What did you find in your inbox this morning?

Okay, so I didn't quite keep my promise from Tuesday, or post the review of life on mars, but I don't think any one's really reading them - If I get a couple of requests I will, otherwise I'll leave it.

So, onto today. I opened up an inbox to find a forwarded email from one of my friends, I don't usually read them because, well - They are almost always those damn chain mail things like send this to 10 people in the next five minutes or you will have a cursed love life, or will get visited at midnight by the dead girl in the closet with a knife, etc...

Anyway, I was bored, so I opened it - And I was pleasantly surprised, and it made me giggle - So I've decided to copy and paste it for you guys to read too:

THEY WALK AMONG US

Some guy bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying: "Free to good home. You want it, you take it." For three days the fridge sat there without even one person looking twice at it. He eventually decided that people were too un-trusting of this deal. It looked too good to be true, so he changed the sign to read: "Fridge for sale $50." The next day someone stole it.

One day I was walking down the beach with some friends when someone shouted...."Look at that dead bird!" Someone looked up at the sky and said... "where???"

While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was north because, he explained, he didn't want the sun waking him up every morning. She asked, "Does the sun rise in the north?" When my brother explained that the sun rises in the east, and has for sometime, she shook her head and said, "Oh, I don't keep up with that stuff."

I used to work in technical support for a 24/7 call center. One day I got a call from an individual who asked what hours the call center was open. I told him, "The number you dialed is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." He responded, "Is that Eastern or Pacific time?" Wanting to end the call quickly, I said, "Uh, Pacific".

My colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria, when we overheard one of the administrative assistants talking about the sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the shore. She drove down in a convertible, but, "didn't think she'd get sunburned because the car was moving."

My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car it's designed to cut through a seat belt if she gets trapped. She keeps it in the trunk...

My friends and I were on a beer run and noticed that the cases were discounted 10%. Since it was a big party, we bought 2 cases. The cashier multiplied 2 times 10% and gave us a 20% di scount.... (maybe I should have bought 10 cases)

I couldn't find my luggage at the airport baggage area. So I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman there that my bags never showed up. She smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional and I was in good hands. "Now," she asked me, "has your plane arrived yet?"...

While working at a pizza parlor I observed a man ordering a small pizza to go. He appeared to be alone and the cook asked him if he would like it cut into 4 pieces or 6. He thought about it for some time before responding. "Just cut it into 4 pieces; I don't think I'm hungry enough to eat 6 pieces."

Yep, they walk among us
AND they reproduce!

Not dead yet!

Hey everyone, I'm still alive and interested in my blog, though wow it's been a long time since i've posted! I apologise for that, (almost two weeks to be exact) and I've missed commenting on a few stories I've come across in the meantime which I'm annoyed about, so will have a recent newstory round up of the best ones tomorrow.

But I do have a relativly good excuse for not posting for so long - That thing some people know as 'real life'.

From Thursday 22nd of February to Sunday my little cousin (12) was staying over, and with him being here, and sleeping on the floor of my room, it was impossible to be able to concentrate long enough to post once - let alone every day, due to the fact he seems to have the mental age of about 6, so he wouldn't leave me alone, and kept closing my programs, stealing the mouse, pulling on the keyboard, writing gibberish, jumping on me, turning off my computer from the power button, etc... And he refused to treat me as an authoritive figure/adult because I'm 17 - so in his mind just a kid, so telling him off/hitting him round the head/banning him from watching a dvd/me reading to him/whatever else he wanted, etc... but that would do either nothing to stop him misbehaving, or make him go into a full blown tantrum.


The reason I'm explaining this is because it has hit on an (I think) interesting subject. I say this because I know several children, (mostly boys) around the 11-13 pre-teen age who act as if they are half the age they are - & the one common factor between all of them is the fact their parents had them late in life. Which makes me wonder if it's not just coincidence, but more a behavioural and mental pattern due to how a lot of parents in their early to mid (and in some case even late) 40's raise their children and how the chirldren in turn react to their parents when they become more aware of things like the fact their parents are much older than their friend's parents, etc...
But I'll save that article/discussion/debate, call it what you will for later in the week.

Anyway, on Sunday night my useless immune system got hit by a virus, so considering the fact I was ill to begin with, getting a fever, throwing up, hallucinating (pretty whacked out ones too), sneezing and coughing, (also setting off my tonsillitus) wasn't the best thing to happen...But got rid of that now, except for my cough which has stuck around with the tonsillitus.

And finally, the past couple of days didn't have time to post as I was busy planning a week trip to Cleveland, Ohio in America with one of my best friends in July. Yes - Not one of the most obvious tourist spots in the states, but one of my other friends is moving out there on March 12th, so it's a chance to see her, and there's a gig we want to see in Lakeside on while we're there. Reason for telling you that is because i'll be doing a diary on the trip when it happens, and also a few articles in relation to planning it. (Not least a few rants on certain policies in some/all of the American states.. And then there's the little matter of 'Amendment 2', but not going to go into that now...)

Okay, so that's pretty much me up to date, thank you all my readers, and especially those who leave comments, and sorry for not replying to some of the comments left on or after the 21st of Frb that I wasn't able to reply to, and i'll try and catch up on all your blogs within the next couple of days.

Diving into the world of blogs

Okay, well it's a dark, rainy evening on Monday the 12th February 2007, and I am writing the first entry in this, my new biography-log thing or blog. I suppose everyone has a story on how or why they got a blog, so here's mine:

I am trying to break into journalism, and to be honest from where i'm sitting right now it seems like the only way i'm going to realistically manage that is if I actually broke into an editor's office and demanded a job at gun point...Which would probably put me in the spotlight, but not really for the right reasons.

In September 2006 I started at Greenhead College in Huddersfield with the plan of joining the college paper and doing some other journalism related enrichment courses to help me gather experience and connections that would help me be taken on for work experience in the summer at a local paper and thus help me prepare for the NCTJ prelim certificate.

Unfortuantly life has a habit of tripping you up and screwing up all your plans, and now i'm stuck at home on a year out, feeling ill and dizzy a lot of the time and the only noteable experience I've gained so far is what I've learnt on my hospital visits, which is basically - Receptionists are rude, porters are hypocrites, and if there was really a fire nobody would have a clue what to do and everyone would die.

Right now I feel totally useless, and though I've written an odd piece for my friend Bex's college paper, it doesn't feel like I've achieved anything this year so far, and more specifically - Won't at all.

My mum says to just relax and concentrate on getting well, but I am going insane, I just have to write and do something!

So that's why the other night I was researching online journalism courses, and I came up with a couple that sounded really good - But I can't do the hands on experience yet eventhough I'm not really doing anything (so infuriating) and each course is so expensive - I have a really poor income right now and there is now way I can spend £395 on the 6 months - 2 year course, and then £36 on 6 exams - however much I would like to...Plus I don't hold much faith in my shorthand ability but that is another problem I'll just have to deal with in time.

So I came to the conclusion I'll just have to wait till I'm back at college and my life is back on track as it were (though where that track is eventually going to lead I have no idea) for me to do anything about getting qualifications, but that doesn't stop me becoming a freelance journalist, working from home.

But I started thinking - Am I technically freelance when all I have to show is a just begun blog site and a couple of articles in someone else's college magazine? To be honest I have no idea, but if any editorial was willing to approach me with a job offer I certianly wouldn't be turning it down!

I do have a few things I could do though to try and prevent this year from being a total loss though:

1. Sign up officially with a site that represents freelance journalists. The most promising that I've seen will cost me £35 a year plus VAT, which doesn't seem bad at all, but I'll have to mull that one over a bit more.

2. Get in touch with my mum's friend Marion who has a DJing spot at Holme Valley Hospital, and see if I can do a music/talk show slot once a week for a couple of hours - I should be ok to do it, and it will be good practice. Plus I can see just how well I work in a media environment that is vocal because I do have a lisp which makes me a little unsure.

3. Get in early with learning shorthand. This will be no easy feat but I promise to try.

4. Pass my driving theory - Mum has actually banned me from trying to pass my actual driving test, in case I pass out and cause a pile up on the A64 or something...I see her point.

5. Try and get people interested in my blog so I can write my articles and thoughts, post them here and know people will read them instead of me just talking to myself - To be honest I don't care about money or anything, I'd just like to know that even if I'm not writing anything in a local paper or magazine, that my voice is still being heard and my opinions and stories might mean something to some of you out there in cyberland.

I feel like I've probably just written the longest post of absolute ranting rubbish ever, but after re-reading it I stand by every word, so I suppose that makes me either very honest, or possibly pretentious...I think I'll leave up to anyone reading to decide...