Its been a funny old year!

Well I cant really argue with this year as it comes to an end, it started well and continued well throughout, so for someone so angry its hard to grumble!

The start of the year gave me a clean break from the hell which was Janda and I fell with good graces into Febland. They took me in well and in turn I loved, and now that Im back, still do love working for and with them. It might not be what I want to be doing for my whole life, but working on their web sites lines my pockets and gives me something to shine with. Lets just hope that the New Year brings the sales that the website sorely deserves!

I lost what I considered a good friend, but thanks to going to Korea replaced him with a real Canadian who's actually grown to become one of the closest friends I have. Hopefully the New Year will give me a chance to go visit him at some point!

2006 gave me half of it in Korea, so again I have nothing to complain about. Korea might not have offered everything I was looking for out there, or completely banquished my Asian fetish, but it really was a good taste of somewhere other than the UK. It has really been a good year looking back on it, one thats let me sort my finances out, get rid of a few demons and made me appreciate the things I have around me a little more. After last year it could only get better, and for that Im grateful.

So heres to 2007... a year that will see me turn 25 (the age I wanted to be a millionaire before... 7 months to go then!) and will hopefully continue in the direction of 2006! Hope you've all had a good Xmas and that the New Year brings all you want from it!

Myers-Brigss Test : Whats YOUR ideal job?

So I'm just reading Digg, as you do in your general net surfing and found a link to a quiz, intended to tell you your ideal job... and guess what.. my is Computer Programming!

I had to laugh because given some of my responses I thought I was for sure going to be classed as unsuitable because i like random events etc etc but according to the website my ideal jobs are :

ISTP - Police, detectives, forensic pathologists, computer programmers, system analysts, computer specialists, engineers, carpenters, mechanics, pilots, drivers, athletes, entrepreneurs, firefighters, paramedics, construction workers, dental hygienists, electrical engineers, farmers, military, probation officers, steelworkers, transportation operatives, hitmen. With the ability to stay calm under pressure, they excel in any job which requires immediate action.

I have always considered myself as a possible candidate for the police force, and hitman.. well that would be a pretty cool job! If you want to take the test its here!

Lost friends, Lost memories...whatever Jesus!

In my imaginary world, my sharp tongue sometimes gets me in trouble and I once had a friend called, oh I dont know, Brian, (whom I miss dearly) that I no longer talk to because of. You see Be... Brian went to Au...America to fall head over heels in love with his internet girlfriend of 9 months and live happily ever after. I was ecstatic that one of my closest friends was going to be doing something for himself and force himself out of the hole he felt he'd dug himself into... maybe thats slightly off, but its close to the truth.

As you'd expect, contact between the two of us was limited as Brian made the most of his new life and having limited access to a computer meant our catch ups were brief at best. If I had only known about the brilliance of Skype before he went perhaps we would've stayed in better touch, but in any case we didnt hear from each other quite as much as we should've.

Then I get an email, addressed to a crap load of people, telling me that my once best friend was getting married and I should be blissfully happy for them both... but I genuinely wasn't happy so why pretend.

You see, I should also explain the bad blood that occurred between Brians internet girlfriend (lets call her Mrs. BIG - it seems fitting) and my circle of close imaginary friends. From this side of the globe it felt like Mrs. BIG had done everything she could to wheedle out some of Brians old friends and torment his soul about those that she didnt like with a mixture of lies, manipulation and spin, which seemingly worked as if drove a massive stake between a fair few people.

There were some things that just didn't add up at times.. one of my close friends had told me that Mrs. Big had been talking dirty to him, and by dirty I mean enough to cause concern several thousand miles away. A conversation would be going just fine then all of a sudden, like a schizophrenic outburst, the conversation would delve into the realms of dungeon porn. While some of my friends might enjoy and embelish this, this guy is a long standing friend of both of ours and I can genuinely believe that what he says isn't a lie, or even an extenuated story to tell to the lads. He would just close down his messaging service whenever she did this and ignore it straight away, as this was the start of how another imaginary friend was gradually weened out.

In the last stages of our digital friendship it started happening to me.. she started talking about how she liked to pee on Brian in the shower and how it really turned him on at random intervals; I couldnt quite work out the psychology behind this, maybe she was attempting to tell me how comfortable they are together, appealing to something that I certainly had no interest in, but in any case it happened.

But back to my story, Brian and Mrs. BIG were getting married and that was that. I'm not against marriage at all, in fact my real life friend Tom had got married 9 months prior to my imaginary friend, and although I was a bit saddened not to be his best man (he played it safe and chose his brother! ) I was genuinely happy for them both. I just felt like something didn't add up so I told him that.. and I felt the wrath.

Maybe I should've kept my gob shut, but Im not that kind of person so I told them how shocked I was to be told like this, and maybe we werent as close as we once were. I got accused of "making this about me" and "why cant I be happy for them like X and Y". Whatever.

In any case, I'd hoped we'd sorted it out in the end. I said sorry etc etc, we worked it out. Until about 6 weeks later, when Mrs. BIG skitzed out again and turned on me like a pack of ravenous dogs would. I apparently was no longer a friend of theirs. I made up the following MSN conversation for the purpose of this story:

[When I find the time I will make up the story and post it here! - Its on my other computer I find the time to be creative! ]

I haven't heard from Mrs. BIG since, apart from during the World Cup when she reared her ugly head to rub it in my face that Japan had been beaten by her team (wait... America werent in Japans group..lol.. ) from behind my being blocked, to only disappear once she'd gloated.

12/06/2006		15:58:12		brian		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		WE WON
12/06/2006		15:58:15		brian		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		WE WON
12/06/2006		15:58:16		brian		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		WE WON
12/06/2006		15:58:25		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		brian		yup
12/06/2006		15:58:37		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		brian		beat my favourite team no less :P
12/06/2006		15:58:46		brian		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		Japan? Why not England?
12/06/2006		15:59:10		brian		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		What an incredible game... we both jumped up and down all the way through it....
12/06/2006		15:59:10		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		brian		well i support england but japan is my favourite non english tema
12/06/2006		16:00:39		brian		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		Hey gotta fly.. just came online to see my (AMERICAN) friends and get all excited with them... man totally thought Japan had it in the bag....
12/06/2006		16:00:48		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		brian		yup
12/06/2006		16:01:15		brian		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		byebye
12/06/2006		16:01:21		[βισςЌзδ] Dªν€ β		brian		l8er

I mean come on... this is really really pathetic! 3 minutes to "jump online" (and by jump online I mean message me from beneath my blocked status) and gloat because I had changed my MSN comment to reflect the games result.

But in any case, I tried to keep in touch with Brian, and before I left to go to Korea he was supposed to come round just to catch up/just say hello-goodbye really. But he didn't. He was waiting for my call and he turned his phone off on the evening he was supposed to be visiting me. He knew damn well we had one weekend from the point of his return to my departure when we could meet up and he chose not to use it. He even went to see one of my closest friends in the weekend, and despite my being at home packing and sorting things out he didn't even drop in to say hi.

So I left for Korea, responding to his limp text (that said something about maybe in another life we could catch up) with a typically me response. I think even Amy sent Brian a snotty text as she drove away from the airport, she knew how disappointed I was not to have seen him.

But such is life, and yet again I let it go and was willing to see through it. Until my birthday, where I got a rather half arsed email blaming his lack of, well... anything really, on the fact he was destined to become a "fucking selfish lazy arsehole". I was hammered from too much soju/it being 6am after a 5 hour norebang session so I was in the perfect mood to respond, quoting Bill Hicks' of his long lost lover that once told him she loved him to only leave, and that he hoped one day that she would be led underneath her 600lb husband and he has a heart attack and pukes blood and bile into her mouth, and at the point shes drowning under that warm flaccid monolith she makes Bill Hicks out on the Tonight Show. Genius.

..and I surprisingly havent heard a dicky bird since! I also pointed out in my rather blunt email that I knew I was on Brians blocked MSN list, being the computer nerd that I am, and since that I can now see him whenever he/she logs in on their shared MSN. Score!

So, I hear you cry, why, today of all days, are you dredging this up?! I don't actually know.. I felt like surfing his blog and it brought up a lot of memories, and I just wanted to get my side of things on the table. I genuinely miss my close friend Brian, and hate that there is now bad blood between us. My story is largely incomplete, fact devoid, and completely one sided but I hope its been an interesting read in any case!

Back almost a month, a Great British review

Well, Ive been home nearly a month now and having no money in the UK really does suck balls. Even though Im back at work, I really did forget quite how expensive this country is; just visiting a pub seems to cost money these days, and a few tame nights out cost me the spare £100 or so I had in no time.

I had a job, then I didnt, then I did, then I didnt again.... now for the first 10 days or so, when I thought I had a job, I actually wasnt working, so once again Im going to be a little fudged for money for a little while, but hopefully, one day, Ill actually be sorted!
I've started work of my story of my time at Wonderland but given the current work and living situation (Im back at my old mans) Ive had less free time than I might otherwise have, and the time I have had has been frittered away catching up and trying to sort my stuff out. I've come back to an even smaller space than I had in Korea, and I actually have more stuff to boot! Check out Fuck Wonderland or Wonderland Sucks at some point soon for my full lowdown.

People keep asking me "is it good to be back?", half expecting me to be all enthusiastic and reaffirm that the UK is "the best place in the world" but in all honesty, Im not all that enthused. The UK is still the shithole I left 6 months ago, with the same ridiculous tax levels, scroatish general public and its endless grey skys; the only change is people seem "distracted" by the Polish immigrants now (note to the lazy, or the job insecure - if someone can do your job as well as you and is willing to do it for less money thats called healthy competition. Rather than looking at the people that are coming here to do the manual labour jobs most people on this cesspool island think theyre too good to do, look at those benefit cheats, tax dodgers and other leaches that are draining our resources and start pointing the finger at them.... who knows, we might be able to reduce our National Insurance contributions if we do!).

You see, living in another country you learn that this is not the only place in the world that one can make a living, and those manual labour jobs, you know... the ones that anyone can do if theyre not a fat, boneidle bastard, can be done by anyone! So the rhetoric of British jobs for British people doesn't wash with this guy, hence coming back to get back into my career, at that which I went to University to learn (and had to support and pay for myself thanks to that C U Next Tuesday Tony Blair).

In any case, there are a few things I miss about Korea, my good buddy Mike being the main one, but there were a lot of little things about being there that I really did like...hence the picture! I have no urge to go to the gym here because I'm surrounded by fatter, uglier (IMO) people.. I still want to go to the gym (given my current financial debacle its a way off yet), but I'm not driven to like I was in Korea. I miss skirts, shorts and knee high socks, even if its nearly freezing out. I miss being 20 seconds from a shop thats open 24 hours a day, 30 seconds from a cheap place to eat and 45 seconds from the norebang (Singstar just isnt the same... ). I miss having all my wages after tax. I miss Yong San. I miss having a disposable income. I miss cheap booze, even in a pub (Rich & Hayley : Its £2.25 a pint in my local now!). I miss being able to ignore the adverts on TV. I miss a fast, unmetered internet connection. I miss skirts, shorts and knee high socks.

But I would never actually go back to Korea (not that I can on anything other than a tourist visa now). It had its bad points too but I still can't help feeling its good points are available somewhere else in the world. I just need to get off Treasure Island, the tax is just unbearable! I'm going to get my skillbase up in my field and then I'm going to be hunting again, aren't I... I think Japan or Hong Kong has a sock fetish too!