But where do all the calculators go?

As some light relief (which I need), here are some funny videos. Hohoho.

The Cat Came Back

When I were young, I remember a television programme on BBC One on a Sunday evening, hosted by Tony Robinson, showing cartoons; some well known, some popular, some more obscure. This was one that I have always remembered, and I was delighted to find it on the internet.

Harry Potter Puppet Pals

It gets in your head. About the only Harry Potter related product that I can stomach these days.

The Llama song

Old, not funny (trendy) any more, stupid. Fashion and popularity can lose themselves in a dark hole; I still like it. I am slightly odd though.

Flat

I haven't posted anything recently; there are two reasons for this I think. I haven't found that much worth writing about, or rather that I have wanted to write about. Also, I have been feeling fairly down recently. It isn't the deep and dark depression or the raging angry self-hatred. Everything seems flat and grey, nothing interests me and I can't feel any great emotion about anything. It rather stymies life.

So what has been happening to me recently?

• I managed to work two consecutive five day weeks without any sick leave; a definite achievement. The next week I had two of the four days off. Ugh.
• I have played lots of World of Warcraft (and achieved things in it, which is a positive).
• My wife and I built a window seat/bookshelf over the Easter weekend. I may post more about this when I have taken some pictures. This also showed some improvements in my attitudes and coping skills.
• My fitness is improving steadily as I carry on cycling to work.
• I am helping a friend design a board game (when I should be working, but never mind that).
  

My situation and events that surround me are generally good, I wish I could find a way to leave this horrible emptiness so I could take advantage of it.

Guilt

A small story for you. I have worn glasses since I was seven. In recent years I have also started using contact lenses for sports and other activities such as cycling. Over recent months I haven't been using as many lenses as I have received, and have built up several months of stock. For this reason, and because Vision Express have been useless at administering my account, I decided to cancel my contact lens account. I should note that I have been more than happy with the actual opticians at Vision Express, they have always appeared very skilful and good at their jobs; it is the general support staff who are useless.

A little while ago I married, and took my wife's surname. I managed to inform most people of this, but through laziness and general incompetence, I forgot about Vision Express.

So at the end of February I went into my local store and asked to cancel my account, remembering of course that it was in my old name. The next order was already being processed, so I was told that the last payment would be taken at the start of March and I would have one last batch of lenses. That was fine.

Checking my bank account at the start of April, I notice that Vision Express have taken another payment. I pay another visit to the shop and enquire about this. The gentleman checks my account and notices that whilst my cancellation request is on the system, it hasn't been actioned. He offers me a voucher for the value of the payment, I politely refuse and he offers me a refund to my debit card. All good.

At this point I realise that my debit card is in my married name. Hm. What do I do? I could sit and explain it all, which would probably be fine, but I am not carrying anything that could identify me under my old name. Or I could say nothing.

I say nothing. He takes my card, and completely fails to look at it. He briefly checks my signature, but I manage to make it an unreadable squiggle that looks fairly similar to the signature on the back of my card. I walk out of the shop.

What I have done, technically, is commit fraud. At the very least I was dishonest and deceitful. Ultimately, the outcome was the same as if I had been upfront, and to be honest, the member of staff concerned really should have checked properly. That doesn't make my actions either correct or justifiable.

So why is it that I feel no guilt at all about this, when I know I have done something wrong, yet I can feel deep guilt about trivial things that I intellectually recognise that I shouldn't? My mind is bizarre.

He really should have been paying more attention though.

Undecided

In my last post I raised the issue of my indecisiveness. Although I was quite flippant about it, it can be a serious problem. In fact, there are times when it has triggered me working myself into a state.

I haven't given this any detailed thought, but have tried to think of some reasons why I may be so indecisive.

I don't want to make the wrong decision. I could mean in either a practical sense of wrong, i.e. going left instead of right and ending up in the wrong place, or in a moral sense.

I don't want to miss out on something.

I don't want to force someone else to do something when they would rather be doing the alternative.

I don't want to do something when I would rather be doing the alternative.

As a corollary to that, I don't know which choice I would prefer.

I am genuinely torn between the options, either because they are equally attractive or I am unable to compare the benefits.

I don't want to make a commitment.

For some reason I don't wish to admit that my preference is my preference.

I over estimate the importance of the consequences of making a decision.

I am a perfectionist.

Monkey Urine

I find the generic churn 'em out American film comedians like Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller quite annoying, and usually not that funny. On Saturday evening the Lovely Lady Duck and I were both feeling fairly stressed by various things and decided to watch A Night at the Museum, a Ben Stiller film.

Sidetrack: I say we decided to watch that. Usually it works something like this:

Shall we watch a film?
Could do.
What shall we watch?
Don't know, what do you want to watch?
Don't know, any ideas.
Don't know.
...

We then each pull out a random selection of DVDs that we might vaguely quite like to watch possibly and take turns putting them back until we end up with one. In fact, on Saturday, we managed to reduce the options to four films before we had to resort to tossing coins.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, Ben Stiller. I actually mildly enjoyed the film; it was quite easy to watch and didn't require more braincells than are needed to say "ooo, look at the funny dinosaur", it was blessed with Dick Van Dyke and Robin Williams, and had a scene where Ben Stiller was urinated on by a monkey. It certainly wasn't Young Frankenstein or Dr. Strangelove, but it passed the time in a relaxed fashion.

The point of this? There was a rather large fly in the otherwise soothing ointment:

aethelreadtheunread: Ricky Gervais = arsehole