Bonus Blog 1 - Every Parent Should Share These Films With Their Kids!

So today an old school friend of mine - Debbie - posted on Facebook that she was watching the movie Short Circuit with her kids.  This inspired me to create a list that every parent should look at and take note of.  This list is going to be the movies that every child should watch at some point throughout their childhood and parents really should encourage them to do so.  Of course there is no particular order in which they should watch them but here's my choices.

Goonies;
Gremlins 1 and 2;
ET;
Indiana Jones 1, 2 and 3 - maybe 4 if you feel it hasn't ruined the franchise;
Back to the Future 1, 2 and 3;
Rain Man;
Who Framed Roger Rabbit;
Empire of the Sun;
Ghostbusters;
The Breakfast Club;
Ferris Bueller's Day Off;
Big;
Adventures in Babysitting;
Stand By Me;
Weird Science;
Uncle Buck;
Home Alone 1, 2, 3 and 4;
My Girl;
Last Action Hero;
Flipper;
The Karate Kid;
Flight of the Navigator;
Explorers;
Little Shop of Horrors;
Short Circuit 1 and 2;
Police Academy 1 - 7;
Neverending Story 1, 2 and 3;
Labyrinth;
Honey I Shrunk the Kids;
Little Monsters;
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure/Bogus Journey;
Willow;
Time Bandits;
Howard The Duck;
Miracle on 34th Street;
Of Mice and Men.

So there you have it, my full list of the films that every parent should encourage their kids to watch at some point in their childhood.  Of course, some of them are probably better suited to older kids so it may be best to wait for them to reach a certain age first, parental discretion is advised.  As you may have noticed, most of them are from the 1980's - truly thr greatest decade for both movies and music in my opinion.  It was the age of the family movie era and boy did they do a great job.  I may even have to go and watch all of them all over again - sounds like a plan eh?

Feel free to leave me some feedback and let me know if you think I should have included any others.

James!

xXx

Day 35 - Patriotism My Arse!

Today I discovered a new show to watch - The Listener.  It's about a paramedic in Toronto who can read my minds and decides to use his ability to help others around the city.  I noticed on Facebook that most of my friends had been spenind their day watching parades and concerts and whatever other jubilee crap happened to be on TV.  I purposely avoided it and chose to watch my new show instead!

Don't get me wrong, I am proud to be British, but today I was not in the slightest bit patriotic.  I'm fed up of all the attention the royal family gets and the fact that everyone loves them so much.  I don't understand why people don't realise that they are the ones who should be bringing us out of this poxy recession instead of larging it up and living life as if they don't notice the deprevation around them!

The unemployment levels in the UK are so ridiculously high and the one person who needs to take control is our wonderful monarch.  She needs to stand up and tell her government to sort it out or heads will roll!  But no, she just sits there with her nice home and pretends it's not happening and that everything is fine.  I mean seriously, why ignore the subject?  All she has to do is tell her government to start creating more jobs for people and eventually we can bring ourselves out of the recession.  How hard is it to do that eh?

I don't have all the answers but I think there must be some way that the government can create more jobs for us to help us out of poverty and back from the brink of starvation.  Me personally, I'm finding it really hard to survive at the moment - I have so little money right now that I can't even afford to eat properly every day.  I spend most days trying to invent a new concoction of dinners - even resorting to making soup from water, a can of tomatoes and a few herbs just so I have something to be able to eat.  Yes, it's that bad that my cupboards are practically empty and my freezer hasn't had anything in it for a good three or four weeks now.

But anyway, enough whinging about how sad and pathetic my life is - back to the blog!  I spent my day watching TV shows and playing on Facebook - with the occasional argument on Facebook about how much I despise the royals but we won't go back there again, time to move on!

I finished my evening off by watching a film - Tower Heist starring Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Tea Leoni and Matthew Broderick.  I then headed for my bed at about 4.30am after finishing the Scavenger Hunt season with a final burst of energy to try and get the number one spot - hopefully it worked, we'll see tomorrow!

James!

xXx

Day 34 - Sunday!

Today was pretty much just like all the usual boring Sundays - absolutely sod all to do other than sleep and play on Facebook!  I did manage to squeeze in a film - after finally finding a link good enough to watch.  I decided to watch the 2010 version of Robin Hood with Russell Crowe playing the title role and Cate Blanchett playing Maid Marian.

It was a pretty decent adaptation to be perfectly honest and I was rather impressed with it.  Mark Addy did a reasonable job as Friar Tuck too, even if he didn't get on screen as often as I'd hoped.  Oh, but the forest scenes were a big change this time - they decided to make all the people who lived there a bunch of orphans, something I've not seen in any adaptation of the story before.  It was kind of like the lost boys from Peter Pan, hahaha.

I did also manage to find a new TV show to start watching - Homeland.  It stars Damien Lewis as a soldier who is found as a prisoner of war in Iraq after being missing in action for 8 years.  When he returns to civilisation however, a CIA analyst believes that he has been turned by the enemy and begins to build a case against him.  I only watched two episode though so haven't got into the show on a huge scale yet - this maybe something to return to at a later date!

Apart from that, not much else happened today to be honest - so I headed for bed at about 1am.

James!

xXx

Day 33 - Same Old, Same Old!

Yep, another day filled with episodes of Breaking Bad and the occasional Facebook game - including another mini war with Heather and Hannah on Angry Birds.  UGH - those two will be the death of me soon, hahaha.  I did finally manage to get to the end of season four on Breaking Bad though so that's finally over with and I can now move onto something new again.

I did pop out to the shop at some point to pick up some milk and bread plus I also managed to sit in front of the TV for a couple of hours instead of my PC - only to watch the football though.  England played against Belgium - the last friendly before the start of Euro 2012.  Hodgson made a few changes from the previous match against Norway - this time he decided to start with Oxlade-Chamberlain on the left wing and Milner on the right wing.  He also started Welbeck up front alongside Young - a risky move but it paid off after Welbeck scored the only goal of the game in the 36th minute of the game.

So apart from that, my day was pretty much the same as it had been for the past two or three days - watching shit loads of Breaking Bad and playing Facebook games - oh what an interesting life, hahaha!

James!

xXx

Day 32 - This Means War!

Today was the third day in a row that I spent watching a shit load of episodes of Breaking Bad with the occasional visit to Facebook in between episodes.  Today however was slightly different because Hannah declared war on me - she beat a couple of my scores on Angry Birds, again!  This time I was out for blood!

It was the weekly tournament that I've mentioned in my posts before but this time Hannah had surpassed me on an epic scale - I actually spent over an hour on one level before I eventually took back the lead.  Unfortunately she had also beaten me on another level so I had to move onto that one next.  Then, whilst I was busy trying to gain the high score back on that one, Heather jumped in and beat my score on a third level, ugh!

And so it seemed they had started to gang up on me to knock me off my pedestal.  It was of course short lived for Heather as I quickly beat her score after about 10 attempts and regained my pole position.  I was not so lucky with the other level though and just could not beat Hannah's new high score.  I eventually admitted defeat and vowed to get revenge at some point in the future.

Thankfully, her high score did not affect the overall scores and I still took the top spot on the weekly leaderboard for the accumulative scores across the four tourney levels.  It was about 4am when I finally submitted to my defeat and went to bed.

James!

xXx

Day 31 - Hooked!

Well after one season of watching Breaking Bad, I had become hooked - well and truly!  It may have started off slow but it certainly did pick up the pace in season two - I've sat and watched another 10 episodes today and did hardly anything else at all to be perfectly honest.  I think I can see a pattern emerging of what the next few days may hold in store for me, hahaha.

So my day went like this - wake up, Facebok, Breaking Bad, Facebook, food, Breaking Bad, Facebook, Breaking Bad, more food, Breaking Bad, finally got past a level I had been trying to pass on Candy Crush Saga on Facebook, more Breaking Bad, etc - you get the point.

I finally turned off the computer and went to sleep at about 2am after spending about an hour or so commenting on Jess's latest Random Thought Thursday post on Facebook - it's a weekly thing where we all gather to post loads of random crap to each other, hahaha.

James!

xXx

Day 30 - Breaking Bad!

Well this morning I posted on Facebook about the Planet of the Apes film I watched last night and it seemed to get quite a reaction from my friends.  I had lots of likes and lots of comments about how much my friends also enjoyed the film, one of them - Craig - even said it was his best film of 2011 before we eventually moved onto discussing TV shows instead.

He told me that I should check out an American show called Breaking Bad.  I read the write up about it and was convinced enough to watch the pilot episode.  It intrigued me enough to warrant watching a second episode and from then on I was hooked.  Although the first season was a little slow, it still had some great positives and the characters are just brilliant.

The show is basically about a high school chemistry teacher called Walt and a former student of his called Jesse and the mishaps that happen in their lives over the course of several months.  Jesse is a meth addict and down on his luck after the DEA raid his meth lab - therefore leaving him with the need to start again.

Walt had just been diagnosed with lung cancer and is told he only has several months left to live so he wants to quickly make enough money to leave behind for his family to live on after he is gone.  He has the brainstorm of becoming a meth cook so decides to join forces with Jesse to make some money.  What follows after that is a series of adventures and troubles that lead to a very entertaining show.

I ended up watching all 7 episodes of season one and then the first 3 episodes of season two before I got too tired to carry on.  I went to bed at around 3am and boy did I need the sleep - I was knackered after that much TV, hahaha.

James!

xXx

Day 29 - Film Critic!

So after a successful day of watching some new films yesterday, I decided that I'd follow suit and do the same again today.  I started off with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.  I expected big things from this film cos I am a big fan of Sherlock Holmes films and TV shows - I always have to try and watch them when a new one is released so it had to live up to a lot of high expectations.

Thankfully, it didn't do too bad in my opinion.  I don't think it quite has the same appeal as the TV version that has currently had two seasons on BBC1 with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson but it comes close.  With Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson, they actually take it back to 19th century Britain, unlike the BBC version which is based in modern day London.

I particularly thought the casting of Moriarty was done very well - Jared Harris (David Robert Jones from "Fringe") took on the mantle and I think he did a better job than the TV version played by Andrew Scott.  Don't get me wrong, I think he did a marvellous job, but Harris has much more screen presence and experience to pull it off and that he did!

So after watching that, I briefly stopped by Facebook for my usual haunts of daily spins before moving onto another film - this time it was Green Lantern with Ryan Reynolds in the title role.  Not the greatest superhero film I've ever but it was entertaining nonetheless and kept me occupied until lunchtime.

After having a break to grab myself a nice fry up, I swiftly went back to hunting for more films to watch and I came across a pretty decent one - Abduction.  It stars Taylor Lautner as an 18 year old high school student who figures out that his parents are not actually his real birth parents so he decides to investigate.  What comes next is a long journey of self discovery and action that he did not expect in the slightest.  A well rounded storyline and a pretty decent support cast made it definitely worth watching.

So after my third film of the day, I decided to have a break from watching films and settled in to play some games on Facebook and have a few chats with some online friends.  After a couple of hours, I then moved onto more film hunting and came acros the best discovery of the day - Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  I had heard lots of hype about it for a while but never actually got round to watching it so now was the time to catch up on what I had missed out on.

It started off as just a run of the mill lab experiment gone wrong type of film but then developed into a gripping story of one man's love and kindness towards an orphaned chimp which enables the chimp to become so much more than just another chimp.  It truly gripped me and I was glued to the screen with anticipation and always willing the chimp to get what he wanted - a real home and somewhere to belong!

Well I seem to be rambling on so much about these films that I'm starting to sound like a film critic, hahahaha.  Maybe that can be my next career move eh?  So anyway, I waqtched that film and spent the rest of the evening chatting on Facebook before getting myself some sleep at about midnight.

James!

xXx

Day 28 - Film Time!

The usual Monday morning blues arrived right on schedule today, especially considering it was still two days until pay day and I was totally skint and had hardly any food left in the kitchen.  The bread I bought from the corner shop on Friday had started to go mouldy by Sunday so I was a bit pissed off about that.

I decided to try and put it out of my mind and find myself a nice film to watch.  The first one I chose ended up being Cars 2 - good old Lightning McQueen was back and ready for action.  It was actually a pretty decent storyline and it certainly kept me glued to the screen.  I loved the guest role by Michael Caine as the British secret agent, hahaha.

After watching the film, I headed over to Facebook to catch up on my games and then decided to try and bump my posts up on the buy/sell group on Facebook.  I got a bite from 3 women - they were all interested in buying my 6 feet up lights I had for sale.  Thankfully I got a sale and the woman came and collected them just after lunchtime.

I was so pleased to finally have some money - I got £10 for the pair of them so off I headed to the shop to get some supplies.  I got potatoes, eggs, bacon (a bargain at £1 for a pack of 12 rashers of streaky bacon), milk, bread, butter and then stopped at the butchers to grab some nice thick sausages.  It wasn't until I had got home that I realised I had forgotten to get myself some sugar and blackcurrant - bloody typical eh?

As I got home, the heavens decided to open and we had ourselves somewhat of a mini storm.  The rain was heavy and the thunder was loud but unfortunately it only lasted about an hour.  It's a shame really because I really do love a good thunder storm, especially at night when you can see the lightning.  I realised that my gas had run out so I was gonna have to put the emergency credit on - unfortunately my gas meter is on the outside of my building so I had to go and get wet!  It wasn't too bad until it started trickling down my back - that was the cold part, hahaha.

So I made myself a nice fry up and sat down to watch my second film of the day - I Am Number Four!  It turned out to be quite a decent film about a guy who was originally from another planet but had to flee his homeland because it was being overpowered and destroyed by another race of aliens.  He ends up on earth as a child and grows up in the USA, moving every time something big happens or he gets spotted by someone.

He eventually decides to stop running and joins forces with a fellow alien and a couple of locals from his new high school.  Of course they eventually defeat the enemy like all films of this genre but that doesn't mean more of them won't come looking for them.  They do set up a good ending, where it is certainly possible to make a sequel as the two aliens and one of the locals head off to search for the rest of their people who are scattered around the world.

So after another brief visit to Facebook, I decided to watch a third film.  I found a good one called Killer Elite with Jason Statham and Robert De Niro.  It was about a guy who had retired from being a hired assassin but had to get back in the game after his friend is held to ransom by an Arab Sheik.  He had to kill 3 British ex SAS members in order for the Sheik to release his friend.

There were a few twists and turns and even Clive Owen got thrown in for good measure to mix things up a bit and cause Statham a bit of trouble, but he eventually completed his mission.  After that film, I went back to Facebook for an hour or so to beat Hannah's scores on Angry Birds before I headed to bed at an unusually early time of around midnight!

James!

xXx

Day 27 - Soccer Aid Vs. Superheroes!

Well, another hot day today and I woke up to bright sunshine beaming through my curtains - I really should get some proper blackout curtains soon, would be much easier to sleep, hahaha.  I woke up nice and early again (I blame that sun) at about 8am this time though, so not as early as I have been thankfully.

I did my usual Facebook stuff then decided it was time for a film.  Because of all my favourite shows coming to an end for the season and having to wait a few weeks before a few of my other favourite shows pick up again, I have been very short of TV shows to watch so for the moment I am into films again.

I managed to eventually find a half decent link to watch the new Avengers movie - and what a movie it was.  Lots of action, lots of special effects and lots of superheroes - just my cup of tea.  I've always loved a good superhero movie ever since I was little.  I used to run around in a Superman costume as a kid and my Brother ran around in a Spiderman costume, hahaha.

Of course I remember watching all the original superhero movies and TV shows like the Superman and Batman movies then later the Spiderman movies before it became somewhat of a craze to create a good superhero movie.  Films were coming out all over the place based on characters like the aforementioned, also Daredevil, Electra, The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and Thor.  Of course I would have loved it if the new Avengers movie had combined a few more of them but what they did do was pretty awesome too.

Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and Hulk joined forces with The Hawk and Black Widow to defeat Thor's brother Loki and his alien friends after Loki brings them to our world to overpower the human race and become the God of Earth.  High hopes for someone so puny, hahaha.  Which reminds me - when Loki tells Hulk he is a God and that he should follow him, Hulk grabs him and slams him to the floor 3 or 4 times before saying "puny God!"  And when Thor announces that Loki is his brother, he is given a funny look by his fellow superheroes.  He then proclaims "he's adopted!"  Hahaha, yes they add the occasional bit of humour which is always good in such an epic movie.  I really do hope they make a sequel - I know there are plans for an Iron Man 3 film, but I hope the rest of them come back too.

So after watching my superhero movie I moved onto Facebook to play around for a few hours before I had myself a little nap before watching Soccer Aid on ITV1.  It's a charity football match that takes place every two years between a team representing England and a team representing the Rest of the World.  The teams are made up of a mixture of celebrities and ex professional footballers.  They play to try and raise money for UNICEF to help heal illnesses around the globe and it's a very worthwhile cause.

Robbie Williams and Jonathan Wilkes were the co founders of the bi-annual event and it's made a huge impact and created a massive following all over the world.  The match itself was actually very entertaining with Sergio from Kasabian getting the first goal of the game for the Rest of the World team to take them 1-0 up before half time and what an awesome goal it was, chipping the ball over the head of David Seaman.

Teddy Sheringham then deflected the shot from Graeme Le Saux into the back of the net to make it 1-1 midway through the second half.  Five minutes later and England took the lead thanks to a clinical finish from Jonathan Wilkes, slotting it past Patrick Kielty on his near post.  In the 89th minute of normal time, Kevin Phillips rounded it off with a low strike to the bottom right corner of the goal and England finished the game as victors in an epic 3-1 win.

So after watching an entertaining match like that, I found myself craving more decent entertainment so I decided to find myself another film to watch.  I came across a pretty decent link to watch The Hunger Games - although I did have to put up with a few foreign subtitles along the bottom of the screen, but I managed to ignore them enough to concentrate on the film.

Although it was a pretty barbaric storyline, it was actually a very good film.  It was well acted, well written and certainly entertained me for the rest of the night before it was time for me to head for my bed at around 1am.

James!

xXx

Day 26 - A Bit Competitive? Only a Little!

OK, so Saturday started off as normal, waking up far too early and spending time on Facebook, playing all my usual games.  Then I decided it was time to have a look at a new TV show that I had bookmarked ready to watch.  It's a show called "Touch" and it stars Keifer Sutherland as a single father struggling to cope with his autistic son.

It turns out that his son, like a hell of a lot of autistic people, is actually somewhat of a genius - especially with numbers.  He can see the world in number sequences and can even foresee the future with them and Sutherland's character finally realises this and makes it his mission in life to follow the numbers that his son gives him.  It's a pretty decent show and I actually sat and watched all ten episodes today - yes I have way too much time on my hands, hahaha.

In between episodes, I found myself being drawn into a bit of a battle on Facebook with a friend, Hannah.  I play a game called Angry Birds every day on Facebook so I was absolutely thrilled when they launched their new weekly tournament this week - so much so that I instantly dived straight in and got myself 3 gold stars on all four tournament levels.

Hannah decided she was going to go and beat one of my scores, thus compelling me to bring out the competitiveness in my blood.  I instantly hit back and beat her score and posted a nice raspberry on her wall to gloat.  Hannah responded less than an hour later with an even higher score so I had to fight back again to get my crown back.  Thankfully it took me all of 14 minutes to claim back my top spot so back I went to gloat!

Then she decided to switch levels on me and beat my high score on one of the other tournament levels.  Of course I was not gonna stand for that and instantly hit back with a higher score.  And just to be on the safe side, I went back to all the other tournament levels and got myself a few more higher scores to ensure that she doesn't beat any of them either, hahaha.  I have yet to hear any response from her so I'm assuming she has admitted defeat this week, hehe!

So after watching all those episodes of Touch, I found myself a bit bored again and started hunting around for something else to watch - unfortunately I couldn't find any more TV shows that I hadn't gotten round to watching so settled for a film instead - I found a pretty decent one called We Bought a Zoo, starring Matt Damon.  It took me absolutely ages though to find a decent version online.  I'm finding it harder and harder to find decent links for films these days - I do wish some of them would improve their sites, ugh.

I then watched the England game against Norway on ITV1 before I got so tired that I decided I must get myself some sleep.  I think I'll watch more films tomorrow - if I can find some decent links, hahaha!

James!

xXx

Day 25 - Something New!

Well it's the middle of spring and most of my favourite TV shows have now come to the end of their respective seasons and it's gonna be at least a couple of weeks before any of my other favourite shows start their new seasons for the summer.  I needed something new to watch - something that I've yet to discover and fall in love with.  I started with looking through my bookmarks toolbar to see if there were any shows in there that I had forgotten to have a look at.

I found a few and started my research.  Most of the ones I have yet to start watching didn't really feel like the sort of shows that I wanted to watch at the moment but I did finally decide on a couple of hopefuls.  I started with the Don Cheadle show House of Lies.  I had some high expectations for this show but unfortunately it failed to impress me as much as I had hope.  I did make myself laugh though when I got about 5 minutes into the pilot episode before suddenly realising that Don Cheadle was using an American accent - not what I'm used to hearing from him cos he normally has a cockney accent when I see him in films and I can't believe it took me 5 minutes to notice the difference.  He did pull off the accent pretty well but the show itself didn't have much going for it to be honest so time to find something else.

I thought maybe it was time check out Being Human (The American version).  I've still not watched the British version yet either but thought I'd try out this one first and see where it takes me.  The first episode was slow, but eventually I started liking the characters and got into the spirit of the show, enough for me to want to watch the second episode.  Unfortunately I still found it a bit slow paced and there just wasn't enough action or excitement in it for me.  I like shows that have a bit more pace and a bit more storyline - this one seemed to be slow paced and was more about the main three characters rather than some sort of bigger picture that I was hoping for.

It was nice to see the guy who played Davis in Smallville as the lead character Aiden and also cool to see the guy who played Jacob in Lost as Aiden's adversary, Bishop.  Unfortunately though, I decided this show was not for me so back to the drawing board it was.

I did find a couple of potential shows that I will take a look at tomorrow and have bookmarked them ready, but for now it's time to get to bed again.

James!

xXx

Day 24 - Solitaire Confinement!

Thursday started out as pretty much the same as any normal day - I did my usual Facebook daily spins and watched my usual online TV shows, etc.  Then I got a message from a friend on Facebook - Donna - to say that a game we both play regularly were giving out free silver to use on the game.  Solitaire Blitz is basically a simple game of solitaire, but with jokers and power boosts, etc.  You have to have silver to buy your boosts so when Donna gave me this news I jumped at the offer of a freebie.

I went to the Solitaire Blitz Facebook page and sure enough, there I found 50,000 silver waiting to be claimed.  I claimed it and then started investigating more.  I scrolled through their timeline and found that they had been doing this for several weeks.  I found links for more free silver and a few bonus power boosts too.  I grabbed as many as I could find and eventually ended up with over 130,000 silver to use.

I went on a spree and started playing non stop for about 3 or 4 hours, spending all my silver and using shit loads of power boosts to try and get a new high score.  At the moment, my friend Heather is top of the leaderboard for this week but I am certainly determined to beat that score of hers at some point this week - and I usually do so here's hoping I don't let my audiences down, hahaha.

Eventually I grew tired of play Solitaire and decided it was time catch up on a bit of sleep for an hour or two before I went back to watching online TV shows.  I spent the rest of the night catching up on the last 4 episodes of Royal Pains season three before I decided to find a film to watch.  Unfortunately my regular site that I used to use to watch films has been shut down for copyright infringement so I had to hunt for a new site to replace it.  I finally managed to find one and chose to watch the film Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhal.

It started off pretty slow but eventually turned into a half decent film with a pretty interesting plot.  I finished watching it at about 4am and then headed for the land of nod.

James!

xXx

Day 23 - Chat Time!

I created an online chat room back in April of 2008 called Essex Meets The World.  I created it after the regular chat room my friend Kath and I had been visiting closed down due to the chat owner having a disagreement with some of the members.  He had himself a tantrum and removed the chat room, therefore leaving the rest of us with nowhere to go.

Marti - one of the moderators and frequent users of the previous chat room - decided to go and create herself a new chat room too and most of the original members went with her.  I decided however to create something a little bit more unique - enter EMTW.  Kath and I had been playing an online version of scrabble that was called scrabulous - it has since had to change it's name to lexulous for copyright reasons.  We made a whole host of new friends through this wonderful community based game and therefore I wanted somewhere where I could invite those friends to come and chat.

I found a forum hosting site and then found the chat room host site and combined both to create EMTW by incorporating the chat box into the forum so people will land on the chat box the minute they visit the page.  We spent months just sitting on our computers and chatting in our new haven to people from all over the world.  I chose the name because Kath and I are both in Essex but we chatted to people from so many far reaches of the globe that I wanted to incorporate them into the name too.  Most of our member were from the UK, USA, Canada and Australia so we really were reaching out big time.

After a while, the chat room started getting quiet and fewer people were coming in to visit on a regular occasion, therefore resulting in the majority of us becoming bored of just sitting in there, waiting for nobody to show up and talk to us.  I started playing a game on Facebook called Scavenger Hunt and quickly became addicted to it.  It was a very community style game, with discussion boards full of people who wanted to chat.  I took the initiative and invited them to join my chat room.

The first 3 people to see my post inviting new members were Lisa from Oklahoma, USA, Kath (not the one from Essex) from Brisbane, Australia and Paula from Texas, USA.  Kath, Sue (Kath's Mum) and I quickly became hooked again on our chat room and started visiting and chatting to each other again on a more regular basis, especially with our new found friends from across the globe.  The six of us became very close and we chatted about pretty much anything and everything.

The chat room started getting more and more popular with Scavenger Hunt players so I promoted several people to the role of moderator to keep an eye on the people who visit and to make the newcomers feel welcome.  We actually had 104 people online in the chat room all at the same time once - that's the highest number of users we've ever had online at one time.  Gradually though, the chat room started fading again due to a few changes in the rules of Scavenger Hunt and people stopped coming in again on a regular basis as before.  Most of them were coming in to get links for the items they needed in the game and we were happy to share with them until the rule change and the shared links were removed.

So the chat room had somewhat of a decline for a while again before eventually we set up a new routine.  I became friends with the guy who created the game Scavenger Hunt and often met up in my chat room to discuss the game and possible changes or future development projects within the game.  He then started advertising the chat room to his users when he was taking the game offline to do the season reset.  Eventually, they started flooding back in again.  This time they only came in on season reset nights to discuss the game, how their previous season went, to have guesses as to what the upcoming season would be about and to share ideas about what they think of future developments for the game, etc.

So now that I've rambled on and explained what the chat room is, the reason I explained all that is because today is the season reset and it was time to pop in and have a chat with the other users of the game.  Wednesday morning, 4am and there I am, wide awake and sitting in front of my PC, chatting to random strangers from around the world.

We spent about an hour or so in there, chatting about the game and discussing the features.  I made lots of newcomers members and flicked back and forth between the chat room and Facebook.  Eventually, the new season had begun and we all went our seperate ways to get on with the hunt.  I then went back to sleep for a few more hours and then spent the rest of the day playing my Facebook games and watching more online TV.

If anyone wants to join our lovely chat room, then please do feel free to pop along and have a nose around the site.  Even if there's nobody online to chat to, there are other things there to keep your mind occupied.  The address of the site is...

http://essexmeetstheworld.bigforumpro.com

James!

xXx

Day 22 - Excuses!

For about a month now, I've been trying to get my car fixed so I can get it back on the road ratrher than just having it sit there, doing sod all.  Unfortunately, the only guy I can get to fix it lives in Hockley and is too busy to come and collect it himself.  I have therefore been trying for ages now to find someone who would be willing to tow me to Hockley to get it sorted.

Sean was gonna let me do it in his car, as I mentioned a few days ago.  Unfortunately that didn't pan out due to Sean and Aaron not having the appropriate insurance or licence to do it, therefore I had to look elsewhere.  I tried a few people but nobody was replying to my messages on Facebook - nice friends eh?

I then decided to try my mate Simon - a good friend for about 10 years, surely he'd help me - right?  Wrong!  I messaged him and at first he wasn't responding, so I opted to sending him a text to check his Facebook inbox.  He then replied to say he couldn't do it because he didn't have a tow bar fitted on his car.  I replied, saying that a tow bar was not needed and that only a decent tow rope would suffice.

I never got a reply after that so today I texted him again to ask if he could do it.  He said if he could do it, then it would have to be tomorrow evening due to him having to work a lot lately.  I was fine with this but an hour lately he called me to tell me that he couldn't do it after all.  He had actually gone into full detail and checked online with regards to legalities of towing a car, etc and the damage it could do to the car doing the towing.

He told me that, because my car is so big (an Astra Estate, 1.7 TDi), he can't do it in his car because it's only a 1.4 and that towing a car of my size could do damage to his engine, etc.  Personally I don't think he ever actually wanted to do it so therefore decided to look for an excuse to get out of it.  I may be wrong, but that's my opinion on the matter.

So I spent the rest of my Tuesday watching the remaining few episodes of Person of Interest online - and what a cliffhanger it ended on.  I can't wait for season two to come out so I can find out where Root has taken Harold and whether or not John and the machine can save him in time!

I finished up the day by doing my routine Facebook games before heading for my bed at around 2am.

James!

xXx

Day 21 - Another Mundane Monday!

I woke up to another boring Monday, ready for pretty much absolutely nothing exciting to happen whatsoever - and yes, that's exactly how it went!  I spent the morning playing on Facebook, as per usual before getting back to watching Person of Interest at around lunchtime.

I got a message from Shal at about 2pm ish to say that Adam had been sent home from school and she thinks he may have broken his finger so she was wondering if the doctor's surgery was open for drop in's or appointment only.  I told her that drop in's are fine - we're both registered there so I know the system.  They allow anyone to just drop in and get checked out - even if you're not a registered patient at the surgery.

I then went back to watching my new found favourite TV show and managed to get through about 7 or 8 episodes throughout the course of the day.  So yeah, pretty much bugger all else happened today so instead of rambling on about how boring my day was, I will leave you with some words of wisdom...

Always look on the bright side of life - simply because it's brighter there!

James!

xXx

Day 20 - Person of Interest!

I woke up at about 4am, disappointed at not being able to get a full night's sleep, even though I had a busy day on Saturday.  So I ended up spending Sunday morning discovering a new TV show that I hadn't gotten round to watching yet - Person of Interest.  It stars Jim Caviezel (The Count of Monte Cristo) as John Reese - an ex Marine and ex CIA agent - who teams up with Michael Emerson (Ben Linus from Lost) as Harold Finch - the guy who created a super machine for the American government to monitor terrorist threats.

As it turned out, the show ended up being a really good one - it certainly helped that J. J. Abrams was behind this clever masterpiece!  I spent the rest of the day going back and forth between Facebook, Person of Interest and the occasional nap for an hour or two here and there.  I managed to get through 10 episodes of this new show before I finally decided to give up for the day and head back to bed but I didn't fall straight off to sleep though - I kept thinking about some of the other wonderful TV shows that Abrams had produced.

Although I loved Lost to pieces, my favourite show he ever made was without doubt Alias!  I still haven't managed to come across another show that has been able to measure up to the awesomeness of that show.  He did try and create another show on a similar premise called Undercovers but unfortunately it didn't receive as much praise as it might possibly have deserved.  I personally enjoyed it - not as much as Alias, but still it was good.

So after pondering over the works of J. J. Abrams for an hour or two, I eventually managed to drift off to sleep at around 3am before waking up again at about 7am, ugh!

James!

xXx

Day 19 - The Big Match X2.

I wasn't supposed to be waking up until about 8am, but with my ridiculous sleeping pattern I managed to be awake at 5am.  Not a great start to the day but I managed to get through the day.  I was asked by some friends if I would drive them - in their car of course - to Wembley so they didn't have to worry about parking or trains, etc.  They were going to see the Championship Playoff Final between Blackpool and West Ham - they were fans of the latter unfortunately.

So I got myself all washed and dressed and headed off to pick them up at about 11am, ready for the long journey ahead.  It all seemed to be going ok for traffic until we reached the A406 - then the traffic started getting somewhat congested.  We eventually made it there for about 1pm - 2 hours before kick off.  I dropped them near the main entrance and headed off to the nearby Tesco.

I parked up in their huge car park and popped inside to use the toilet and get some snacks.  I returned to the car, ate my snacks and decided to try and get some sleep for an hour or two.  I think I managed to get about an hour in total, on and off, eventually waking up properly at about 4pm.  I switched the car radio on and listened to the second half of the football.

I tuned in just in time to hear Blackpool scoring their only goal of the game.  West Ham had already taken the lead in the first half so this was the equaliser that saw them with a chance of getting the glory.  No matter how much I shouted at the radio for them to get the winner, it was unfortunately not to be.  The Hammers got the winner in the 87th minute and were crowned playoff champions, therefore ensuring a return to Premiership football next season.

My friends came back to the car at about 5.30pm and we joined the queue of traffic to exit the industrial estate.  We eventually managed to get back onto the A406 by about 6pm and I was home by about 8pm.  I had missed the first 15 minutes of the Champions League final on ITV1 but didn't miss much because there weren't any goals until the last ten minutes of normal time anyway.

Bayern Munich scored first in the 83rd minute but Drogba equalised for Chelsea with 2 minutes of normal time left on the clock.  It went to extra time and neither team managed to get the winner in the extra half hour played so penalties it was.  It ended up being Schweinsteiger who failed to score for Munich to allow Chelsea the advantage and Drogba was the man who capitalised on the error.  He drilled the winner past Neuer and Chelsea were European Champions for the first time in the club's history.

So after a long day of listening to and watching football, I headed for my computer to catch up on the day's Facebook events and games, etc before falling asleep at around midnight.  I thought after the long day I had that I would actually manage to get through a whole night without waking up - I was wrong!

James!

xXx

Day 18 - Bloody Cars!

Friday today - was hoping to be able to get my car over to Scott's place but unfortunately it didn't work out as planned.  Was gonna use Sean's car to do it and have Aaron sitting in my car while I tow him.  Unfortunately, after speaking to my insurance company, it seems that the law has now changed with regards to driving other people's cars.  Although my insurance allows me to drive another person's car, apparently that car also has to have its own insurance policy too, unlike before where your own insurance would cover that car aswell as your own.

So we had to try and think of an alternative option.  Aaron hasn't held his licence for at least 3 years so therefore is not allowed to legally tow a vehicle so we thought maybe if he sat in my car and I drove his car, towing him, it might be ok.  Again, things went tits up because Aaron's insurance does not cover him for driving another person's car - ugh!  Therefore he wouldn't be insured to sit in my car while I tow him.  Lost yet?  Hahaha, I know the feeling, was slightly lost myself with the situation!

So anyway, originally I was gonna drive Sean's car, tow my car to Scott's, then take Sean, Wes and Aaron to a scrap yard in Galleywood to find some spare parts for Sean's car.  However, since we found out that I would not be covered on the insurance to drive his car, they ended up going in Aaron's car without me - and came home with another bloody Saxo.  Yep, Sean had decided that the car he was gonna take the parts from was too good to just strip down and bought the whole car instead, hahaha!  He does make me laugh!

So I spent my day sitting at home on the computer and having the occasional nap in between watching episodes of NCIS: LA and The Mentalist and playing my Facebook games.  I did pretty much bugger all else for the remainder of the day, apart from a brief trip to the shop to get some milk and gas that is.  I ended up going to bed at about 1am - early for me I know, but I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow!

James!

xXx

Day 17 - Corned Beef Hash - Twice!

OK, so I got up at an earlier time than usual - managed to sleep for about 6 or 7 hours and was out of bed by about 9am - shocker eh, haha.  I started the day by doing my daily spins on Facebook and then watched some online TV.  I then decided I was gonna have something to eat at about 11am ish and thought I may aswell make myself a corned beef hash for lunch.

As I sat watching an episode of The Finder, I tucked into my yummy lunch with delight.  Unfortunately it was only the cheap Tesco Value corned beef (if you can call £1.60 a tin cheap that is) but it still tasted good.  I was still a little upset that Southend United had failed to get through to the play off final after only managing to draw 2-2 with Crewe last night to see the opposition run out as 3-2 winners on aggregate.  So another season in League 2 was on the cards for us but I put it at the back of my mind and went about my daily business.

After lunch I decided to have a snooze for an hour or two and then got myself dressed and popped round to see Sean.  He wanted me to help him find some parts for his car so we spent some time searching online to see what we could find.  Unfortunately we weren't able to find what he needed so we ended up going to bingo for the evening instead - in Sean's Saxo that looked like something that had spent too much time in a scrap yard and not enough time on the road, hahaha.

We hid it round the back of the car park, near Pound Stretcher so as not to be embarrassed when getting out of it - especially considering the expletives that had been scratched into the bonnet's paintwork.  We didn't win anything this week unfortunately so off we went back to drop Shal, Sean and Wes off before I headed back home to demolish the rest of my corned beef hash that was sitting in the fridge.

I watched a few more tv shows online, played some more games on Facebook then had myself a sleep before getting back to the usual routine of waking up in the middle of night and not being able to get back to sleep, ugh!  It must have been about 5 or 6am before I eventually got myself back off again.  It really is annoying sometimes when my sleep pattern gets like this - at least I had some friends online to chat to to keep me occupied while I was not sleeping!

James!

xXx

Day 16 - Payday!

OK, so it was payday today and that meant my internet gets put back on, finally - after two weeks of no internet, it had been a struggle to keep myself occupied throughout the day.  I had spent most of that time watching TV and I usually don't bother watching British TV cos it's usually a big fat pile of crap - with the exception of shows like Doctor Who, Torchwood, Misfits and Shameless of course.

I usually spend a lot of time watching American shows online - shows like The Mentalist, Psych, Criminal Minds, The Finder, Hawaii 5-0, Castle, Fringe, NCIS: LA, White Collar and my favourite show, Sons of Anarchy.  As you can see from my list, I do love a good cop or detective show - they've always interested me and I'd be lost without them, haha.  I do like them to be intelligent though - all those crappy shows that have nothing going for them and have a really stupid storyline are wasted on me cos I just can't be bothered with crap like that.  Thankfully, it's been a long while since I've come across anything like that.

So any, it's Wednesday and time to get back to Facebook - or not!  Woke up at about 9am and my internet still wasn't back on so I called up Virgin Media to check the payment had gone through ok and they said it was fine but may take up to 24 hours to come back online.  I know full well that it only takes one person to click a button on their computer to send a signal back to my modem but they were insistent that this was not the case.  Funny that, cos I've had it done for me a few times in the past where I've phoned up to ask and the person on the other end says to wait a minute while they send the signal to reactivate it.  This woman just wanted to be awkward, ugh!

So instead I decided to watch Secret Millionaire Ireland, Grand Designs Revisited and Supernanny USA.  They kept my mind occupied for a few hours until my time had finally come at about 11.30am when my internet was finally back on again, yay!  Straight to Facebook I went to see what I had missed and to get all my daily bonusses on my favourite games that I usually spend hours playing.

I found that a few of my top scores had been beaten on Angry Birds so I quickly got straight to trying to get the top scores back again - failed on most of them, hahaha.  It's been a while so I need to get back in the swing of things again.  But not to worry because I will beat those scores - I'm a determined fucker when it comes to Facebook games and hate being second best, I'm so competitive, hahaha.

So after spending a few hours catching up my Facebook stuff, I went round to Shal's cos she had finally managed to sell Sean's car to a woman in Shoebury but the woman was unable to collect it herself so me and Sean delivered it to her after a quick stop to drop off some rubbish at the tip for Shal.  We dropped the car off, filled out all the details on the logbook and made a fast exit in Aaron's car before she changed her mind due to the rusty wheel arches or the noisy clutch, hahaha.

Aaron dropped us off back at Shal's just in time for us to get our bacon and egg sandwiches that she had made for us, yummm.  I stuck around for half an hour or so then headed off to get some tobacco before heading back home again to catch up on the Hawaii 5-0 episodes I had missed.  I spent the rest of the evening watching my favourite shows online before finally going to bed at about 2am.

James!

xXx

Day 15 - Late Night Shopping!

Tuesday - one day before payday, pfft.  I woke to a phone call from Shal at around 1pm, asking if I wanted to take her shopping at Tesco.  I was far too tired to do it so asked if we could do it later in the evening instead.  She also said she may need a lift home from Westcliff too cos her and Sam were going to Sam's Jack Petchey Award ceremony at the Palace Theatre.

When I eventually decided to get myself out of bed, it was closer to about 3pm so I sat and watched some TV whilst eating toast again.  I spent pretty much most of the afternoon and early evening watching Aussie soaps and property programs.  I got a phone call from Adam to say that Shal and Sam needed to be picked up from Westcliff at about 9pm so Dal said he'd bring the car round to me.

I got the car and off to Westcliff I went.  I picked up Shal and Sam then we headed off to Tesco to do the shopping.  We went to the cash machine and unfortunately my money hadn't gone in a day early - wishful thinking to be honest, hahaha - thankfully, Shal lent me £20 so I could get some shopping so I don't have to do it tomorrow.

We got our shopping, then headed back to Shal's house.  Cos I had 4 bags of shopping, Sean said I could take his car back to mine for the night so I didn't have to carry all them bags through the streets.  I got home, made myself some dinner and watched some more TV before falling asleep on the sofa again.

I woke up at about 4am and my money usually goes into the bank at around 2.30am so I called Virgin Media to pay my internet bill.  I paid the £30 and went back to sleep, happily knowing that my internet would be back on again in the morning, yayyy - will finally be back on Facebook!

James!

xXx

Day 14 - Oh, to be a property developer!

The usual Monday morning blues arrived, and was welcomed with much tiredness too.  I spent the day under the duvet, watching pretty much all the property programs Channel 4 had to offer.  Lately I've been watching lots of old episodes of Grand Designs, Relocation, Relocation, A Place in the Sun and also the occasional episode of The Restoration Man and Secret Millionaire too - today was no exception.

I watched Secret Millionaire Ireland, then watched Supernanny USA, then Grand Designs revisited, Relocation, Relocation! and the occasional American sitcom thrown in for good measure.  I've also been getting into eating lots of toast over the past day or two - with orange marmalade of course, seeing as I don't have any jam or peanut butter!

I popped round Shal's later in the afternoon after having a brief lunchtime nap.  She needed me to pop over to Shoebury with Sam to drop something off for someone.  I did warn Shal that we were gonna need to stop and get petrol on the way and Sam made me laugh.  I was explaining that there was probably only about 4 or 5 miles worth of petrol left in Sean's car so would need to put a fiver's worth in the tank cos it probably wouldn't get us all the way there and back again without running out.

Sam said "can't you just drive faster?"  Of course, this made me and Shal fall about with laughter cos it doesn't matter how fast you go, 5 miles worth of petrol will still last only 5 miles, hahaha.  She certainly got plenty of stick for that comment.  We went and got our petrol, made our drop off and headed back to Shal's before I decided to walk back home to catch up on some missed sleep.

I had a kip then watched a couple more episodes of Grand Designs.  I do like to watch these property development programs cos it kind of makes me daydream a little about the sort of house that I would love to build myself.  I'd buy a huge plot of land, preferrably with some woodlands of course - I do love a nice tree climb every now and then.  I'd build a house that would be eco-friendly and sustain itself by having wind generators and solar panels - that way I'd never have to rely on paying for gas or electric again, especially with the ridiculous standing charges they make these days.

I'd also have a nice huge barn/outhouse kind of structure which would be my games room.  It would have a couple of pool tables, a snooker table, a study area with a huge antique desk and a computer for my writing projects, a games console area with comfy sofas and a jukebox with all my favourite music on it.

Yes, I do like to daydream - if only I was rich, hahaha.  I remember when I was a teenager, living in bedsits around Westcliff, I was convinced that one day I would win the lottery.  I used to spend at least a fiver every Saturday, buying my tickets, but sadly never even won as much as a tenner.  Eventually I got wise and stopped buying them, giving up on my sad obsession.

So anyway, back to the real world - I watched my programs and drifted off to sleep on the sofa til the early hours of Tuesday morning.

James!

xXx

Day 13 - Premier League Title Fight!

Sunday, bloody sunday - a great song but normally a very boring day.  Thankfully, after spending the majority of the day watching TV, I got an invite to go and have dinner round Shal's house - corned beed hash, yummm!  Obviously I accepted, haha.

I went round to Shal's at about 3pm and watched the football with Adam, Wes and Sean.  Man Utd were playing away against Sunderland and Man City were at home against QPR.  It was a very intense afternoon, with lots of twists and turns.  Man united went 1-0 up after 20 minutes thanks to a goal from Rooney and that really put the pressure on Man City because the two Manchester teams were battling it out for the Premier League Title and it came down to this last game of the season for the both of them.

Zabaleta scored for Man City in the 39th minute and made them favourites to take the title.  So both teams were 1-0 up at half time and it was still an open contest for them.  Suddenyl QPR managed to take the lead against City with goals from Cisse in the 48th minute and Mackie in the 66th minute.  The pressure was on and Man City had some work to do do.  If they failed to win and the Man Utd game stayed as it was, then the Reds would be crowned champions.

Towards the end of the second half, Man City were piling on the pressure and were clearly not giving up - they were dominating the game with posession but were finding it very difficult to get the ball in the back of the net.  In the 91st minute, Man City have earned themselves another corner (they had 19 in total for the this game) and Silva crossed the ball in for Dzeko to get the equaliser - yes, City were back in the game and fighting with every breath.

News around the ground was that Man Utd had finished their game and had won 1-0 so the last couple of minutes of this game were undoubtedly tense.  Corner after corner kept coming for City and eventually they got that all important winning goal they needed thanks to a great finish from Aguero in the 94th minute.  They did it - they were champions of English Football for the first time in 44 years.

Of course, Sean, Wes and I were loving every second of it and cheered Man City on right to the end.  Adam was not impressed cos he's a Man Utd fan so we made sure to rub it in.  It truly was a glorious day for British football to see any team other than Man Utd or Chelsea winning the Premier League title.  Oh, and thankfully, Arsenal managed to get 3rd place too so we'll be back in the Champions League next season, woohoo.

So after all that football excitement, we then had our dinner - a yummy corned beef hash, topped with crushed crisps and melted cheese, mmmmmm!  I then went back home and spent the rest of the evening watching the usual crap on TV.

James!

xXx

Day 12 - Britain's Got Talent (apparently!)

Saturday became another of those stay at home, doing sod all, kind of days.  I slept for several hours on and off and watched TV for the hours I was awake.  I even watched the final of Britain's Got Talent - which ended up being a complete waste of time.

I thought the top 3 acts were going to be Loveable Rogues, Ryan O'Shaughnessy and The Mend - based on their awesome talent of course.  Unfortunately, it seems the British public who voted for the winners are a little bit dumb.  The top 3 ended up being as follows:

3rd - Only Boys Aloud (15.8% of the vote)
2nd - Jonathan and Charlotte (25.8% of the vote)
1st - Ashleigh and Pudsey (39% of the vote)

Yes, a dog won the top prize of £500,000 and the chance to appear on this year's Royal Variety Performance - pathetic eh?  It really does baffle me how people can vote a dancing dog as the winner instead of a raw talent like The Loveable Rogues.  They have everything needed to succeed, all wrapped up and ready to go.  They write their own songs, they perform perfectly and with a little humour too - they basically entertain so much more than a stupid dog.

The dog will probably be remembered for a year or two, will most likely be retired in about 3 or 4 years and quite possibly dead in 5 or 6 years - what a great prospect for the future eh?  Jonathan and Charlotte are opera singers so their 2nd place is also a shock because opera is hardly popular music right?  Well the viewers must have been mostly dog lovers and opera fanatics for this final, ugh.  Only Boys Aloud are also opera singers - 140 teenage boys, singing boring songs that I personally would never listen to.

I really do wonder what this world is coming to at times, hahaha.  So anyway, that was my Saturday evening's entertainment - a big fat pile of rubbish.  Ended up doing my usual late night thing of sleeping for a couple of hours, then watching late night TV for a few hours and then falling asleep again sometime early in the morning!

James!

xXx

Day 11 - Walking!

I hate walking, always have and probably always will.  Today however, I had to walk a bit more than I usually do!  I got up at the normal time around 12pm and watched the normal stuff I usually watch on TV.  It was signing on day though and Sean said I could borrow his car to go to the jobcentre so I headed round to his house at about 2pm.

Sean was at work but Shal, Dal, Sam and Adam were all at home.  I sat in their front room for about half hour, filled out my jobsearch sheet and headed off to the jobcentre.  I did the usual thing and sat myself down on their crappy red and blue sofas and was eventually called over to sign that stupid bit of paper to say I had been looking for work!

It's been a really shit couple of years for work and it's getting harder and harder to find something suitable.  Some of the staff at the jobcentre say I'm being too fussy but there  are limited types of jobs that I can actually do.  I can't do any manual labour jobs anymore because of the heavy lifting involved - about 10 years ago I got knocked off of my bicycle by some twat in a toyota supra.  I was cycling along in the road, all legal and doing absolutely nothing wrong, then suddenyl this twat comes flying out of a side road and straight into the side of me.

Initially, I fell onto his bonnet on my left arm but then bounced off and landed on the road on my right arm.  The bike was fucked and the driver gave me £100 cash to buy a new one.  If I'd known that I would still be suffering the ling term effects of it now, I would have demanded a lot more than that!  I can no longer lift heavy items because it sends sharp pains down my forearms but the most annoying injury was that I can now no longer write by hand for any longer than about ten minutes at a time before a start to get pain in my thumb and wrist.

I used to be able to sit and write for hours at a time and have written lots of poems, songs, short stories, short films, sketch shows and even a full length feature film.  Now I have to type everything - which is ok if I'm near a computer when I get the idea for it but sometimes I just want to sit down and write something by hand and unfortuntely I can no longer do that!

So the types of work I now look for are customer service jobs (I have an NVQ2 in Customer Service and I pride myself in having good customer service skills) and driving jobs.  I can't drive a taxi or bus or be a driving instructor because they involve a financial commitment and medical checks, etc that I can't commit to so I have to try and find courier or chauffeur work instead.

The other types of work I would like to do would be in the media and arts industry like photography or writing (typing of course, haha) but those types of jobs require qualifications that I don't have and can't afford to get.  So for the jobcentre to say I'm being picky is ridiculous to be honest - I think I'm being realistic!

So anyway, I signed on the line and headed back to Shal's house.  Sean came home from work at about 4.30pm with Wes and the two of them then headed off to play football as they usually do on a Friday afternoon.  I then walked back home and watched a bit of TV.  I sent Sean a text to ask if he could lend me a fiver to get some food.  He agreed but he wanted to go to Asda so off I went to walk back round to his house to drive his car to Asda.

We had a list of shopping from Shal so I took charge of that and got all the bits she wanted aswell as getting my fiver's worth of food that I needed - also managed to get a couple of freebies in their special self scan discount, PMSL!  We then got back in the car and went back to Sean's.  We got a phone call from Shal on the way to say she had run out of electric so when we got back, I took the electric key and headed off to top it up at the petrol station.  I then took the key and the car back before walking back home again!

I cooked myself some roast potatoes and sausages - with a hint of sugar and soy sauce (trust me, it's very nice) and watched some more TV before falling asleep and managing to sleep right through until about 6am.

James!

xXx

Day 10 - Creative Cookery!

I decided that today I wasn't going to go out anywhere today cos I had nothing to do and no car to get to the nowhere to do the nothing I had to do!  I woke again around lunchtime - no idea why I keep calling it lunchtime seeing as I never eat lunch, hahaha!  I sat around all day, doing nothing apart from watching TV and occasionally falling asleep for an hour or so.

My life has been so boring this week that I have actually been watching a few episodes of Britain's Got Talent - the sort of mindless boring crap that I would never normally bother to watch unless I happen to be round someone's house and they have it on while I'm there.

The reason I don't usually watch these sort of shows is simple - I think it's just a way for Simon Cowell to make himself millions of pounds at the expense of humiliating hundreds, or even thousands, of members of the public on national television.  Yes I will admit that some of them have talent and have bright futures ahead of them, but every year there is probably no more than about 5 or 10 of the acts who actually go on to make a name for themselves.

And as for the likes of The X Factor, The Voice and other similar shows that are all about singers - what a load of shit!  They produce mostly boybands and wailing women, ugh!  I can't stand that sort of music and I really don't understand how the majority of the viewing public can actually find it even the smallest bit entertaining!  Yes, they have great voices but why the hell do they have to sing crappy songs that make them sound pathetic?

For example - Matt Cardle (I think that was his name, haha) won the X Factor last year.  He has an awesome voice but the way he butchered Biffy Clyro's "Many of Horror" was appalling.  Why did he have to sing it like that?  It sounded like he was trying to be Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey FFS.  No singer with his talent should ever sing like that!  He could have followed the examples of artists like Biffy Clyro themselves or Coldplay, The Killers, The Wombats - all great bands that perform songs in a way that makes them sound the way they were written.  I hate it when songs are revamped by people into dreadful cover versions like that!

So anyway, I watched BGT and a couple of other crap shows and eventually decided it was time to try and find something to eat - the hunger pains were getting worse and I knew it was time to try and be a little more creative with what I had available to me at the time!

I still had a few potatoes left in the kitchen but they has been there for over a week and had started to go a little green in colour.  They weren't mouldy, just discoloured so I decided I would start with them.  I peeled them and chopped them up into small chunks and stuck them in an oven dish.  I then found a bag of mixed peppers that had been sitting in my freezer for about 6 months - they were past their use by date but I reckon they'll be fine.  I bashed the fuck out of them on the kitchen work top as they had frozen together into a huge block so needed to be seperated a little.

I sprinkled them over the potatoes and then went back to the freezer.  I found a bag of honey glazed parsnips that still had a few left in it and decided they would add a nice bit of extra flavour to my dish so chucked them in there too!  I stuck them in the oven for an hour and a half.  When I took them out, I decided to add some bacon crunchies - little bits of bacon crispy bites that usually go on a salad, very similar to breadcrumbs actually but a bit tastier.

I also had a little bit of cheese left in the fridge so cut it up into chunks and mixed them up in the dish too.  I eventually sat down to eat and found that this dish was a hell of a lot nicer than the one I had eaten yesterday - I actually managed to eat the whole lot too, yay!

So I spent the rest of the night watching the usual late night shows on TV, before getting some sleep for a few hours as usual then watched the usual early morning TV before again falling asleep after Quantum Leap.

James!

xXx

Day 9 - The Hunger!

It was Wednesday and by this time, I was skint - and I don't mean a few quid in the wallet skint, I mean a few pennies in the penny pot skint!  I also had hardly any food left in the flat and had to improvise with my cooking!

I got up at the usual time of around 1pm and spent most of the day watching TV.  I did pop out for a bit to drop Sean's car off to his house cos he was expecting a potential buyer to come and look at it but the guy she brought with her talked her out of buying it because he thought the rusty wheel arches were too much work to take on - what a twat eh, hahaha.

He was quite the manky fucker too - he leaned over to look into the engine bay and Sam, Tricia and I were watching through the front room window.  We almost fell about in stitches cos as he bent over, we noticed that his boxers had some holes in them, hahahaha!  And they weren't just a couple of small holes either - they were about an inch wide so not a pretty sight at all really!

So when I got back home, I decided it was time for some dinner.  I hadn't eaten all day and was starting to get very hungry - pretty much the same as normal to be honest as I usually only tend to eat one meal a day and rarely have snacks either.  Unfortunately, being in the situation I was in with no money and a pretty empty kitchen too, I had to try and come up with something different to the usual food I eat.

Thankfully, I had a packet of noodles in the cupboard - they were the cheap 9 pence ones from Asda that I bought a few months ago for Mason but he never ate them.  I decided that I would cook them up and see what else I had to go with them.  The best I could come up with at the time was a bag of frozen chips I had in the freezer.  They had been sitting there for well over a year without being used and were past there use by date by a few months but I decided it would be ok seeing as they were frozen anyway.

I cooked the noodles and chips and sat down to eat them whilst watching  another pile of crap on TV.  The noodles tasted absolutely rubbish - it was like eating soggy string with a hint of pepper.  I couldn't taste the curry at all, it was literally just a bit of pepper flavouring.  The chips were basically just American Fries so they were very thin and had hardly any potato in them.  I had also left them in the fryer for a couple of minutes too long so they were a bit on the crispy side too - they tasted dreadful and I didn't manage to finish them.

I did manage to find a very good film on Channel 5 that I had actually never seen before - Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze.  Yes,  I know it's a shock that I've never seen it before now and I got a few comments from Helen, Paula, Ben and Debbie when I posted it via text as my Facebook status.  They were all surprised that I hadn't seen it and pretty much gave me a good ticking off for not taking the time to see it earlier.  It was a very good film and I have no idea why I hadn't actually gotten round to watching it sooner.

So after eating a dinner that tasted like something you probably wouldn't even feed to a pet, I watched some more TV and went to sleep.  I woke up again at some point in the middle of the night and took up my usual spot in front of the TV before eventually falling asleep again after Quantum Leap.

James!

xXx

Day 8 - Bingo!

Well Tuesday was a typically normal day once again - absolutely nothing to do, yet somehow I'm going to find a big pile of crap to ramble on about, hahaha!  I woke up at about lunchtime as usual and watched some really crap daytime TV, also as usual - I so need my internet back!!!

Although I got up at lunchtime, my sleep did get interrupted briefly - I got a message at about 10am from my old driving instructor Julie who is now Sean's driving instructor.  She had been trying to get hold of him to let him know that she needed to change the time of his driving lesson but was unable to reach him.  I texted back to say that his Iphone had been playing up lately so it might be best to call the home phone.  She did try but got no answer so left a voice message.  I texted back to say he might be at work but he'll eventually get the message and get back to her.  Sean did eventually get hold of her and agreed to the time change.

So after watching my crappy daytime TV, I got a text from Sean to ask if I wanted to go to bingo with him, Wes and Shal.  I agreed and headed round to pick them up at about 5pm.  We headed off at about 6pm and found ourselves a nice spot in our usual area.  My cousin Kelly was working so I stopped and chatted to her briefly a couple of times during the night whilst on my way to the smoking area outside during the intervals.

Tuesday is one of the free bingo nights they host at Mecca along with Thursday nights too so we do occasionally like to pop down their and try our luck - better than sitting at home doing nothing eh?  Wes did manage to call up on two lines and won £15 for us to share but the rest of us unfortunately didn't win a thing.  I did come close to getting a full house at one point when I need the number 80 to win £400.  Unfortunately it failed to come out so we left with our small winnings.  We always split our prizes if we win at bingo so it gives us more chance of leaving with something rather than just one of us taking home a prize.

Shal chose to take the money but Sean, Wes and I decided that we would spend our winnings on pizzas so we headed off to Super Pizza on Victoria Avenue - a regular haunt for us cos they do some very lovely pizzas.  I then dropped the three of them back at Shal's house and I headed home to eat my pizza and go to sleep - I had managed to get a headache and was very tired so decided against sitting round Shal's to eat my dinner.

I got home, ate my food and went to sleep - until about 3am, ugh!  Again with the late night wake up so off to the TV I went.  I sat there, watching late night crap for afew hours before I eventually went back to sleep after Quantum Leap at about 7am.

James!

xXx

Day 7 - Bank Holiday!

OK, so pretty much the typical boring Bank Holiday Monday occurred in my home - hardly did anything worhty of mentioning to be perfectly honest!  Woke up about 1pm ish - Mason, Glenn and Charlie were already awake and watching some crap on the TV.  I sat around and watched with them until it was time to put the snooker on.

Managed to watch a few frames until about 4pm ish before I got a call from Sean to ask if I could meet him at Motor Parts Direct on Sutton Road after he finished work.  He wanted to get some new brake pads for his Saxo so I agreed.  Charlie wanted me to get him some fags from the corner shop cos although he's old enough to smoke, he can't get served due to his lack of ID.  He jumped in the car with me and we went round the shop - he was gonna walk back after I got his fags for him.

We pulled up outside the shop and the engine died in the car - unfortunately it had run out of petrol so the two of us had to push the car round the corner to Glenmore Street so that it was not left on any yellow lines.  I texted Sean to let him know there was no petrol so couldn't meet him then Charlie and I went to the shop to get his fags and headed back to my place.

Sean phoned me a few minutes later to say he was at Motor Part Direct and they were closed so asked if I could pick him up and take him home.  I said "there's no petrol mate!"  He said "oh, not even enough to pick me up?"  I said "No mate, it's empty - it run out completely near the corner shop."

He went home, then he and Dal came round to mine on their bikes with a petrol can to fix the petrol problem.  They brought their bikes into my flat which was now beginning to look like a bike shop.  We already had Charlie's bike in the bathroom, Glenn's bike in the hallway and Mason's bike in the front room and they were now joined by Dal's bike in the bathroom and Sean's bike in the front room.

We managed to manouevre around the bikes and headed off to the petrol station.  We got a fiver's worth of petrol and put it in the car then headed off to Halford's after picking Wes up on the way.  We got the brake pads and headed back for Dal to fit them.  I stuck around to watch, and occasionally offered a helping hand, then headed back to mine at about 7pm ish with Sean and Wes so they could pick up the bikes.

Mason, Glenn and Charlie had already left and I noticed the usual - they had left a mess behind.  There was a load of cigarette butts, sitting on a carrier bag in the front room, there were bits of grass all over the floors from their bikes which they neglected to clean up and there were also glasses and cups left sitting all over the front room and kitchen - not even neatly stacked like I normally have them, ugh.

Sean and Wes took the bikes and left whilst I started tidying up the mess that was left behind by the other three.  I then sat down to watch the rest of the snooker and eventually fell asleep before it had even finished.  I did wake up a couple of times and saw that Ronnie O'Sullivan had won - can't remember the score though cos I was half asleep at the time.  I then woke up again at about 5am and watched some crappy late night TV before falling back to sleep at about 7am.

James!

xXx

Day 6 - Doughnuts, yummm!

Well today was the start of the Final of the Snooker World Championships between Ronnie O'Sullivan and Ali Carter.  Although Ronnie is a quality player and I do like his style of play, I would rather see Ali win it because he's the underdog.  I've always had a soft spot for an underdog and love to see new champions every now and then rather than the same people winning everything all the time.

I managed to watch the first session of 8 frames and, after a shaky start, Ali had managed to get a couple of frames on the board.  By the end of the first session, he was 5-3 down so he certainly had a bit of work to do in order to come back.  After the snooker, I got a call from Tricia to ask if I could pick her up from Matalan and give her a lift home with her shopping.  I picked her up, we dropped her shopping off and then headed round to Shal's house.

We got there just in time to watch the Man Utd Vs. Swansea game in the Premier League.  Man City had already beaten Newcastle 2-0 earlier in the day so the pressure was on their neighbours to get a result and stay on their tails for the title race.  By half time Man Utd were 2-0 up thanks to a couple of well taken goals.  Adam decided he was gonna play a game of FIFA 12 on his PS3 during the break and Shal decided she was gonna go out to the kitchen and cook up a batch of seafront style doughnuts.

After I showed Shal how to use her scales to measure grams - as she's only used to using ounces - she eventually got the mixture going and made up some lovely doughnuts.  Although everyone else only had about 2 or 3 of them, I managed to devour about 10 of the beauties.  They were certainly yummy and the only only thing they lacked was a little ice cream to wash them down with, hahaha.

At the end of the match, Man Utd hadn't managed to score any more goals so it finished 2-0.  I headed home shortly after that and watched the second session of the snooker.  It was a toughly fought battle but Ronnie ended the session being 10-7 in front so yet again Ali has got some work to do when they resume tomorrow afternoon.

I then decided it was time for something to eat and headed out to get some milk so I could make some pasta n sauce - the cheese and brocolli packet mix that requires a bit of milk to make it.  I sat down to eat my yummy dinner when Mason decided to call me.  He wanted to know if he could pop over on his way to Glenn's house so I said it was ok and hung up.

Half hour later he called me back and asked if he, Glenn and their mate Charlie could stay at my place for the night.  He assured me that Charlie was ok so I agreed to it and went back to my TV.  When they arrived, we watched a couple of films together - American Pie 2 and The Hunt for Eagle One with my favourite actor, Mark Dacascos.

I've got 15 of his films in my collection and every one of them is great.  My favourite ones are Only The Strong (love the capoeira they use in it - best martial art in the world), Cradle to the Grave (awesome fight scene he has with Jet Li), Drive and Crying Freeman.  He truly is an underrated actor and the most amazing martial artist I've ever seen and he really should be in more big budget Hollywood movies - maybe one day he will be.

Charlie fell asleep halfway through the second film and Mason was near eough ready to pass out by the end of it so I headed to my bedroom to write my blog.  Glenn came in and said he was gonna go home and have a shower and something to eat then he'd be back so I carried on typing and let him get on with it.  Now it's gone 4.30am and I reckon it's time to get some sleep - Glenn will have to let himself back in with the spare key.  Nighty night!

James!

xXx

Day 5 - FA Cup Final Day!

So Saturday came and I woke up to a text from Sean, telling me that Arsenal had drawn 3-3 against Norwich - I had to decode the message of course because Sean, in his infinite wisdom, had only put "3.3" as his message.  Thankfully I knew that the Arsenal game was the only lunchtime game on so figured that's what he meant!

I rolled over and went back to sleep for another hour or so (yes, I know - sleeping late again, as per usual).  I was then woken up by a phone call from Sean, asking if I could drive him to B & Q to get some strong glue to put the side panels back on his Saxo that he had been working on for the past couple of weeks.

This Saxo was one that he had found for sale online and we had to drive all the way to High Wycombe, near Heathrow Airport to pick it up.  A hefty long drive but we managed to make it there and back safely enough, even though the Saxo had barely anything left on the brake pads - so glad Sean's mate drove it back instead of me, especially in the rain and all the way round the M25, hahaha.

So anyway, I woke myself up, watched a bit of snooker for half hour or so then headed over to meet Sean.  I was still in a bit of shock over the award I had received from Leigh Town FC but managed to shake it off and get on with the day.  I go to Sean's house and we headed oout to get his strong stuff - that's literally what it was called!

When we got back, I left Sean, Wes and Dal to play about with the car, sticking the panels back on. whilst I went inside to watch the FA Cup Final with Sean's Brother, Adam.  Chelsea started off much better than Liverpool and the Scouser's barely had any decent chances at all.  Ramires put the Blues in front about half hour into the game and it was a well taken goal which he slotted past Reina.

Drogba then got a second goal for Chelsea and it was clear that they were he better team.  Andy Carroll came on as a sub for Liverpool in the second half and he drilled home a great left-footed strike to bring the Merseysiders back into the game.  Although they had many chances to get an equaliser towards the end of the second half, Liverpool were unable to get the ball in the back of the net - apart from one that was apparently not over the line when Reina parried the shot away.  I think it was enough over the line to count as a goal but the linesman disagreed and the goal was denied.

So Chelsea were champions and Drogba kept up his good form by scoring in every Wembley match in which he had played for The Blues - a pretty decent notch on his belt, that's for sure.  I stuck around for a couple more hours and even had some dinner that Shal had cooked before I eventually headed back home for yet another sleepless night!

I got home and watched a little TV before I got a phone call from Sean's Sister Sam.  They had run out of electric and Dal was already out so they asked if I could quickly pop over and take them to top up their key.  I agreed and took Sam to top the key up at the petrol station then headed back home to watch more boring late night TV.

Eventually, I managed to get to sleep at around Midnight, before waking up again at about 2am as per normal.  Watched a load more crap TV  - mostly documentaries about cops or sildlife, ugh!  I finally got bored of that shit and went back to sleep at about 5am ish with a nice bit of Absolute Radio playing in the background.

James!

xXx

Day 4 - Award's Night!

So I woke up around lunchtime again to find I had two messages on my phone that I had obviously slept through not hearing.  One was from Sean, asking if I could go round and help him get his new keys sorted out for his car and the other from Helen, posting on my Facebook to ask if I could look on Freecycle to find a sofa for her.

Unfortunately, what with having no internet at the mo, I was unable to assist with Helen's request and messaged her back to apologise for not being able to help.  I texted Sean back to see if he still needed help with getting a locksmith out but he already managed to get it booked in.  So I decided to head for the TV in the front room.

I sat and watched the snooker for a good 3 or 4 hours - the longest I've managed to to watch since the World Championships had begun almost two weeks ago.  I got to see what seemed to be a pretty decent match between Stephen Maguire and Ali Carter before it switched to Ronnie O'Sullivan against Matthew Stevens.  Saw the final 3 frames of the afternoon session - and some pretty damn good ones too - before I headed over to see what was happening with Sean's car keys.

It was the Leigh Town FC annual awards night so we needed the new keys in time for us to be able to drive over to Monty's in Leigh for the presentations.  The locksmiths eventually turned up at around 6pm and made two brand spanking new keys for him.  It took a little longer than we had expected, due to the fact that the battery had died in the car so needed to hook it up via jump leads to the locksmith's van so he could plug into the car's on board computer to program the new keys.

We then had to jump start the car and the locksmiths left us to it - after taking a nice big wedge of cash of course.  I decided it was probably best to leave the engine running for 10 or 15 minutes to get a bit of charge in the battery before we had to head out for the evening.  So whilst Wes and I joined Shal to watch Home and Away with her, Sean decided to go have a bath - something that he has a habit of doing pretty much just as we're about to head out the door, but this time he actually managed to do it an hour before we had to leave.

So the time passed and Sean, Wes, Aaron and I left for the awards night.  After a brief stop to get some petrol and for Sean to get himself anoher scratch card (yes, he's a little addicted) we made it to Monty's for about 8pm and got ourselves a table in the function room out the back.  Most of us were expecting Sean to get either the Player's Player of the Season or the Manager's Player of the Season.  Unfortunately he lost out on the Player's Player by one vote - Lewis won it instead (no prizes for guessing who the deciding vote came from, PMSL!)

The 3rd team's Manager's Player award was given to Paul for being Manager Dave's right hand man in helping him out throughout the season with team picks, tactics and for stepping in to take charge when Dave was unavailable.  It was a shock that Sean didn't win anything but he was gracious in defeat.  The manager of the 2nd team gave out the Player's Player award to Krys (an excellent striker who scored over 30 goals this season - he also got the golden boot award for the whole club).  He then chose 2nd team captain Chad as his Manager's Player of the Season.

The 1st team, managed by Simon, had voted for Jim Marting as their Player's Player of the Year - a very well deserved vote seeing as he was the most consistent and hard working player throughout the whole season.  Simon then picked Jim Patterson as his Manager's Player award recipient due to his dedication to the team and always having a smile on his face to spur the team on even when they thought all hope was lost.

The Veteran's Team voted for Rob Scholes as their Player's Player of the Season and it was definitely well deserved after putting in so many great performances and scoring a shit load of goals throughout the year.  Joe then decided that his Manager's Player of the Year was a new guy to the team this season - Kevin.  I've personally never met the guy before but his commitment to the team and determination on the pitch was something that everyone agreed on.

Then came the biggest shock of the evening when Simon announced the Clubman of the Year Award.  He said this award would usually be given to either a player within the club but this year the guy receiving it doesn't even play for the team.  He also said that the reason they had decided to give this award was because the recipient had given up his spare time every Saturday to drive some of the players and even the Manager to the games throughout the season.  I instantly knew he was talking about me and quickly started moaning at Dave for putting me forward for it.  I'm not one of these people who takes praise and recognition very well and I absolutely hate getting up in front of a crowd or having my photo taken so it was an extremely embarrassing moment for me.

So I eventually made it up to the front of the crowd to accept my Shield and Silver plate from Simon and the club Chairman - apologies, but I still don't know the guy's name, haha - and posed for a few photos, most likely to end up on the club website, ugh!

This also put me in the situation where pretty much everyone in the whole club now knows who I am, whereas before it was pretty much only the 3rd team players and the odd one or two players from the 1st, 2nd and Vets teams.  By this time, I've got everyone coming up to me, shaking my hand and congratulating me on my award - hugely overwhelming and totally embarrassing.

See the thing is, I didn't set out to earn myself an award for helping out here and there - I just thought it made sense for me to pick Dave and Lewis up on the way to the matches seeing as I was already driving Sean there anyway so it's not as if I was going out of my way or anything so I really found it hard to understand why I was chosen for this.

If anything, I would have expected someone like Big Dave to get it for coming out of retirement to help the team out with his knowledge, expertise and experience within the game.  The guy made such a difference when he came into the 3rd team squad and showed some valuable lessons to the younger players who had recently joined the team.

Dave's wife said "what about all those times you've had to drive all the way back to our house because Dave had forgotten something?"  Tibbs said it was because of all the times I stood behind the goal during the pre match warm ups, retrieving the balls whenever anyone didn't get their shots on target.  And Dave said it was for all those Saturday's when I was there by his side to help out whenever I was needed.

OMG, I've seriously rambled on about this far too much now but it's still just such a huge shock for me.  I'm not the sort of person who receives awards - I'm the sort of person who hides in the background, trying my hardest not to get noticed, hahaha.  However, I am truly grateful for the award and I will treasure the fact that the club think so highly of my contributions so thanks guys, it is appreciated.

So moving on, after my big night of receiving my awards, we headed back home.  We dropped Aaron off at his house then I dropped Sean and Wes back at Sean's house.  I went back to mine and sat myself in front of the TV.  I eventually fell asleep on the sofa for a couple of hours before once again waking up at around 2am.  It's now after 7am and I still haven't been able to get myself back off to sleep and my head is pounding - thankfully I managed to eventually find some ibuprofen in my backpack and have just taken 3 of them.

Time to try and get myself back to sleep for a few more hours.  See ya soon!

James!

xXx

Day 3 - Dude, Where's My Car Key?

OK, so Day 3 started out like any other day for me - I went to sleep at about 5am ish, woke up at about lunchtime, pissed about on Facebook and watched some TV shows online.  I even remembered to watch a bit of snooker at last, hahaha.  But then I got a text from Sean, asking if I fancied going to bingo for the evening.  I thought "sod it, I might aswell" and walked over to his house.  We've been known to go to bingo on the occasional Tuesday or Thursday night a few times in the past, including last Thursday - those are the free nights so worth a try eh.

So I got to Sean's house at around 5pm ish, ready for our night out.  Sean and Shal were still getting themselves ready so me and Wes were sitting in front of the TV, waiting for them.  We finally had everyone ready to go and head out to Sean's car.  Shal, Wes and I are standing around the car like muppets, waiting for Sean to come out when he pops his head out of the front door and says "where's my car key?"

This is where we end up going back inside the house and turned everything upside down, hunting for the bloody thing.  We checked every drawer, tin, tub and cupboard we could find.  We even checked under the sofas and even stuck our hands down the back of them only to find that there was no sign of the key anywhere in the house.

The last time any of us remembered seeing the key was on Monday evening after I had used the car to drive Shal to get some shopping.  I left the key on the table in their front room and even mentioned to them as I walked out the door that it was there.  So somewhere between Monday evening and the moment we were ready to leave for bingo, the key had mysteriously vanished.

The only logical explanation we could come up with is that Sean had it in his trouser pocket when the trousers were thrown in the bin on Tuesday.  Of course, the local rubbish collection for their area was a Thursday morning so the trousers were long gone so there was no way for us to verify this.

So our wonderful evening of bingo had to be put on hold and instead we spent the evening ringing round various different locksmiths to find some quotes to get some new keys made.  The cheapest quote we could find was £120 with Bright's Locksmiths - but only if it was a daytime callout.  We decided to wait until Friday morning before calling them out.

So we watched a bit of TV, then I headed back home to my usual spot in front of the computer to watch the final two episodes of The Chicago Code.  I then played some more Facebook games before curling up for a kip at around Midnight.

I woke up a couple of hours later pretty much as per most nights and couldn't get back to sleep so thought I may aswell get myself back on Facebook to see what's happening.  Unfortunately, it seemed that my internet provider had cut me off due to not paying my bill on time - how lovely.  I didn't have the money to be able to pay it this week so they'll have to wait a couple of weeks before they get their £28 and I get put back online.

So I headed into the front room and put the TV on to see if there was anything worth watching.  After lots of channel hopping and a couple of hours later, I eventually switched Absolute Radio on and curled up to go sleep on the sofa.  What an interesting life eh?  Haha, I really do need to get out more!

James!

xXx