I hate watching someone struggle with a printer.
It's harder for me than it is for them. At least they're doing something. The thing they're doing is futile, but at least it is a thing. I am forced to sit and watch. If I could help, I would. But no-one can help. Not even Field Marshal Printer (inventor of the printer) can help.
Something is caught in the gears. The gears are inaccessible. The something is paper. Paper can break apart and stuff itself in small areas.
But if it's your printing, it's your problem. You have to press buttons, and open trays, and fiddle around in an inky undercarriage. You know that you can't solve the problem. But it's your printing. You are paying the price for not copying something down by hand. You could have transcribed it with a pen, but you were too lazy. Now you are being punished.
It's horrific. I don't want to watch, but I can't look away.
***
That's not a good start to a blog post. And it wasn't even the first one I thought of.
The first blog opening was something about a song called Don't Get Me Wrong (for Christmas).
You see? "Don't get me wrong" is a phrase, and you also "get" things for Christmas. You see?
That's why I went with the printer thing. But that yielded nothing.
My third idea for a blog opening was to start with the second idea, then write about it from the perspective of a disappointed blogger (incorporating the first idea), followed by a meta-comment on the third idea.
My fourth idea was to come up with a hilarious, surreal fourth idea.
That didn't work either.
Now I have to write something genuine. About my feelings or something.
That's a real drag.
When you get tired of "concepts" and "angles", you get stuck with honesty. Honesty is like a packet of crackers: impossible to swallow without water.
My main problem is that I lack 'the three cons': confidence, concentration and oh, this is a good song:
You might not have liked it, of course. I'll tell you what. I've just got some coffee. When it's cold enough to drink it, I'll drink it. Then I'll come back and we'll see what is what and what isn't.
Deal?
***
OK. I am drinking coffee, but it is now a day later. I wrote all of the above yesterday. I can't even remember what I said.
I'd better re-read it, or I might come across as ill-informed.
Oh dear. There's not much of merit up there. Also, I mistook the word 'write' for the word 'right', though I have since corrected it.
I watched the first episode of The Walking Dead last night, and found it quite boring. Zombies are boring.
I wouldn't like to dismiss a whole genre - I'm sure there are lots of interesting interpretations out there - but zombie films tend to be a bit repetitive. Also, having a mindless, relentless threat doesn't interest me. They might as well be fighting ageing. It's just a slow fight for a worthless survival, with bad make-up.
It might be because I don't find zombies scary. I think I need my killers to have some kind of free will. Or at least the power of speech.
How many times can you watch a groaning mannequin get shot in the head? Only a few dozen. I used to play Resident Evil, and at least with that you got to do the shooting yourself. The trouble with using a zombie apocalypse as your status quo is that there's not really anywhere to go from there. Hope is limited to a long, dangerous search for beans.
But The Walking Dead might well improve. You can't judge anything on its first episode.
I also watched the first episode of the new Black Mirror series. I thought it was the best one yet - it was a bit more emotional and less overtly shocking than the previous ones, which made it all the more unsettling. And the lighting was great. That's right: the lighting. I'm not normally someone who comments on lighting (unless someone is shining a torch on my cress experiment), but there was a weird, flat, naturalistic light that made it seem real and cold, and not like a TV programme.
Hey, this has turned into an actual blog post! I don't know what I was thinking yesterday. I should delete everything above the second set of asterisks, but (as you know) I like to give people some insight into my process.
***
I haven't been on Twitter much lately, because I've been joked to death. There have been a series of news stories that have been tailor-made for terrible and repetitive jokes.
(Before I go on, I should say that I also do terrible jokes. I'm not criticising them for that - I am one of them. I was just overwhelmed by the sheer volume. Also, some of them were probably good jokes. Yours was probably one of the good ones.)
This happens every now and then - an event will cause everyone to joke on the same subject. But lately, it has been relentless.
There was the whole horse meat thing. Then there was the Richard III thing. Somewhere in there were Chris Huhne's driving lies. And now the Pope has gone and resigned too.
Everyone is feverishly plundering their back catalogue of horse jokes, king jokes, speeding jokes and Pope jokes. That's a lot of jokes.
The only thing worse would have been if there was some fish or cheese-based story. People would have been able to tweet funny haddock/headache remarks and things about Edam.
It wasn't that the jokes were awful, it was just that EVERYONE seems to be doing them, and they all seem to think that their version is original. Twitter has fostered an environment where funny people don't just say funny remarks that occur to them, but sit at their computer actively trying to produce comedy. That's what I used to do anyway.
Then there are professional writers and comedians, who are doing the same thing.
And people still think their Pope joke has never been done before. THEY HAVE ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE.
This breeds a secondary twitter joke movement: the combination joke. Everyone has joked about Richard III and horse meat, so why don't we combine the two! Brilliant! What about adding Huhne to the mix! And the Pope!
If you mix enough derivative remarks in a blender, you might end up with an original cocktail!
Then emerged the tertiary approach (of which this blog might be an example), where people make jokes about the proliferation of jokes. They show themselves to be aware of the phenomenon by making a meta-remark.
It's thoroughly exhausting. I really hope there's some terrible tragedy today, so that people stop trying to be wry. (I don't really hope that)
Having spent all this time complaining, I should say that this is entirely my problem. It's not too much of a chore to avoid Twitter for a bit. People should tweet whatever they like, and I'm sure they're amusing lots of people. I don't want to end all Twitter jokes, I just can't cope with such a concentrated stream being blasted into my face.
The solution is to turn away. Turn away and then gripe about having to do so, even though the human neck is built to accommodate such a burden.
***
I'm like a professional writer. My confidence, concentration and [THIRD WORD BEGINNING WITH 'CON'] have gone through the roof!
All because it isn't yesterday anymore. Unless you're reading this tomorrow, in which case it is.
I should probably finish on a horse/Huhne/Richard III/Pope joke.
Hmm.
Exhume... ExHuhne... Ex... Benedict... something "at a Vaticanter"...?
It's not as easy as it looks, is it?
No comments:
Post a Comment