rubbish blog idea #8

"If i can get in here, so can a thief!"

Another heavily bus-influenced idea i'm afraid. I was late the other morning and some lady was taking forever to get a ticket; as there are only so many things you can discuss with the driver as you're boarding a bus that is already 20 minutes late, i had to conclude that she was simply a timewasting attention-starved gaylord.

She then walked down the aisle with a triumphant grin on her face and plonked herself in the seat in front of me. At this point my thoughts turned to revenge.

Now, like a lot of people, she had a hood on her jacket (she actually had a hood on the garment underneath too but i won't go into that) and my immediate thought was to leave a note in her hood, hoping she'd find it later, something along the lines of:

"To whom it may concern, today you took longer getting on a bus than any person in the history of the world, thanks for making me another five minutes late, i'm sure Betty and Christine don't mind if you're a little late to meet up and talk about stockings but some of us have jobs to go to.
Big love,
Tom x x"

Or whatever. I opted against it because i thought it would be a tad harsh, but thought the basic idea of leaving cryptic notes in people's outer garments would be worth exploring.

I think the standard note would be "If i can get in here, so can a thief!", with maybe a reference to 1 Samuel 24? But there'd be more obscure ones too.

I guess there are a few problems. First off, i wouldn't feel like doing it to old people cause they are more likely to be seriously freaked out by it; i just wouldn't be able to enjoy it. But then younger people, with their quicker reactions and heightened awareness are more likely to catch me in the act - which doesn't even bear thinking about. And there's still the issue that it might be more scary than baffling; baffling = good, scary = not so good, appearing on Crimewatch after they check the cctv on the bus to identify the stalker = worse still.

Also, on a purely practical note, the payoff of these acts will be the reaction of the victims, which i'll (hopefully) never see. Rubbish, but i might do it anyway, probably just to people who play Basshunter through their phone speakers?

rubbish blog idea #7

Okay, what about "The Textdropping Blog"? According to google, there is no such word so i'm claiming it now - it is the art of peering over commuters' shoulders to read their text messages.

Actually, before i start (because this idea *really* isn't going to have any legs anyway) i discovered a couple of things whilst researching the phenomenom.

1. The origin of the word 'Eavesdropping'

Right, seeing as i can't explain the eavesdrip any better than the wiki description you should go read that first. It's basically a boundary around one's house.

An eavesdropper is then defined as one 'who skulked in the Eavesdrip of another's home' - which is, of course, awesome, and if i ever catch any of you skulking around the eavesdrip of my house i'm going to go Anglo-Saxon on your ass. Fairly warned, be thee, says i.

2. A Philippino version of me

Whilst trawling google so see if anyone else was as nosy as me, i found this journal entry. Not only does he appear to be a serial textdropper, he's also continually questioning his direction in life (although to be fair, that could be anyone).

I like the two texts he dropped. The first is this outstanding joke:

"San Makikita ang pinaka malaking Bra? - edi sa may pinaka malaking Boobs"

ha ha, boobs.

The second text he talks about is some guy telling his mom about his new job and its modest starting salary. Not funny in itself but i love this comment from one of his readers:

"9800 [pesos] is fine.. u start from scratch then get a higher pay in the future...."

Of course! It's so simple! So, after this wake-up call i've decided to shelve my plans to find a better job and more money, instead i'll stay where i am and simply get a higher pay in the future. No flies on me.

...

Anyway, so i recorded my first textdrop on the way home on tuesday - i saw some guy get his phone out and had mine at the ready to copy whatever philosophical pearl of wisdom was coming my way (i only hoped that the person behind me was also textdropping; this is what's known as "The Infinite Textdrop" or "Chinese Textwhispdrops" - a stupid idea is nearly always followed by an equally bad portmanteau).

Alas, my guy let me down big time with this mindblowing piece of literature:

"U have missed the bus mate"

No mystery, no intrigue, no wondering how deep the rabbit hole goes; and the fact it took his chubby fingers 5 minutes to compose this ode to tardy friends just served to add insult to injury.

My heart sank.

rubbish blog idea #6

Oh man, the fitness blog. Admit it, we've all thought about it; making a promise to yourself to get into shape and share your journey with the blogosphere.

My objective is to lose my excess flab and get "fit" - ergo, get to the point where i can run for a bus and recover in under 2 hours. The blogs would have been DAILY and you would've got little titbits about my adventures "with the road", as well as up-to-the-minute stats about distance and timing.

The tagline at the top would read "To get the most out of the road you have to love her, but you also have to hate her", or something equally awful, and there'd be a picture of my well-worn trainers.

Trouble is, I'm crap. I did monday and tuesday mornings (5am!!!) and then my legs wouldn't work for wednesday and thursday, then i went to bed too late and couldn't get up on friday either. Then it was the weekend; there's no way i'm getting up at 5am on a weekend and there's no way I'm going jogging in the hours when people might see me.

Also, I look like a bellend. I haven't got a tracksuit top so i wear a jumper, and cause my hair is bad before showering I wear a beany hat - i basically look like an extreme sports janitor.

Tell you what, I'll try again this week and if i make it to three days in a row i'll have a rethink.

rubbish blog idea #5

One of my compulsive habits is to listen to an album/watch a film/read a book and then immediately visit wikipedia to read about it (this is especially hard with books because there is always the temptation to read the wiki page, whilst midway through the book, and ruin the ending).

Anyway, I am often faced with a paragraph detailing 'discrepancies between book and film' - sometimes with BULLET POINTS - and this was my basis for an idea so rubbish that it was not even limited to a blog basis.

Basically I was going to focus on the discrepancies and then use these as a basis for hilarious vignettes, song lyrics and maybe even a story. Still with me? It's like going to an art exhibition and staring at the spaces between the paintings.*

I psyched myself up and headed over to wikipedia to find some material; I have to say, it was pretty disappointing. If I were to follow through with this idea, it would be full of really dull plot devices like "he was called Smith, not Smithe" and "rather than living in New York, and merely visiting Ireland, they in fact lived in Ireland".

There is precisely one synopsis for a book or film based on these inaccuracies:

"A compulsive liar volunteers a wealth of information, which is later found to be false"

It's got SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER written all over it.

x x

*note to self: idea for a photo blog...

rubbish blog idea #4

This one is a few weeks old but basically I planned to take photos of the backs of people's heads on the bus, using my phone. Seeking only to capture "heads of interest", each post would attempt to analyse the head and decide what kind of person it belongs to.

I quickly ditched the idea after I realised

a) the only information you can gather from someone's head is whether they cut their own hair and when they last washed it (as well as the obvious stuff, A/S/L)

b) it's impossible to do this discreetly; sure, your subjects aren't aware (unless you leave the fake 'camera click' noise on like a massive noob) but to everyone sitting behind you it's pretty damn obvious

Just to clarify, rubbish blog idea #1 was the "blog ideas" blog, rubbish blog idea #2 was the "failures" blog, rubbish blog idea #3 was the "you must be logged in to do that!" blog.

nadge biscuits

Okay, so since the last post I've gone through numerous ideas for this blog. I had ideas for one where I write about ideas for blogs, then one where I write mainly about failure - then I considered how hilarious it would be to do NEITHER and got stuck in an infinite loop of smug post-modernism.

I then thought of one where i take this warning:



and apply it, out-of-context to other pictures. My test was the famous Eric Cantona kung-fu photo, but then once i'd done it i realised it's exactly the kind of thing i HATE. You know you should steer clear of an idea when you can picture it on a t-shirt being worn by a student with a mullet.

Anyway, this post is just to say "hang in there" while i think of a great idea; in a way this post doesn't really exist. But, in another way, it does, so let's press on...

Bands. I currently have two bands, neither of them have names so let's call them band 1 and band 2. Band 1 has practised a few times and is stretching me on all musical fronts, which is definitely good. Band 2 is an unashamed attempt to be liked by as many people as possible, whilst pretending we don't care. Simon is in both these bands, and also band 3. Band 3 have a name but i'm not into AdSense. Oh man, and then there's band 4 - which is just so crazy it just might work - and band 0 - who may reform for a one-off gig.

Don't be surprised if the next post is me moaning about how EVERYTHING fell through and muttering something about home recording and exotic tunings (again).

Right, that'll do for now. By the way, the reason I'm doing this post is because i gritted my teeth and gave the blog its first link; now i'm worried that there will be an influx of people (1 or 2) and nothing interesting to read. But then, i haven't really addressed that problem.

Also, I'm ditching the song lyrics for titles idea, but here is what i used up to this point:

Morris Chapman - Be Bold! Be Strong!
Bjork - Sonnets/Unrealities XI
Tears for Fears - Everybody wants to rule the World
Peeps into Fairyland - Suilven from Elphin
Kate Rusby - Who Will Sing Me Lullabies?
Smashing Pumpkins - Zero
Deftones - Korea
Bardo Pond - Walking Clouds
Laura Veirs - The Cloud Room
Manic Street Preachers - Revol
Lisa Loeb - Listen, Lisa
Logh - The Passage
Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
Teenage Fanclub - Take the long way round
Sonic Youth - Wish Fulfilment
Kate Bush - Dream of Sheep
Joanna Newsom - Sadie

x x