#oneaday, Day 27: To Whom It May Concern

Dear God/Cthulhu/Nyx/Nicola from Girls Aloud/Kefka/Des/Mr Denton/GLaDOS/G-Man/Bhaal/Fate/whoever is actually in charge of everything,

I’m not a praying man. You know that. I’m not even a religious man. But I’m asking for a favour. One little favour. That surely won’t be much for someone of Your calibre of magnificence/horror/weirdness/hotness/badassness/system specifications.

Said favour will only take up one day. One day. 24 hours on this Earth. You can spare a day, right? I don’t mind what You do on the day after. You can rain down locusts, devour the planet, send forth Your spawn into the wilds, ruin the world, remake it in Your own image or hire a guy with a crowbar to kick some ass. I don’t care.

All I ask is that for one solitary day, all of the Nice People get to have a Good Day. A Good Day together that they can all enjoy at the same time. Maybe down the pub. Because inevitably, what happens right now is that Person A has a Bad Day, Person B has a Fucking Terrible Day, Person C has a Great Day and Person D is “meh” about the whole thing. Person B is thrust into the very depths of depression. Person A moans about their day, but then feels guilty as soon as they come across Person B’s problems, which are clearly worse than their own. Person C wants to celebrate their Great Day but doesn’t want to make Person A and B feel bad or envious, while Person D gets all the shit from the other three lumped on them as they all vent their frustrations on the one truly neutral party in the whole debacle. And then no-one wants to go down the pub.

This is clearly a Very Silly Situation. Now, Your own personal ideology may not be particularly compatible with the concept of a Good Day. But look at it this way: if You’re the type to go devouring worlds, covering them with fire and/or making things “fall into shadow” (whatever that means—surely you can just turn on a light) then surely won’t it hurt more if You fuck shit up immediately after everyone has had a Good Day? Yeah. Now we’re talking, right?

If, on the other hand, You’re the benevolent type, then think how much good spiritual-currency-of-your-choice You’ll acquire from the provision of a universally Good Day. People will be happy and they’ll be inclined to thank You for said provision. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? I played Populous. I remember how it works. More mana means MOAR VOLCANOES. You know You want to.

Now, there are, of course, some flaws in this plan: namely, that one person’s Good Day may well cause someone else to have a Bad or even a Fucking Terrible Day. But I trust that You, in your infinite wisdom, will be able to sort something out. If it helps, You can limit the Universally Good Day to people that are “nice”, haven’t pissed me off recently and aren’t likely to. Or just my friends. I’m cool with that.

Basically, what I’m saying is: sucky things keep happening to Good People. Please, for one day, stop it and let people just enjoy life for once. I know that I’d be very grateful. And I know there are plenty of others out there who would too.

So at least think about it, huh?

Amen/Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!/May you always draw the right cards/You are well sexy/Synthesised laughs are the best/You’re a twat but I like you despite yourself/I like your sunglasses/This was a triumph/May you always be a Free-Man/FACE ME FACE THE NEW LORD OF MURDER/Korah matah korah rahtahmah/Yours faithfully,

Pete

#oneaday, Day 156: Could It Be…?

Today was, I hesitate to say it, a good day. Yes, I woke up a bit late and had trouble getting out of bed before 10AM, but things picked up a bit from there. First thing that happened was a certain website that I’d expressed an interest in freelancing for several months back emailed me back enquiring about my availability. I responded that I was very much available. As a result of a rather lengthy exchange, as it turns out, I’m taking a little trip tomorrow to go and cover something. Further details as events warrant. But that’s very exciting, and could potentially be something of a big break. Let’s hope so.

Then, a little later in the day, I received a lovely Facebook message from someone who shall remain nameless to spare her blushes. She said some nice things about some of the things I’ve written in the past and, as she said in her message, it’s always nice when someone compliments and appreciates your work.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a normal day without something rubbish happening, so I lost my passport and have a horrible feeling it might have accidentally got thrown out with the trash when I cleared out my car of teaching crap the other week. If you’re wondering why my passport was even in my car in the first place, it’s because schools are very strict on seeing official ID when supply teachers turn up. Quite right, too, otherwise any idiot with a beard could turn up and start shouting at children. Still, after some frantic and panicked research, it seems that for domestic flights photo ID in the form of a photocard driving licence is enough to prove you are who you say you are. So that should—hopefully—be all right. If it’s not, then, well, you know what tomorrow’s #oneaday is going to be about! And I will, of course, be applying for a new passport with due haste. Unless it randomly turns up somewhere as these things are wont to do.

I also updated to iOS4 last night. Because I’m still using a 3G, I don’t get a lot of the cool new features that secretly I don’t really care about, like multitasking and a background to my Home screen. I do, however, get folders, and that’s been a godsend. Whereas once I had six pages of apps that were once organised but as new ones were added and old ones deleted gradually got more and more disorganised, now I have one Home screen with everything on it. I tweeted it earlier. I can’t be bothered to go and find the picture again so if you’re that interested in other people’s iPhone Home screens, go rummage back through my Twitter feed for today.

So anyway. Tomorrow and Thursday should both be very interesting. More news as it happens. Or more likely, after it happens. Right now? I am very sleepy after trying to play doctor on someone else’s poor crippled iPhone. We failed in our efforts, sadly, so the fine people at the Apple Store WestQuay are getting a visit from them tomorrow.