BigDaddyBlog

Most of my on-line ’social’ time these days is spent on Facebook - i find it a good way to keep in touch with old friends, organise events (mainly piss ups!) and share photos of said piss ups! I don’t have a million applications installed and don’t particularly like being poked or poking back. What I do like is the status updates (something Myspace have jazzed up in order to keep hold of it’s users),

I’m finding it rather amusing to read back through them - one thing I’ve noticed is that I do seem to get drunk quite a lot! Here is the 2 months worth of status updates to illustrate my pointl (most recent first)

• Merk lives on fascination.
• Merk has a dirty hangover.
• Merk blah.
• Merk loves si, and his aids.
• Merk quite likes boys. Especially boys birthdays cards. Don Simon is king.
• Merk might wear a stripey shirt out, what a surprise.
• Merk hello.
• Merk watching downloaded U.S. tv - naughty me!
• Merk thanks you all for your birthday wishes, ta.
• Merk is having his tea.
• Merk cannot wait to go home.
• Merk thinks Bevo is a spoon - enjoy A&E matey!
• Merk wished he’d booked the day off.
• Merk is eating doughnuts for breakfast.
• Merk is addicted to Coca-Cola.
• Merk hates people with ideas above their station.
• Merk is enjoying his last few days in his ‘mid-twenties’.
• Merk looking forward to going to the seaside.
• Merk is going out.
• Merk is complex.
• Merk thinks not drinking makes him ill.
• Merk feels a bit better.
• Merk feels poorly.
• Merk is :).
• Merk is indulging in one of his guilty pleasures…..no, not that!
• Merk is chilled.
• Merk is laughing at someone.
  10:48am
  April 15
• Merk is tired, Doesn’t like waking up early.
  10:12pm
• Merk is sick of the rain.
• Merk is writing lists.
• Merk is booooooored.
• Merk got to work on time, for the first time in about 6 months!
• Merk is bored.
• Merk wants some goldfish.
• Merk fucking loves Capri-Sun.
• Merk blah.
• Merk just heard a tune that instantly took him back to happy happy times as a kid, I’m going to sleep smiling now! :).
• Merk wants to go on a road trip somewhere.
• Merk is mmmmm.
• Merk is cooking.
• Merk STILL doesn’t like rude people.
• Merk doesn’t like rude people.
• Merk is ill.
• Merk is a little bit drunk.
• Merk has no style.
• Merk loves Laura Tobin.
• Merk is mellow.
• Merk is contemplating getting a little bit drunkified….for a change.
• Merk is wondering what to spend his winnings on!
• Merk at home, on a friday night?
• Merk needs some sleep.
• Merk Likes sleeep.
• Merk is pathetic.
• Merk wants to be a muskerhound.
• Merk is fed up of birds shitting on his car.
• Merk is going home.
• Merk is eating Jaffa Cakes - hehehehe.
• Merk hello.
• Merk hates City types.
• Merk Is on a choo choo train.
• Merk house alarm code is 4593.
• Merk ’s bank Pin is 2316.
• Merk has had a great night reminiscing.
• Merk is going for a pint.
• Merk is READING (a book).
• Merk want’s his hour back.
• Merk cant believe the weekend is over already.
• Merk is booooo.
• Merk is praying Everton can get a win today.
• Merk is sleeping.
• Merk is in a strange sense of mind - not quite drunk but not quite hammered. hmmmm.
• Merk is off out for food, drinks and much merriment.
• Merk baby soft skin, make of that what you will.
• Merk is all about the weekend baby!
• Merk is laughing.
• Merk hates people with disco knee.
• Merk has a little bit of an export head.
• Merk is disappointed.
• Merk wants the summer to hurry up.
• Merk hates jo whiley.
• Merk doesn’t understand why people have ‘baby on board’ signs in their car - If I can help it I’m not going to run in the back of you baby on board or not!
• Merk hates people who walk around the supermarket wearing bluetooth headsets!
• Merk just read the gas meter….could life get any more exciting than that?
• Merk wonders why people think going on national telly to deal with family issues is a good idea?
• Merk thinks this weekends excessive boozing has hit his immune system….cough splutter cough.
• Merk is so glad to be back at work, honest.
• Merk is impressed with the new Elbow album.
• Merk is bored.
• Merk is happy after a great Easter weekend.
• Merk doesn’t know whether to go out or not.
• Merk is yawning.
• Merk bybufytftrrfersws5fg8iumoij.
• Merk is looking forward to beers tonight.
• Merk is hello.
• Merk is broken.
• Merk is tired.
• Merk is thnking about lunch at the beacon or go shopping for food?
• Merk is confused he has no hangover.
• Merk was nearly called George.
• Merk thinks Heather Mills is a money grabbing bitch.
• Merk isn’t too cool for school.
• Merk wants to go to a Murder Mystery and a Medieval Banquet.
• Merk is angry with a certain customer.
• Merk hates horses.
• Merk wants to go to a Murder Mystery and a Medieval Banquet.
• Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk Merk.
• Merk likes Dr Pepper.
• Merk is writing an angry letter to the council.
• Merk is alreet, thanks for asking.
• Merk is looking forward to his sleep.
• Merk is so fucking tired.
• Merk has gone all open source.
• Merk is going to kick the shit out of his computer very soon.
• Merk blah.
• Merk hasn’t driven his car for days.
• Merk is happy and honoured.
• Merk is listening to classic Stevie Wonder.
• Merk is happy.
• Merk is worrying that he drinks too much.
• Merk is lost.
• Merk likes beers with friends.
• Merk is going out….again.
• Merk says Hi. ‘Hi’.
• Merk loves something…
• Merk loves something….probably.
• Merk doesn’t like socks.
• Merk is bored…of life.
• Merk is a bit miserable.
• Merk had an ace thai curry.
• Merk pissed off the day is going so slow.
• Merk is grrr.
• Merk made his computer go bang.
• Merk cooked an ace salad.
• Merk pricing up new motherboard, cpu and ram - whoops!
• Merk has just killed his pc.
• Merk is tired.
• Merk is going home.
  5:28pm
• Merk is bored.
• Merk can’t believe he got mocked for buying shoes from Clarks.
• Merk is laughing at his works silly rules.
• Merk cant sleep.
• Merk is sleepy.
• Merk is never drinking Brandy again.
• Merk feels wrong.
• Merk hurts.
• Merk loves rave piano.
• Merk is having a chilled/geekery afternoon.
• Merk has bought shoes - ten minutes. I love living in town!
• Merk has gone to buy shoes!
• Merk needs some new shoes.
• Merk is beer’s constant if anything goes wrong!
• Merk doesn’t know what chasing pavements means.
• Merk wants a Mercedes CLK Coupé but doesn’t appear to have 30 grand to spare.
• Merk is.
• Merk wonders what the fuck the BBC have done to their homepage.
• Merk is laughing now he’s knows it was just an earthquake!
• Merk is laughing know he’s knows it was just an earthquake!
• Merk is merk, merkio, merkster, bigdaddymerk or plain old Mart.

Update: In more geekery related news Google indexed this post for Laura Tobin in about 3 minutes - that’s freaked my chicken.

Update II: Hmmm it’s climbed the index already - now fifth in the list!

Update III: Laura Tobin is a Weather Presenter on News 24!

From World: 2007 Death Penalty statistics, notes and case studies and Secrecy surrounds death penalty;

Michael Richard was executed in Texas, USA, on 25 September after a state courthouse refused to stay open an extra 15 minutes to allow the filing of an appeal based on the constitutionality of lethal injections.

Richard’s attorneys had been unable to file the appeal on time because of computer problems; problems they had already brought to the court’s attention. The US Supreme Court then refused to stop the execution. Earlier in the day, however, it had agreed in a Kentucky case to review the lethal injection issue, a decision that led to a de facto moratorium on all other lethal injection executions around the country. The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected later this year.

…and we know how that turned out.

15 minutes!

From that list, the fact that the USA is the only ‘Western’ country - that they are still partaking in state authorised murder beggars belief.

Link from: Chicken Yoghurt

Years back when I was still interested in doing radio* I was given a tip about a job producing a pre-recorded program which was sold to lots of radio stations around the country. One of these shows was an album chart show and the other was an 80’s show with Pat Sharp of Fun House fame.

My name was put forward for the job and I got a call from a guy called Paul asking if I could go up north to meet him, I agreed. We arranged to meet in Manchester city centre and the plan was to phone him when I arrived at Piccadilly station and he’d meet me - it was already reasonably late in the day by the time my train pulled in, I called Paul and he said to find a quiet bar and text him the location and he’d come find me.

So I headed off and ended up in the Piccadilly Tavern (god knows why), I got a pint in and grabbed a paper and waited. Now the problem with waiting for someone when you’re in a pub on your own is that you have no one to disturb you and a pint lasts half as long as it does normally - so 4 pints and no food later Paul turns up to have our chat/interview - I’m half pissed, he gets another round in.

We have a chat about the work and other random stuff and I think we get on - he tells me about his plans for the company and I tell him I don’t have a problem moving up north for the job. Sweet, he’s interested in taking me on and I’m interested in working for him so we leave it at that. Off I toddle back home feeling good.

A few days later Paul’s assistant (who’s name fails me) calls up and asks if I could go up and meet the rest of the staff and get an idea of the surroundings, she’s already been looking in the local paper for flats in my price range and would let me know if there was anything that would be of interest. I should call them when I arrive and they’ll come pick me up and take me to the office/studio.

The ’studio’ was located above an insurance brokers or mortgage place in Blackburn. Right near Ewood Park, the home of Blackeye Blackburn Rovers. I chatted to the outgoing guy who explained the job and then chatted more with the boss and all seemed cool. This was it, In a few weeks I was going to be moving to a strange new town doing a job I’d enjoy and being able to create I was excited**, they were going to call me over the weekend to sort things out, they had my mobile number.

I’d not given it much more of a thought until I’d not heard anything by the Sunday, my phone had been off for some of the time over the weekend but there were no notifications about messages or what not, I put it down to them being busy. Monday passed I went to work in Epson call centre pretending I gave a shit that their Scanner wasn’t quite scanning properly or their projector wasn’t hooking up to their pc the way they wanted it - I wanted out of this and a radio job. Nothing. By Tuesday I called from my office phone; “I left you a message on Saturday saying that if you wanted the job to get back to me asap - I didn’t hear from you so I presumed you didn’t want it…….I’ve urrm given it to someone else now”.

What?

I looked at my mobile, no little symbol in the corner, no missed calls showing. Fuck. Is he lying? was this is way of saying I wasn’t quite up to the job, or they didn’t like me? I put the phone down, I wanted to crawl into a little ball and cry but I had to go back and pretend to give a shit about colour matching and firewire drivers.

I looked at my phone again, tried to call my mum for some much needed sympathy; “I’m sorry you have insufficient credit to place this call”….hmmm I wonder how much credit I have. I called the number; “your balance is zero pence”. I needed some credit on my way home. Cut to a few hours and a tenner credit later I was sat at home scratching off the coating to reveal the credit numbers (it was when pre paid phones we’re pretty new and credit was put on by sticking in a really long code) and punching them into the phone

“Your balance is Ten pounds and zero pence”…….Beep Beep…..Beep Beep. A message notification appears on the screen.

“you have 1 new message…….”hello this is Paul, we’d like to offer you the job if you can get back to us before the end of today cause we want to move quick on this so if you can call me…….”

I hung up. Turns out that message notifications didn’t appear on your phone unless you had some credit on the account.

I have a contract phone now!

* Don’t get me wrong, If I was offered a cushy job on some cool station I’d snatch their hand off - phone in/talk show especially.

** Looking back it would have been pretty dull to be fair, getting pre-recorded Pat Sharp links and sticking the music over the top of them, then burning about 30 copies and sending it out to stations week in, week out would have got pretty boring after a while.

I want to go to Chester Zoo.  Is it any good?

About this time 5 years ago, I started this thing - 107,000 words later I’ve still not found anything to write about really.

Here’s to the next 5?