I think I’m a reasonably funny person. Certainly, in the office environment I can come out with a few witty comments that people smile at*. I consider myself to be someone who can say things to cheer people up, not to depress them.

So when PC Gamer asked on twitter for questions for their latest podcast I had a good think. Do I ask a question about PC Gaming (which I wouldn’t have much opinion on as I can hardly play Half-Life 2 on my ageing Dell) or do I go for the amusing question?

I had noticed that the Artist Formerly Known As C-Monster and J Walker had already tweeted in amusing questions so I thought one from me would also be appreciated**. The only problem was what to ask about?

I remembered that on the last podcast they were making references to the fact (it is an undeniable fact) that Ross Atherton, gentlemanly editor, kept prostitutes in his cellar. This was the joke I could use! And inspired by Richard Herrin I sent in the following question, which was used:

Oh. Looks like Ross didn’t appreciate being linked with a murderer, rapist and incestor. I now appreciate the lot of a stand-up comedian when their jokes fall totally flat. However this was offset by the giggling of 12 year-old Deputy Editor Tim Edwards who found it most amusing.

Would I do a similar joke again? Possibly as I found it very amusing, but I would probably aim it more at myself than anyone else to avoid offending them. Even though Ross deserved it for his depraved attitude towards women.

If you want to download the full podcast it can be found here.

* I was quite pleased when someone said “We don’t have a fear and blame culture here” and I immediately said “And whose fault is that?”

** Especially as I was keeping One Life Left’s mailbox full at the end of their last season

• Sam Rammi
• Uwe BO-L-L
• Alfred Hitch-Chicken
• Michael Disk Drive Bay
• Joss Wii-don#
• JJ and Jeff Abrams
• George Lucasgames (clever wording I know, cheers)
• Francis Ford Virtua Coppola
• David Kane & Lynch
• David Cronenburgertime
• The Chronicles of Ridley Scott
• Tim BurtOni
• Christopher 7th Guest
• Wes Super Mario Landerson
• Snes Craven (Freya’s one is the best)

Sometimes I wonder if my wife really loves me. Oh sure she says it everyday & gives me a kiss as I leave far too early in the morning for work, but it’s those little things (as Alisha’s Attic once sung) that make me doubt her intentions are pure.

Take yesterday (when I should’ve written this blog). It was a sunny day, and Freya told me that it was rather warm and as I get headaches when it’s hot I was advised to wear shorts and a t-shirt.

Except it turned out it was also very windy so I got chilly about two minutes into our trip into town. This meant we then had to try to walk in the sun and out of the shade so that I would complain as little as possible.

Of course now I’m writing this blog I think it’s pretty obvious that that tactic failed. I reckon she does love me really, but is bad at taking wind chill into account. I guess I should have put that in my wedding vows. I’ll remember this next time I get married.

I’ve tried to keep my stories of my fellow commuters at a minimum, but something that happened the other day made me realise at how rude some people could be.

When I first started commuting last July there were a few people that I recognised every few journeys. There was the girl with pixie hair, the guy with the indie feather cut and a few people I recognised from my old job who had also taken up jobs in the industrial hotbed of Leeds. But by about September these people had disappeared to be replaced by incidental behind men that I couldn’t pick out of a police line up if I tried.

I have no idea where the previous people went. Was I just getting different trains to them? Quite likely as I realised if I got the 17.28 train it would take longer to get back to York, but I would have the advantage of a guaranteed seat and wouldn’t have to go over the bridge to leave York station. Or did they get annoyed with seeing me on the train & decided to change their schedule to avoid seeing me? Either suggestion sounds likely.

However, in the past few weeks I’ve started seeing some faces again and again. There’s the woman with the fold up bike and subtle nose piercing, the guy who wears running gear to the station, gets changed in the train toilets and then changes his contact lenses on the train floor (rather grim), the woman with really blonde hair who if you squint looks like Brea Grant and the girl with really flattened hair.

And then there’s the guy who seems to think he’s in a race with me to get to the train in the morning. I don’t know why but he thinks he has to cross the road before the actual crossing part & is almost speed walking. I think you would class him as an alpha male, which would also mean you would class him as a tit.

Particularly as when he strode past me whilst hugging the edge of the pavement despite there being the whole rest of the pavement to walk down. But, who’s this coming in the other direction? It’s another a.m/t who is also hugging the edge of the pavement! One of them is going to have to move to the side, or perhaps both will, laugh, say sorry to each other (even though there’s nothing to apologise for) and then carry on to their workplace laughing at the slightly amusing thing that just happened.

Or they could both be consumed with their own self importance, assume that the other person will move out of the way, then walk into each other then turn round to call each other an ‘arsehole’ or an ‘idiot’. Yes, that could be a likely outcome.

I’m only ashamed that I was so in shock at the event of both a.m/ts getting so angry at each other (in order to prevent themselves realising that their lives have become so petty to get angry at someone walking into them) that I didn’t laugh out loud. Ah well, I’m sure it will happen again at some point.

According to Karen Chu, British Gas have been inspired by Little Big Planet for their latest set of adverts. Unfortunately this wasn’t mentioned as an inspiration by the advertising in the away day that we recently held (as part of my role in a well known British based Gas company). That doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t an inspiration, just that advertising man didn’t want to incriminate himself.

In his defence, the British Gas doesn’t totally steal from LBP. Whilst parts of it evoke the feel of the game, it doesn’t look exactly like it. It also doesn’t have an annoyingly floaty jump.

CSL sofas don’t really have the ‘inspired by’ defence.  It’s entirely stolen from the first level of Mirror’s Edge that made everyone fall in love with it (and then fall out with it because the combat was not intuitive).

The problem is I don’t see how a distopian future on the roofs of high rise buildings makes you think ‘Sofas’.  If anyone can answer this for me I would be most appreciative.

I was in Nottingham today going to see my Grandma, and to waste some time I went to Lee Rosy’s to see if the FME and DHK approved waitress was as hott as I was led to believe.

Unfortunately as I got there before 10am, it was shut and I felt it would have been rude to stare through the window so just glanced in and saw a dark-haired girl. I had no idea if she was hott, but the place did look very nice.

And all the time I was walking around I knew I was in Nottingham. Which sounds silly, but everyone else says all high streets are the same due to homogenised shops and health ‘n’ safety* causing anything original to be removed.

But even if Selectadisc closed**, and the Brian Clough statue was removed I’d know exactly where I was. And if I was dumped in York, Mansfield, Manchester, Swinging London or Scarborough I would know immediately where I was. And then run towards the Police Station to inform them I had been kidnapped.

Because the high street is more than the shops that it contains. It’s the buildings that they’re in, with the clocks that have been outside them for ages. It’s the little hill you have to go up before seeing that Lee Rosy’s is shut. It’s the little alleyways and snickets you know you can cut through before you get to Cube hairdressers. It’s that they’re not all set in blocks like in America (or at least, what I think of America - please inform me if I’m wrong former colonialists!). It’s the trams in Manchester going towards Altringham.

Although the fact that they all seem to have big wheels is very silly.

* The a and n were removed in case a kid fell and bumped their head on them

** Which it is. I bought my Olivia Tremor Control album there, along with the cool see through Sleater-Kinney single (I think it was You’re No Rock And Roll Fun). Bye bye Selectadisc, you were a girl record store

As befits someone who recently got married I have let myself go a bit.  Whereas I was previously a slim, weak man with a bit of a pot belly I am now a slim, weak man with a bit of a pot belly and a beard.  This obviously makes a huge difference to my lifestyle, which consists of sitting around playing videogames and eating chicken goujons with reggae reggae sauce.

I think my body works fine from the waist down as I walk to work (excluding the 25 minute train I catch in between walking to and from the stations) and don’t get out of breath.  Sometimes I do get a little sweaty, but that’s mostly due to me wearing a big coat in anticipation of cold weather & the Sun deciding to boil me slightly.

No, it’s always been my arms & belly that require the most work.  My belly seems to attract all the spare weight I have, but my arms get thinner and thinner in comparison.

So I got the Wii Fit board out of storage and decided to give it a go.  After being gently chided for not going on it for over 100 days I started playing the put-the-balls-in-the-holes game as a warm up.

Then I did some squat thrusts which weren’t too bad, so I decided to do some jacknifes to work on my belly.  Easy peasy.  At least for the first few jacks, then for some weird reason my lardy belly thought that it didn’t like doing this & it started to hurt.  Lots.  The worst thing was that the gym trainer lady was late for the session due to sleeping in too late and seemed to be taking it out on me.  “Keep at it.  I may be hungover, but seeing you in pain is making me feel lots better.”

I hate that woman.  She never cuts you any slack.  Much like a trainer in a real gym.

I decided to finish with a press up session.  Now I really hate the Wii Fit press ups.  Not only do they make you do it really slowly, but they also make you move onto one arm in an attempt to prolong the agony.  So I gave up.

The woman gave me some grief, but I didn’t really care as I could see her do the press ups and noticed that her top was really scary.  You could see her cleavage, but it was perfectly covered by her top.  Not like it was a lycra top, but more like it was painted over like those women they occasionally have in Sports Illustrated issues.

The gym lady scares me.  I would choose the man, but he is also scarier and I worry about what I will see when I do the squat thrusts.

I need a car.  Actually scratch that, I need a method of transportation that’s cheap and doesn’t require two weeks of planning before I can use it.  Which essentially means a car.

It doesn’t matter that I haven’t been behind a wheel since I passed my test* in 2002, a car would be really useful.  It would mean that I wouldn’t have to get a first class ticket to travel down at 7am to see my Grandma** as there were no cheaper tickets that would get me there before 12.

We could also go and visit Freya’s relatives who live too far away for us to decide to see at a short notice and therefore hardly see as much as she would like.  The last time we saw her Father & Step-Mother was at our wedding and nine months*** is too long to have not seen your parents.

I’d quite look forward to being able to drive around Yorkshire and see places that don’t have a train station near them.  I hear there’s some rather nice village pubs nearby and as I’m (sob) nearly 30 I reckon I should be going towards that direction.

Also going by car would remove the most hateful thing about getting public transport.  Which is the public.  They are such whining, childish hatemongerers .  Honestly, while I’ve not been blogging I’ve been storing up anecdotes about the idiotic things my fellow commuters have done.  And the really annoying thing is I’m sure I’ve done exactly the same thing to them.

* Other than when I revved my Mum’s car so that my Dad’s car got jump started.

** Although I’m actually interested in seeing how good first class is.

*** Erk.  I’ve been married for nine months.  We’ve already lasted longer than Peaches Geldof.  In your face!

Right, I realise I haven’t really blogged on here.  And I haven’t filled in the ‘about’ sections that I appear to have.

But humour me for a moment.  I’m trying to work out if what I’ve written makes sense.

Momopeche twittered ‘crap, i have to write my SXSW bio and have no idea to write it in first person or third‘.  My reply was ‘He always prefers to write in the second person‘.

Does this make sense from any viewpoint?  I’m really unsure if it does or not.

It appears to be working.  Expect more fun tomorrow!