Dumb ways to die. So many dumb ways to die.

Chloe has recently shown me a video on youtube, and an app for the ipad 'Dumb Ways to Die'. It's actually a safety information piece from Australia, but it's quirky, and funny, and interesting enough to watch - and more importantly for people, kids especially to take in what it's on about. Basically don't fuck around on or near railway tracks.

Another dumb way to die, was what happened to me last night, when I was asleep. No, of course I didn't die in my sleep. Not unless there's wifi in the afterlife. To be honest, there may be. We just don't know.

In my dream, I was with Tom Baker, when he was playing Doctor Who. I was running around a lot, with him, in what I can only assume were underground corridors. (They always nearly are on Doctor Who). Anyway. We were running away from the Daleks, trying to escape them. Then the Doctor comes across the brilliant idea, that if he leaves me with the other humans that the Daleks have captured, the ones that they are force feeding in order to serve their goals (not sure what the Daleks would do with a bucketload of obese Humans, but it's a dream, not a carefully thought out Terry Nation script).

 

Anyway, I protest, I'm not happy, but the Doctor persuades me, this is the only way of keeping me safe (because the Daleks would almost certainly kill me if they found me themselves), while the Doctor goes off and does Doctorish things and generally saves the day. 

Anyway, I find myself in this force feeding tube, which is basically a big vertical tube the size of a human, and the stuff that they are force-feeding me bears an uncanny resemblance to skittles. I can most certainly not taste the fucking rainbow at this point I can tell you. 

Anyway, I start choking, on the sheer amount of alien foodstuff (skittles) is being rammed down my throat. 

Cut to Simon waking up in the middle of the night, retching and chocking, with the taste of vomit in his mouth (you know that horrible occasion when you sick into your mouth and swallow it). I'm rather disoriented and frightened. Scared witless that I nearly just choked myself to death in my sleep, or nearly threw up on my bed, (possibly suffocating in my own vomit). 

This rather puts me off the idea of going back to sleep, but somehow I manage it, not really knowing if I will make it till morning. 

It just struck me as a really odd thing for me to dream about, and even odder that my dream would bleed into real life in such a way. I'm just really glad I didn't manage to manifest a Dalek in my dream, and bring that into reality. It may well have only been a late 1970s Dalek, but they were very scary back then. Ok ?

Need to get my clean on.

Saturday. Last two days before I return to work from my holiday.

I've had Chloe to stay most of the week, but she went home Thursday. She is, however staying tonight. I know that might sound strange and maybe even make little or no sense, but hey. That's life.

Just sitting on the sofa, having some breakfast of fake Shreddies (with demerara on top of course), cup of coffee and glass of orange juice. Trying to fight off Twilight, who seems to want to come and shred my left elbow in an effort to get me to stroke her.

No TV. Nice and peaceful, just the sound of the washing machine rumbling away in the background, the clickety clack of the keys on the iMac's keyboard that I'm using to write this on my ipad.

Okay, the reason the TV isn't on may have something to do with the BT Vision box stopping working since I have now cancelled the package and moved my telephone and broadband to someone else. There's been a few hiccups with the router or the broadband dropping out a couple of times, and I'm also keeping an eye on how fast the service is. I wanted to save money, but I don't want to do that at the expense of the broadband connection making my online life hell. When I say hell, I may be being a tad over dramatic. After all, it's not like it's the end of the world if I have to wait three milliseconds for a web page to load instead of one, is it ?

Scroll down one the page has finished loading then. I am currently looking around for a set-top box to replace the BT Vision box thingy, and have asked myself, how important is the ability to record TV these days ? Almost everything is on catchup TV, or available on Netflix or Love Film. This leads me in the direction of a 'smart' set-top box. One that will allow me to connect to the internet and to use on demand functions from 4od, BBC, ITV etc. It gets to the point where I could spend anything between about £30 (for a plain freeview box) to about £300, (for a freeview HD recorder with smart functions).

Starts to look like its worth buying a new TV with those features built in. All of these things I would rather not be buying at the moment. I don't want to be putting more large purchases on my credit card(s), and I'm not convinced that I actually spend that much time in front of the TV anyway.

So I spend hundreds of pounds buying something that I only use occasionally ? I think I'd rather spend the money on a Dyson.

what could possibly require such padding ? 

The light bulb in the en-suite gave out several weeks ago, and in a fit of efficiency, having waited said number of weeks to do anything about it, I ordered the special bulb off the internet on Wednesday (or Thursday, it's not important). Anyhoo. It arrived yesterday.

bubble-wrap supplies for next 300 years............. 

An anonymous brown box, surrounded with industrial sized bubble-wrap. Inside, was.. well, the light bulb and.. more bubble-wrap. I now had a replacement light bulb, and enough bubble-wrap to recreate at least three of the monsters from Tom Baker's era of Dr Who.

Despite my moaning above about not spending money I don't have, I have been on a mini spending spree lately, but I consider the light bulb a necessity rather than a luxury. I have also bought some new toys for the cats to play with, and those I will show when they arrive, no doubt with their truck load of bubble-wrap or polystyrene.

I have done little editing of my nanowrimo book whilst I've been off. I think I did some on the first day of the previous week I'd had off (I had the week before Easter off, went back to work one week and then off again). I need to be more disciplined.

There are too many distractions.

Another that I have also recently taken steps to limit is Facebook. I have actually gone so far as to remove the app from my ipad (I'm annoyed I can't actually remove it from my phone. Seems it's a default app or something). I have found that I'm not now wasting time endlessly looking through the comments of comments or inane minutia of other people's boring lives. I have gotten just so fed up with some of the bigoted short sighted rubbish that some people put on there. I want to argue with them, or correct them, but lets face it. You can't argue with stupid.

I am getting annoyed with my mobile phone too. It's just so slow, and doesn't seem that responsive anymore. This may of course have one of two causes, that either as it's getting older and more full of apps (even though I don't download any), it's overworked processor and limited storage capacity are getting stuck in the mud. Or it may be that it simply has never really recovered from being dropped in the washing up that time.

Being a bit-geek, I am already considering two courses of action here. I know that my contract does not expire until August / November, sometime, but after checking on Three's website I can upgrade in July at no extra cost, or I can upgrade early and pay a fee. Anyway, the two courses of action ? Well, I am looking at the new Blackberry's coming out, the ones with keyboards (don't even get me started on the point of a blackberry without a freaking keyboard), or something older, that isn't a smart phone at all. A candybar phone that just maybe takes pictures, does text and phone calls. That's it. Since I've got my ipad, and I do take it lots of places with me (reminds me I must show the new case I bought for it, that matches the one for my kindle paperwhite), and this means that I don't use the phone that much anymore for internetting. I may have previously trawled through facebook etc, but I just don't like working from it that much, compared to how easy to use and responsive the ipad is.

Do I get really rebellious, and get rid of my mobile phone altogether ? People would think I've gone mad.