These things were: 1) some earholephones and 2) a Blu-ray Disc.
I think my style of writing, with short sentences, repetition and rhetorical whimsy has become annoying, so I'm going to try to write in a less unpleasant fashion. This will involve long, convoluted sentences, dubious punctuation usage, and an over reliance on formal language to clumsily imply that I'm sophisticated. I also rely too heavily on brackets, so I'll try to limit their use as much as possible.
Finally, I will do my best to avoid wacky lists of odd things. I stumbled in this aim almost immediately by mentioning toffee apples. But at least both baguettes and toffee apples are foodstuffs. In the past, I would have chosen something utterly incongruous like a famous ship. I'd have looked on Wikipedia to find an obscure one and then dropped it into my blog to make it seem like I have a depth of knowledge, when in fact it is merely width.
Let me return to the items on my shopping list.
1) Earholephones
My existing earholephones, which have served me admirably for some months, have broken. Half of the left earholephone came off and I lost it - not the rubber earhole cushion, but half of the phone itself. It was frustrating, as it meant I could only listen to music in my right ear. In the case of certain songs recorded in stereo, this meant getting an incomplete listening experience. For example, Scott Walker's 30 Century Man has the vocals in the left ear and the guitar in the right. I felt as though I was listening to a karaoke version, and felt compelled to sing loudly in the office until asked to stop and, later, to die.
So I had to buy some new ones, and fully intended to do so.
2) A Blu-ray Disc
Yes, that is the correct capitalisation. It is a bit unwieldy, what with the lower-case 'r' and the upper-case 'D'. I think HD-DVD should have won the format war, through clarity of capitals alone.
I ordered a Blu-ray player over the weekend, and it arrived on Monday. Unfortunately, the HDMI cable needed to connect it to the television did not arrive until today.
At this stage, if I was using my old techniques, I would use parentheses to discuss how dull this topic is, and with good reason. Blu-ray players are only very mildly interesting; the cables needed to connect them barely even qualify as things that exist.
But I'll move on quickly. We needed a Blu-ray Disc for our Blu-ray player, and though some have been ordered online, I wanted one today. So I went into Oxford to look for items 1) and 2).
The purchase of 1) was fine, although my chosen earholephones turned out to not be as good as my previous set.
However the purchase of 2) was difficult. I was looking for a Blu-ray of something good, that both Lucy and I would enjoy, that was visually arresting enough to display the player's capabilities and that wasn't too expensive.
There was nothing that fit the bill. And in typical Paul fashion, I stood in HMV, vainly searching the Blu-ray shelves, getting progressively more stressed, more hot, more sweaty, and more desperate. Sometimes in shops, I can be literally paralysed with indecision. I can't move, I can't choose anything, even though the stakes are incredibly small. Even if I made the worst decision possible, it still wouldn't be that bad.
Unless I decided to kill someone in the shop. But I wouldn't do that - it didn't even cross my mind.
I'm an idiot, not fit for the world.
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I suppose what I tried to do there was build up to the climax of my story with a humourless description of my thought processes. The problem came when I reached the climax of the anecdote and it consisted of me standing in a shop, unsure of what to buy.
That's not much of a climax. You couldn't end Die Hard that way. People would feel short-changed, and word of mouth would be compromised.
Upon realising the paucity of my content, I chickened out of the whole enterprise and just rushed through it, making me both boring and impatient. This has been a failed experiment.
If you're interested, I bought the latest Bill Bailey stand-up show on Blu-ray in the end. It is something we will both enjoy, but not particularly good for demonstrating visual power.
That's the end. Roll the credits.
I'm going to revert to my old writing style. Annoying is better than boring.
You deserve a reward for sitting through all that. Here are some hilarious jokes I wrote on Twitter:
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I think my pen name would be ADMIRAL BIRO.
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GONE WITH THE WIND 2: SLIPPERY WHEN RHETT
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I hope, every now and then, Prince Philip shouts "Liz! I tret you loik a Queeeen!" and they both collapse in hysterics.
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The difference between négligée and illegible is negligible.
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Ironically, owning the sitcom Home Improvement on DVD makes your house an awful, awful place to live.
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Never trust anyone wearing a goat's head. Unless they're a goat.
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There's an indefinable dignity about The Human Suitcase. It's just something about the way he carries himself...
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Rumours of cheating at the World Backwards Ejaculation Championships have been corroborated after one of the competitors came forward.
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I'm auditioning for the part of "Man Who Invents Fictional Auditions". Hope I get it.
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Q: What's the most unexpected thing on the periodic table? A: The element of surprise.
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The Five Stages of Grease:
Denial: "I'm not greasy!"
Anger: "Why am I SO GREASY?!"
Bargaining: "How much do you want for the grease?"
Depression: "This greasiness has made life difficult"
Acceptance: "Oh well, at least I'm lubricated"
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Later, I'm giving a lecture on how to steal crotchets, quavers and even the occasional minim. I'll be expecting you to take notes.
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The thing I'm most looking forward to about the Royal Wedding is that I might be dead by then.
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Just got an email from Sisyphus teasing me about how pointless my job is.
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And that's all just from the past week! I'm so prolific, it's a wonder that I'm so hated.
As you know, I like to finish on a picture. I think this one will surprise you.
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