Censorship

I've moaned before about E4 cutting funny lines out of Friends, but tonight's episode really takes the biscuit. They cut out the exchange between Chandler and Phoebe's new fireman boyfriend in which Chandler quips that he and Joey could play with matches and bump up the fireman's total of people rescued from burning buildings to a round 100 when he boasts that it's currently 98. "Fire safety isn't a joke, son," says the fireman, sternly, in reply. I mean, really, does E4 think we live in the kind of society when kids are going to hear that dialogue and immediately commit acts of arson? Channel 4 need to either start showing Friends (and for that matter the Simpsons) in that good old nine o'clock on Fridays slot, uncut, or just leave them alone before the watershed. They're in cahoots with the DVD people, is what it is, forcing us to buy the DVDs in order to get the complete episodes.

You might have noticed, I've got nothing interesting to write about tonight.

Reality TV

I get to spend the second half of next week being filmed again, for this ITV Genius-related programme. This leaves me struggling to find something to blog about - you might have noticed I've been uncharacteristically quiet on the subject, because this one had the sense to get me to sign a contract beforehand promising not to say bad things about it. That's where The Mentalists went wrong, obviously - I didn't sign anything there until late in the day, and then there wasn't a 'no bad-mouthing us on your blog' clause.

So, since I'm not capable of writing about being filmed without moaning at length about the process (it's all part of not wanting to sound like some kind of big-headed TV star more than actually not liking it), my blogs might be a bit on the skimpy side, if they exist at all - there are a couple of people staying with me on Friday and Saturday for the memory competition, so possibly I won't write anything.

Sorry about that. Perhaps I'll email people privately and bad-mouth the documentary. There's not anything in the contract about that, is there? ... Damn. They thought of everything.

Interesting demographic

Well, it seems that four out of five commenters who expressed a preference agreed with me that contact lenses are a horrible, horrible idea. I'm pretty sure this is well above the national average, even though the sample size is roughly equivalent to the number of people they generally survey for those polls of what 'the public' thinks about things.

So what does this show us? That people who read Zoomy's Thing are generally squeamish sissies who go around arranging flowers and holding hands more than is socially acceptable when they should be doing manly things like sticking things in their eyes? Or that my readers are intelligent types who appreciate that wearing glasses is the best way to show the world how clever you are? Or that the majority of people who follow my blog are scared of incurring my violent and sardonic wrath if they venture a different opinion to mine?

Ewwwwww. Seriously, ewwwwww.

The official reason I don't wear contact lenses is that my astigmatism means I'd have to wear fiddly and expensive toric lenses and I'm not made of money. The actual reason is that I'm horrifically squeamish about touching my eyes. The very idea makes me shudder. However, while I was having my eyes tested last week, the optician persuaded me to try the free five-day trial they've got going at the moment, so I went in today for a fitting. If you have 'fittings' with contact lenses, and you probably don't.

The contact-lenses-optician examined my eyes in detail, got a pair of lenses and said "Okay, now I'll put them in for you." But despite my best efforts, every time she attempted to poke the little things into my eyes, I found myself jerking my head away violently. I thought I deserved congratulations for not hitting her with the eye-testing machinery and squealing "Get away from my eyes!", but she didn't seem terribly impressed. So they resorted to plan B, which was getting someone to show me how to put them in myself.

After a lot of time and difficulty, I got the things in and (after even more time and unpleasantness) out again, but by that point I'd decided that there wasn't any need to carry on with the rest of the trial. I mean, ewww, touching my eyes! Ewww! I'll stick with my glasses, thank you very much. Astigmatism, you see. Toric lenses. Cost a fortune and you have to get the top part pointing up and the bottom part down, and who has time for that in a morning?

Do I sound like the worst kind of nerd if I say......

There is literally nothing in the world more satisfying than doing an hour cards practice, recalling carefully for two hours and filling in the final blank space on the recall paper just as the stopwatch shows 1:59:59! I was very happy with myself, not just for spending the morning doing an hour cards practice for the first time in yonks, but for doing it well and perfectly time-managed like that. Although of course in a competition I'd need to go a bit faster, because there are more distractions caused by other competitors finishing their recall earlier.

Anyway, I was attempting 33 packs and although I haven't checked them, I hopefully got about 30 right. It did go well. I don't normally do long practice sessions on weekdays, seeing as people might be phoning me about jobs, but since I hadn't been able to make myself do anything this weekend, I unplugged the phone and got on with it. Nobody called me, anyway. It's becoming increasingly clear that nobody wants to employ me, ever again.

Still, ne'mind, eh? Here's a link to Mahmut in Australia's blog - he asked me to give him a plug, so please go over there, check him out and wish him luck at the Australian Championship in September!

Nothing

I've done nothing all day, so I'm going to blog about nothing tonight. Tomorrow, I will do things and then write about them.

Boooooo

I was sort of hoping that Reading would avoid relegation, if only because I don't particularly like Fulham or Birmingham, but never mind. At least Man Utd, who I marginally prefer to Chelsea, won the title.

Anyway, I'm still unemployed and out of practice at memory, so I'm sure I've got more important things to do than watch football now that the season's almost over. I'll just have to find another excuse for not doing anything.