Acting your age

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about getting older.

Not in a depressing way, mind. I have no problem with aging at all, not the way some people do. Women, mostly. A friend of mine turned 30 recently and near had a mental breakdown. Seriously. But my thoughts have recently turned to wondering whether I act my age. I’m 27. Not old by any stretch but I still feel like a teenager most of the time; a teenager with a house, and mortgage but still a teenager. It makes me wonder, do people who meet me or even just pass me in the street think that I’m 27 or do I give off a younger than my years aura? Or even an older than my years vibe? Do people look at me and instantly think I’m nearly 30, or do they see me as I see me; still relatively young looking? Or worse still, do they think I’m a square?

For instance, I walk past the art college in Belfast most days on my lunch hour, and I see the kids (and they are kids) coming out of said college, and they look so fresh faced, and frankly, about 12 years old. I mean, when I look in the mirror I don’t think I’ve changed that much since I was 18 yet looking at these cherub faced university students makes me think that I must look like an old man to them. I mean, I know I haven’t been ravaged by age or anything, but I’m bound to look at least 9 years older than these students even though in my mind I’m still pretty much the same person, looks wise. Literally the only thing that has changed about me in those last 9 years since I joined uni is my waist size.

And I’m definitely not a square.

Sometimes though I think I should act more like a 27 year old. The problem being, I have no idea how a 27 year should act. At present I still play computer games, I’m still actively an immature internet user, and I still get stupidly excited about things that you think I’d of long since grown out of. But is this just indicative of a massive culture shift? Is the immaturity threshold becoming higher? Or am I just a big fucking kid? Well, I reckon it’s all three, because most of my friends are probably the same.

But then sometimes I also think is it such a bad thing? It’s not as if I’m shirking other responsibilities to go and play video games, except for maybe not washing the dishes. But serious responsibilities. I still get on with my adult life, and do important adult things, yet still leave time for the dumb stuff. It’s not as if I’m not going to work so that I can play Guitar Hero. I suppose this has always been the way, and it’s only because I’m currently going through it that I can understand how this aging thing works. I reckon I’m currently in a sort of limbo state at the moment; the time of life when I can have my cake and eat it, before real life kicks in and I have to alter the immature/mature ratio to more acceptable grown up standards. But even then, I doubt I’m going to turn into some stuffy boring so and so. It’s quite interesting when you think about how your life is compartmentalised, between the you in your spare time, the you around certain people and the you that has to deal with important shit. Maybe that is acting my age; being able to switch between the fun parts of your life, and the necessary parts.

This blog ended up in a different place than I had intended, but hopefully it might raise some interesting discussion.

Enjoy!

Gym Wankers

Recently, a certain culture has arisen with a lot of folks, and has become the popular thing to do, or be seen doing. That thing is, going to the gym.

I don’t have a problem with people going to the gym. It’s great. If that’s your thing, go for it. I’m not going to stop you. What I will ask you to stop doing however is telling me that you went to the gym last night, what you did in the gym last night and how good or bad you feel because you went to the gym last night. I just could not give a flying fuck.

I don’t, as you may have guessed, go to the gym. I’ve been maybe a handful of times in my entire life, and astonishingly I’m still pretty fit despite this. You see, I can get exercise in a variety of other ways apart from going to the gym 8 days a week. And better than that, I do it for nothing.

It’s these people that are all ‘oh, it’s a lifestyle choice’ that get on my tits. I’m sure it is, but frankly I’d rather be 30 stone than one of these wankers that goes to the gym every single day and works out exactly how much they need to exercise to work off the food they’ve eaten that day. And I don’t care if you’ve had a great workout, or ‘smashed the gym,’ or done 20 reps or whatever. To me, you’re a gym wanker.

I want to actually enjoy my life, not have it ruled by the fact that I feel I have to go to the gym every day and worry if I don’t because you might put on a tiny bit of weight. People say that being lazy and not being in your peak physical condition shows a lack of self respect; I think it shows a lack of being a boring bastard that you don’t feel the need to work out every day.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with people exercising and keeping fit. I encourage that. I don’t enjoy people telling me that because I don’t spend every non working or sleeping hour in the gym, that I’m somehow a fat lazy bastard. I’m not, so kindly fuck the fuck up.

The worst people for it though are the ones who do go to the gym but still smoke, get bladdered every weekend and munch down on carry outs as well, yet still take the moral high ground because they go to the gym. I don’t smoke, I don’t really drink (I do however eat quite a lot of takeaways) so I tend to throw this back in their stupid gym going faces.

I know for a fact that I could be fitter, stronger and healthier if I did gym it up 8 days a week, but honestly I’m fine as I am right now thanks.

Bye
JC

Facebook Offences

So, recently I had a friend cull.

On facebook. I didn’t kill anyone or anything.


Actually calling it a cull is a bit much; I deleted, like, 7 people. Mainly for offences that are unforgivable. A lot of it is just filling my news feed with random bullshit that I don’t really care about, much less want to read further. And yes, I’m aware of the irony that you probably came to this blog through a facebook link, and that I myself am incredibly guilty of putting up random links to shit you might not care about so this blog might seem a bit rich coming from me. However, at least my shit is easily ignorable, and to be fair I don’t much care if people delete me. Below is a list of the aforementioned offences that cause you to get deleted.

Or un-friended.

1. Horoscopes

Signing up for these daily horoscopes so that you and you alone can see them is fine. Good for you. You can enjoy a daily dose of bullshit about what’s going to happen in your life and see it every day. However, just because you think its great doesn’t mean you should make it public and stick it on my news feed as well. I couldn’t give a monkey’s that you’re a Libra, and that Jupiter’s fourth moon has aligned with Omicron Persei 8 and therefore you’ll have an alright day today. I could have told you that you’ll have an alright day today. Statistically speaking most people have an alright day. Just most people don’t post it on facebook under the guise of cosmic fucking significance.

2. The ‘I’m so hungover’ update, or any other self pitying status

Well done, you went out last night. You got drunk. You’re really hungover this morning. I really don’t care. The next weekend: same status. The weekend after: same again. Repeat ad nauseam.

The same goes for any status looking for pity. If it’s something that worthy of pity you won’t post it on facebook; therefore it’s something that’s not bad enough to keep private but something you feel that just about bad enough that some of your more gullible, brown nosing facebook friends will comment upon making you feel better.

Status: So fed up. I hate my life.
Reply: Aw, what’s wrong, babe?
Me: Fuck off

3. Song lyrics as statuses

You think this makes you sound deep, do you? That you can quote a line of a song as if it sums up EXACTLY how you’re feeling. Well, whoop-de-bloody-do. Some other people go through the same sort of shit, but don’t feel compelled to quote a song lyric that someone else has written to convey their feelings. Instead do something different and channel your anger/sadness/pathetic existence and write something yourself. In fact the only time quoting song lyrics is appropriate is if you being incredibly literal and if you’ve set fire to the roof of the house of the person who has been fooling around with your mother - “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don’t need no water; let the motherfucker burn. Burn motherfucker, burn.”

The same applies for bible verses by the way.

4. Chain statuses

You know the type; repost this if you know someone who has been affected by ________. Why, exactly? Is it going to help somehow? Will it bring the dead back to life? Example - “Little Timmy has got stuck down a well. Repost this if you want to help.” I don’t want to help little Timmy. Mainly because little Timmy doesn’t exist, but if he did he’s got to be pretty fucking stupid if he thinks that a couple of thousand facebook statuses will pull his ass out of a well.

The other one that annoys are the ‘now that you’ve read this you will die, unless you post this on the walls of ten friends.’ If I get one of these from you, you are instantly deleted. Unless of course you’re the person that’s still waiting on your cheque from Bill Gates for that beta test many moons ago? In which case, we were never friends in the first place.

5. Ridiculous amounts of updates.

I post to facebook whenever I have something to share. Something that I think some folks might find funny. I don’t vomit every single thought I ever have onto all my friend news feeds. I have the forethought to think that they might not care that I just wrote on my hand with a black marker (“OMG, LOL I just wrote on my hand! In black permo marker! Wat a dumass!!!!111!) or that I accidentally started singing the song that I was listening to on my iPod a little too loudly for a public workspace. Both of these things did actually happen to me today, but you wouldn’t care about them if I put them on facebook so don’t presume that I’ll want to read your incessant 10 in an hour updates.

The worst, though, is during any kind of sporting event in which some of my (former) friends decided that they wanted to take over the commentary of the event. In text only. Seriously. Offering an opinion on every kick of the ball. I didn’t need to actually watch the game, just read this person’s constant updates over the 90 minutes.

6. Facebook games

Thankfully you don’t see it as much now, but every so often I still get the odd game request – ‘such and such has given you a wrench to use in Mafia Wars, if you give them 3000 Mafia points.’ What? I’ve never played Mafia Wars in my life. Or Farmville. Why do people presume that they can get me to play these things? And besides, as far as I can tell they’re only doing it so I can give them more points (or whatever) to fuel their own addiction to the blasted thing.

So you’ll get unfriended. I’m a facebook friend, not a bloody Farmville pimp.

7. Self congratulatory posts

The type of post that some people make after training or the gym or some other group activity. ‘Great session tonight lads’ - I don’t see the point of this sort of post. You were at the thing with the people you are supposedly typing this status to, so why didn’t you say that to their face at the thing that you were doing together? Unless…you want other people to hear that you had a great training session/gym workout/whatever, so that people know that that’s what you were doing, while the original poster remains vague and aloof enough to make it seem like they weren’t looking for validation in the first place. The same goes for posts that are so obviously designed to elicit a ‘oh, well done you’ response. Unless it’s something of an actual achievement you shall get no such praise from me.



So, in conclusion, I’m a great facebook friend and you should all add me. Just make sure that any random shit you post is funny. And not downright fucking insulting to my intelligence. At least that way it’s forgivable.

Do you want to end up in a future blog? DO YOU?

Cheers
JC

Dicks Looking Back

Have you ever looked back at your younger days and thought “I was a right dick?”

I do. All the time.

I don’t mean a dick as if I was mean to somebody (although there are those), just that there are certain points in my life that when I remember them, I think that I am a right dick.

As I can remember pretty much everything that has happened to me, especially the stuff that causes me to think I’m a dick, this happens quite often. Be it little things like putting the emphasis on the wrong word in a sentence and making it sound far more threatening than was intended (“Oh yeah, I see what YOU mean.”), or big mortifying, life changing things, such as calling your Primary school teacher ‘Mummy.’ I remember them all.

What I’m wondering is, do other people do this with the same frequency as I do? It’s normally when I’m lying in bed, unable to sleep that these things run through my head. One in particular was bouncing around my brain last night. At uni, we went out to Kelly’s a lot, every week without fail. And, every week without fail, the DJ near the end of the night played the song All My Life by the Foo Fighters. I love this song, and throughout it I rocked out quite hard. However, there comes a quieter part in the song that builds and builds up until an unleashing of a lot of rocking rockiness. During this quiet part I would often pretend to play guitar, and then once the crescendo hits, I would leap into the air, landing as soon as the heavy guitars kick back in and continued playing air guitar and headbanging. A lot of the time the people I was with stood by and watched, mostly in admiration (bear in mind though, we were probably quite drunk). Except when I look back at it, I can’t help but think ‘Fucksake, JC. Quit acting like a dick.’

It’s as if I’m hovering over my past self, and watching in horror at what I’m doing. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, only this time I’m being shown my past to make sure I don’t return to my dickish ways, rather than….exactly, that’s exactly like Scrooge.

Another time I’ve often looked back and thought I was a dick was back in the first year of uni. I had recently come out of a relationship that had ended quite badly (well, badly for me), and had started kinda sorta seeing a girl that I had met/got off with at the union. At the time I sort of latched on to her and we were in a sort of pseudo relationship, mostly due to my insistence that it was one. That sounds really sinister; I didn’t tie her up and force her to play happy families or anything. Promise. But whenever she ended whatever it was that was going on, I sulked for ages and was a bit of a dick to her when really she didn’t deserve any of the anger I was projecting. It was more reflected anger that really should have been directed at the previous relationship ender. Fuck, this was meant to be a funny blog, not some sort of confessional.

Right, let’s get this back on track with a slightly embarrassing story. I remember being at a house party back in secondary school days and it was nearing the end and people were filtering out. It was back in the days of CD changers, and once the machine had switched from one CD to the next, a process which took an annoyingly long time as well as causing an unusual amount of crunching and whirring, Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) came on. Now, there’s a point in the video for this song where said White Guy does this dance in a dance-off that fails to impress any ladies, and for whatever reason (maybe I was trying to impress a lady myself) I decided that copying this dance would at least get a few laughs, completely ignoring the fact that the impressee would have to be familiar enough with the video for the song to even know that that’s what the impresser (me) was mimicking. However, even if she was familiar with the video that’s not what she would have seen me do. I had completely forgotten what the actual dance from the video was, so I ended up doing some weird kicking thing, and clapping my hands underneath my legs. I should’ve known that if it didn’t work in a fictional music video, it probably wouldn’t work in real life. Even if I had done the real dance. I did this bizarre almost Cancan-esque routine, like, 8 times before I finally decided that I should probably stop. All the while, future ghost me is hovering above and despairing.

I’m sure there are many more examples that I’ve thought of on manys a sleepless night. But I also got thinking about whether other people regret dickish things they’ve done and are glad that they’re no longer like that anymore. One person stuck in my mind when thinking about this. Back in school, there was this second year kid who got the same bus home to Bangor as I did (I was in third year). He was one of these alpha male type kids, who was essentially the leader of his little group, and as such was the loudest and most obnoxious. For the whole bus journey home, he was singing ‘Get your tits out for the lads.’ Anyone that spoke up to tell him to shut up had this sung back full volume in their faces. This guy had no shame about singing this at the top of his lungs for the half hour journey. Even when the bus driver told him to shut up by telling him ‘the only tits you’ve ever seen are your mum’s’ (which admittedly was pretty funny at the time) he just continued on, except this time turning his ire on the driver. I wonder does that kid ever look back and think ‘what a dick I was?’ I know I would.

What about school bullies? Are they ever kept awake at night, by replaying past horrors they visited upon kids at school and thinking that they were right dicks? Yes, Thomas. I’m talking about you, you little shit. Actually, to be fair he still hasn’t recovered from the time that, after he kicked me in the crotch and spat on me, I turned right around defiantly then went home, cried a bit and got my mum to tell the principal on him. Yeah, take that you dick. In fairness though, he was put in to the special class, so karma got that retard in the end. Retribution, bitch!

Anyway, that’s today’s thought. I’m off to try and not do things I’ll reflect on in the future. Just to get this goddamn future ghost off my ass.

Cheers.