The Tragedy of Gadgetry

I'm sitting here now, my whole body trembling in anticipation, the thought of getting my hand on something long, something sleek and magical (so that’s my penis ruled out then) finally getting alone with it and turning it on (so, if it wasn’t before, that’s definitely my penis ruled out) slotting something inside it and watching the magic unfold before my eyes (its not a vagina either, its not a sexual organ at all, well, it sort of is. Its the new Sony PS Vita, I want it, I want it, I want it.

I would have had it too if it wasn’t for the following facts. 1) I’m 37, almost 38 years old. 2) I have an 8 year old hammer handed child who I have not allowed to have a 3ds because its too much for his little eyes. 3) I need to be financially sensible with uncertain times approaching. 4) I have a girlfriend, and we live together, and although we are not financially bad off or dependant on each other, I just feel guilty spending what would amount to paying out £300 for what is essentially a gadget (A LIFE CHANGING, ALMOST SEXUAL GADGET, NEXT GENERATION GAMING ON THE MOVE, THE THING I DREMPT ABOUT AS A CHILD, AND ALMOST UP INTO MY 30'S..) plus I owe her money..

I've had two dreams about owning one, which is sad in itself and I've gone through the rigorous process of trying to justify buying it to myself. I have brought other gadgets in the past with the promise that some feature of them will help improve my life, a palm pilot, this was going to help me to be more organised, it didn’t, it just served to be a portable device to view porn on, right back to a Psion Organiser II, the two lines of text, and 64kb expansion pack was just enough ram to write a suicide note on, to explain to the world, that at about 18 years old, I was a complete and unabridged tool, the method of suicide, just beating myself around the head with it, It was heavier than a house brick.

I've made some very big mistakes with gadgets and technology over the years. I was one of the first people in the UK to own a Gameboy, I paid I think well over £200 for it to be imported over on pretty much on the same day it went out in Japan. I had people staring at me on the underground, most likely not amazed by the gadget, but at the face I was pulling, screwing my eyes up and looking like a pig in a gale, trying to understand the sea of blur on the screen to see what was Mario and what was a hole in the floor, Tetris was ok, so essentially I'd paid close to £300 to play Tetris on the tube, my open jawed amazement serving only to breathe in more carcinogens. What a tosser.

I also made the huge mistake of running around the shops after I got my first (very low paid job) like some fat Sultan of Brunei. I got rejected from every credit check in every shop I went in, this wasn’t helped by the fact that I was applying for credit to get "everything". The final shop I went in was the now defunct Rumbelows. To my trouser rubbing pleasure, I saw that my dodgy mate was working in there, I explained my credit plight and he did a few tweaks on the computer, changing "trainee structural engineer" to “Consultant Architect” and adding a couple of zeros on my salary. This all meant that I was able to be one of the first people to own a Dolby (pro logic) Surround TV, which cost me well over a grand and weighed more than Rick Waller after an all you can eat Chinese Buffet. I also now owned a VHS video recorder that could rewind a full tape in 15 seconds (snapping some of them) and allowed you to plug a microphone in and dub over films, I did this with most of the ones in the house, to sometimes humorous effect. I was often called a cunt when someone would try to watch one of them and hear my bad Schwarzenegger impression over it (regardless of the film..).

Worse was to come when I discovered Championship Manager on a 486 PC round the same dodgy mates house (who helped me in Rumbelows). A two day session without sleep, an almost murder over the attempted 3 way signing of text based Pele "Viktor Leonenko" and several spits on the computer screen like some strange fat angry managerial cobra. I decided, I had to have this game. Only problem was that I didn’t own a PC, or have any money.

My credit rating was improved with the epic Rumbelows agreement, PC World were more than happy to sell me a Compaq Presario Pentium 1, 166mhz PC with a full gig of hard drive and 64mb of Ram, which is probably the power needed to just start up one of today’s smart phones. I started to play Championship Manager at home and eventually lost two years of my life and got my first grey hair. The fact that I have got Tottenham Manager from 1995-1998 on my CV raises lots of questions at Job interviews, but the way I see it, I have lived the stresses of a Football Manager and I raised the European Cup with them, why can’t I reap the fruits. The interviews usually terminate early, if its not the football thing that does it, its the next entry, Baltimore detective. I went through the stresses of the Wire and thought fuck it.

I don’t know what became of my Gameboy, the TV ended up on a skip, as did the Compaq, as did my numerous other ill thought out gadget purchases. The day I traipsed around London for 8 hours going to all the old haunts trying to get my fat claw on something called a PC Engine GT, which was essentially a games console that was never released here. I ended up having to practically grovel to get a market stall owner to sell me theirs, I would have probably sucked his cock for it, I kept that card to my chest, thankfully he wasn’t that way inclined and instead just fired a couple of salvos up my back passed, I pressed a couple of hundred pounds into his hands and limped off with the machine in my bag, happy days (happy day, erm, happy about 4 hours or something until the novelty wore off).

Back to the Vita and the reason for this self confession of bleep gadget patheticary, I spoke to my girlfriend about it and explained "well, it’s like a PS3 but as a handheld, incredible bit of kit, and would save me money, I mean if I wanted to get my XBOX online, it would cost me £50 for a wi fi adapter and the same for an Xbox live account, whereas with the vita, I could sit in the front room and play online with no wires!!" I expect she just heard me repeating over and over "I’m a c**t, I’m a c**t, I'm a c**t, I’m a c**t,im a c**t, I’m a c**t" I then slipped into the conversation that if my mate blows me out for our trip to Poland, Latvia, Hungary next month I'm going to use the money to buy one, I told her I would need something to cushion the blow...

So, what next, I've talked over the finances in my head, I can afford one, I wanted the girlfriend to say "If you want one, and it makes you happy, just buy it" - Well, I actually wanted her to say "I love you, I want you to have one, I fully support you, I'll buy you a couple of games, something like this will better you as a person, I love you, I'll go and buy it for you, its your birthday next month, I love you, I won’t stop until you own one, you are my Viking love god". She has said nothing, she has no opinion either way, she knows not the murky twatty inner workings of my brain..

Next (and I mean in the next few minutes, I'll walk to HMV, I'll touch one, I'll see how it makes me feel, I won’t buy it today, I'll smell it, I'll see if it talks to me. (OH JUST BUY IT YOU HAIRY TURD!!) No, it’s not that simple any more. Leave me be while I go through my gadget ritual...

Update - I have been through phase 2 of the gadget courting ritual, I went to HMV where they are selling it with a free game (Fifa, the one I want) thankfully they didn’t have a display model, or I would have been rubbing up against it like fat Ipswich based lorry driver (haulage) picking up a hitch hiker. I managed to walk out, bit hot under the collar and called the girlfriend twice, she didn’t answer, She called me back at work so I thought I would test the water and told her I had brought one, I said I'd tried to call her to get her to talk me out of it and she didn’t answer, so in a long math’s way its kind of her fault.

I was merely testing the water, if she had said something like "Oh well, its your money, do what you like" I might have gone back and got one, or "You are my Viking love god" etc.. I told her I had brought one and bunked the afternoon one to play it in the park and that it was wicked. There wasn’t much of a reaction, but from the strange clicking sound on the phone, I could tell she was thinking I was a bit of an immature prick.

Phase 3, I will demo one, I will play fifa and imagine myself running through blossoming fields, me and my vita, hand in hand, stopping and sitting down to send an email, or a tweet, downloading something over the PlayStation Network before skipping home....

The reality of the above fantasy would be me on a 432 bus, cutting my J**s eye trying to fit my p**is into the mini memory card slot before getting violently mugged and my face nicked by a butterfly knife by angry hooded youth and having my yet to be purchased Vita ripped from my wanty trotters, watching the four or so fuckling bouncing off doing that silly "hip replacement walk" and my credit card details getting raped off the PlayStation Network.

I'd get up, summon strength like hulk Hogan and rush after them into the belly of their beastly council estate, the first one coming up with his trousers round his arse doing arthritic hand gestures and giving me an illiterate talking to about disrespecting him. I would surprise him (and me) by executing a perfect axe kick, getting my leg about my waist for the first time since I foolishly tried to self fellate sometime in the 1990's. My foot cracking down onto his collar bone, following this up with a straight right, knocking him out cold, his eyes rolling in his head like a slot machine. The second one would run at me with his butterfly knife out, an errant stab, I would grab his arm and throw him about 12ft in an arcing motion through the air, he would land on his neck and probably end up with the same nervous system as a boiled turnip, somewhere in one of the tawdry flats, his mother would feel a twinge in her womb, where her offspring had been turned into essentially something of the same cognitive ability as a spilt cup a soup. The others would run, but I would be enraged and chase them, catching them like a horny hungry lion, hunting to impress the females. The first one letting out a cry as I take him down, a single punch to the temple(s) knocking him out for the duration of a long all inclusive holiday, he would have duty free, but it would be the duty to not be conscious. The last one, I would let him go, to give his dopey mates a graphic description of the mixed martial arts extravaganza that just happened and to say that if they see a man who looks like an angry Poseidon, not to f**k with him. I would take my stolen vita back, hold it aloft and break it in half, a lightning bolt would come down as the Gods acknowledged my mortal strength and I would be serviced (down there) by Angels with dirty mouths**

** The reality is, I would literally piss my pants on the bus whimpering, "I've been stabbed" and "Is my face hanging off?" People would actually find me quite pathetic and probably walk away.

I'll update if I buy one and hope it fares better than the psp one that ended up gathering dust in a drawer.

Roar like a lion

I'm having another one of those reflective moments in my life, where I look back and reflect on why I am where I am right now, these reflections are probably the pre-cursor to a huge midlife crisis where I will most likely end up in Thailand being alternately mouth and arse fucked by a unusually well endowed pre-op transsexual, then coming home with every STD known to man, and probably even some that are unknown to man, and sadly only known to my pus weeping cock and balls. Getting out of the airport (after a body cavity search of cattle birthing proportions and looking for something other than a fender stratocaster to buy (as I already own one) probably a Kawasaki Ninja (the 90's one) then struggling to find a crash helmet to go over my fucking moon like head, and eventually riding off full revs into a petrol lorry at 190mph and turning my entire body into one hairy fleshy origami, ending up bleeping away in a hospital wired up like a bomb vest listening to my relatives (the ones that could be arsed to turn up) deciding with Bupa, which death tone I would like to have on my life support machine, I could have the “lose a life” jingle from Super Mario, which would make my passing easier to my son, the doof doof from Eastenders, or the shutting down Microsoft windows music.

I would then reflect (finally) on my life from the hospital, (I wouldn't be in a bed, from the extent of the injuries I had suffered on that motorcycle, I would probably be in a lasagne dish, or the dustpan from a dustpan and brush set), on all of the things I had reflected on previously, and possibly summarise that I spent far too much of life reflecting and not actually having lived, a reflection of reflections, what a waste, what a terrible insipid dribbling life to have absolutely ruined my mothers vagina and my dads sex life to spend a life pondering.

My mates (the 4 or so people I actually consider to be mates) would probably stand around, joking amongst each other, recounting some of my nights where I was mildly amusing, and made bold statements about the state of the world (well out of my depth I might add), and after some debate they would conclude that I was actually an acidic nasty bitter fuck hole, and clock watch until they heard the super mario death music, and fuck off to the local pub and oogle the barmaid. I expect even my staunchly tee-total brother would go along and raise a rare glass of stella artois so my twisted guts out painful ending, the entire treacherous group instantly forgetting about me, the fucking cunts, then from the after-world, if I was actually interesting enough to have made it there, I would wish death of them, slagging me off as I died in hospital, and even then having the neck to turn up to my budget funeral and go back to my mums house and eat her food which she would have lovingly prepared from Iceland for less than £20, wankers. I'm deleting all of them off my phone as soon as I have finished this latest reflection....

Sorry about that, I lost track, unusually wallowing in self pity, I'll reflect on that another time.

Thankfully, unlike those who look up to the stars and question their place in the world, I know exactly why I am right here, it isnt divine intervention, fate, it is much more simple than that. It is because in 1992, I roared like a lion, that very action back in 1992 set off a chain of events that would shape my life (which was cock shaped) and lead me to this point, a sliding doors moment that was over in almost an instant, but was pinnacle in me sitting here and writing this drivel.

I was at School studying 3 A-levels, Geography, Chemistry and Government and Politics, I soon realised I had made a massive blunder going back to the same school that I did my GCSE's in, chock full of the same cunts and a few months in I dropped out of one of the A-Levels, Government and Politics, which was essentially the requirement to read the paper every day and know who the chancellor of the exchequer was.

Soon after that I sat in the library and had the first of my “guiding voices” which were probably unbeknownst to me mild schizophrenia (this will become clear later..) the voice told me to leave, leave now, leave, just leave, why don't you leave, leaves on the line, leave it out, leaven bread, leaver arch file, leave all your troubles in your old kit bag, etc, it went on and on. Suddenly, I said to one of the other students, “I bet you 15 quid I leave school right now, we shook and I got my bag and walked out. He never paid, the cunt.

Then, the following Saturday I went into my weekend job at the now defunct Texas Homecare, where I was constantly given the cream of the shit jobs, creosote spills, angry customers, plumbing enquiries, I was 17 for fuck sake. I was given the task of unloading about 2 tonnes of fibre board and suddenly the voice started again, quit, leave, go shazam, adios etc, eventually, and after I had vomited up the milkshake that I had downed in one on a hot summer day, the worst possible drink to have after heavy lifting, I left the rest of the wood and went home, and told my mum I had quit, everything. She gave me the “you cant sit around here on your arse all day” talk and then Texas rang, the manager, my mum was talking to him and I was in the background saying “tell them to fuck off” I then went into a ponder in my bedroom, a ponder that lasted about 2 days, solid sitting and staring out of the window.

Most people would have formulated a plan and set about it. I just sat there. I had wanted to be an architect, this was never going to happen on account of my walking out of A-Levels, so instead I had to settle for an apprenticeship as an architects little bitch. A structural engineer. It was an awful job and an awful place, opposite a crematorium, with the windows opening we could tell when some poor fuck was being toasted, a sort of smell of bacon. Hours would seem to pass and five minutes had gone, a clock watchers nightmare, seemingly even time didnt want to come into this place..

I eventually realised that I would end up in the crematorium if I didn't leave and set about getting another job, as it was the early 90's things were OK and you didn't have to go through the pointless HR self affirming rubbish of a multi psychometric interview and tests etc, firms were willing to just take a punt on you. I had a phone interview with a “quantity surveyors” that was looking to take an apprentice on, the money was over double what I was earning where I was and I needed it. I had ran down to Argos with my first pay packet and brought a camera (advanced photo system) and a Sony tape walkman that was brushed chrome and had settings for normal or ferric tapes, auto reverse and bass boost. I came home with my bounty only for my mum to ask me for rent. I was furious.

I had arranged a phone interview with the quantity surveyors place at the time when my bosses would be down the pub. The call came in and I was having a cordial chat with the director of the new place and it was going really well.

The other apprentice, who had ghastly acne and was very pale and looked like an uglier anaemic Andy Murray (with full blown aids), was listening intently to how phone interviews should be done. I was nailing it and the bloke was saying he was interested in offering me the position and we were going about dotting the t's and crossing the eyes whatever, and then it came back, that thing happened again, that voice, my inner guiding voice, like Morgan Freeman, and this time, the instruction....Roar, roar like a lion, roar, roar like a Lion. This went on and eventually I could no longer hear the mans voice, just the inner voice and eventually I cracked and obeyed its command, and out of nowhere, just roared, loudly, just like a lion (as the voice suggested) there was silence on the phone....the other apprentice was beetroot out of confusion and embarrassment for me, then on the phone the man just said “eh?” I slowly put the phone down and turned back to my drawing board and continued my work, the other apprentice, still open jawed said to me “what the fuck just happened?” I just said “roared like a lion” and that was that.

Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't listen to my inner guiding voice, I'll never know. I just know that things didn't pan out well where I was. I was made redundant, the whole firm went under and I spent my last day in the office stomping around, breaking things, axe kicking the typewriter and finally wearing my bosses suit jacked doing a very bad impression of him and finally flexing my muscles ripping it down the back like the hulk, (he was a tiny little man).

I did have a few more brushes with the inner guiding voice, telling me that if I didn't jump down the last two stairs the world would end and I would get cancer (after?) or something equally as bad, I went along with it for a while and it sneakily became 3 stairs, I think I got up to 6, my mum was asking what the huge thumping noise was every time I came down the stairs, I started to blank the voice when it suggested one day that I leapt down the entire staircase.

Another incident on a bus when I was talking to a pensioner (woman) and the voice started to instruct me to spit in her face, spit in her face, spit in her face and make it better after, etc, I had to get off the bus and walked home confused. Its still with me in some ways, when I am in meetings its suggests the worst possible things to say or do, not in the way of an order, but just as a way of cheering me up and pulling me through some dull as dishwater (that Ken Barlow has drowned in) meetings. Thankfully, with the help of forums like twitter I am able to vent these out as they happen, thanks for listening.

I would just like to confirm that I am in control and would never act on these voices, I don't get stabby and knifes never come into it, its just goof ball stuff like walking into a meeting and picking up a biscuit with my arse crack and seeing how everyone reacts, before explaining I would use my hands but they are dirty. Its probably mild schizophrenia, but fuck it, its a giggle.....(go get a knife, get a knife...I'm joking).

On the whole the inner guiding voice has thankfully subsided, its not mythical, its probably myself playing a prank, I love a laugh, even if its on myself and ends up financially devastates me and ruins my life (hey, go out with her, get engaged, moved out of London, do it do it do it...), its a chuckle, its a good story for down the pub with my treacherous back stabbing death disregarding fuck bubble mates...

I have no idea why the roar like a lion thing happened at the time, I later went on to another job, outside of he building industry where I met the strange chain of people that resulted in me having a child, a drunken random meeting with the women who would end up front shitting my perfect son out of her vagina, (its a wonderful memory), (although the whole thing ended worse than the TV series Lost), I'm still blessed with a son (and I'm doing alright on the women front).

To summarise, I wouldn't change a thing, I would just like to be a better friend so the cunts cry like little bitches when my pilot light finally goes out.