Where were we…?

…before Tiscali screwed everything up?

Ah yes:

Saturday
Wake up feeling headachey and bleurgh, which isn’t surprising bearing in mind this is the first day of my week off and I inexplicably always feel bleurgh on the first day of a week off. Resolve not to succumb to headache and waste the day, so I sit around reading Freakonomics, which although interesting leaves me with the odd sensation that the authors keep retreading the same old ground over and over again. Head over to Sparky Ma and Pa’s for dinner; post-dinner coffee perks me up no end: hurrah! Head back home and have the overwhelming desire to watch the Star Trek: Enterprise episode ‘Regeneration’ - so I do. Come to the conclusion that it’s a much maligned entry in a much maligned series. Go figure.

Sunday
Wake up still feeling a bit woozy, but decide to throw caution to the wind and clean the entire house. I dust, hoover, clean the plug hole (eeeugh), and scrub the bathroom to the point that I can now see a gleaming reflection of my arse in the sink when I get in the shower. Good times. Shower, admire arse, finish reading Freakonomics (still unable to shake the belief that it’s a cracking 150 page book bumped up to 300 for the expanded edition I have). Begin reading the Love and Rockets book The Education of Hopey Glass; is veeeeery good. Attempt to get online, but ailing Homechoice box dies on me. Dismayed to find little ball-scroll wheel thingy in mouse won’t scroll up anymore. Possibly watch some tellybox; to be honest I can’t really remember. Go to the cinema to see The Dark Knight for a third time: it’s still awesome.

Monday
Get up and being unable to waste my day online start looking for things to do. End up organising CD collection into something closely resembling how it’s listed on my iTunes. This is good, as it means I don’t just plonk all my favourite stuff on the top shelf. Finish reading The Education of Hopey Glass and start reading another Love and Rockets collection, Amor Y Cohetes, which I instantly decide was worth the money for the Rocky Rhodes tales about her a teenage girl and her robot friend Fumble. Pop over to Sparky Ma and Pa’s for dinner. Head home in time for One Tree Hill - Ooo, Devil Dan is back!

Tuesday
Get up early to await the delivery of my new O2 broadband router. Wake with a jolt at 8 am thinking I can hear a delivery van; turns out it’s just a van. Get up anyway and mosey downstairs to make a cup of tea. Flick on the telly and discover that E4 have started showing the Gilmore Girls, starring Seth from The OC, wonky-mouth from Heroes, and Sam from Supernatural (although confusingly he’s named Dean, which is the same name as his brother in Supernatural). I’ve always wanted to see what the fuss is with this show, so I watch the last half hour, then turn over to E4+1 (which is the same channel running an hour later) to catch the first half. It’s a good show, but they do talk very fast. Doorbell rings at 10:30 and it’s the delivery dude (who I swear has delivered stuff to the office before) with my router (although I can’t actually use it yet). See the dear old lady across the road and catch-up on some neighbourhood gossip while standing in the street in my socks. Have lunch, read more of Amor Y Cohetes. Decide to clear out my wardrobe and spend about two hours trying on clothes to see if I should keep or junk them; junk loads, find loads of t-shirts I’ve barely worn. Pop over to see Sparky Nan, then head to running club. Do triangles in the park; it hurts. Get bitten by bugs. Go home, shower, finish reading Amor Y Cohetes.

Wednesday
Wake up early, get ready and head over to pick up Sparky Ma for our traditional week-off shopping trip. Hit Kingston, coffee up, then blitz the shops. I buy Season Three of Boston Legal, the new Futurama DVD The Beast with a Billion Backs, Chuck Palahniuk’s new book Snuff (which better not suck), and Sparky Ma buys me Bottomless Belly Button, one of the fattest graphic novels I’ve ever seen. Eat a massive Nandos for lunch. Hit the shops again. Make a spur of the moment purchase of some black slim-fit jeans, which I’m kinda “meh” about, but they’re only 20 quid so I really have no excuse. Coffee up again, then head home. Get in and try on 20 quid jeans; decide they f**king rock. Watch The Beast with a Billion Backs (which is waaaaaaaaay better then the previous DVD movie, Bender’s Big Score), then an episode of Boston Legal. Tussle with a massive spider that launches itself across the living room floor; hit it twice with a shoe, poke it with a stick, and fly-spray the bastard before it succumbs to another whack with a shoe. Scoop the Rasputin spider up, crush it just to make sure, and stick it in the bin. Hit the sack and start reading Bottomless Belly Button.

Thursday
Wake up early, and head back to Kingston for a haircut. Shampoo girl asks if I want peppermint conditioner and I’m all, like, *whatever*. Regular girl is on holiday, so I have a newbie; turns out he’s a dude, and we shoot the shit about jobs, abusing courtesy cars, and whether you should ever let your ex-girlfriend cut your hair (turns out: no). scamper off with an awesome cut, and head to Borders where I use a voucher I was sent to get a free chocolate-banana Vivanno (not to be confused with a Vauxhall Vivaro) in Starbucks; it’s a combination of cocoa powder, whey protein, and, um, a whole banana. I hate bananas, but all blended-up this rocks. Buy another book, a signed copy of Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock, because it is interestingly packaged and has a quote from Willy Vlautin on the back. Head home and wait for the text from O2 to say my broadband is ready to go and I should plug my router in; have lunch and decide to watch two episodes of Boston Legal while I continue to wait - Denny Crane offends a dwarf. Head over to Richmond to pick-up comics, then round to have dinner with Sparky Ma and Sparky Nan. Dash home, still no text from O2, so I head to the local pool for a swim. Flirt with middle-aged woman on reception and totally know she’s picturing me in my trunks (cheeky). Turns out the pool is really busy; some prehistoric couple stop half way down the lane and start mouthing off about someone. I think they might mean me, so I glare at them menacingly before realising they actually mean two girls who are ignoring the lane markers and just swimming wherever the hell they like, so I glare at them instead. Watch prehistoric woman be winched out of the pool, then proudly swim out of my depth for the first time in years; decide I might have to give more thought to this early morning swim idea, although realise it’ll probably never happen because I’m too lazy. Notice reception woman peeking into the pool area. Hang around for a bit longer, then hit the showers and home. Watch more Boston Legal, read more Bottomless Belly Button.

Friday
Wake up at 4:40 am with a really itchy leg thanks to the bugs who bit me to buggery at running club on Tuesday. Head to bathroom, slap on some Savlon, stagger back to bed. Wake up at 8 am, roll over and go back to sleep. Wake up at 9:30 to find a text from O2: good news - I’m connected! Get up, washed, and dressed (new jeans defo rock, particularly when teamed with new shirt I bought a few weeks back). Head downstairs, make tea, catch the end of an episode of Gilmore Girls, plug in O2 box and marvel at the wonder that is the tinternet. Unplug cable linking O2 box to computer and set up a wireless network. Feel proud of myself. Catch beginning of the Gilmore Girls episode I saw the end of earlier. Dump old Homechoice box in a bag; rip all the cables they stapled around my living room doorframe off, chuck that in bag too. My living room is now officially Homechoice/Tiscali free: *contented sigh*. Download iPhone remote app and spend way too much time enjoying controlling my iTunes library on my computer with my phone. Stunned to find little ball-scroll wheel thingy in mouse is working again. Have lunch, catch the end of the same Gilmore Girls episode again, watch some Boston Legal. Look at the internet again - it’s great. Watch some more Boston Legal. Head over to Sparky Ma and Pa’s for dinner. Drop Sparky Nan home, play with the ancient but lovable cat that lives down her road. Head home, listen to the George Lamb podcast, watch some more Boston Legal. Chillax.