The Year Of Living Rantily Pt.III

Woohoo!
Continuing the furtive delve inside the fœtid sack that is my first year of blogging, we reach October, 2006: The birth of Blogville!
The month when other people started landing on the Small Glass Planet.
And we shall hear from them later in this post.

Duck! Here come October's lowlights:

October, '06 was the home of probably the all time classic Dive rant: "Jean-Paul Sartre", from which I lift the following extract regarding the use of mobile phones on trains; and specifically trains that have me on them:

"Now … heads up, mobile phone users. If you don't want to be wearing that thing up your arse, here's a little piece of advice (this is best read slowly and clearly, as if to a small child):

• First up: the concept of the "telephone":
If you speak into your "telephone", the person you're connected to can hear your voice coming out of their "telephone". Just because they may be miles away doesn't mean you have to SHOUT to make them hear you.
Related to this point: If you cannot hear them clearly over the noise of the train, shouting at them is unlikely to resolve the problem. They will, in all likelihood, be holding their phone at arms length because you're so fucking LOUD! It also causes other mobile users around you to stick a finger in their ear and raise their own voices, and is therefore counterproductive.

The urge to talk loudly if you cannot hear somebody else speaking is caused by "Basic Stupidity".
We now move on to "Advanced Stupidity".

• "Hi. It's me. I'm on the train".
Whoever is waiting for you at the end of your journey (and one day it might be me, with a nasty headache and a baseball bat), you need only call them if you MISS the train, or if it breaks down. Should your partner be so insecure and pathetic that they need to be constantly informed of your whereabouts, ditch them NOW and get a life. Grow up, for Chrissakes!

"Postgraduate Stupidity" includes the following:

• The constant, repetitive and loud barking of the word "Yeah" merely informs those around you that you are a moron who would lose a drooling contest with George Bush.

• Using your inane laugh as punctuation when you speak merely highlights the fact that the tedious drivel spewing from your mouth does SO not justify your whinnying cackle at the end of every boring sentence. If you were that funny, we would all be laughing. Look around you. We are not …

• Secretaries: If your boss fucks off early, leaving you slaving late in the office, then phones you from the train to ask about some email or tell you something he should have told you before he left: get a new job. He is a worthless piece of shit who clearly does not deserve you.

• In the thousands of train journeys I have suffered since the dawn of mobile technology, I could count on the fingers of one hand the words I have heard bellowed into phones that actually needed to be said. THINK before letting a carriage full of annoyed people know how utterly worthless your life is and how fucking BORING you are.

• Your ringtone is neither cool nor amusing."

Jean-Paul Sartre was right: "L'enfer, c'est les autres".

Momentous moment! The day I wrote that I also flicked away at the old "Next Blog" button, wading through acres of kittens, babies and talentless wank until I was suddenly confronted with the first intelligent American I had ever come across (I've since built up a surprisingly large collection, all of whom you can find in my sidebar). Hence Sassy's link in my "boffo blogs" and her comments on the above post concerning muffin-tops and sumo girls in stretch pants.
That day, via Sassy, I discovered the lovely Robyn and the piquant Old Knudsen, and via Robyn, the man who proved that men of my age can look good: half-man/half-coffee bean: Rich. Suddenly we had a strange little neighbourhood going and blogging had found a purpose.

A couple of posts later came one about the strange stuff I've put into my mouth over the years that included the line "Egrets: I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention". Sorry, but that still makes me giggle.

Then came some helpful advice for parents:
"One thing that scares me about random searching in the blogsphere (and there are many scary things in here, especially American God-nuts with guns) is the sheer, mind-buggering volume of people who want to show the world photographs of their babies.
Please allow me to draw you good folks gently to one side and whisper a word of advice:
(a) Even your close relatives find your baby pictures teeth-grindingly boring.
(b) The planet doesn't want and cannot feed any more people. Stop breeding, you fuckers!
(c) Your baby is really ugly."

Other nasty things lurking in the bottom of the October bag:
(If you're terminally bored or new to the Planet, click on the links) …

The 'Train Stiffy" post most of you will know … my first porno piece … ahem …

And "Gene Puddle" highlighted the perils of partying in rural Norfolk (Deliverance Country) … Dawn of the Dead with party dresses on. Brrrrr …

October also contains lots of photos of my architectural work and of the little recording studio where I sit and type this crap at the world.
Plus the cartoon that made me who I am and a photograph of Batman's willy (yes, you heard).

And talking of tedium, one of my personal favourite posts, "Lost In Translation" can be glossed over by anyone less of a language fetishist than myself.

At last, we reach "Pretentious Twat"!
Hokay, so the post itself explains an awful lot about Dive, but it's the comment-fest underneath that restores my faith in the essential, potty-mouthed silliness of our wonderful Blogville citizens.

Lastly, there's everbody's favourite, the Culty Church of Fornication, where I'm trapped on a train with terrifying evangelist nutjobs and a sweet little old lady madly pimping her pretty daughter at me.

Best comments from October, 2006:

Old Knudsen:
"I want to hang around with you so I can become cool by association." (my personal favourite)

Robyn:
"exactly what does "twat" mean"
"You British people and your fucking Queen's English"
"Where's that British dictionary? Now I have to look up "tossers.""
"Apologies to the Mexicans and Canadians and their stupid languages"
"middle Ohio--Walmart on a Tuesday night, I don't know, around 10:30 or so. If it isn't Amish day, it's inbred day."

Sassy:
"Life is too short to be sensible"
"Probe. Goes better with "anal.""
"So you squeeze his willy, and it comes out of HIS mouth? I don't understand. Hee hee hee hee."
"Oh, oh, and the BUTT PLUG???? Eeeeeewwww."

Peahen:
"Mmm sweet but strangely salty..."

So that was October … Mad pimp old ladies, sex with witches, voyeurism, butt plugs, linguistic pedantry and plenty of swearing.
Welcome to Blogville. Please Drive Carefully.