domdavis.com

I’ve been told on more than one occasion I should be a writer. Of course, if we discount family members telling me then that reduces the number somewhat. Remove those who told me when they were, a best, swayingly refreshed and the number becomes a more realistic 0.

While I appear to have the ability to amuse people with my ramblings I really don’t think that my unique brand of badly organized, one dimensional vitriol where most tangents have tangents would support a larger body of work. My severe overuse of brackets, braces, commas, hyphons, footnotes, asides, bold and italic text really go to show that my writings are merely barfed up and spewed forth onto the Internet with little or no planning. I’m pretty sure any editor would simply weep at my writing style and go seek solice in the bottom of a bottle lamenting the decline in the English language today (hell, compared to the yoof of today I’m bloody sheakspear).

Then there is the matter of subject. Does the wider world really want to read a highly edited, somewhat doctored version of something that has a passing resemblance to my life? Actually, there are some bits that might work as a novel although I’d have to alter it as no one would believe it could really happen if I just wrote it verbatim. I have no other ideas for plot.

I could go for the ‘100 things I’d change if I were in power’ type book but since I lack the fame of people like Clarkson I’m not sure I could get away with it. I’d probably end up upsetting 95% of the population and have to deal with no end of people who think I’m being serious while they point out the flaw in my plan. Shooting your detractors really does have something going for it.

Which leaves me kind of stuck at the moment, both for material for some never to be written book and ramblings for the blog. I’m sure as hell not putting up the major events in my life as it stands because I don’t want all and sundry to know; and all the minor crap I go on about seems, well, minor, banal and beyond trivial. Do you really want to know that, boo hoo, I can’t spank £12,000 on a hand made sword because I may need that money for living for 4 months (some pretty basic maths will give you an idea of the kind of money I’m used to getting.. and spending)? Perhaps if I were trying to live on that for a year I’d have a right to whinge. Or maybe I could bang on about my state of the art [two years ago] photo editing sweet lacking umph and needing another 3 grands worth of hardware to make it all slick and responsive. If only that were the greatest trauma in my life.

Of course, it’s not all bad, there is good stuff as well and, just like the bad stuff, not all of it gets shared. Besides, happy posts tend to be boring unless you’re extolling the virtues of eating 32 peices of Salmon sashimi in one sitting, paid for by someone else, something I can’t recommend enough.

So that is why we’re taking time out. To concentrate on sorting something out over the next few days and getting back to a frame of mind whereby I don’t care what drivel I force feed you.

The intermission will be short, possibly ending as early as Sunday and there will be no ice cream. There will, however, be cake*. Posting may well be sporadic for a while after that. But then I generally tend to be
On a side note tweeting will be resumed when the blog is. Facebook may well suffer a BIG cleanout of friends. Sorry, but if I can’t give a flying pigs hoot what your status update says then you’re being ditched. Thankfully none of my active readers fall into that category. My reading of blogs has also been reduced somewhat. The blogroll may well get pruned to reflect this. I found myself going through Google reader marking great tracts of posts and comments from some blogs as read because, to be honest, I really didn’t care. No offense to the authors, their lives just didn’t interest. In the end I deleted almost everything and am slowly readding stuff I miss.

So.. er.. yeah. Stuff.

*The cake is a lie. c.f. Portal

I’ve decided to take a small break from blogging. Thanks for reading and I’ll be back in a bit.

Dear Lloyds TSB,

I have an account with Dreamhost in the US. Every now and then they try to take money out of my account. Why? Because I use their services. They host all my domain names, blogs, websites and email. Of course, this all costs money. It’s a simple concept really and it replaced barter a long time ago. They provide me with a service and in exchange I give them money. Now, the cost of these services is a little variable. Dreamhost have a nice refferal program which means I get money for customers I refer to them and for customers they refer. It means that my anual hosting charges vary as money from the referrals can reduce it. They also charge me for new domain names, which is fair, so there are sometimes smaller fees between the yearly payment. They’ve been really quite up front about this. In fact I’m often surprised at how cheap it is due to the amount I’ve got from referrals. So this begs the question: why the fcuk do you keep putting a stop on my card when they try to take payment? It’s a real pain in the arse, especially since this is the second time it’s happened when I’ve been trying to get a train ticket. I don’t have time to fart arse about unblocking my cards so I can use them. Thank god I have credit cards. Seriously, sort it out. Oh, and if can’t withdraw money when I get to Norwich station I will be phoning you to shout at you.

Lots of love,

Dom

Dear NXEA,

Seriously guys, this is getting beyond a joke. OK, so I don’t have to rush for a connection this time but it seems that every single time I try to get one of your trains to the zoo you suddenly slap 30+ minutes of delay on them. I’m not asking for much, I’d just like to know that when I get on one of your trains that I’m going to get to my destination at roughly the same time you tell me I will. I have, afterall, given you thousands of pounds over the past few years. It’s the least you could do in return. So what about it? You don’t need to stop delaying trains, just stop doing it to the ones I’m on. Deal

Lots of love,

Dom

OK, so SoTW has been suffereing for the past couple of weeks for various reasons so, to make up for it, I’m giving you an entire album this time. Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch and, since I’m doing this on my phone, there will be no linkies. You want to find out more about it, listen to it or purchase it then I suggest you use Google, Wikipedia and iTunes. Afterall, that’s all I do :-). Instructions for using these tools along with vast dollops of sarcasm are available on request.

Anyway, AoTM is: Ferry Corstens L.E.F., or Loud, Electronic and Ferocious. We’ve already had one SoTW from it with Galaxia but there are a few other tracks on there that I think are apt for moment. I’ll leave it as an excersise to the reader to work out which ones and why and, no, I won’t tell you

My brother had two silver napkin rings engraved with his initials and the initials of his wife. She then went and left him and he was left having to get the napkin rings redone. With this cautionary tale in mind, and with my track record with women, I decided to go a safer route. I have a napkin ring with a D on it that I use when I’m by myself. I now also have 6 more for any combination of guestage and dating. There are 3 ‘Thiers’ for guests, and I have a matching ‘Mine’. Then I have a ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ for more intimate dinners for two which could also be combined with two ‘Theirs’ if I was dating and had guests. Finally, if a couple comes to visit while I’m single they can have the ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ and I can have the ‘Mine’. Since I can’t cater for more than 4 there are no situations that I can’t now have approriate napkin rings for.

Yes, I know. I need to get out more.

I have a real fear of brown envelopes. Me and the Inland [fatherless] [fornicating] Revenue, or HMRC as they liked to be called now do not get on well. We’ve had many arguments and, to date, I’ve won them all, but not without a fair amount of stress being involved (and a fair amount being spent on accountants). Unfortunately all government departments, both central and local, like to use brown envelopes which can cause me stress as I get my post. Colchester Council have the forethought to put the city logo thingy on their envelopes so I know it’s from them, but some of the other departments still look too much like the IBFR for my liking. I therefore propose that all government agencies apart from the IBFR adopt the usage of that crappy, off white, flecked with brown type envelope that comes from finest, unbleached recylced paper. It’s green and it saves me stress when I get my post.

Companies and agencies outside of the government who use brown envelopes can really go [fornicate with] themselves. There’s just no need and if it’s addressed to ‘The Home Owner’ or ‘The Occupier’ then I reserve the right to slaughter all the firstborns of your employees during the night.

Excellent. Glad we got that sorted

It would appear I’ve filled out the wrong form for a government department. I now have a letter asking me to clarify some information and, if the information is correct, justify why I filled in the form I did. I’m not sure my answer of ‘that was the only thing that looked even vaguely relevant’ will wash. Don’t you just hate how they make you feel about 12 again?

Amazon never cease to amaze me with the stuff you can buy from them.

…I’d vote for him