» Addicted

Wrist Watches
Hi.

I'm Panteneman, and my addiction is wrist watches.

It all started off for me when I just had the one watch, and being the scatter head that I am I would waste time running around the house trying to look for my watch when I was in college in the mid 1990's. In my infinite wisdom, I thought:

"Aha! I shall buy another, this way if I can't find my main one, I have a back up watch".

And then it snow balled out of control. I love the different styles of them, and mechanisms that they use (fully mechanical, automatic wind, LCD display, LED display). I like the fact that I can chuck a different one on each day like putting on a different shirt or something.

The addiction seems to knows no bounds. Just when I *think* I am happy with a watch, I will soon track down another that catches my eye. I've bought them for myself even outside the realms of my birthday or Christmas.

I really like my gadgets (PC's, mobile phones, amateur radio, Hi-Fi etc), and the watch collecting thing is probably an offshoot from it. I recall feeling that I was the dogs bollocks when I was a kid all because I had a Trafalgar calculator watch (and I was equally gutted when it got sea water in it, as it wasn't water proof). Probably to do with my Dad being a manager of Comet once upon a time, and being the manager of a Hi-Fi shop when I was small and wee.

I even went as far as taking months to track down a certain model of Fossil watch, and ended up buying the model I was after from America on eBay because I couldn't get it anywhere.

Here's a piccy of SOME of what I own:

Top left: Accurist Chronograph with World Time (Breitling a like in black "Ion Plated" bracelet), Pulsar Spoon (circa 2000 vintage), Fossil "Blue" BQ-9279 (watch has hidden "LED" time readout underneath the hands upon button press, lovely bit of kit), Fossil JR 9465 "OLED" (colour LED animated display), Identity LED watch, Seiko Automatic divers watch (the "James Bond" watch as my mates call it), and another (but more conservative looking)Seiko Automatic.

Bottom left: Citizen Automatic (Japanese import, displays date & time in Japanese and English), Casio 928-PGW30 "Pentagraph" sports watch (circa 1992), Casio Waveceptor (atomic clock accurate, self setting), Fossil JR9464 "OLED" watch, Paketa manual wind watch (Russian with 1-24 hour dial instead of 1-12, millitary style), Damas "Jump Hour" automatic (circa 1970's original), Fossil JR 8712 "Big Tic" (displays seconds behind hands in Old English style text), A "Cowboy Style" watch (used to wear quite a lot with biker jacket, jeans etc), and lastly a Sekonda where I replaced the strap with a funky green one.



(apologies for quick and shit picture, but you get the jist of what I have).
(Mon 22nd Dec 2008, 21:30, More)

» Strict Parents

Get me my house keys dammit!
Indeed,

I too had excessively restrictive parents.

One particular incidence was when i was between 11-13 years old, and everybody and their dog (at the time that was my age) had house keys, so that they can get into the house at will.

My folks were continuously against this, calling these kids "Latch Key" kids, and "We remember them when I was young, and these kids were having to wear this key and survive on their own as their parents were pissing their money up down the pub!" blah blah blah.

So, as a consequence, if they went out I had to go with them or stay in the house until their return. Often kicking me out in the summer telling me to hang out with friends. And I had to float around until they returned. Great. NOT!

In my infinite wisdom one day, I decided to borrow a neighbors ladder. Our house was one ridiculously easy to get into, with a nasty side open 1970s bathroom window that had no lock. Fuck knows how the house didn't get robbed (but, mind you, this was the recession ravaged late 1980s/early 1990s so there was fuck all to pinch anyway).

Anyhow, I used to utilise, this ladder, and proudly leave it behind on the driveway (as they locked the doors and therefore I could not get out of the house, to put the ladder away).

This used to really piss them off, and I was like "Well, UNTIL you give me a house key I WILL continue doing this, and make you look like a complete tit in front of the neighbors".

Eventually they caved in, and gave me a house key. And I soon had keys cut for everything (including the car) behind their back. They also cited that they wouldn't get a key cut locally as "They would know where we live, and rob the house. I am not taking any chances!". Like, for fucks sake! there are A LOT of houses in my town and it's like finding a needle in a haystack to find the correct key for our house, with insurmountable odds.

Another one was their insistence on me going to school for the last few weeks of school end in Year 11. Despite the fact there there were NO Year 11 pupils attending any lessons anymore as EVERYTHING had finished and it was all exams and revising.

So, I was forced to hide at my sisters during late spring/summer, and return back home as normal and make out that I had been in school all the time (when in fact I was over their playing on their Commodore 64, and copying some games for them, or coming up with the latest ZZAP 64 mag, with cheats and maps for Cybernoid 2, Draconus, or whatever was flavour of the month).

Another example of strictness was that I was barely allowed anywhere, so as a consequence my sense of geography is now shite.

For example, there was a school swimming trip, and I missed the coach. I didn't have the initiative to get a bus back home, as this was a completely alien concept because of my idiotically sheltered upbringing. So, I had to go the cop shop as I didn't know how to get home. I was a right fucking laughing stock in school, and I was 13 at the time.

Yeah, like, fucking nice one parents. Twunts!
(Mon 12th Mar 2007, 20:58, More)

» Scary Neighbours

Scary neighbours? is it us or him?
Well, where do I start?

Well, once upon a time our street was known as “Cripple Creek”. There had been people that had been living in our street since it was first created (sometime in the mid 1960s) that have literally grown old there and shuffled off the mortal coil so to speak. A couple of dudes have had heart attacks and just generally grown old.

Over the past few years there has been a high neighbour turnover where capitalist fucks have moved from down south quick to exploit the cheaper living and general house prices. Meaning people with “not quite telephone number figure” salaries like me are forced to live at home with parents or be forced to live in desolate, shite hole flats. Where, if you go the corner shop for a bottle of milk, your precious “castle” will get turfed over by smack heads. Who can’t even get a glimpse or sniff of the “property ladder” because of capitalist fucks buying houses out needlessly and renting them out for silly money. Sorry, I digress….where was I?

Our “alleged” neighbour from hell...

Why I say allegedly is because we have this Eminem kind of dude living next door, with his Chav Spec Golf VR6 and wide drainpipe exhaust and the stereotypical gangster mates with Chav spec cars. Not forgetting the mandatory standard issue Pit Bull Terrier. Anyhow, word has it that this guy is some major wheel in drug dealing or something (so my folks told me) and is a general (in their terms) “bad egg”.

My folks are under the belief that the “suspicious glow” from one of the rooms is a “pot house” were they use solely one room with ultra bright lighting and controlled conditions to grow “herbs”, as well as foil lined for light reflectivity. And that people call at the door late at night for their “score” (their buzzwords, not mine) at strange times of the day (and flog others forms of drugs). I asked them repeatedly to back up their evidence to their claim, but they are literally too shit scared to tell me, which really does make me think THEY ARE talking out their arse, have too much spare time neighbour watching as they’re retired and got that archetypal “paranoia of the modern world" people beyond the age of 60 develop.

They have had some vague run in with them, and quibbled about a garden fence or something or other. And, think he is a twat. I don’t know I keep out of the way of neighbours and couldn’t give a shite. He is probably a nice dude. No idea!

I know one thing though, the sink was blocked, and upon unblocking the sink revealed disposed plant stems. My Dad theorised that he was mashing up spent Cannabis plants and the waste has become backed up into our sink. I couldn’t help but laugh. The more I laughed, the more pissed off he became. You can’t blame me, I mean, how fucking dumb is that??? Don’t they realise they done it THEMSELVES potting up their own plants and with their own gardening? Old people watch far too much TV and develop overly fertile imaginations.

Neighbours from hell? We probably are!! - not the “alleged uber drugs baron” next door!!

NEXT!
(Fri 2nd Sep 2005, 0:00, More)

» Political Correctness Gone Mad

The only metaller/goth in the office...
There's a thing,

Where I work, I am probably the only token metaller/goth (delete where appropriate). And yes, I do have the long hair, into the music, and all that. And, even take a goth route of sometimes proudly wearing pinstripe for work (as I am an Office Admin).

For years, they have taken the piss in a jovial manner. Such as numerous references to "Hair getting in the way of my ears" (despite being tied up), and other such things.

One example I can think of is, say, an exhaust system or a load of piping or whatever being brought through the offices by our stores manager, en-route to his department in the building. He would quote something along the lines of "Hey Panteneman, you new hair straighteners are here, and the new hair dryer is in stores for yer you got from eBay!". And somehow, this guy, and loads of others take the piss out of my hair or whatever. Or if I am reading Terrorizer in the staff canteen, one person would enter to make a coffee and quote "Is that the latest edition of Satanic Ritualist with the special on goat sacrificing?". You get the picture.

I could, in theory, sue the place until it collapses. But do I?

No!

They're merely just having a laugh, banter, call it what you will. And 90% of the time, take it on the chin and it doesnt' bother me.

It appears ok to mock someone that is Caucasian and a metaller/goth like me, but if it were anyone else there would be a big tribunal about it all.

This is definitely political correctness gone mad.
(Thu 22nd Nov 2007, 20:49, More)

» Singing the wrong words

Alternative Slipknot lyrics
Here is some to some crappy Slipknot tune (Death to false metal!!)

"I like to eat my cheddar cheese,
While in my garden raking leaves,
I'd like a pint of bitter please,
Within my shed, I sit and read"

I can't think of anything more. SOMEONE needs to, I have started the ball rolling and someone needs to complete it...
(Thu 27th Jan 2005, 21:30, More)