F*ck It, I Lied, It's Another Listy Blog. What You Gonna Do?

I started writing this blog when I got back in Doncaster, but got sidetracked by a lot of bank meetings, so now I have some free time, I thought it'd finish it off. So here is a lovely list of current life annoyances. I also need to get used to writing stuff again, as it's going to be an important part of my life in the upcoming years. Anyway, back to topic, annoyances, mainly trivial, but hopefully enough to spin a mildly entertaining bloggy-blog from:

My Beard

I accidentally left my electric shaver at 'home' (in this case being my student accommodation), and was too terrified of giving myself a Mach-3 Fusion razor shaped gash in my windpipe to use a manual one. This meant that my gingery stubble had chance to harvest itself across my normally clean-shaven self. If I’ve learnt anything from life, it’s that only masculine, loud Scottish people can pull off a ginger beard. Not 5ft 5” students with voices that have only just discovered what the post-13 side of puberty should sound like. It's like a red squirrel accidentally glued itself to my chin and then died. Walking round town t'other day with my Mum looked like someone had just taken in a homeless kid, especially because I only had crap clothes on, due to the rest being washed after wearing them at university.

A bloody handsome looking homeless kid though.

Being Kicked Out of My Bedroom

As I have moved into ‘Che Dean’ in Huddersfield, there is an empty space where I used to reside in the house. Unfortunately, this space is quite desirable to my brother, so the cheeky ‘cker has only gone and taxed it. So when I went home, I was forced to use his room. It’s much smaller than I'm used to. The bed is stupidly narrow and feels like a slightly cushioned straightjacket. I'm not so much taken to the land of nod, as pinned to the front of a train going there. It’s so narrow, even the bedbugs have gone “Look, sorry mate, there just isn’t enough room". I have no idea how my brother found comfort in these conditions, and he’s ruddy taller than i am! My stuff has all been moved around as well, so my ‘crap drawer’ (we’ve all got one, where random items just end up) has been turned into a ‘crap box’ and moved somewhere else. these ‘life artifacts’ feel less personal now they’ve been tampered with. speaking of artifacts, if anyone has lost a holy grail, give me a ring, I found it in the box.

Not Liking Cheap-Ass Food and Barely Being Able to Cook That Food

Being a student and all that now, the budget is pretty damn tight, and being brought up on stuff that doesn’t cost bugger all has not prepared my properly for the quality of stuff I’m going to be able to afford. It’s supermarket own-brand stuff for me from now on! Sorry stomach, but you’re going to suffer for the next 3 years. just ask liver how good student life has been so far. My cooking skills aren’t as bad as previously thought though, I’ve only been food poisoned once in about 2 weeks, Isn’t that brilliant!? Personal highlight of my cooking career has to be making a Sunday Dinner with microwave beef in gravy, Smash and Aunt Bessie's Yorkshire Puddings. In about 10 mins. I had to get myself into a state of Zen for 2 minutes as I worked out how everything would go, then eventually I multitasked that dinners ass!

Early Mornings

This one is surely self-explanatory. Lately it's been more likely that I'd wake up at 7:30pm, not 7:30am. I'd totally forgotten that 12 hour clocks had an 'am' setting. Rolling out of bed has become my method of waking up, because if I don't, I'll stay in that cushiony cocoon of comfort all day long. From 7-7:30am, my room is a symphony of alarms, four of them, each designed one adding another delightfully monophonic "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" to my morning, I wake up longing for a Nokia 3300. The bus journey today didn't help matters, in that we took the scenic route to the Uni, which involves what can only be described as a mountain-top road, that the bus leaned perilously close to the edge of. Hell, it made Alton Towers look like a...bus journey.

Nothing Else

As life is all kinds of awesome at the moment. My favourite moment of the week has been deciphering just what the hell rainbows are. Party Rings. That's right, you can't see the other side of a rainbow, and rainbows aren't see-through, because at the other side, it's biscuit. You may be thinking "But a party ring is a ring! A rainbow is a half-ring!" That's because the other half is in Australia, at the other side of the world. Logically, that is the only reasonable explanation.

Ahh She Wants Money, Money, Money, Money!

A student moves into their new accommodation, excited about the prospects University will offer them over the next 3+ years, and the opportunities it will lead them to in their chosen careers. They meet new friends, and have a generally amazing first few weeks, leading up to their first lecture. They enjoy this lecture, and cannot wait to see what else they will be doing over the next year, and they go back to their accommodation. On the way, they remember they needed some money to pay for going out tonight, so they check the cash machine:

"Your balance is £1.37" is displayed on the screen. "No worries, my student finances comes through in a few days, and payday is tomorrow" thinks the student. A few days go by, and still the student has nothing in their account. So they ring up Student Finance, hoping to sort things out before they have to pay for their accommodation that they won't be able to afford. After being on hold for a full term (enduring the tortuous audio assault that is 'hold music'), the student has missed 40 lectures, 2 accommodation payments, and has not been able to eat or drink due to no money, thus making them resemble a Dawn of the Dead extra. Student Finance finally picks up, to tell the student that they are trying their level best to get money to the students. The student is forced to resort to prostitution, just to be able to afford food. Which is 'Sainsbury's Basics' shit anyway, and provides the same level of nutrition as the amount of money they have. Which is none. One night, while 'on the corner', the student is caught by police and arrested for 2 years. The police report to the media how common this has become amongst students. The student is given one phone call, which they use to phone student finance in a desperate last-ditch bid to get their deserved money. Again, as with thousands before them, they fail in their attempts. The two years prison were far too much for the student, and after being beaten for the 200th time by 'proper prisoners, there for murder and shit' for "being a posh educated c*nt" the student collapses, their will to live shattered. In their last dying breaths, they spit out "Fuck you Student Finance" before becoming another tragic waste of potential.

Cheer Up Sleeeeepy Dean!

As I write this, it’s currently 4:28am, which means that I’m either having another MacBook-bumming session, or that I can’t sleep. It’s actually both. I do occasionally suffer from insomnia, and end up in some awakened nightmare where it really is just impossible to sleep. When I want to smack my head against the wall until I pass out, and hope that qualifies as actual sleep. Enough of the negatives though, this blog is all about the positives of insomnia. So to quote 90’s favourite ‘Keenan and Kel’; “Awww, here it goes!”

Your Normal Day, But Longer

You can sleep when you’re dead right?

It’s one of the main positives of staying up all the time, you see more of life than you would do if you had to sleep. I mean, let’s face it, think of all the extra things you can see and do without sleep! You can...visit 24 hour supermarkets! Yeah, bet that never crossed your mind. Coursework deadline tomorrow? There’s no such thing as a deadline when you have 8/9 hours headstart on everyone who decided “Oh, I’m feeling a little tired, I think I’ll have an ikkle rest...” so you can walk into school next day with a much better excuse for why you haven’t done your coursework than everyone else!

Never Get Old

How can you age when days don’t apply to you?

With insomnia, there’s no such thing as tomorrow, as all the days melt into one glorious day. Every day is Montuewednesthurfrisatsunday! The greatest day of the year. Hell, the ONLY day of the year! Just think, it’s no sleeps until Christmas, and it’s only January! Go mental and have all your birthdays at once, just think of how massive the lump sum you get will be. You’ll at least be able to afford, oh I don’t know, the entire planet.

The bad point of this is, you’re 100 already, but look on the bright side, you look at least 80 years younger. When people ask you your secret, you just wink at them and laugh.

Enjoy that wink too, it’s the most sleep you’ll have all year.

Watch EVERYTHING

Picture this, you’re at work or school and someone comes up to you and says:

“Did you see (insert TV programme here) last night? It was brilliant!” and you can only respond with “Nah, I never saw it”

Makes you seem pretty outcast right?

Not with insomnia! Go out and buy the boxset, or watch it on the Internet, and the next day, hey presto! you’ve seen the whole damn series and can blackmail friends to do stuff in return for not ruining the story. You’re now the most popular person ever, that wasn’t so hard was it?

Think Of The Laydeez

Okay, so this is more of a gender specific one (unless you’re batting for Team Lesbian) but remember how lonely you used to get at night because nobody else shares your enthusiasm for staying awake? Problem solved, chat lines:

“Hot women in your local area are just waiting to talk to you”

Why keep them waiting, when they could be with you!

By the time the sun comes up, you’ll have already sorted out 6 women, that’s like one and a half on each limb! Hugh Hefner? more like ‘Who? Hefner’. You’re a God amongst women. Don’t forget, £1.50 an hour is nothing to you after that birthday you just had. Women may be thinking “But what if I’m straight? Who do I get to be with?” Well you get me ladies. You get me.

Notice how all life’s problems have melted away just from not sleeping. You’re now the most popular, knowledgeable, attractive man/woman who owns the planet. You’re welcome, glad I could help you discover the full potential of insomnia. Let’s all go Tesco 24hr together and get some beers in. Drink all you like, we’re not getting hangovers...

Let's Get Pub Quizzical, Quizzical!

The pub quiz. It's a bit of fun really. You and some friends group together. You allocate 'specialist areas' to each other ("Well I'm good at sports, we've got them covered" "Yeah, and I'm good at the ongoing plight of the African Seabear, it's a guaranteed extra mark!") like you're the fucking Justice League of quiz teams. You make up a funny name so you can laugh when it gets read out (E. Norma Stitz and Hugh Jardon).All in the noble aim to win a gallon of beer. It's fun right?

Wrong.

The pub quiz is testing you on general knowledge and all other stuff you've picked up through your life. So essentially fail at the quiz, and you fail at life. Not only have you failed at life, but you've failed at life against people who have already failed at life by virtue of them usually being regulars there. It's not just "a bit of fun" now is it?

IS IT!?!?

Our team has lost so many times, it doesn't bother us anymore. We just assume that everyone there has nothing better to do with their time away from the dole queue than absorb information from every encyclopedia the world has to offer. Then again, why choose encyclopedias when there's Wikipedia? It's actually a true test of how fast your mobile internet really is, searching for and finding the right answer within about 10 seconds (If you were looking for porn, you'd have found it 9 seconds ago). Hell, if your internet can't do that, I'd go complain. It should be every humans basic right to cheat at the quiz!

There's also the 'If All Else Fails' answer. You know the one, where you're asked a question that you don't know, your mates don't know, the internet doesn't know, but you've gotta put something. Ours is 'King Solomon'. To us, King Solomon has simultaneously been the ruler of every relevant empire, the name of a bridge somewhere we didn't know, the left back for Leeds in the 1970's, a medical condition that affects the liver and the anagram of 'Serbian afar ace'. You never know, he may have been the answer. He wasn't. But he could have been, and that's all that matters.

It's okay losing by a huge margin (we can tell how likely this is by the amount of 'King Solomons' on the answer sheet), you don't care, because you knew you didn't have a chance, it's when you're close when it hurts. "Argh, we were one off!" and that's when you start having a go at each other for giving the few wrong answers "THE ONGOING PLIGHT OF THE AFRICAN SEABEAR WAS YOUR SPECIALIST AREA!" until you get some ruddy perspective on things and realise you've just failed at life. It's a vicious circle. We have actually reached the dizzy heights of the tiebreaker before, "How tall can a Great Redwood tree grow to?" but failed on trying to get the closest answer (370 foot they can grow to if you're curious). As if we knew trees could grow that tall. So you all trudge off back to the table ("next week eh lads?") and bitch about the winners for a bit. Then to compound the quiz misery (quizzery?) it's karaoke time!

Fucks sake.

Take Me Down to the Universe-City, Where the Grass is Green and the Girls Are Pretty.

Hello, it's been a while.

In the whirlwind of a month that will go down in the history books as 'August'. I've been on a two week holiday (the weeks were like a threesome with Katy Perry and Jo Brand, one good, one bad), watched films, panicked about Results Day (Judgement Day, but worse), got drunk, panicked some more, got into university on Results Day and then got the fine example of technical excellence which is the very Macbook I type this out on now as a reward for my effing intelligent self.

My dad told me an amusing story once that seems semi-relevant here:

"Me and my mate Rob were going round town, when we were your age, and we saw these two good-looking lasses. So we went up to them and said 'Alright, you're very attractive' and all that stuff. And they smiled and said 'The feeling is mutual'. Well me and Rob just stared at them thinking 'Have they just took the piss out of us?' and we walked off. We got home, checked the dictionary to see what 'mutual' meant, and just went 'Fucks sake...'"

Thank Darwin it's nurture, not nature that matters, otherwise I'd never have gone on to study English at University. Well looking forward to it, give people outside of Doncaster the chance to meet the phenomenon that is Dean John Morris. I'll stop being big-headed now. Not really looking forward to living off a budget though, we've worked out that my ass is going to be surviving on just £55 a week. Some weeks are probably going to involve doing favours I won't be proud of, just to scrape enough money to buy a Cuppa Soup because it qualifies as both food AND drink. And that's if I haven't had to sell my cups!

Packing the stuff makes me feel painfully aware of the normal life skills that I'm finally going to have to learn, mainly to do with cleaning. I have managed to navigate through 18 years of my life without ever having to use a washing machine or iron my clothes. People will see me in the launderette approaching the machines like some foreign space object; "What? You're saying the cycle creates a hurricane that washes my clothes? Surely you're lying!". I can cook, which is good. Well, I say cook, I can read instructions on the food boxes, it's the same thing really. To be honest, I'm hoping my roommates are like the ones from that Carlsberg advert ages ago (y'know the one with the 3 hot women who cooked, cleaned and watched football?), surely that isn't too much to ask?

It is strangely close, I move into my room next Saturday, then have two full weeks of, socialising, learning the geography of Huddersfield (i.e: nearest cash point, KFC, Home Bargains, Burton, best nightclub) and getting pissed out of my face. Then my university education begins! Also hoping to try and get into the Student Radio there, after the success of mine and @lukegibbs seminal podcast 'The Top 5 MB Moments'. So I can phone your granddad and tell him I had sex with his granddaughter, that seems like something the public would go for......