Short and to the Pointless

For those of you that may have recently become accustomed to my recent spate of rants ending in a 'witty' punch line, or an entire blog about something so trivial it really could have been summarised in a single sentence but I've somehow managed to digress and digress beyond all recognition, you may wish to stop reading at this point, as there will be none of that today, so you may as well save yourself the effort and hit the "next blog" link instead as, if you're really lucky, you might find what you're looking for there, and good luck to you.

Still here? Joy. Well, the astute amongst you may have noticed my blatant overuse of the word "you" at this point, I've written it literally several times at this point already, to the point where the word itself is beginning to loose all meaning and I'm even starting to question the spelling. I'm sure it's right though. Anyway, the point is, there will be no point, or purpose, or punch line to this blog, as the subject today, in essence, is you, my "readers". You see, the thing is, up until a few days ago, I had no idea that "you" (that's the last time I put you in inverted commas, I promise) existed - I knew you existed, as in society, the general public, obviously, I mean people that actually read my inane ramblings poorly entitled "blogs" - I thought the only people that read this guff were me, Tom when he's bored, a few other people that have followed a link on their skives lunch break, and my mum. And that was absolutely fine by me, as the truth is, I don’t write these for you, I write these for me, as a means to keep my mind occupied or just to kill the time whilst I'm rotting here at my desk. A few days ago however, I happened to click on the little tab on Dashboard (bit dramatic isn't it, "Dashboard"?) called "Stats". I'd seen this before but never really paid much attention to it, it's stats for Gods sake, it really can’t be that interesting, afterall, 62% of all statistics are made up on the spot! (Haa haa, I made a geeky statistics joke, I'm so funny). For some unknown reason that I can only associate with severe work related boredom, I clicked on this Stats tab and was alarmed to find that in actual fact, quite a lot of you people out their have been reading this stuff, and it's all a bit unnerving really. "So people are reading your blogs, that's a good thing, right?" Well, it's a bit like singing, I mean, just about everyone does it in private without even thinking about it, when they're sure they can't be heard, like in the shower or stuck in traffic for example. That's absolutely fine, nobody can hear you, and most people will stop immediately when they realise someone can hear them, out of embarrassment usually. The only people this doesn't apply to (apart from actual singers) is those wankers sat a few seats back on the bus that insist in sharing their 'talent' with us all, whether we want to hear them, or more often, not. These people drive me to some pretty disturbing thoughts of gratuitous violence, aspirations of gratuitous violence, or a firm "tut" and slight shake of the head. Anyway, I digress, once again.

The point I think I'm trying to make in a round about fashion, is that in this instance, ignorance really is bliss. Before I was aware of you, I could  quite happily spew shite until the cows came home (not literally of course, although that would be a pretty awesome and equally disgusting party trick but would require that I own cows, which I do not), as I'm sure a few of you will agree, and occasionally write about the running I haven't done and the cycling I've thought about doing, but now that I know you're there, I find myself a little lost for words, which is unusual for me. The problem is two fold you see. Firstly there's a touch of shyness or the pressure to deliver something actually worth reading. The second problem is your own assumption - I've had a few comments recently from people which almost make me feel guilty for leading them to believe an untruth or two; comments such as (and please excuse the slashes as I try to incorporate these into just two sentences) "So do you / did you do English Literature / Media Studies / Creative Writing (or some other pisspot £15k degree to be wasted in a career of administration) at Uni / Collage or anything then" and "Your writing style is very similar to [insert author / columnist here], do you read a lot of his / her stuff?". I've deleted these comments where made on my blog as it's a bit embarrassing having to answer to complete strangers really, no offence, but I'll respond here instead: I achieved a C in GCSE English and certainly have not furthered my education in that respect, I'm pretty sure I use the term "being" in the wrong context frequently, and I haven't read a single book in my adult life, and further to that the only internet reading I do is a couple of friends blogs, the BBC News website, and Facebook. That's a slight lie, I read Slash's autobiography a couple of years ago, and I'm not even a massive Guns 'n' Roses fan, ironically. Well I have that at least - I know the difference between irony and coincidence, so if all else fails, I may try to educate my American readers as to the blatant differences. I think I'm actually going to put this statement into my Profile (no not the American irony confusion thing, the lack of reading history / education thing), since it is distinctly lacking in content, and at least that way, I can't be blamed for leading people to the wrong impression, or hopefully people will stop thinking "oh he's trying to be like so-and-so" (Yes, "so-and-so", because as we've established, I don’t know who to reference). My friend Tom, whom I have a definite and mutual lack of bro-mance in our friendship with, did however say, and I'll copy this straight from his email to prove I'm not making this up or so he can't retract it, "you're quite a funny guy" [see, in your own handwriting and everything]. This was definitely a compliment, so I guess I have that too, if the purpose of writing a blog is to seek peer approval or demonstrate how hilarious I am. Which it's not, and I'm not, but still, it's nice to be nice.

I guess if absolutely nothing else,I demonstrate the fact that anyone with the ability to bash a keyboard, a short attention span, a spell checker and a boss who leaves early to pick the kids up from school can write a blog about just about anything, and people, if for no other reason than terminal boredom, will read it. That's as close to a point as I can get, but as promised, no punch line.

Oh, by the way, I have found a solution to my annoying "toilet friend" which seems to have been working quite nicely for the last couple of days;

Seems to do the trick, the door hasn't been tried once thus far. Result.