Klarples (or Happy Mothering Sunday)

Ooh one has let oneself slip a little in the blogging department hasn't one? Reasons: too much making merry and... no that's it... See the thing with a lotta drink is not the act itself but, as most of us know only too well, the recovery time. I was so rough this morning... I was pretty 'unstable' at badminton lol. I played really well again (even if I do say so myself!). Played one of the high ranking guys who is really skilled and managed to score 19 out of 21 points against him. He had to use a racket he wasn't used to, and I'm pretty sure he was giving me easy serves, but I'm still proud of that. In the other games that I lost, I was having such incredible fun that I still feel like a winner (cringe cheese). I have a theory about performing well after a night out: alcohol dehydrates the body. Thus, if you have a bad hangover, the body recognises its disadvantage and aids your energy/concentration somehow. I guess it's kinda like a survival instinct... I know what I mean anyway...

Played extremely poorly at pool in the bar after badminton I must confess! Must have been due to the non-alcoholic beverages I consumed. I had my tea from the diner: chicken burger with chesse, lettuce and mayo, plus a portion of chips. I then felt hungry later on and had another portion of chips. That is fat. I'm in serious danger of becoming a blimp! My excuse, apart from the fact I was training hard, was that the drinking the night before carried on til 0500-0600hrs, so I had a debt of energy due to being awake so long, and that debt needed food to cancel it.

Tomorrow I'm gonna send my extra large fedora back and await a large one in return, go to my creative writing seminar, do some shopping (yep, cupboards are empty again!), get my beard trimmed (above is a picture showing how shaggy it's getting) and watch Liverpool play Portsmouth. I've had so much stick for supporting Liverpool today it was untrue: so many comments about how bad this season has been... Well all I've got now is a flickering of hope. We can do it, come on red men!

Strike One

No my title has nothing to do with drinking Stella Artois, don't worry! I remembered that I forgot to mention something in me last blog. Elvis had a similar problem, he forgot to remember to forget her, and now he just can't get her out of his mind... No, seriously, twas C's birthday on the night of me last blog, twas her 21st. She's the 'Student Advisor/Advocate' in my halls, and she's lovely so many happy returns to her. Now there's plenty more to talk about!

I'll get the football stuff outta tha way foist, coz not a lotta people enjoy it as much as I do lol! We were playing Lille away and effing lost 1-0... We were better than when we played Wigan, pass completion was better and we had a few good chances and one pretty damn positive piece of pressure. To no avail. No goal for us, and theirs was, as most of them have been, from a bloomin' set piece... Free kick into the box, Reina apparently couldn't quite see what was going on and bang, bottom corner :-( Was with one Liverpool supporting friend of mine and one Arsenal supporting friend of mine, guess who was most vocal... He also joined a pretty long line of people who, upon the mention of me playing badminton, tell me that they used to play, haven't in ages and wanna come down to training. So far, one out of 7 or 8 people have actually shown up!

Had a good mate of mine come round last night. We started talking about coursework while having beers before going out and it turned out that I had been working on the wrong piece of coursework that was in for the next day. Yup, a whole essay I hadn't even started in for the next day (which was populated with a seminar too) and I'd already had a few tins. Solution? Go out, get pretty drunk, get up the next day at 1000hrs and try not to vomit over your laptop as you crack the whip. An' I'll tell you, I did much more than the bare minimum and produced a work I'd have been pretty proud of under sober circumstances. Submitted that, got to the lecture on time (which answered some questions I was unsure of) and felt better!

Got my fedora hat too. Problem is: tis too big... Still, they say they're all about customer satisfaction, so I'll be able to exchange it for a smaller one that will still be as sexy. Looking forward to it possibly more than before now! Not a shred of disappointment at the apparent inconvenience coz life is good! I've been wondering if my particularly good moods of late have more to do with my regular exercise or the fact that I'm back on The Sopranos. It would be ironic if the latter cheered me up to be honest, it's not exactly a comedy! That's not to say it doesn't have humour in (mostly very dark admittedly...). If you get the chance to see it, DO!!! Don't have the completely unfounded stereotype in your head that it's all about mob violence. It's actually more of a family drama. It's so well written that it's untrue! It's obviously very considered. Its creator had studied psychology originally, so the protagonist's psychiatrist is true to life. She acts as a 'Greek chorus' type figure (look that one up yourselves), which shows how cerebral the show actually is in between a few brutal hits.
Like my favourite one where Vito Spatafore gets his... Oh no I probably can't say that on here (the Feds probably have this blog wired for sound...).

A shout out to some old lags; hi to Greg, Arran, Mark, Will, Jim, James, Tom and Tim (I'd go on but I can't be arsed), their respective partners and their family. Ciao!

[Pictured: My suspicious package or, as some crazy people might call it, a 'hat in a box']

Buon Giorno

Hey folks. Just slightly avoiding work, so I figured I'd update y'all :-p Had some pretty sweet badminton last night, first games were with an Everton fan who can be a nice bloke and is a good player. We both had a lot of silly mitakes though, so we lost both games lol, but they were good fun. Last four games, I was with my regular partner. Lets say that the competition 'wasn't as stiff,' and we won all four comfortably. To add the usual pinch of downside to any goodness, I degenerated a little into unsportsmanly behaviour. I was sick of everyone making comments about me, behaving boorishly upon my partner and I missing a point and not trusting decisions about whether a shot was in or out, when both my partner and I had better views and were both in agreement. Still, I've had that in past clubs. Some people don't really care about fairness when they want to win! Also, I'm getting slight knee problems again and some calf pain, so lets hope I don't have to go to Romania for horse placenta treatment (just google that, I'm not being vulgar or just making something up!).

After this lovely exercise, I swiftly made my way to the take-away to regain all the fat I'd lost lol. Chips and mayo with a goood deal of salt, yummy. Was sposeda be meeting a mate in the bar who didn't show, but what I can't believe is that I had mineral water while I waited! I even turned down the offer of someone else buying it for me! According to witness at the scene, this wasn't a dream. My body feels a bit like a temple again haha.

Today's song stuck in my head is the theme tune to 'Indiana Jones.' If you don't know it, you should either get someone to shoot you, or just listen to it... Either one... I think I have an explanation for this seemingly random piece, and it wasn't coz I've been watching the films recently (still not seen Kingdom of the Crystal Skull actually, Indy's latest outing). I've been aggressively pursuing the attainment of a hat. Not just any old hat. Not a beanie, not a cap but a fedora. Not a plastic gangster dress-up costume fedora, but a proper one. Whilst looking for such an item, one stumbled across these fedoras made to be like Indiana Jones' and they had this little badge on the side of them saying 'Indiana Jones.' I wouldn't want one because I think that badge makes it look tacky, but also they were more expensive than some of the others, but the fact is that the 'Indiana Jones seed' must have been planted in my fragile mind at that minute, and that's why I'm humming the tune now.

So long amici! Hope you have some pleasant adventures soon, preferably that don't end in you being flattened by a huge boulder.