Shoesy-Shoesy

After buying some new shoes, my anticipation heightens until I can get them home, open up the box, take the shoes out, put them to one side, root around in the box until finally I come across the small packet labelled 'Silica Gel'. Every time, though, I am thwarted and disappointingly have to put it to one side and start lacing up the shoes, because, every time I get the silica gel packet, I'm confronted with the spoilsport words, 'Do Not Eat', ruining my fun. Bah.

Even worse is the only instruction: 'Throw Away'. So blunt that you daren't disobey it. It's the only thing standing between me and a cupboard full of hoarded silica gels that I'm not allowed to eat.

Each time I get new shoes, I also get to remember with fondness how lacing up your shoes in a non-approved fashion-failing way would be merely the prelude to ridicule and abuse as a child. If you were looking for a positive thing to say about bullying, you can definitely say that it instills a sense of correctness and attention to detail in the victim.

Ah, shoes. They sure are evocative things. Just be glad I haven't gone on about shoe boxes yet.

Box Stupid 2

While casually destroying the planet by using paper tissues, I noticed that Kleenex have chosen to mark their fiftieth anniversary of destroying the planet by having a big swirly badge that says "50 Years of MANSIZE STRENGTH".This is the sort of thing that my email spam filter would make short work of. It'll only be a matter of time before we're fitted with eye-spam filters that just leave a fuzzy indistinct patch where otherwise would be "50 Years of MANSIZE STRENGTH".

Project: Do you know someone who is or is about to become a 50 year-old? Why not print out the second photo, and cut it into a badge for them. (Note: Please ensure that the recipent has achieved fifty years of MANSIZE STRENGTH before giving this gift, as the incongruity of a badge saying "50 Years of MANSIZE STRENGTH" on a woman or weedy man will cause laughter and may spoil their otherwise special day).

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Yep, I've not been up to much recently. Except for dressing up as a pirate, but that's nothing unusual when you frequent Dressing-Up-As-A-Pirate parties, is it? (Photos in comments to previous post. I'm feeling too too exhausted to cut and paste the addresses again).

Bouba Diop and Knots

Can't really explain adequately, but I've developed a mild obsession with Bouba Diop from Fulham, the Premiership also-rans. Why Papa Bouba Diop? Is it his giant loping gait as he surges forward from defence? Or is it the fact that his name sounds like the noise you get in arcade machines when you get an extra life? (Clue: it's the second one.) Apparantly his nickname, according to the official website is the frankly unlikely 'Wardrobe'. I fear the explanation of this, frankly, and will not be delving any deeper.

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Also on a football bent, mainly just to piss off those of you who dislike football (most people I know), Roy Keane, currently Sunderland manager, is busy practising tieing the world's largest tie knot. For Roy to stand out amonsgt the already noted for their large-knottedness breed of footballers, it's clear testimony to his fearless professionalism that he has to be the best at what he does, even if this is just tieing his tie. What a pro.

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Sorry, that's a lot of football, really. Pretend they're pirates if that helps.