I don't really need help. I just couldn't think of a heading that I hadn't already used to say that yes, it is monthly hotel visit time again, as I am down to go into The Office for miscellaneous shenanigans tomorrow. Excitingly, we have a new office now, albeit in the same building, and I have no idea where it is, so that will be fun to sort out tomorrow morning.
Annoyingly, the lift at the hotel I normally stay at is broken again (or possibly still broken from last time) so I had to trudge up the stairs with case in tow to get to my room, reminding me quite how unfit I really am. I'm not dead, though, which 8s good, and due to there being no single rooms available for this stay, I'm actually in a double room tonight, so lots of room to sprawl.
Even better, the room has a bath, so I had a nice bath earlier, and I didn't flood the room this time so I could actually enjoy it. So I'll let the hotel off for the fact its lift hasn't been working on my last two visits.
It's a horrible lift anyway. One of those pokey little ones that's basically the size of a cupboard, and claims to be able to house four people but can barely contain one, particularly if the occupant is a larger individual like me. But, still, when it works, it does mean you don't have to climb the stairs, so I've never been too mad at it.
Anyway, I'm off to relax a bit before sleep. I don't really know what's going on tomorrow, but hopefully it shouldn't be too stressful. Then there's the long drive home. Joy.
That's something for Tomorrow Pete to worry about though. For now, Tonight Pete is going to enjoy the last days of the Nintendo Switch ahead of the follow-up arriving on Thursday!
After rather longer browsing through the "Random Post" option than I would like, I am no closer to determining what I might want to write about today. So, as ever in scenarios like this, I am just going to start typing and see what comes out. It might be coherent, it might be nonsense; it might be meaningful, it might just be a summary of what happened today. I don't know yet because I haven't written it yet; the only rule is that I'm not going to stop typing to think. No, think, always type.
I published my video on Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer yesterday. It's done… all right, but this further cements my complete lack of understanding of what "works" on YouTube. Sometimes I'll post something that I feel is completely throwaway and it'll do very good numbers (obscenely good in the case of something like my Super Woden GP 2 video from a while back), then at other times I'll post something that actually had some meaning to me, and it'll struggle to break a hundred views. I think the most galling instance of this happening was back when I covered The Missing: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories, a thoroughly interesting game by SWERY65 that really got me thinking and learning some things. It was, in many ways, a very personal video, and it did absolute bobbins performance-wise. But I'm still glad I did it.
My Kathy Rain 2 video isn't exactly "personal" in the same way, but I did enjoy the game enough to want to share it with others, because it was a very good point-and-click adventure, and I hope it does well. But at the time of typing this, it hasn't broken a hundred views yet, and I feel like it's been tough to get people to pay attention to it on socials also.
There are times when this happens where I find myself wondering if I should bother keeping on with things like MoeGamer and my YouTube channel. They're both "work" in a sense, and I could probably have a lot more time to myself to enjoy things if I ditched both of them and just lived my life to enjoy myself.
But the trouble is, I really enjoy doing both of them, and neither of them have ever been about viewing figures. Sure, the occasional payout I get from YouTube is a nice little bit of pocket money (and nothing more) but I don't really do either videos or articles for the sake of making Number Go Up. I do them primarily as means of expressing myself about things that I am enthusiastic about, and to share that enthusiasm with others — particularly people I consider to be close friends.
Now, I've found out to my cost and frustration that there are some people I considered to be close friends who don't give a shit, and have never even tried to give a shit when I shared things with them. So I've just stopped trying with them, and instead I just concentrate on doing these things for my own enjoyment, and perhaps to share with people that I know will appreciate them.
Sure, it might be nice to be able to do YouTube as a living, but would it really? Would it really be nice to have one's income completely beholden to the fickle fates of The Algorithm and the massive variation one can see in viewing figures from one video to the next? Probably not. So that is not — and never has been, really — an angle that I'm pursuing.
Best thing is just to keep these things as hobbies, and if certain people happen to stumble across them and enjoy them, great. If not, at least I have something I can look at myself and be satisfied with — and be content in the knowledge that generative AI hasn't come anywhere near those things I've created, either.
Anyway, I have spent enough time randomly pondering absolute nonsense this evening, so I think it's time to go and unwind with some video games. I think some Castlevania: Lords of Shadow might be in order; I've been playing that a bit for the last week and really enjoying it. Patrick Stewart!
So that's what I'm off to do now. And all my self-imposed commitments are already taken care of well before midnight, too. Look at me, I'm growing.
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I've had a few right weirdoes in the comments section of MoeGamer of late, and they are a prime example of why I adopt a fairly strict moderation policy: anyone who hasn't commented before has to have their first comment approved before any of their comments will appear on the site. If I don't approve that initial comment, the words they hammered into their crusty keyboard will not appear on the site.
I think by far the strangest so far was the one who started off talking about nostalgia, but then started banging on about the "globalist agenda" and how modern video games were all basically in service to this. By "globalist agenda", by the way, this person absolutely meant "the Jews", and as such their comment didn't get anywhere even a little bit close to being published on my site. I did mock it a bit on social media, though.
Today I had a guy who got really uppity about me writing about the Game Boy game The Sword of Hope and thinking that it was actually quite worthwhile and interesting. He absolutely could not fathom the idea of someone from well after a creative work had been published not judging it by the standards of its time. He also almost immediately started banging on about "censorship" due to the combination of my anti-spam filter and my aforementioned comments policy, so he did not get let through either.
I have a fairly flawless sense these days of when someone is going to be a pain in the arse in the comments. There's just a certain way that some people come across in text that lets you know they're a dickhead and probably a racist, and thus I have absolutely no hesitation in banishing them to the shadow realm when they happen to stagger into my comments section.
I do the same on YouTube; for all its faults, YouTube has one of the absolute best moderation tools in existence, which is the "Hide User From Channel" option. For the unfamiliar, what this does is effectively "shadowbanning" the commenter from your channel, so their comments don't appear under your videos and you don't get notifications about them… but to their eyes, they're still able to comment as normal. There's a perverse satisfaction in doing this, because you know some of these absolute cretins will be typing out long, obnoxious diatribes about whatever has offended their delicate sensibilities this week, and no-one will ever see them. Again, I have zero hesitation in doing this; if someone bursts into the comments section and the first thing they do is act like a twat, they're going straight in the sin bin.
Life is too short to deal with dickheads on the Internet. Of course, we'd all rather they didn't exist at all, but at least there are plenty of tools with which we can frustrate and repel them. Make good use of them; it's worth the effort.
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So, dear reader, you may be wondering: after my frankly unnecessary agonising over whether or not I "should" start watching it, given all the other stuff on my media plate right now, I did, in fact, start watching Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. And I'm enjoying it a lot!
For the unfamiliar, Shakespeare & Hathaway (as I shall refer to it hereafter) is a fairly light-hearted crime drama about the unlikely Stratford-upon-Avon-based duo of private detective Frank Hathaway and his partner in crime-solving, Lu Shakespeare. The pair are brought together during the first episode when there is a murder case at Lou's wedding, and they just sort of… stick together after that.
Shakespeare & Hathaway is not a show that concerns itself with small details, such as whether or not Lu would be allowed to work with Frank as an investigator with no experience or qualifications — a quick Google reveals that private investigator licenses are not actually required here in the UK, but they are strongly advised — but rather in simply providing a series of interesting crimes for the duo to solve. And in that, it succeeds pretty admirably.
As with most crime dramas, each episode focuses on a single case. And they're a varied bunch, to be sure. In one episode, the duo are investigating on behalf of an undertaker who has been given 24 hours to live by a pair of sinister hitmen. In another, they look into the case of a boy who has curious blackouts and is convinced that he is going to commit a murder. In another still, a gift shop owner turns up dead after an apparently botched break-in, but something just doesn't quite seem right.
One of the things I really like about the show is how it isn't afraid to be kind of "cartoony", particularly where its villains are concerned. This is a show where the villains don't exactly twirl their moustaches and do full-on evil laughs, but they honestly come pretty damn close on quite a few occasions.
Perhaps it's more accurate (and fitting) to say that the show is rather theatrical, given its setting and title — and the fact that Shakespeare and Hathaway's long-suffering assistant Sebastian is a RADA-trained (but out-of-work, natch) actor. And, yes, he is often convinced to perform (pun intended) undercover assignments that involve him dressing up in elaborate costumes and often playing "characters" that are very different from his rather mild-mannered but camp and sarcastic real persona. The highlight so far was a scene where he attended a cross-dressing bar and made such a convincing woman that he turned everyone's heads — and I suspect more than a few viewers might not have immediately clocked it was him until he opened his mouth, either.
Also, as you might expect given the Stratford setting, the show is riddled with Shakespearean references, both subtle and slap-you-in-the-face obvious. But Bard nerds will be happy.
The show's not going to win any grand awards or be remembered for years to come, I'm sure. But it is an eminently likeable piece of television, featuring a central cast who have good chemistry with one another. This isn't a show about said central cast going through high drama or amazing revelations — at least, it hasn't been yet — but I'm honestly fine with that. Frank is a pleasingly likeable, flawed everyman type — and I appreciate that he's a larger gentleman, played excellently by Mark Benton — while Lu is someone keen to prove her usefulness, yet endearingly ditzy. There's more than a touch of Daisy from Spaced about her in terms of personality and mannerisms.
I'm coming up on the end of the first series, and I've very much enjoyed it so far. If you're a fan of crime drama that doesn't get too grim, and which takes joy in theatrics and comedy, I would comfortably recommend it to anyone. It's not a demanding watch, but it is oddly compelling. And I'm looking forward to watching more!
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Well, I didn't finish Kathy Rain 2. I think I'm on the last "day" of it, though, so I should have it all wrapped up by the end of tomorrow evening, I reckon. I could have probably pushed through it tonight, but I hadn't written this, and I hadn't done stupid social media things that I do every day (the "#365games" tag on Bluesky) and I have had a stomachache all day, so I thought I should probably call it a night.
Of all the aches and pains it is possible for one to experience, few are worse than a lingering stomachache, because while something like an achey back or joints can be at least temporarily relieved by moving around a bit, a stomachache stubbornly sits there and demands your full attention, even when you have a lot of things to do. And I had a lot of things to do today, let me tell you.
It was the Evercade 5th Anniversary Showcase today, during which we revealed two more NEOGEO cartridges, two cartridges from Taito (surely a pleasant surprise for everyone who thought Taito stuff was forever confined to built-in games on specific pieces of hardware), and a single-game cartridge featuring the truly excellent Roguecraft DX, an enhanced and expanded version of a very good (and award-winning!) Amiga game that came out last year.
It was a good show all round, and I think most people were happy. There were the usual moaners and complainers, but I'm pretty much just tuning them out at this point, because 95% of them are moaning and complaining about things we haven't said, just working on doomsaying and assumptions. And when someone's being like that, it's frankly not worth getting involved.
I'm really excited about the stuff we've got coming up this year. It's a relief to have been able to let the cat out of the bag for some of it today, but there's even more coming later in the year that I think people are going to be even more excited and surprised by. Evercade has been going from strength to strength in terms of the quality licenses we've been able to agree each year, and this year in particular is a string of big names. I obviously can't tell you what the unrevealed ones are as yet, but if you're into your retro gaming, you'll be pleased to see them, I can tell you that.
I should probably stop typing before I say anything I shouldn't, and go and lie in bed groaning until this stomachache goes away. It is small consolation that Andie has also been suffering today, suggesting to me that something we both ate yesterday probably wasn't good, likely the burgers we had for dinner. That also, hopefully, means we'll both be feeling better tomorrow. But for now, I anticipate an uncomfortable night ahead, perhaps with a side of thunderous farting. Yes, I could definitely go for a thunderous fart or two right now.
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It's half past ten at night and I feel like I haven't really "done anything" this evening. Sure, I went and had a bath, and I enjoyed watching Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators while doing so (then I finished watching it after said bath) but other than that… I have no idea where my evening has gone.
I certainly haven't been sitting staring morosely into space, so that's something, at least. But I'm just a bit confused; I didn't finish work particularly late, and the only other thing I've done this evening is play the piano (long overdue, I need to do that more often) so, I say again, whuh?
Oh well. I guess that just means I better make the most of the remaining time I have this evening, without collapsing into bed at too ungodly an hour, because, after all, I still have to work tomorrow. I am probably going to spend a bit of time playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, which I fired up on a whim last night and found myself enjoying quite a bit. Or I might just watch another episode of Shakespeare & Hathaway.
Oh, I did also watch an episode of What We Do In The Shadows earlier, because the fifth season of that is now on BBC iPlayer, so that's another half hour or so accounted for. But I still feel like there's several hours' worth of time missing.
Well, these things happen, I guess, and sitting trying to work out how and why my evening has vanished into the ether isn't going to bring any of that time back. So I might as well stop poncing around here and go and do something enjoyable. Not that this isn't enjoyable in and of itself, of course — I love and respect you, dear reader — but, well, y'know, sometimes you feel like you need to have had some time that was just for you, no-one else. No commitments, no "making content", no monetising one's hobbies. Just enjoyment.
So that's what I'm off to go and do for an hour or two. Toodle-pip.
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The world can be an overwhelming place for all manner of reasons, and one of the things most likely to overstimulate all of us at one point or another is the sheer amount of media that there is. There is more stuff in the world than one person can reasonably experience in a single lifetime, and most of us likely feel at various times like we're being pulled in multiple directions, the constant threat of Maybe Not Enjoying The Thing You Picked As Much As The Thing You Didn't Pick a common source of analysis paralysis.
Case in point: this evening, I happened to see over Andie's shoulder that she's watching a TV show called Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. I can tell from the bits I've watched over her shoulder that I would almost certainly enjoy this show, but is it something that I "should" add to my plate, given I have games on my shelves I haven't played, DVDs and Blu-Rays on other shelves that I haven't watched, and an entire Internet full of possibilities just a click away?
The answer, of course, is "stop overthinking it, and if you think you might enjoy it, watch it". And I think I just might. It's not as if I have to commit to watching it to the exclusion of all else, and it's not as if I have to watch it every day without fail otherwise I'll forget what's going on. As a TV show, it's designed to be inherently "disposable", as horrible as that sounds to say about a creative work; perhaps "transient" is a better descriptor. It's something designed for you to enjoy in the moment, then not think particularly hard about. There are plenty of other TV shows that I've watched in the past that fall into this category — I quite often look back over past entries of this blog and see entries about shows I apparently watched but have absolutely no recollection of whatsoever — and I don't feel too bad about that. I enjoyed them in the moment, which was their purpose.
Not everything needs to have meaning, to be life-changing, or to have a particularly strong and powerful message to deliver. Sometimes entertainment is simply for entertainment's sake, and there's nothing wrong with that.
So y'know what? I think I might just start watching Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. It looks like a fun show that I think I will enjoy, and my instincts are usually pretty good on these things. I may not remember it a year or two down the line, but does that really matter? Not at all; if it's enjoyable now, and it helps distract from the shitshow that is life in 2025, bring it on, I say. The planet might have burned down in a couple of years, and when that time comes it's not going to matter one jot what my media consumption habits were.
This isn't even a new problem. For as long as television has existed, people have doubtless agonised over which channel they should watch, or if they should do something other than watching television. That particular problem is compounded for those who had satellite or cable TV, of course, as they had even more choice. And in times before electronic media, were people agonising over which book they should read, which painting they should admire or which sonata they should play on the piano? Entirely possible.
Life is short; much too short to agonise over decisions as ultimately trivial as what you're going to do to entertain yourself of an evening. So if you feel like you might fancy something, just take the plunge and enjoy it. There are no wrong choices. (Well, there are, but that's not the sort of decision we're talking about here.) Taking care of yourself is of paramount importance, and allowing yourself to get trapped into a mental spiral of trying to prioritise things of equal unimportance is a sure-fire way to make yourself miserable.
So, y'know, don't do that. I am going to try and take my own advice here.
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A garden is something that it's easy to take for granted. No, more accurately, a garden is something it's easy to forget about, allow to get into a terrible situation and then not be bothered with wanting to fix it up. I vividly recall the garden at my third-year student house being along these lines, with what can only be described as a "small, wild meadow" on the front lawn by the time we vacated the premises.
But I also have fond memories of gardens. As a kid, I used to like spending time in the garden at our house. I particularly enjoyed any time I was allowed to get out "the wigwam" (yes, I know it was almost certainly a tepee), plop an old cushion in it and pretend to be camping out in the back garden. I used to read out there. Hell, I used to study out there; I have oddly vivid memories of sitting out there in said little tent reading the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music's Rudiments and Theory of Music in preparation for my Grade 5 theory exam.
I also have extremely fond memories of going to visit my "Aunty" Sue and "Uncle" Peter's house, and them having outdoor garden parties. (The "Aunty" and "Uncle" are in inverted commas due to them not actually being relatives; they were the "friends of my parents" kind of "Aunty" and "Uncle".) They were rather well off, and had a huge house with a massive garden. It was probably more accurate to say that they had "grounds". As a kid, it was nice to have a safe, outdoor space that I felt like it was possible to actually explore, rather than be able to see the entire area from wherever you sit or stood in it.
Then there were my parents' other friends Pat and Keith (oddly, they were never an "Aunty" and "Uncle" scenario) who had a cool multi-level back garden with a rockery that I always enjoyed futzing around in. I remember one time we went to the Robin Hood Centre in Nottingham (they lived relatively close to Nottingham) and I came back with a kid's bow and arrow set, and I spent a good few hours just shooting the bow around the garden. My parents and their friends joked that I was going "cat hunting", because their cats Merry and Suki liked to hang out in the back garden, too, but I would never do a thing to harm them; they were very good cats indeed.
Just recently… well, for quite a while, actually, Andie has been working hard to make our back garden nice. It's been just sort of… there for quite a while, and it's been a gradual process of her sorting it out. The main thing she wanted to do was replace our horrible old shed with a brand new summer house-style one, which she did, but in doing so she was clearly bitten by the landscaping bug, because over time she's been doing up the rest of the space, sorting out the flower beds around the side and making a nice little "nook" down at the bottom of the garden with some comfy furniture to just be able to go and sit.
I went out there for a sit this afternoon. Not to go and sit and do anything, just to go and have a nice sit outside. I don't think I've done that for a very long time, and it was very pleasant to just sit outdoors, enjoy the nice breeze and the sunshine, and not have to think or worry about anything.
If I was in somewhat better physical condition, I might even be tempted to try and do some stuff in the garden myself, though I have absolutely no idea where one might start with such things, and Andie has kind of already taken care of most of the major things that need doing. I still might try and get involved a bit more, though. Just doing so will probably be a decent bit of gentle exercise, and that's something I could really do with on a slightly more regular basis.
Regardless of circumstances and purpose, I think I will probably be spending a bit more time out in the garden this summer; it's nice to get out of the house now and then, even if it's literally just into your own back yard.
Is this what it means to be in your mid-40s? I guess so. It's not so bad.
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I've gone to the gym for the last two days in a row! Go me. I think I will probably take tomorrow off, but I went yesterday of my own volition and today to make up for the bratwurst we had for dinner, since I'm counting calories at the moment.
I go back and forth on my feelings towards the gym. There are times when I resent "having" to go (and, honestly, with the state my body's been in for a while, I do "have" to go) but there are times like the last couple of days when I actually feel like it's quite a pleasant experience. And it's for different reasons at different times.
Yesterday, I was feeling a bit down and miserable; I was having one of those evenings where I spent several hours not really doing anything worthwhile, and got to about 9pm feeling frustrated at how I had wasted the evening. So I decided that rather than sit around continuing to do nothing, I would do something productive and go to the gym. I dug out my cheap-ass wireless earbuds that don't really block out any external sound but which are adequate enough for listening to podcasts or YouTube videos, queued up a video I'd half-watched earlier, then went to the gym and did 20 minutes on the treadmill followed by about 30 minutes of resistance stuff on the machines.
And y'know what? I felt pretty damn good afterwards. My mood had lifted and I didn't feel anywhere near as frustrated as I'd felt prior to leaving the house. I'd still wasted a good few hours of the evening, of course, but it didn't feel like it mattered (because, let's face it, it doesn't, really) — and anyway, I'd made up for it by going and doing something that officially falls into the category of Bettering Oneself.
This evening, meanwhile, I had made myself a little anxious by knowingly going over the calorie limit I'm supposed to be following with dinner, but then I recalled the calorie consumption I had recorded from yesterday's session, realised that this would more than make up for the "overspill", and resolved to go and have a decent session. Once again, I got the shitty wireless earbuds and set the latest Giant Bombcast to playing while on the treadmill, and managed 30 minutes without too much difficulty. It normally takes me quite a while to muster the motivation to do more than 10 minutes on the treadmill, but today it was easy.
It's all about how you occupy your mind while you're doing those exercises, I think. At least, it is for me. If I'm just walking on the treadmill and I don't have anything to distract me from the tedium of the endeavour, even just 10 minutes feels like an absolute eternity. But if I have something compelling, interesting or just plain amusing to listen to while I'm doing the tedious thing, the time passes way faster, because I'm simply not paying attention to the time.
It's the same phenomenon we found in secondary school German classes. We spent so much time clockwatching in those lessons that they felt five times longer than any other lesson we had at school — one time I really freaked my friend out by using the countdown timer on my Casio watch to make it look like time really was running backwards — but if they had been a tad more engaging and interesting, I'm sure they wouldn't have felt as long. No disrespect to my German teachers, who were doing their best, but National Curriculum and GCSE-level German are set up to not be very interesting and engaging to study. At least, they weren't when I was at school.
So yes. I think the secret of gym success is to have something to occupy your ears and, in the case of the treadmill, your eyes, too. If you're looking at a screen to watch a video, you're not watching the clock. Bonus points if your gym's treadmill has an arrangement where you can physically block the clock screen with your phone or tablet. Or just lay your towel over the top, I guess.
Anyway, like I say, probably going to have a day off tomorrow 'cause my muscles are a bit sore after two days of pumping it (at weakling levels) in a row. But, so long as I continue to have good stuff to put in my eyes and ears while doing the boring bits, I think I might be able to keep this up for a bit. Let's see how it goes.
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It is 1am and, surprisingly, I am wide awake. And this is after an evening of drinking… well, I'm not sure I'd say heavily, but we all had a fair few cocktails over the course of 6 hours or so. None of those cocktails were astronomically, brain-fryingly strong, though, so right now I just feel quite… pleasant. Which is nice. The last few times I've had a drink I've found myself just skipping the "happy drunk" phase and going straight to "maudlin".
It was the Eurovision Song Contest this evening. I never feel like I particularly give a shit about this, but if it's on I always find myself getting curiously invested in proceedings. We missed most of the actual performances because we were out in the garden having a barbecue, though we did have them on the radio in the background, so at least we heard most of them.
Without getting too much into global geopolitics, it was looking a bit… risky for a while, shall we say, but I don't think many people will have had too many complaints about Austria winning. The song itself was a bit boring, but no-one can deny the impressive range and power of the Austrian chap's voice. Very operatic. Very impressive.
I find it curious that Eurovision is often described as being very "camp" and even "gay" or "queer" — and I'm not denying any of those things, I hasten to add — while simultaneously having plenty of performances and costumes that heterosexual people would also get a kick out of. I guess a sexy bod and a sexy outfit is always a sexy bod and a sexy outfit, regardless of what gender identity or sexual orientation you're looking at it from.
I suspect the "camp" and "gay" descriptors tend to apply primarily to the performances in their entirety: the flamboyant, overdramatic productions that most of them involve are, for whatever reason, associated with queerness, and that, in turn, gives the whole thing a distinctly queer identity of its own. At least, I suppose that's the case, anyway. I am not, I hasten to add and emphasise strongly, an expert.
Perhaps the argument runs something like "Musical theatre is flamboyant and overdramatic, gay people like musical theatre, therefore anything musical theatre-adjacent that is flamboyant and overdramatic must be gay." I think I've cracked it! Or maybe not. I don't know. I've drunk four cocktails this evening and consequently I'm not entirely sure my powers of reasoning are the best right now, and I probably shouldn't even be typing this. But oh well. It's done now. And, I think, without any spelling mistakes. Certainly a far cry from certain earlier entries on this blog. Or, rather, the tweets I sent the night before the blog after. In fact, you know what, let's revisit those for posterity. (Read from bottom to top for chronological posts.)
For context, these were sent on the 7th of May, 2010, when I was absolutely twatted off my face, basking in the misery of my first marriage having broken down and the prospect of having to move back home to live with my parents for a while. I, obviously, apologise for the errant homophobia, but, y'know, different times and all that. Not that it was particularly acceptable then, either. But I'm sure most of you reading this have some off-colour things you say when you're among friends. And, at the time, my Twitter account was pretty much entirely "among friends".
I haven't seen most of those lovely people for quite a while, though I did randomly run into "dollydaydream" at Specsavers a couple of weekends ago while I was getting a new pair of glasses. That was nice. Hopefully we can have a proper catch-up soon.
I kind of miss that (relatively) youthful exuberance. At the same time, I'm also glad I'm not going out in town on a regular basis, because going out drinking these days is expensive. Much better to just have a few nice drinks in your nice comfy home with people you enjoy the company of, and actually be able to hear one another.
Does that make me an old fart? Almost certainly. But y'know what, I don't give a shit. And now, as a great man once said: Going to bd. Fuck off. Nght night.
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