not everyone is nice
When I was but a little Spimf I was a bit of a handful at school - just mischief, nothing really bad. Not like the miniature Albanian hitmen in polyester that seem to infest our schools these days.

As I mentioned below my old man was and remains a bit of a cunt and had a tendency to bully me – however I quickly realised that teachers still had to play by the rules (even in the seventies when we still had the belt in Scotland and a heavy wooden blackboard duster flying at your napper for merely 'chattering' was quite acceptable). So I was inclined to give them a bit of backchat - which by all accounts I was pretty sharp at.

My tendency to challenge authority continued into secondary school. I was also never keen on maths - I didn't see the point in doing something I didn't enjoy - I wanted to go to art college and become a successful graphic designer.

We had a maths teacher who was pretty much my nemesis - I spent a lot of time in the art department, often skipping maths to do so. He told me told art was 'for poofs' and would never earn me a decent living.

One summer there was a school trip to France arranged. I was very excited about this; I was an inner city, working class kid and had never been abroad. We were asked to fill in forms for parental consent and get our deposit money in asap. It was a stretch for my mum to get the cash but she did. I was very excited. The trip was over subscribed so names were picked randomly.

I quickly learned the trip was to be overseen by my evil maths teacher. When he found I was one of the lucky names chosen he told me in front of the entire class there was no way I was coming and struck me off the list.

I was utterly crushed. I had to fight back the tears. The injustice of it and the fact he could do this simply because he didn’t like me lopped off a good chunk of my innocence.

I went onto to Art College and became a successful graphic designer and now earn about 4 times your average maths teachers salary (assuming I can make the calculation) so fuck you Mr Bastard Williams.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 15:03, 10 replies)

the realisaton...
that my mother was not "having a nightmare" early one sunday morning but was in fact shagging my complete areshole of a father.

i was only a nipper and my old man was such a drunken abusive cunt it felt like a real betrayal.

(don't worry it didn't prompt me to dance around in the moonlight wearing a mask made out of fannies or anything
- as yet)
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 15:00, 2 replies)

Mr Beck Hansen
I'd be the first to admit that I suffer from the common male affliction that makes it necessary for me to excessively research banal subjects in order to feel some form of superiority but ending deflated at the vacant looks when I flex my niche knowledge. Anyone who knew me up to about the age of 22 would also have a pretty good idea that I was a huge fan of Beck Hansen. To the extent that I have a great video of my entire Dad's-side-of-the-family one Christmas drunkenly singing along to "No Money No Honey". It didn't take long to teach them the lyrics, after all:

No money no honey.
(repeat x40odd, or until you get bored)

The same way as most were introduced to Beck, it all started with that infectious slide guitar riff that opened up Loser.

Dur dur ne nur ne DURRrrr (and repeat).

I was young, knew little about music, yet knew enough to be invigorated by this breath of fresh air through the endless posturing of the mainstream which was dry-humping the transition from 80s stadium rock to Grunge (whatever the fuck Grunge was supposed to be. Mudhoney or Screaming Trees or just mopey with distorted guitars?).

My brother, with his advanced years and advanced pocket money bought Mellow Gold on the medium of compact disc. We played that CD so many times on our recently acquired family CD player (back when statements like "This was only recorded in AAD!?" supposedly meant something), that even my mother knew about getting crazy with the cheese whiz yet was not enamoured with the dirty distortion or lyrics of “Motherfucker”.

When Odelay took the world by storm two years later, sealing Beck’s place as a career artist and not a one hit wonder, my astonishment, fascination and love for that album was like nothing I'd felt before (most likely hormone related). If Mellow Gold was a breath of fresh air, this was a tornado. Bar by bar the album was a chop suey of styles that revelled in their stylistic clashes. For a great example to this, have a listen to how Hotwax leads into Lord Only Knows.

Thank you Dust Brothers. Thustbrothers.

I still remember buying the single Where It's At, pressing play on the CD player and hearing that wonderful organ riff for the first time. It was this album that turned my love from Mellow Gold to Beck Hansen himself.

A family holiday to Florida that year was a great opportunity for me to explore the music shops at these monolithic malls in order to fill the spaces I had in his discography. This was before the widespread usage of the internet, so my only source of information was either from magazines or asking at music stores.

I found a place selling an album called One Foot In The Grave and without thinking twice parted with my cash. We'd hired a car whilst in the US and as they take so much more pride of their vehicles over there, we were treated to an in-car CD player, much like The Queen probably had, or so I might have thought at the time. Of course, an in car CD was heaven for the children but a nightmare for the parents. I can't even think about how many times we played that album on that holiday.

It was much less polished than the other releases, some fully formed songs, some half-ideas that would probably have been spoiled with any more production. The charm was in the rough edges around the music. The delicate sounds of Hollow Log and He's A Mighty Good leader also showed me another side to Beck's song writing. Something much more tender, straightforward, yet still unmistakably Beck. I was once again captivated by his ability to eat genres and deficate them as his own.

I won't bore you by describing my journey through his entire back catalogue, but Stereopathetic Soul Manure was messier than any other release I’d heard from the white noise of “Rock Me Amadeus” to the surreal Birmingham accent of “Ozzy”. The take on funk and soul on Midnite Vultures had opened my mind to artists I'd previously written off as too feminine before, and the discovery of MP3s and Napster saw me collecting countless bootlegs, b-sides, live tracks (One Foot In The Grave on harmonica? Just wow), demos etc. right back to where it all began, The Banjo Story. Oh, and not forgetting Mutations, nobody should forget Mutations. Oh Mutations. Oh so good.

The first time I got to see Beck live was possibly one of the greatest concerts I've ever been to. It was at Wembley Arena, and unfortunately our seats were pretty far back, but nothing could spoil what we had coming up. I made the journey from South Wales with my friend to stay at my brother’s place and then go watch the gig. It was pretty exciting to go to my first gig in London. I don't know if I expected it to be different or somehow more special, but I think the idea of it being that way made it happen.

I don't know if anyone caught Beck on the Midnite Vultures tour but... Wow. It was incredible. A band of countless musicians all alternating between excessive costume changes, occasionally synchronised dance routines and a sonic journey through the many facets of Beck's musical career. The show was so over the top, yet also so engaging, it felt as though it lasted five minutes but I knew it did not. I wondered how he’d deal with his genre hopping in a live environment, but by breaking his set into various sections, it gave a fantastic tour around Beck’s back catalogue.

Still, Beck could do no wrong.

It was a few years until Sea Change came out and by that time the idea of Beck’s unpredictable directions from album to album made his forthcoming releases exciting in some way to everyone, even casual observers. University had begun since Midnite Vultures and I was in an accelerated culture of learning about myself, others and whatever subject it was I was studying at the time. It took an anchor like an upcoming Beck release to make me realise that I’d changed as a person since the last time I felt this way.

When I eventually heard Sea Change, it was yet another shock. I sort of enjoyed the album but I realised something was wrong when it took for less time than the previous releases to get tired of. It's not that it was bad, it was just that there was a certain blandness to it that I'd not noticed in Beck's music before. The strings weighed too heavily in the songwriting, the vocals were sung as though he were trying to hard to hit the note perfectly and the songs themselves were simpler and far more morose.

However to call Sea Change a disappointment would be wrong. I still applauded the journey into yet another style of music and although it wasn't one that clicked with me as Beck had before, it still had its moments and left me excited to think of where he would go next.

It was the follow up where the disappointment hit hard.

Guero.

The hype beforehand was immense. Beck and The Dust Brothers. Once again working together. It was Odelay for the '00s. Two unpredictable acts, working together once again and each having achieved so much in between now and then. So why did they settle with Guero? Gone was the playful nature of Odelay, or the blink-and-you'll-miss-it production of The Dust Brothers. Instead, it sounded like a watered down approximation of one of my favourite albums in a musical climate that had moved on.

Perhaps the album was a disappointment because of the ridiculously high standards both artists had set for themselves in times past. Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh on the album, I mean after all it wasn't a complete disaster, but to me, Beck was more than just a musician. He was an inspiration. He was one of the few consistently creative acts that I'd grown up with (I'd given up on Pearl Jam long beforehand). The last thing I wanted to hear was an older Beck trying and failing to relive past glories. To hear someone like Beck taking comfort in a sound was deflating.

It wasn’t long after that The Information was released and in my opinion, it was far too soon after Guero and with virtually nothing more to add than the album before it. I tend to think of those two as a double album rather than classing them separately. Where was the progression? Where were the risks?

Everyone grows old, and you can never rely on your heroes, after all they're just people too. It sounds stupid relating a coming of age life lesson from a musician, but I associate his albums with milestones or phases of my life. It's something which taught me to be more tolerable and more open minded about what I listened to, and didn't take me long to realise that this was a valuable lesson to apply elsewhere in life too. Sure, someone else may reply saying that Beck is / was shit, it's only an opinion. It doesn’t matter if you like the same music or different music to me. I just like talking to someone who’s passionate about something. It’s the same emotion, just expressing itself in a different way. Oh, but football’s the exception to the rule, if you want to talk about football, you can fuck right off.

I don't listen to Beck much any more, times have changed, I myself have changed and it tends to make me sad and reflective. If I do stick him on for a listen, I find myself trawling through the early demos more than the albums themselves. Playing through tracks recorded through a mic in a ghetto blaster with distortion making it almost unlistenable, yet somehow comforting.

If this post is popular, I'll have a search and upload the video of my family singing No Money No Honey, including wooden spoon against mixing bowl for drums. It's the enthusiasm from my Grandmother that makes it.
( ma0sm, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:56, 3 replies)

Falling in love.
Because I thought it was supposed to make you happy.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:54, 21 replies)

My 18th Birthday

Walking proudly up to the bouncer of my local discotheque safe in the knowledge that he couldn't turn me away from the delights within as I had ID!

He didn't fucking ID me! All my pre-prepared witty come backs wasted, I would never see the big apes face crease up in dissapointment as it dawned on him that his powers were useless against my little pink drivers license.

Balls
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:50, 5 replies)

Damn you, gravity
I was about eight years old and I'd just been to a birthday party, where I came into possession of a big red balloon.

Combining the above with a shoe box, some string and some sticky tape -- along with my own natural ingenuity and the honest sweat of my young brow -- I contrived a magnificent conveyance for my favourite Action Man (the original kind, none of your Eagle Eye or integral plastic pants nonsense for me!).

In my head I dreamed that the intrepid aviator would rise serenely into the wide blue yonder, ascend to airplane-endangering heights, then drift gently back to earth for easy retrieval. In case of emergency, I'd been sure to equip him with his little Action Man parachute.

My father solemnly agreed to drive me to the local park for the grand launching ceremony. On arrival, we stepped out of the car and I carefully placed the balloon, basket and its pilot on the ground, well clear of any possible obstruction to its safe and majestic ascent.

My heart pounding with anticipation, I stepped back and released the balloon. But instead of the expected sudden launch and soaring flight, I watched with some surprise and mounting dismay as the balloon flopped limply to the grass, then bobbled around pathetically in the faint breeze.

Action Man just sat, impassive.

I cried.
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:49, 3 replies)

eating minge
Being on an almost 10 year diet of internet porn I looked forward to my first night of sex. The knobbing looked great but what i really wanted to do is lick some minge. I mean the films make it look so great... the moans and the smiles and so on and so on....
I make my move (insert few min of fumbling) only to find that my "holy grail" was covered in hair, smelt odd and tasted like wee. "I'll get used to it i think" but after alittle while longer I think "well at least she is enjoying it" only to gaze up and notice that she finds it tickles more that gives pleasure. I found the only woman in the world who dosnt like someone munching her bever! flip (first post! woo)
(snarf81, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:44, 6 replies)

Spell checker
There are certain words that I simply cannot spell. No matter how many times I type them they always come out wrong.

Disappointment, I have recently discovered, is one of those words.

So you can imagine my disapointment dissappointment frustration each time that little red dotted line appears to indicate that I've spelt it wrong, again.
( Moey, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:41, 1 reply)

Music is my first love...
I embrace all music – but every now and again, like a man with one leg shorter than the other, I do tend to lean a certain way.

Now, I don’t want to start any arguments here* but my rant issue here is with two bands in particular, Radiohead and The Manic Street Preachers.

Great Bands…but how could they follow up such classic albums as ‘The Bends’, ‘OK Computer’, ‘The Holy Bible’ and ‘Everything Must Go’, with steaming piles of cockroach turd like ‘Kid A’ and ‘This is my Truth…’ which are about as entertaining as the little bits of black ‘sock grime’ that manifests between your toes at the end of the day?

I waited fucking ages for those pieces of shit to be released...and that's time I just can't get back. They owe me.

I didn’t change…why did they?


*lie
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:38, 18 replies)

The Treaty of Utrecht

( the RAND corporation a.k.a. Kevin Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:32, Reply)

Getting pissed after the finals
When sitting my finals at uni, everyone in my class agreed it would be a great idea to go down the pub after the very last exam and get hammered, as we wouldn't have many more chances after graduating and all going our separate ways. The last exam was in the morning so we'd have all afternoon to get pissed. Easy enough plan.

By three o'clock in the afternoon, everyone was drunk, the conversation had run out and so had the money (after all, how much money does your average student have by the summer?). We were sitting round a table, bored of beer and each other, all wondering how we'd keep going till closing time. This being Scotland, closing time was potentially 12 hours away...

So people just drifted off home one by one. Some great final get together that turned out to be.
(lolwhites, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:28, 2 replies)

Marathons
I signed myself up to run the Paris marathon, I spent the winter running through the worst conditions, I cut back the alcohol, I was in great shape and looking to finish it in 3 hours.

And then on a routine sunday morning 20 mile training run 6 weeks before the date I get a pain in my right knee, tried running it off but no luck. Quick trip to the Dr reveals I had ITBS, no running for me for 4 weeks at least :( 6 weeks later I start physio, and I've only just got back into running! I've never been so disappointed as to see my mates go off and run it in good times and I knew I was sat on my arse because even climbing the stairs hurt. To rub salt in, as i started to do gentle jogs to ease back in, I got the same injury on my over-compensating left knee. More physio, more time off and more frustration.

So I've got another marathon lined up for the autumn, being more careful this time though!

26.2 miles since you wondered...
( Moonraker isn't the droid you were looking for, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:22, 9 replies)

'Naked', eh...?

Now, I’m not too bright…

But imagine my disappointment when I heard about a programme called ‘The Naked Chef’ and rapidly tuned in…only to find some scooter-riding carrot-chopping butt-munch trying to get ‘in with the yoof’ by saying wank expressions like ‘pukka’ and generally lobbing his food about before pretending that he has friends.

Apparently, ‘Naked’ cooking refers to ‘stripping down food to its basic ingredients’ or something? So what’s normal cooking then?

Don’t try and pretend it wasn’t just a cheap gimmick to get our pervy hopes up*…you fat-tongued, mockney flange biter.

/rant

*Girls can be chefs too…right?
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:11, 8 replies)

Mr Frosty is such fun
A couple of years back, my younger brother and I were bemoaning the fact that – despite them being all over the TV and stuff – we never had a Mr Frosty iced drink maker thing when we were kids. We were half-joking but our mother's ears obviously pricked up...

Fast forward to Christmas that year. There's an odd package under the tree for both beanojam and beanojam's brother. This is unusual.

Well bugger us sideways with a rusty tuba if it isn't our (should-have-been) childhood friend Mr Frosty! We were well chuffed (bear in mind at this point that we would have been aged about 22 and 19...).

So of course first thing we do in the period between finishing the present frenzy and having far too much food is go and raid the freezer for ice to try and make 'great drinks for everyone...' (or whatever the hell the catchphrase was).

*crunch*

Fucking cheap plastic shite. It could barely crush the ice and the flavours made it taste like crap. Then the handle snapped. FFS. Childhood nostalgia shattered.

You can still buy these things. My advice? Don't bother.
Get a fucking blender and draw a smiley face on it.
(beanojam isn't really Ricardo Flange, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 14:02, 3 replies)

I would refer you to...
That excellent song by the Godfathers,
"Birth, School, Work, Death."

It's all rubbish, it's down to how you approach it.
(Mr Steve is jobless and fancyfree!, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:57, 2 replies)

Vote
The outcome of the Lisbon Treaty vote.

No? Just me then??
(BigFatPaulie, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:55, 8 replies)

Neo-nudists
My biggest disappointment in the last few years has been the number of so called nudists who start off by saying how much they love the feel of the sun on their bodies, the breeze caressing the parts that have to be covered up at work or home, and then admit to going into the dunes for a toss as they watch people.

YOU ARE NOT NUDISTS.

YOU ARE VOYEURS!!

Just because you get your kit off, it doesn't make you a nudist.
Otherwise everyone sensibly naked for a shower would be classed as a nudist.

Your actions, in involving something sexual on a beach, could lead to you getting prosecuted and by the local council deciding to close the beach down for nudists.

This is not a rant against nudists having sex, its a rant about it happening in inappropriate public places.
I can go on naturist websites and find people who admit in their profiles that sex is one of their interests, but the vast majority of nudists know that its something you don't do at the beach because you don't want to spoil it for others.
(paof2 Nude might not be rude, but rude could be nude..., Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:54, 2 replies)

RUBBESHHHH!!
Realising that no matter how hard I beg and plead with my mum she will never admit that Simon Cowell is my real dad rather than the tw*t that I am expected to believe is.

*Sulks*
(Senora Veranos cannot and will not so ner..., Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:43, 3 replies)

Me
I'm fat, nearly 50, alone & fed-up. Not quite what I had looked forward to.

Bollocks. Where's it all gone? Can I have another go?



*kicks himself up the Jacksy*

Length - even thats got shorter
(MichaelLinge (ywc), Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:41, 2 replies)

Birthdays
After all the hype before i turned 18, it turned out to be a pretty sh*t day. As i was the 1st one of my friends to turn 18, and we all still looked about 12, none of them would come out with me cos they got turned away due to lack of ID. So i ended up spending my 18th birthday at home alone. with a bottle of WKD Blue.

Anyhow, with my 21st birthday approaching, i began to remind everyone how sh*t my 18th had been, and how theres was all so much better as there were more people willing to go out drinking with them. So it was agreed. We would celebrate my 21st.

My mum wanted to take me for a meal 1st, as she had done with my elder sister for her 21st. This would have been absolutly lovely, apart from my neice was up (she was about 2 at the time) And my family dont see her much with her being in Leeds and us not being. So the entire meal was centred around my neice being cute. Noone sang me happy birthday. The only person who mentioned it was the waitress as she said to me (while everyone else was fussing over neice) "who's birthday is it as we normally give them a cocktail and we like to bring it out as a surprise"

Ahwell, meal was a let down, but its ok, cos there are 30 mates waiting to meet me in Yates! (my sisters also tag along, not wanting to go home yet)

Arrive at Yates...noone. Not a single person i have ever met before.

My sisters suggest we try another few of my haunts. So we go round 4 different pubs. Eventually finding my mate Simon who it seems arrived late after we had left Yates and has been going round my haunts in the opposite direction.

Ok, so its just me, my 2 sisters and my mate Simon. This could still be good.

Half an hour after meeting Simon, he gets a phone call. He is unfortunatly on call and has to go. He apologises and leaves.

My little sister suggests we go to the night club. Elder sister is tired and gets a taxi home.

We turn up at the night club and 1st person my little sister sees is a lad she works with she's fancied for ages. She takes him away to dance and eat his face off.

So its 11pm. Its my 21st birthday. And im sat, on my own, in a nightclub, drinking a bottle of WKD Blue.

I dont like birthdays. (apologies for length but i was so deflated and it still really gets me...my 25th is next year. I think im just gonna get a bottle of WKD Blue in and watch Eastenders)
(polystyrene_daffodil, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:37, 12 replies)

The University of Plymouth
"Computing" Degree (Hons)

I was looking forward to Uni. For some reason though my exelent mark on a BTEC ND was not as good as somone who did a crappy A-Level in IT along with geography and spanish so I had to go through clearance to get in and missed my chance to get into halls. I should have realised at this point that it was going to be a shitty 3 years but I got a room in a private house and carried on.
I am NOT racist but none of the lecturers were english and could barley speak a word. So I like the 300 or so other students didnt bother going and did our best at home.
They managed to loose one of my exam papers and tried to say I didn't bother turning up. They soon changed their minds when I asked them to pull up the CCTV that covered the exam hall entrance.
Over all it was such a monumental waste of money and I still don't exectly earn mega bucks, I have the same job now as before I went to Uni.
Still I am stubbourne and am one of less than 70 of the original 312 people who started the course who made it all the way through.
The people who run the course all need to be fired.
Massive, massive disapointment.
( SiX and his hat, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:37, 1 reply)

What the girls at school said
...they said, "Oh Dave, you're easily gonna be the first of everyone to get a lovely girlfriend and get married!"

Turns out it wasn't an accurate prediction.

Not even close.

Bummer.
( johnsto, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:36, Reply)

My left knee
No, not a Daniel Day Lewis film, im talking about the piece of crap that lurks between my shin and thigh.

This has, throughout my adult life given me serious amounts of pain and misery, after racking up 3 ligament tears, a fair few dislocations and god knows how many strains, tweaks and niggles its now quite rubbish as knees go.

I have, for the last 3 - 4 weeks had something moving around on the side of it when I walk, it feels like something sliding over and under a muscle or something and its freaking me out. The Doctor has looked at it, gone "Meh" and sent me to see a pyhsio. in 4-6 weeks bah.

Its agony walking down stairs, I can't reverse properly because the clutch point exactly matches knee angle extreme pain point and im worried its going to fall off before i get to have it looked at.

boo hiss, so combining two qotws, my knee = disappointing, plus if you ever bugger a knee up in your youth, pay attention and do all the exercises your told to!!

phut.
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:28, 1 reply)

bindun? will be.

(bobman500 enjoys a grope as much as the next fella, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:19, 17 replies)

My daily routine...
I suspect I'm not the only one.

*wake up*

Ah, another day. Well, let's do the checks.

Legs? Check.
Arms? All present and correct.
Feet? A-ok.
Hands? No problems.

Instigate operation Sit Up. Standby. GOGOGO!

*sits up*

First things first.

*clenches fist*

Damn. No retractable claws. Still not Wolverine then.

*flings wrist forward*

Damn. No web. Still not spiderman then.

*Concentrates on dressing gown*

Damn. Still not a Jedi then.

*sigh*

Ah well. Maybe tomorrow.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:18, 4 replies)

Post
I am one of those people who *loves* getting post, especially parcels. I sometimes buy silly things on ebay just so I can expect a parcel.

The other day I treated myself. So I'm expecting two whole parcels full of treasure. Woohoo!

They could have been here yesterday... They should have been here today. We pulled up to the house to see the postman handing in a huge parcel. Yay, thinks I.

It was for my neighbour who was out. I'm so bitter you could sit me in a fruit bowl and call me a grapefruit.
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:15, 2 replies)

Question time
What's with the celebrity guests?

Who the fuck cares what they think?

Cunting BBC!!
(Harold's hip man!!, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:06, 11 replies)

Technology
Every pc, every games console, every phone, every whatever the fuck it is if it plays games then it's probably broken for me.
The first time I remember my pc dying on me was playing Red Alert. It woulc crash half way through playing a game and then I'd have to turn it off by the big "on/off" button rather than shutting down. Of course this just meant it would crash more and more.
Ever since my pc's have been dying while playing games, as the games advance so does my pc but it still fails to keep up and it just always crashes. This computer I'm on right now only managed to play Counter-Strike 1.6, and it still crashes occasionally.
Playstation 2, a fuse burns out and a specialist component breaks which means I have to get a whole new PS2. And it still doesn't play GTA Vice City because of a "disc read error".
My xbox controllers broke because the wiring fucked up where the lead joins the controller. The only way I could use the controller was to gaffa-tape up the wire into a position where it would work; and even then it didn't always.
My xbox 360 worked. For a while. None of that 3-red-lights-of-death or whatever. But it was to do with the overheating. Basically I had played it for not long enough at a time for it to die from overheating, but it was causing the connections to expand and then cool down into a different position, which eventually lead to them being deformed and the colours going completely whack. And I can now only play it when it's overheated and even then the colours are still wrong.
Even my phone breaks in unexpected ways. If there is a duplicate contact on my contact list if I go to delete it my phone restarts itself.
Bah. Technology - it's great untill it breaks.
( xihpete A neutrino walks straight through a bar, with v>c., Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:03, 2 replies)

my sad nerdy disappointment
that on my 16th birthday, then my 18th birthday, then my 21st birthday, i didnt turn into a vampire, or a superhero, and the government never showed up at my house asking me to help them on a top secret mission.
When I took place in an archeological dig, I was disappointed I never found anything cursed, or an underground cave leading to something magical.
When I went to Egypt, I was really disappointed I never found a secret door in the pyramids leading to treasures beyond my wildest dreams.
I am genuinely disappointed that even if i focus on something really hard, it still doesn't move or burst into flames.
I hate the fact that so far, I haven't been back or forward in time.
It pisses me off that no matter how much I look upwards and stand on tip-toes, I never fly.

This is the danger of being brought up on films.
(bobman500 enjoys a grope as much as the next fella, Fri 27 Jun 2008, 13:02, 3 replies)