Matthew Stadler's Personal Weblog

May 23, Oh, don't you just love Mondays? Time was that I used to hate them, just like most other people. But these days Mondays have taken on a whole new meaning. You see, because I tend to work all weekend just lately, the reason I love Mondays is that I feel justified again in working. And also I know that most other people are having to do it too. If I've got to, then I derive some twisted pleasure out of knowing others are working as well! That's not to say there's nothing good about working weekends. The great thing about it is this: most of our colleagues/clients/employers (call them what you will) don't work the weekend. This means that our working days become far more fruitful because we are not constantly answering the phone, responding to e-mails, and generally being pushed and pulled in several directions at once. We did, however, manage to find time to pop out for Sunday lunch, which for me was a bacon cheeseburger, while Red opted for the altogether more healthy tuna niçoise salad. So, all in all, not much to report today. My latest bits of ink are healing nicely. My weight is yo-yoing like Ricki Lake's. I watched Mean Girls on TV and think Lindsay Lohan is not so annoying as I had expected. And I've posted a new review over at Such As They Are. And now... to work. Catch you all later, blogpals! Last-minute edit: How could I forget that we've also started watching this year's Big May 24, Stuff and stuff Sunday: Worked all day, but found time to do a little post about shaking my spear, below. Monday: Worked all day, despite it being a holiday in the UK. Tuesday: Worked until lunchtime, then headed out to the tattooist for some recolouring on a tattoo that I never got finished. It's two years since it last had any work done on it. Now I think it's finished. Though I can't help but feel it still needs a little sumpn sumpn. Wednesday: Worked all day and got mad pissed off with some people we're working for. What is with people? I know not all people are cunts, but sometimes... sometimes it sure seems that all people I have to deal with are. I also found time to update Such As They Are for the first time in a month. I made a silent promise to post a new movie review over there at least once a week. And Lord knows I have a backlog to wade through. Thursday: Started the day, as we do most days at the moment eating breakfast while watching an episode of Seinfeld, the show about nowt after which this blog was named. We've been working our way through the DVDs while waiting for Season 5 of Scrubs to get released. Then we headed out to Asda to do most of our weekly grocery shopping. We couldn't find the tofu. I knew it was a mistake but I thought I'd ask a member of staff. "Excuse me, do you know where I'd find tofu?" "Uh, find what?" "Tofu." "Toad food?" "No, tofu." "What is it?" "It's ... [I tell myself not to mention beancurd or allude to anything 'foreign'...] It's a meat substitute for vegetarians." "Oh, then it's probably in the meat aisle." "I don't know," I say. "You carry other products by Cauldron, and they produce tofu. So I thought it might be in the freezer section." "Oh... I'd better find someone who'll know. Come with me." I follow her. She talks to another staff member. She too looks confused by the word tofu. I suggest that it could be in the chilled section, rather than frozen. "Let's have a look there, then," says the second woman, and we walk towards that section. "It's not something I've been asked for before." We stand there looking at the shelves. My eyes alight on the Holy Grail. I reach for the tofu. "Here it is!" I exclaim gleefully. "I'd better check the sell-by date, since no one knows you sell it!" It's all good. "You'll know where it is now next time someone asks," I suggest. Fortunately they don't kill me. You never know in this neck of the woods. And Asda. Sunday, May 25 Shaking my spear Oo er, that sounds a bit like a euphemism for having a wank, doesn't it? Anyway, that's not what was intended. Instead it was just to say we're going to see some Shakespeare. Not something I do every day of the week, but then it's not every day of the week that the legendary Eamonn Walker (of Oz fame) comes back to his home town of London to play the Moor, Othello, at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, no less. How could we not treat ourselves to an anniversary matinée? Trouble is, I know Red has A Bit of a Thing for Eamonn (spelling mistakes notwithstanding), so I'll need to keep a close eye on her after the show, lest she starts telling him how his performance was like a cultural orgasm or something along those lines. When I phoned the box office to ensure Mr Walker would be playing all shows, including matinées, the posh and elderly sounding woman on the phone said: "Well, I think so. I mean... well... he's... well, he's the man, isn't he?" "Yes," I replied. "He is the man." People, we are going to see the great Kareem Said in the flesh, playing Othello. Does Shakespeare get any better than that? I rather think not. Friday, May 26 Hello Daddy. And up the Hilary. All the news that's fit to print! And some that probably isn't... Well, it finally happened. My mother, long-suffering woman that she is, has remarried. It happened on 11 May, but she didn't tell anyone until a week later at a celebration party. I was invited but simply couldn't make it (work, kitchen, 400-mile round trip). So I now have a stepdad. And I've never met him. I think that's bloody bizarre, but what can yer do?! And me sister's up the Hilary. Up the duff, that is; having a bairn; with child; got a bun in the oven. Pick your own euphemism. This will be her fourth. She's not even 30. And her three kids are between eight and 12 years old. I'm not a having-kids type of guy, as most visitors here know by now. So I simply cannot understand why someone would have another kid just at the point that she is starting to reclaim her life back. Oh well. As my wise old gran would have said: "You can't educate pork." Thursday, May 27 It's not got quite the same punk ring to it as as "Too Drunk to Fuck", has it? Imagine, though, if the Dead Kennedys were making it big now. Maybe their most famous hit would be "Too Busy to Blog". Or "Too Tired to Blog", since that scans better. But of course I'm simply making a statement in the title here about my own lack of words on screen these last few days. Thanks for all recent comments, though. I always like to try to respond to them all, but that too is beyond my temporal capabilities. Or something. If only I were Doctor Who. Or Hiro. Or even Marty McFly. And I could go back and literally make time to write shit. Oh well. I'm not. So back to work I go. Hope you all are having a lovely Thursday. It's hot in the office today. Tell you what, as a bit of colour, I'll upload a sneak peek at a bit of our new kitchen. May 28 Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken... For Sunday lunch yesterday, because we had nothing in the house and we didn't have time to go shopping, what with little bits of DIY and great loads of work needing to be done, the wife and I headed to the new eatery in our vicinity. A few weeks ago it opened its doors. And the queues on that first Friday evening were quite a sight to behold. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera with us at the time because it was most definitely "bloggable". Anyway, that's the past remote. Let's talk about the past recent. The eatery? KFC, as you might have guessed from the pic of the Colonel. We're not really big fast-food types, but now and again it must be done. People say not very nice things about fast-food-joint staff -- y'know, stuff about how dumb they are, how no qualifications are needed to do their job, a trained monkey could do it, etc. But I gotta tell you this: while you may or may not need a brain to work in these places, you damn well better have one if you intend to order there. All I wanted was a bite to eat, but first I had to figure out what. I opted for one of the "meals", but then I had to choose between the standard Zinger meal or the Wicked Zinger meal. "I'll have the Wicked one." "Which side order would you like?" "What are the choices?" "Baked beans, coleslaw, or corn on the cob." "I'll have the coleslaw, please." "And what extra chicken portion would you like? Wings or an extra piece of chicken?" [Like "extra piece" is some technical term for a chicken bodily part.] "The extra piece please." "And what drink?" AAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! And then KABOOOOOOM! My head exploded. It was quite the mess all over the restaurant floor. And they're burying me today. Still, it was worth it. No, sorry, the other thing: not worth it. Definitely not worth it. June 6, Jizz cocks and piss kidneys And so another season of Peep Show comes to an end. This is, without a doubt, the single best comedy show to have come out of Britain in the past decade, if not ever. Yes, there I said it. You can take your Monty Pythons and Fawlty Towerses, your Porridges and Young Oneses: we've all seen them one time too many, thanks to the glorious BBC's reruns policy. Peep Show is king, the boss of them all. No, it's not that kind of peep show. I could say I was there from the beginning of the first episode, the night it was first aired, but that would just make me sound like a piss kidney. Or a jizz cock. But it's true. Earlier that week, way back whenever it was, Red and I had seen stars Mitchell and Webb on some breakfast TV show, flogging their imminent wares. They showed a clip. "What odd fucking shite is this?" I might have wondered aloud. It looked silly, with it's first-person-POV camerawork. But nothing else was on TV that fateful night, so we gave it a go. It fucking rocked back then, and it still rocks now.