inside. It was shit. It was the sort of place that you went after you got really drunk and consequently barely remember anything from. Consequently, I barely remember anything about this place save for the fact I was clearly so impressed by it that I never went there ever again after my first visit.

There were plenty of smaller clubs, though. One that springs immediately to mind was New York's, which has been closed and derelict for several years now. It was also shit, and like Ikon and Diva, it was the sort of place you only went to when absolutely off your tits. I only have random flashes of memories of the one (I think) time I went to New York's, but I vividly recall looking down from a balcony to a stage-like area below, where a bunch of drunk men and women were stripping because the DJ had asked them to. Sure, I got to see tits, but even in my horrendously intoxicated state, I found the complete lack of human dignity on display to be more obnoxious than titillating. Consequently, I never went back there, either.

Then there was Lennon's, which I think is probably home to most of my best "going out" memories, perhaps largely because it's the place that several of us tended to frequent most often. I'm not entirely sure why this was, as Lennon's was a fairly bare-bones club, being essentially a moderately-sized wooden room with a bar on one side and a DJ on the other, occasionally accompanied by a nice man named Vince who sold chips. They played good music, though, and often played host to live bands. I even performed there myself on a couple of occasions, with our university band the Coconut Scratch Orchestra discovering the folly of leaving drumbeats up to a backing track rather than a live drummer. (We all swore after that to never, ever play Mission: Impossible again.) It was also nice in that it was not frequented by the sort of waxed-chest, greasy-haired chav that frequented places like Ikon and Diva.

Would I describe myself as a "regular" at any of those places, though? No, probably not. I see a "regular" as someone who knows the bar staff by name and is recognised by bouncers; someone who meets friends there without having to make prior arrangements; someone who sees it as a "home away from home" — a place to socialise, hang out and just relax. I never quite saw it that way — it was always fun to go to Lennon's, sure, particularly if my friend had enough to drink to get to the stage where he thought kebabs made him literally invincible, but it was never a place that I felt like I was a "part of".

I'm not really sure if I've "missed out" on something by not having that kind of experience. I guess I have another chance when I hit, what, 50 years of age and start liking real ales or something?

#oneaday Day 963: Being an Attempt to Rescue the English Language from the Imbeciles who Pervert it So

I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this post, as I know for a fact that most of the people who follow this blog, whether they're regular commenters or not, are literate and perfectly capable of using the English language correctly. I just thought it would be fun to have a whinge about some of my pet peeves with regard to English usage… or lack thereof.

I'm not entirely sure what it is about the Internet that makes people's English usage so much worse. The world has plenty of intelligent people in it, yet if you were to go solely by Internet comment sections it would be hard to believe that. I know intelligence is a much more complicated equation than simple spelling, punctuation and grammar — and there are specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia to bear in mind — but the fact is, technology should make it easier than ever to write things technically perfectly. So why do people not bother?

Laziness, usually, or a desire to get whatever is in their head out into the digital domain as quickly as possible. Most people would be quick to blame social media for this one, with the presence of "Like" and "Comment" buttons on pretty much everything these days encouraging people to spew their facile musings all over things they really have no knowledge of whatsoever. But it's actually a much older problem that, most likely, stems from more real-time forms of communication such as chatrooms. "a/s/l" is a linguistic object of ridicule these days, but in the early days of Internet communication it was an essential part of the "introductions" process when entering a new chatroom. (For those who don't actually know what it stands for, it's asking everyone present what their age, sex and location is.)

Chatrooms often got very busy, and it thus became important for people to be able to make themselves heard as quickly as possible. Consequently, a lot of the abbreviations we use (and/or ridicule) regularly today entered popular usage. Some had been around for a while; others had changed their usage significantly, occasionally leading to comic misunderstandings when one speaker thinks that "LOL" means "lots of love" and the other thinks it means "laughing out loud".

This is no excuse, though! Proper English usage when addressing another person online is, to me, a sign of respect. If you don't take the care to spell and punctuate correctly when addressing someone, to me that says that you don't think they're worth more than the bare minimum amount of time it takes to bang out a furious, cackhanded message and then switch to another tab to, I don't know, watch some porn or play FarmVille or something. (Or both. The mind boggles at that possibility.)

Anyway, rambling explanation over, allow me to present the crimes against the English language that irritate me the most at present. If you are guilty of any of these, please stop being guilty of them, because they all make you look like a bit of a tool.

(Oh, before I go on, my day job requires me to write in American English so I am not going to cover any of the silly things they do with English, such as misusing the words "momentarily", "solicitor" and "patronise".)

1. "LOL" is not a substitute for punctuation.

I've lost the original Facebook post (not by me, I hasten to add) where I first became aware of this obnoxious usage of "lol", but it happens all too frequently, particularly in comment sections. "LOL" is not a substitute for a comma, full stop, semicolon or indeed any punctuation mark.

To judge whether or not using "LOL" is appropriate, read the thing you have just typed out loud. Did you laugh out loud when you got to the "LOL"? If not, remove it and replace it with an appropriate punctuation mark. In fact, even if you did laugh out loud, please remove it and replace it with an appropriate punctuation mark.

2. It's "definitely", not "definately" or "defiantly".

Definitely. Definitely. It's not that difficult a word to spell. It's no "accommodation" or "antidisestablishmentarianism" and it's certainly no "floccinaucinihilipilification". So stop fucking it up.

Also, every time you use "defiantly" instead of "definitely", you are significantly changing the meaning of your sentence. Compare and contrast the sentences "I will definitely do the chores" to "I will defiantly do the chores". One is a nice assurance that you will do the things expected of you; the other suggests that you are going to be an arse about it.

3. Games (and drugs) are "addictive", not "addicting".

"Addicting" is a word, but not in the way you think it is used. Angry Birds is not "addicting", it is "addictive". "Addicting" is a verb. "Addictive" is an adjective. Observe:

"I am addicting my little sister to Angry Birds because it is better than crack. She finds crack worryingly addictive."

(Note: I do not have a little sister, and no-one I know is addicted or in the process of being addicted to crack. Also, Angry Birds is shit and I would rather my hypothetical little sister were addicted to crack than play that bollocks.*)

In fact, no. The word "addicting" is a surprisingly difficult verb to put into a sentence without it sounding stupid. So just stop using it. Addictive. Addictive. Got it?

4. When you write in lower case, you look like an imbecile.

I know professional writers who write everything — blog posts, status updates, comments, even their own name — in lower case when they're "off duty". It makes them look like imbeciles. I don't think I need to say anything more than that. The Shift key is right there. Your little finger is probably hovering over it anyway as you type, so stop being so fucking lazy and use it.

5. This review is "biased", not "bias".

I'll grant that speaking like a twat is something of a meme on the Internet, but any time you accuse something you read of "being bias", you look like a complete cock. An article exhibits bias if it is biased. Not the other way round. Or any other arrangement.

If you can't remember the difference, how about you just say you disagree with what you have read rather than accusing it of "being bias"? Or, better yet, just close that webpage before clicking the "comment" button?

6. Apostrophes denote possession, not plurals.

CDs. GCSEs. Sofas. Not CD's, GCSE's and sofa's. Under no circumstances are you to use an apostrophe to denote something is a plural. Why? Because it's wrong, that's why. Even when using an abbreviation. And even when the word you are pluralising ends with a vowel, which appears to be when this issue more commonly raises its ugly head.

Related note: "it's" is short for "it is", while "its" means "belonging to it". This is, I'll admit, a particularly stupid rule, since it breaks the "apostrophes denote possession" rule by overruling it with the "apostrophes also denote missing letters" rule. Stupid language.

7. If you're going to swear, just swear.

You're not protecting anyone's innocence by writing "f**k". Everyone knows you mean "fuck". If you're going to censor naughty language, censor it completely. If you're going to make it clear what all the words you've asterisked out are, then you may as well just type them all out properly, you f**king c**t-faced w**ksplat, you t*sser, you kn*bjockey, you complete twunting sh*tbag b*****d. ("Twunting" is not a swear, despite it sounding like it should be.)

8. You're a twat if your knowledge of "your" and "you're" is poor.

As Ross from Friends put it so succinctly: "Y-O-U-apostrophe-R-E means 'you are'. Y-O-U-R means 'your'!"

Read your sentence out loud. Could one of your "yours" be replaced by the words "you are"? If so, you should be using "you're" instead.

Here's an exercise. See if you can spot which ones are correct and which ones are not.

1. You're mum's face smells of poo.
2. Your not very good at this, are you?
3. You're defiantly going to get some of these wrong.
4. Get you're f**king words right lol
5. You're very brave if you successfully managed to navigate your way through those monstrosities.

9. Have fun!

Above all, have fun with language!

Actually, no, bollocks to that. Learn to write properly first, then have fun with it.

(Author's note: Any indication that I am a pompous grammar Nazi in this post is entirely intentional and mostly played for comedy value. Mostly. Comments that do not follow the above rules will be printed out and fired into the sun, then deleted.*)

* not really

#oneaday Day 962: Signal to Noise

We're reaching saturation point with social media. In fact, I think we got past that point a long time ago, meaning that we're at the "completely sodden and dribbling all over the carpet" stage.

There is too much social media. There are too many possible places for people to share things that nobody cares about with people they don't know. And it seems that every day some bright-eyed startup CEO decides that what we really need is yet another social network service of some description.

I've indulged in a few of these superfluous social networks over the years. GetGlue was a bit of fun, allowing you to "check in" to movies, books, games and even "topics" that you were interested in, leave comments and discuss things with other community members. This was at the height of the "gamification" craze, so there were plenty of achievements to collect, and you could even get some real-life physical stickers sent to you if you collected enough achievements.

Similarly, Foursquare and the now-defunct Gowalla proved fun for a little while. During the period of time when I was unemployed and quite spectacularly depressed, I made extensive use of Gowalla to "tag" various places around Southampton and assist with building up a crowdsourced map of places of interest. I even made some actual real-life friends through it, but since then location check-ins have lost their lustre — what's the point, really?

Then I tried Path, which promised to be a high-quality mobile-focused social network. But since you can access Facebook, Twitter and Google+ — the biggest social networks in the world — via your mobile phone, why on Earth would you need a mobile-specific one? Sure, Path had a lovely interface and the bizarre ability to track when you woke up and went to sleep, but it was ultimately pointless.

Today, I reviewed an app/social network whose purpose remained completely obtuse to me even as I made use of it — and even as an employee of the company frantically tried to convince me that the service was worthwhile via both Twitter and the service itself. (I'm not going to name it as I really can't be bothered to be chased further — I gave it a fair shot, I explored it, I found it to be a complete waste of time. Sorry.)

The service in question allows users to, like GetGlue, "Like" things. Any things. Like cake? Then "Like" cake. Like Tori Amos? Then "Like" Tori Amos. Not sure whether you like broccoli and stilton soup? Then add it to your "To-Do" list, then "Like" it if you like it. Great. Sure. Fine. One question: why?

This questionable usefulness was only further obscured by the fact that the app also, for some utterly unfathomable reason, allows its users to "plant" "Likes" at actual physical locations, meaning you can claim to have hidden, say, an iPhone 5 in your local McDonalds, or Jedward in your local sewage works. Fun for about five minutes again, sure — and a means of seeing who lives vaguely near you and likes Jedward — but again… why?

There's too much noise and not enough signal in social media these days, in short, and this fact is a big part of why I stripped back on all "non-essential" social apps a while back. I keep Facebook, Twitter and G+ around because there are people I regularly speak to on all of those, but outside of those "big three"? There's really very little reason for a lot of these services and apps to exist, but the amount of money being thrown at them by venture capitalists is terrifying.

Kind of makes me think that I should come up with an "innovative" idea for a mobile social network in order to attract several million dollars' worth of funding.

Okay… give me a minute.

Thinking.

Eureka! I got it. Everyone likes taking Instagram photos of food, right? Well, I propose a social photography network that is nothing but pictures of food with a selection of retro filters (some of which are available via in-app purchase). You can "check in" to the food you're eating, discuss it with other people and share photographs of your lunchbox. It'll be a big hit. I'll call it "füd", all in lower case, naturally.

That'll be two million dollars, please, Mr Venture Capitalist. KTHX.

#oneaday Day 957: Too Tired to Think of a Good Title

EHMAGERD. So tired. SO tired. I'm at that stage of tired where you can barely keep your eyes open, and yet here I am blogging, showing frankly admirable commitment to a cause that all but one other daily blogger (to my knowledge) had abandoned.

I apologise in advance for what is doubtless about to become a purely "filler" entry, its word count padded out with overly flowery language and unnecessarily complex descriptions of things that probably don't need to be described or discussed in the first place. But it's 2am and I've just got back from a two hour drive having spent all day playing board games, so… meh. My blog, my rules. (If you're a new reader, though, sorry. Seriously. I'm usually much more coherent than this. I think.)

So what board games have I been playing? Well, the vast majority of the day ended up being monopolised (no pun intended) by the official board game adaptation of Blizzard's Starcraft. This game comes in a hefty box with hundreds of cool pieces, and is quite complex. I've had a copy for some time now but for various reasons we had managed to play it precisely three quarters of a time prior to today. And that was so long ago that we had all forgotten all the rules.

Our board gaming group is somewhat loose in terms of "discipline", for want of a better word. Gaming night is a social occasion primarily, though the games themselves of course play a prominent role. What this means in practice is that we spend a lot of time talking, looking at Cassetteboy videos on the Internet and drinking coffee when we "should" be playing. By extension, this means that a game that should take a few hours tops takes all day.

Starcraft is a prime example. The box claims 3-4 hours, which is already hefty, but throw in time for consulting the rule book and various interruptions — including a friend popping by to demonstrate the Airsoft guns we're going to be using for one of our number's upcoming stag do — and it's easy to see why it took us from 3.30 to well after 10pm to finish up a single game.

Actually, it doesn't quite explain it. Time, as the cliché goes, tends to pass incredibly quickly when you're doing something entertaining, particularly with friends, and the experience is over all too quickly. It's a stark reminder of the fact that we are all, in fact, adults, and consequently should probably manage our free time a little better than we sometimes do.

Still, I'm pleased to report that we did, in fact, manage to complete a game of Starcraft, and it was fun. We all understood the mechanics by the end — no thanks to the rule book, which is incredibly poorly organised, though this is not really anything new for Fantasy Flight games — and were in a position where we could take a turn without having to continually refer to step by step instructions. Which is nice.

Whether or not Starcraft will make another appearance at the table remains to be seen — games that take a very long time often tend to be bumped in favour of several shorter ones — but I enjoyed it and would certainly be up for playing it again, preferably while the rules are still fresh in my head.

But anyway. I am about to collapse from exhaustion so I am going to leave that there and go to bed before I fall asleep on my keyboard.

#oneaday Day 956: Knope

The great thing about Netflix — and the reason I was immensely joyful when it finally made its way to the UK — is that you can "take a chance" on TV shows you've never seen before without having to shell out for a DVD box set. (I realised the other day that I can't remember the last time I bought a DVD. I'm not sure I will ever again, to be honest.) Trying out a new show is a simple matter of spotting it, clicking on it and giving it a shot for a few episodes to see if you like it.

So it was that I found myself starting to watch Parks & Recreation. I knew literally nothing about this show before I started watching it, so it was with total beginner's mind that I jumped in.

Initially, I wasn't quite sure what to think. It had that slightly awkward "comedy drama" feeling about it where you're not quite sure if you're supposed to laugh or not. I'm not a massive fan of laugh tracks these days — it's funny to think that they used to be a fixture on popular shows — but sometimes it's nice to have a cue as to when it's "okay" to laugh.

After a little while, though, I started to "get" what the show was doing. I was supposed to feel awkward and uncomfortable. I hadn't immediately twigged that the show was going for a The Office sort of vibe, but when I started watching it in that mindset, it became immediately a whole lot better. Since the first season, the show has seemingly successfully distinguished itself from The Office despite retaining the "docudrama" format. What this means in practice is that the characters in the show are free to break the fourth wall, address the camera and do lots of things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do in a more traditionally-shot show. At the same time, though, the format is somewhat subverted on occasion by characters doing "talking head" shots explaining what's really going on in a scene and then being lambasted by another character who can hear what they're going on about.

The show's biggest strength is in these characters. Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope is a strong lead, and her straight-laced nature is the perfect foil to the colourful, exaggerated characters that are her colleagues in the Parks and Rec department. It also means that when she does do something amusing, it has more impact.

Highlight of the show is clearly Ron-freakin'-Swanson, a mustachio'd gent who hired sullen summer intern April not for her secretarial skills, but for her total incompetence at dealing with other people, meaning that he never has to do any work. Frequently, we'll see Ron in his office carving wood, weaving baskets or, in one memorable scene, using a typewriter he restored to "type every word I know". Anything but work.

Not all of the characters are exaggerated caricatures, however. Rashida Jones' Ann is another character whose understated, human performance inspires viewers to relate to and empathise with her. The way she uses casual idioms like "Dude…!" when talking to people gives her a very "real" feel, and her relative normality actually makes her stand out amid the rest of the cast.

To cut a long story short, despite thinking I was probably only going to watch a few episodes of the show, I'm now halfway through the third season with no intention of stopping. I've enjoyed it a great deal so far, and am looking forward to seeing more. If you haven't checked it out before and are a fan of the awkward, slightly cringeworthy comedy of shows like The Office (particularly the original Ricky Gervais version) then you'll find it an absolute hoot, I'm sure.

#oneaday Day 955: Ten Signs You've Been Working From Home for Too Long

I've been working from home ever since I decided that teaching was Not The Career For Me, and I like it a lot. I never really enjoyed the office environment of "traditional" jobs, and in the time-sensitive environment of a school you never have a moment to sit back and relax or, as is more commonly needed, sit with your head in your hands crying profusely. Freelancing affords one the luxury of flexibility at the expense of security, though I've been pretty lucky in my last couple of gigs to find myself with stable, predictable income each month. Okay, I had almost a year where I was pulling in a couple of hundred dollars a month and sometimes nothing at all. But things are, touch wood, now Going Well.

Working from home comes with its own pitfalls, however. Naturally, I haven't fallen prey to any of what I am about to describe; this post simply serves as a warning to those of you made of less stern stuff than I am.

Without further messing around, then, let's jump right into ten things that might make you feel like getting a "real" job might not be such a terrible idea after all.

You stop dressing for success. Or indeed at all.

If you can work in your pants, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to get dressed in order to do your work, right? Well, no, unless you're participating in some sort of webcam conference, and even then you only really need to be "all business" up top.

Still, specifically getting dressed — even if it's only throwing on a stinky t-shirt — helps get you in the mindset that Now Is Work Time. You can always take your trousers off again later.

Having a poo with the door open becomes default behaviour.

You might think that settling down for a long dump while leaving the door open so you can still hear your music/see the TV is a great idea if there's no-one in the house. And indeed it is one of life's great pleasures to do so.

But when this becomes default behaviour — when you start leaving the door open even for music you don't really like or for, say X-Factor on TV, then you may have a problem.

To rid yourself of this issue, reach an agreement with your partner/housemate/parents (delete as applicable) that at least once per week, they will come home at an unexpected time. You'll soon learn to be ashamed of your body and the things it does again.

Every time you see the postman, he apologises for waking you.

Related to the first point above, if you answer the door to the postman in a dressing gown, he will probably assume he has woken you, even if it's lunchtime. Avoid this misunderstanding by putting some clothes on before answering the door.

If you are worried that you won't be able to dress yourself before he puts one of those "sorry we missed you" cards through the door, keep a cache of "emergency clothes" handy near the door that are easy to put on — tracksuit bottoms and some sort of zip-up jacket or shirt are a good idea. They don't have to match.

Your masturbation-to-work ratio gets rather lop-sided.

If you're spending more time wanking than doing something useful, you aren't working hard enough. Very simple.

Coffee consumption goes through the roof.

If you're getting through a packet/tin/jar of coffee in less than a week, you're probably drinking too much. I know you need to stay on top of your game and churn out those 15,000 words you promised by yesterday, but man, seriously. Imbibing so much caffeine that you can feel your heart going "OH MY GOD STOP STOP NOW" is not the way forward.

You start exhibiting behaviours typically reserved for the clinically insane.

Are you walking around your house mumbling obscenities over and over again because they "sound funny"? Are you dancing naked to the theme tune of your favourite TV show? Do you spend hours staring at a wall in the hope it will do something interesting? You need to get a proper job before the wall does start doing something interesting and you start having conversations with yourself.

You start experimenting with cheese on toast.

Cheese on toast is a simple and effective meal. The moment you start fucking around with it, though, you're on a downward spiral. As soon as you start carefully layering various luncheon meats beneath the cheese, then seasoning with cajun spice mix and drawing aesthetically-pleasing patterns in tomato ketchup on top, it's time to go and work somewhere with a proper canteen.

Actually, scratch that one. Deluxe cheese on toast is awesome.

You get really good at Countdown.

If you have reached a stage where you're really good at both the letters and the numbers rounds of Countdown, you really need to get out and get a job. Possibly in Accounts. Or the Conundrum Department.

Your attention span diminishes.

You start some sort of creative project such as a list of ten signs you've been working from home for too long and then lo

#oneaday Day 954: I Love Cock

"Cock" is possibly my favourite word in the entire English language. I don't care if you're using it to refer to a rooster or an erect penis (I always felt that "cock" implied "erect", as does "dong", "schlong", "wang" and numerous others; meanwhile "winky", "dick", "willy" and "tallywhacker" imply flaccidity, but I digress) — it's just a fantastically satisfying word to say.

You have to say it right for it to be satisfying though. Try it with me.

Take a deep breath, in through your nose. Now open your mouth a little as if you're going to cough up a big ol' flob and pronounce a nice, crisp, hard "C" sound. Immediately follow with a round, fruity "O", where your mouth makes the perfect shape of the letter it's pronouncing, leave a short gap, then follow up with the "CK". Ideally, you should throw back your head slightly while doing the "CO–" bit and give a pervy smile while doing the "–CK" bit. Advanced "COCK"-ers should feel free to add a crescendoing "mm" or "nn" sound beforehand for added amusement. "mmCOCK!" "nnCOCK!"

Lest you feel I've lost it here, let me explain my love for this gloriously expressive one-syllable word. It came about back in secondary school. Some friends and I were hanging out, and I, for some reason, happened to pronounce the word "cock" in the manner described above, and everyone fell about laughing. According to my friend Craig, it was hilarious because it, I quote, "sounded like a porn star saying it." (It sounds even more like a porn star saying it if you also say the word "SUCK" in the same manner as the word "COCK" described above.)

Anyhow, the word "COCK" became our go-to insult or space-filler when there was a lull in the conversation. This use of the word, completely devoid of its usual context, came to a head one summer when my parents had gone on holiday and I was left alone in the house for the first time. My friend Woody and I had recently discovered Final Fantasy VII and, having both finished it possibly several times by this point, were doing a communal playthrough together, fuelled by tequila which we had decided we would attempt to drink despite the fact that both of us felt that it tasted like what a glass of water would taste like if you dropped about fifteen cigarette butts in it. As night fell, we decided that The Thing To Do would be to switch over and play Resident Evil 2 very loud while absolutely munted off our tits. (We also left a metronome ticking outside the room our friend Ed, who had flaked out early, was sleeping in.)

For whatever reason, during our Resident Evil 2 session — and remember we were absolutely twatted by this point — we then decided that The Thing To Do would be to turn to each other and repeatedly say the word "COCK" in the manner described above to each other while attempting to continue normal play. Normal play was already somewhat difficult due to the amount of alcohol we had imbibed coupled with Resident Evil 2's cumbersome controls, so it largely degenerated into just the shouting of the aforementioned syllable over and over and over again.

I don't know for how many hours we kept this up, but it was certainly a long time. Probably at least one hour and possibly more. I'm pretty sure that we somehow got most of the way through the game while repeatedly bellowing "COCK" at one another, because I have a vivid memory of collapsing in a drunken, exhausted heap after failing to kill the final boss and waking up the next morning in an awkward position with the PlayStation still running.

So there you go. That's how much I love cock. I'll go all night with it.

(Aside: WordPress recommended "wine tasting descriptors" as a tag for this post. I'm not sure I need to make any further comment than that.)