(For those of you on feed and don’t come to the site, don’t forget to stick your name down on the facebook group for the site at http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/the_wheel_is_turning_but_the_hamster_is_dead/ – You wont get anything apart from the satisfaction that you are signed up to yet another group and can increase your friend count by adding me as a friend if that’s the kinda thing you do.  Did I mention that it’s awesome and makes you popular with the opposite sex?  Failing that, come on over to Twitter and you can read the absolute drivel I put on there once every so often.  Imagine something unbelieveably exciting and then smash yourself over the head with a pan.  Yup, that’s pretty much what you will get!)  Anyway…the post.

Through my short (read 34 years) life, I have had at least two people say “You should read more books if you are bored!”.  I never quite understood that statement because to me, reading books is quite possibly the second most boring thing in the world beaten only by being forced to have a “stimulating” conversation with myself. 

But I figured I would give it a go.  So I have been reading “Eric the mischievous elephant”.  I was going to put a link to it so you could maybe get yourself a copy, but strangely I cant see it on any UK sites….which leads me to believe I have no idea where it came from.  I could ask my wife, but she has gone out without me leaving me as a man-child home alone.  Geez I wish I had friends and wasn’t so lonely.  There is only so much time you can spend with your stuffed toys before you start to realise you need more in life.

But anyway.  This book.  I thought I would do a book review on it because you know…why the hell not!  After all, I have spent a LOT of time reading it and taking in it’s poignant message.

Naturally, Eric is a blue elephant with red feet much like the elephants in Africa who are going through an identity crisis and think that they are actually a frozen polar bear who just went swimming in blue food colouring.    Other characters in the book are Harold Hippo (also blue), Fiona Flamingo (very red) and at least 3 others.  If you look deeply at the story, you will find it is about Eric wanting to bath in the water and the other animals are already in there.  It’s real hard hitting when you see Eric becoming very naughty and jumping in the water.

Look away now if you don’t want to know how it ends…….. a mouse comes along and scares Eric.  And get this…if you squeeze the mouse, it SQUEEKS!  Yeah, I know!  It’s something else.  And the beauty of this book is that you can read it in the bath and it can get wet.  It is also only 10 pages long so keeps you entertained long enough to read it all, but not so long that you get bored.  Oh, and there are LOTS of pictures and not many words.

So.  The first (and realistically last) book review I have ever written.  I am sure you are impressed with my reviewing skills, but if you aren’t, can I suggest that those of you who like those “book things” head over HERE to Alcott and Earhart and read a review on something that ISNT a kids book to read in the bath.  (I was going to just post their post here, but figured you should really go there and read it and then read some others and then send me money…but not in that order).

Well, I am off to research Eric and see where he came from.  You should probably read “He is off to make the most of the fact that he is home alone with the PC and Internet and his wife isn’t here”.  Of course, read in to that what you want.  Perv.

It’s just typical.  I sit in front of my PC bored one day and realised that there is some real self centered boring as hell updates going on in the facebook status world about hearing someone bought an ice cream or some such stuff that just makes no real difference in my life.   So I thought “Hey, I could write a post on that!  OK, so I will end up alienating some of my friends as they may read it, but hell…it’s free material!”.

And then I went to a site I read on a regular basis and what do you know.  FaceBook’s Popularity/Sympathy Contest

I read the post and realised it said everything I wanted to say, and was written in a way I would say it.  So.  Good job and thanks for stealing the idea from my brain even though I hadn’t even thought about it yet and making it a damn amusing read! 

I suggest all you sexy people go have a read, and even you weird ugly ones.  OK, so you are all sexy.  Fine.  Be like that.  But do read it as it made me laugh, which is a notoriously hard thing to do.  Get it?  Notorious.  Hahaha.  I make myself laugh sometimes!  Oh…right.

In any case, the next time one of your facebook friends leaves a status saying “SooperTrooper cant get an erection”, you can point them to THIS news story (although asking them why their name is SooperTrooper may be an idea first).  The article mentions how the gas from rotten eggs can help a man lose the need for a plinth.

No really…it does.  Of course, you have to question it a little because it also says that the same gas is found in car exhaust fumes…and the last time I looked, and when I say looked, I mean I have NEVER looked, you don’t see built up inner city areas full of guys walking around trying to hide the tent because of the amount of exhaust fumes in the air. 

This is also the same for sitting in traffic jams.  The last thing I get from sitting in a traffic jam for hours breathing in exhaust fumes is a cartoon woodpecker trying to escape from my pants.  Of course, we cant bypass the fact that some guy builds a forest one tree at a time because the smell of rotten eggs helps him plant his seed.  Each to their own and all that, but geez…don’t publicise it.

They also say:

The researchers tested this theory by injecting the gas into intact erectile tissue from eight men who had undergone sex changes surgery as well as carrying out tests on rats.

They injected gas in to his…you know, I would rather be known as Mr Floppy than have some guy injecting me in the happy department.  And did the rats go stiff, so they assumed it worked?  Because they just may have been dead.

Either way, I am sticking to hard boiled eggs for my breakfast and Viagra for my dessert.

While watching TV, there was a scene where a guy cheated on his other half and then bought her flowers. My wife annoyed at this started talking to the TV like a deranged mad woman and talking at the female character saying that you never trust a man who has bought you flowers.  She got quite animated.  And I mean animated in the getting annoyed way rather than her eyes popped out of her head, there was a noise like a horn and she span round in circles while a comedy drum beat sounded out.

Naturally, I heard a ker-ching noise in my wallet resembling me having more money to spend on myself, hookers and jammie dodgers.   OK maybe no hookers.

I explained to my wife that in the event that I buy her flowers, it is a bad thing as she suggests. And then moved on to the rest.

Chocolates as even worse.  This means that I not only cheated, but I did it while wearing the rear half of a pantomime donkey outfit.

But the absolute worse is if I ever remember our wedding anniversary and especially if I was to buy her a present.  In the event of this happening, should file for divorce immediately…and then put on the front half of that pantomime donkey suit for some goodbye “He’s behind you!” fun because it is likely that I had spent our life’s savings on attempting to sleep with a blow up doll of myself…and failed.

But then, thinking I was home free, it all took a turn for the worse.  I asked my wife just what I would be getting should she cheat on me.  I was told “oh, a bottle of whisky.”

And then I realised she buys me whisky.  A lot.  And it is ALWAYS when she has gone to the shops.  Yeah, spooky huh!

She then moved the conversation on a little.

“So.  You still have life insurance right?” she asked me, while holding a brochure for sandy beach type holidays. 

This has left me a little concerned.  What if I have to give up my half of the pantomime horse?  And what if I accidentally buy her flowers?  OK, so that’s highly unlikely because I am a man. 

When it comes to chocolates, I am safe as I only ever buy chocolates for me because I am kind and sensitive like that.  And I mean that.  I don’t want her worrying about her weight etc, so I wont buy her any. 

Well, that’s my excuse for being uber selfish, and I am going to stick with it.

So there you have it.  Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

The BBFC (the people over here in Blighty that get to ruin computer games for kids by making it an 18 certificate…and then the kid downloads it for free anyway) have a tough job.  Every year they have to classify around 600 cinematic releases and 12000 DVD’s amongst other stuff.

This list includes hardcore pornography.

And now they are complaining that they have to watch it alone.  Because you know, why watch it alone when you can get your mates around for a few beers and say “Well, it is blatantly obvious this is going to be an 18 certificate on the dodgy 70’s music soundtrack alone….but lets watch it all anyway!  Pass the cushion.” 

Actually, the news story quotes:

Staff at the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) are worried they could become aroused when rating pornographic films if a new money saving initiative makes them watch the films alone.

Could?  If they aren’t getting it going watching hardcore pornography for a living, just what DOES float their boat?  “Ohhh yes…I particularly like the angling channel.  Those sexy fishies!  Grrrooowwwllll”.  Although I guess the phrase “tickling the salmon” has new meaning.

I mean you probably get locked in a room with a couple of thousand DVDs to choose from and then what?  “Oh dear…that’s not a very good film, you only used half a box of Kleenex man-size whereas I used 3 boxes on the latest Angelina Jolie flick alone, and it was animated and her voice was used for a diseased bunny rabbit!  Lets make it a 15 certificate”.

OK, so naturally not EVERY DVD is going to get the pulse working for the right reason.  Say the film included cucumbers.

I hate cucumbers.

No really… I think that in the event that I am indeed wrong and there actually is a God, the devil introduced cucumbers to the people of the world with the one and only purpose to piss me off.

It’s an alleged erotic vegetable that makes me want to barf.

The smell and the taste both make me want to reach to the depths of my stomach and let the contents see the light of day again.

And don’t go giving me the line “It doesn’t even taste of anything!!”.  Because if it doesn’t, why do you people insist on ruining your sandwich with it?  And why is it if you were to order a sandwich from any restaurant that thinks it is important, it will 99% of the time come with the damn stuff.

It’s evil.  Plain evil.  I would rather swallow a power saw with an extra hammer action than eat cucumber because honestly…the end result would be a lot more pleasing to the eye and less painful on my stomach.

I have a very good friend who knows of my hatred for the thing, so being a true friend, he used to constantly try to prod my nose with his cucumber.

Hang on…I should probably rephrase that last paragraph.

Anyway.  Where was I going with this.  Oh yeah… I want to become a film censor.

Being the nice person that I am, I always try to not be overly confrontational when people say something completely stupid or annoying.  This has a couple of exceptions.

One is old people who wind me up by saying something completely unreasonable.  The other?  Well the other is something I cant admit to on here because you will think I am petty.  Or sexy.  Who knows.  I mean who am I to question where, how or with who you get your kicks in the same way that you don’t have the right to think it is petty that I get annoyed with people who think I am being unreasonable for thinking that all reality tv contestants should be given less electric shock therapy before being allowed on the TV.  Lets be honest…look at some of the complete numpties we get on TV, and then explain how they haven’t been fried to a crisp in the synapse department first.  OK fine.  Now you know what the second is.

But anyway.

During a trip to my local DIY/Homeware store with my daughter to buy manly hardware of the grrr…me man…me hammer hardware stuff variety (ok so it was a laundry basket), my 7 month old daughter who has recently found her voice started making noises of the louder than average nasally challenged mouse type. 

It wasn’t painfully loud, and she wasn’t crying, she was just making noise.  A bit like I do when I am doing the Sunday crosswords while sat on the toilet and am having trouble getting it out.  The word on the crossword I mean.  Yeah, it’s not quiet but as long as you don’t stick your ear to the door, it’s also not that offensive.

But enough about my crosswording toilet habits.  Lets talk about the old person.

Some old codger and his wife/90 year old totty girlfriend were off buying feather dusters to clean their sex swing when young Shawnee comes past with me making a noise that sounds like this:

 “Bleeeaaauuuuyyyeeerrrraaauuugghhheeeettt!”. 

And then repeated it.  And again.  Then added the odd spit covering raspberry to them.

The codgertastic old dude says to his said totty/wife something along the lines of  “Children should be seen and not heard”.

So should we gag all our kids?  Or all have mute children?  I dunno… but in the interest of not letting this get out of hand, I turned to my daughter and told her that I agreed with the old gentleman. 

Well, when I say “agreed”, I actually mean I said:

“Absolutely.  And the sooner they start enforcing that rule where old people get put in old peoples homes and play Russian roulette with the euthanasia machine the better.”  And then offered to get him a subscription to the Dignitas newsletter.

Oops.

He didn’t look happy.  Actually, he looked like he was about to try and give me a feather duster enema.  And honestly…I did feel a little guilty.  And then Shawnee went “Bleeeaaauuuuyyyeeerrrraaauuugghhheeeettt!” again, and I smiled and walked off and paid for my super awesome laundry basket.

Holy crap i’m interesting.  I really live the life.

Lets talk about the contents of a pair of my jeans. (I mean the materials used to make them!)

They haven’t got a zipper fly, they have those annoying buttons.

And they are making my life hell.  If I don’t get arrested at some point in the next week or so and end up with some indecency criminal record, I will be amazed.

My woes started a few weeks back in Toys R Us.  You know…that shop just for kids.  So naturally, it’s full of said kids.  Small kids.  Maybe about my waist height in size.  Or to put it another way, just high enough to see anything showing that shouldn’t be, and call to Dad and say “DAD!!  THAT MAN IS SHOWING HIS MOUSE OFF!” really loudly so everyone hears.

So half way round the not exactly small shop, and after passing multitudes of small people, I have an itch.  Naturally, being a bloke, you have the luck of not being a woman and can just reach down and have a quick scratch in public.  Except when you are in the presence of children, as it looks a touch dodgy.  So with stealth, I cured my itch.

At this point, I realised every single button was open apart from the top one.   I was pretty happy that I had not gone commando, but regardless, I had to spend at least 10 seconds trying to do up the buttons without looking like I should be arrested, put in prison and being beaten by the other inmates.

So how do you do it?  You are in a shop full of kids, there are CCTV cameras everywhere and you have to look like you aren’t playing with yourself.

Awesome.  Just freaking awesome.

But luckily, I managed it without being A) banned from shopping there again and B) being seen…and beaten with a GI Joe with karate chop action by a crazed father.

After that incident, I have been sure to check on a regular basis that all bases are covered as not to get caught again.

Until tonight when I let my guard down.

I took a wander from the office to the terminal for dinner (for the uninformed, I work at an airport.)  So I get in to the lift to go up for dinner and then I notice that once again, the cage was open and the mouse was trying to escape to Mexico.

It’s OK.  I am in a lift!  No one can see me apart from the hidden CCTV camera which is probably not interested in the contents of my trousers!  And I am going up 2 floors, so plenty of time to fix my issue.

Except that in my haste, I didn’t notice it stopped the first floor up.  That’s OK, there are 3 lifts, so no one will be standing outside of the doors waiting!

The doors open.  There stands a Mum, Dad…and 3 young kids.  And I am pretty much to the untrained eye yanking my plank with a panicked look on my face.

“Hello!  Sorry, just re-arranging my trousers!” I politely said to them. 

They took the next lift.

I mean really…it’s just 5 buttons.  Why wont 4 of them stay closed?  Is it that hard?  Well, no it isn’t, but that is an issue I have to sort out, and is irrelevant to this post.  But honestly…at some point soon I feel I am going to be caught out in the worst possible way!