Yesterday, I sang "I wrote a blog and I liked it" (to the tune of "I Kissed A Girl") at Other Half who looked horrified at my exuberant interpretive dance, which involved no small amount of crotch-thrusting. It was quite elaborate and went on for several verses. Eventually, looking somewhat afraid, she left the room, leaving me free to curl up with the book I'm supposed to be reading for my book group. I always end up leaving these things to the last minute and end up struggling to find the hours needed. I was rather engrossed in the book when, after some time, Other Half entered and said the following to me:
Other Half: Oh my god. I hate one of my friends that I don't talk to.
I put down my book immediately because it was clear to me that a) you don't hear a sentence like that every day and b) if I focus I can memorise this entire conversation for blogging purposes and the entertainment of people across the world. That's right, you international guys. I'm talking to you. Especially whoever that one person is in Vietnam who checks the blog every day. You are my favourite. Vietnam for the win, as I believe the kids say.
Other Half: (continuing) I mean, she's okay but she's a smiler.
Me: (knowingly) Mmm.
Other Half: (resentfully) Yeah, and you know how we feel about that.
Me: Um...she's a dick?
Other Half: Exactly. No one should smile all the time. It's unnatural.
At this point I was distracted by wondering how I could wriggle this into a post and how much smiling is considered overkill, so I missed a lot of what she said after that. I tried not to think about it too much in case my OCD noticed, pricked up its little ears and came bounding over to see what all the fuss was about, because then I'd spend the next few hours worrying about my own levels of smiling.
Later that same day, as we were getting the bus to our new flat last night, I began a discussion with an unusual statement of my own (yeah, I can play this game too).
Me: You know, I've never asked anyone in for coffee.
Other Half: What do you mean?
Me: Like, you know how Eddie Izzard does that whole joke about how asking someone in for coffee is the internationally recognised sign for "let's have sex"?
Other Half: Coffee equals penetration?
Me: Yep. I never did that. Fact.
Other Half: Did you ask them if they wanted to come see your kittens?
Me: I...may have done.
Other Half looks at me with a mixture of amusement and jealousy.
Me: (shrugging) Girls like kittens! And then it's just a short step from "aww, look how cute that kitten is" to "well, I suppose I could stay for a bit" and then bam! Score. I'm sneaky. Like a ninja.
Other Half: That's real subtle.
Me: You know it, bro.
Other Half: Wait a minute... didn't you do that to me? You did! You fucker!
Me: It's a tried and tested method. If it ain't broke...
Other Half: I feel so dirty!
Me: (smirking) Mmhmm.
Other Half: Don't blog about this.
Me: Okay.
Other Half: (pinches nose and sighs) You're going to blog about this, aren't you?
Me: No?
The moral of the story is threefold; firstly, if you don't want me to blog about things, don't make them so entertaining, secondly, never trust me, and thirdly get some kittens. You won't be able to move for eligible ladies. I promise.
Showing posts with label sneaky ninja skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sneaky ninja skills. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
All Your Bears Are Belong To Us
Other Half is a enigmatic creature. She routinely scorns my geekery for higher pursuits, but her interest can be captured if you play your cards right. Over our time together, I feel I have become a master of this delicate art. I once tried to explain this concept to her through the equally fine art of interpretive dance, but she just looked at me for a while, unblinking, and then left the room. I'm a firm believer in interpretive dance. It makes for a great conversation stopper at parties. I speak from experience.
I've recently been playing a game called Red Dead Redemption on one of our PS3s. We have six consoles overall. Other Half likes to pretend she thinks this is too many, but since the colour actually drained from her face when I suggested returning the Wii and her special Goldeneye game/controller set, I think it's safe to say she enjoys them almost as much as I do. We tend to have reasonably similar taste in games, although hers tends towards the first person shooter variety, and I prefer more strategic, turn-based games because my aim onscreen is about as good as my aim would be in real life. I spent most of my time during Resistance: Fall of Man with my camera view pointed inexplicably and rather sadly into the sky as my player was continually riddled with bullets.
At this point Other Half has been on a two week long Grand Theft Auto binge (and I'm not sure I care for the way her elbow twitches every time we walk past a particularly shiny car) and she's being rather derogatory about my new game, which is basically Grand Theft Auto but with cowboys. It's even made by the same superb company. Introducing Other Half to my games, especially these kind of games, is a bittersweet business, as I am fully aware that given fifteen minutes she will be beating the everloving crap out of me and all my high scores/previous amazing achievements. The things we do for love.
Other Half: So, what, you just shoot animals? That's awful!
Me: Didn't you just take out a whole branch of the Mafia?
I've recently been playing a game called Red Dead Redemption on one of our PS3s. We have six consoles overall. Other Half likes to pretend she thinks this is too many, but since the colour actually drained from her face when I suggested returning the Wii and her special Goldeneye game/controller set, I think it's safe to say she enjoys them almost as much as I do. We tend to have reasonably similar taste in games, although hers tends towards the first person shooter variety, and I prefer more strategic, turn-based games because my aim onscreen is about as good as my aim would be in real life. I spent most of my time during Resistance: Fall of Man with my camera view pointed inexplicably and rather sadly into the sky as my player was continually riddled with bullets.
At this point Other Half has been on a two week long Grand Theft Auto binge (and I'm not sure I care for the way her elbow twitches every time we walk past a particularly shiny car) and she's being rather derogatory about my new game, which is basically Grand Theft Auto but with cowboys. It's even made by the same superb company. Introducing Other Half to my games, especially these kind of games, is a bittersweet business, as I am fully aware that given fifteen minutes she will be beating the everloving crap out of me and all my high scores/previous amazing achievements. The things we do for love.
Other Half: So, what, you just shoot animals? That's awful!
Me: Didn't you just take out a whole branch of the Mafia?
Other Half: That's totally different.
Me: Well, you have missions in this game too. You shoot the animals to skin them for pelts, which you can sell in the towns. You get to lasso horses and hunt down wanted criminals. It's pretty fun.
Other Half: That's stupid.
Me: It's awesome.
Other Half: Where's your car?
Me: It's the Wild West. You get a horse. And sometimes a wagon.
Other Half: Again, that's stupid.
It occurred to me that Other Half was perhaps protesting a little too much. I continued to play, ignoring her, while she read a book on the other side of the couch. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her glancing towards the screen. I completed a mission and went out to the next one, stopping on the way to save a lady from being hanged. I shot some bears in the face in slow motion. It was like being a cowboy Superman. I was living the dream.
Other Half: So, what kind of guns have you got?
I knew it. Hook, line and sinker. She wanted to play but she'd called it stupid. She'd take time to come around, like a feral animal. I talked soothingly about the guns for a while as she inched closer. Eventually:
Me: (casually) Do you want to try? I'm going to the bathroom anyway.
Other Half: Well, I suppose. If you're going for a minute I could try...
I returned minutes later. She was jabbing at the controller in frustration.
Other Half: What is wrong with this bloody horse?
Me: (defensively) I've grown quite fond of J-Lo.
Other Half: You named the-you know what, nevermind. How do you reverse it?
Me: I'm sorry? I don't think I heard you right.
Other Half: How do you reverse it? I can't get it to walk backwards.
Me: Didn't you grow up on a farm?
Other Half: Yeah, so?
Me: Turn it around, for god's sake! You don't reverse a horse! It's not a BMW!
Other Half: (dawning comprehension) Oh, I see.
Other Half went on to surpass me at Red Dead Redemption, completing it three time and earning all the trophies. However, I still kick her ass at Risk. She hasn't noticed that I always start from Australia. It's just a matter of time.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Spiders versus Murderers
We're moving house soon. The house we currently live in has a ridiculous number of problems - leaking roof, leaking sinks - in fact, leaking pretty much anywhere where water residue would smell bad or start to ferment oddly. Our downstairs bathroom and hall flooded about a month ago. It was, for lack of a better word, swampy. We managed to dry it out somewhat, but then the carpet started to form mould. I really wanted to set up a lab experiment to evolve the mould, to see if we could turn it into a new evolutionary branch of nature, but Other Half put her foot down. It squelched.
However, I could endure the problems - the constant dripping, the fact that some genius had the shower head installed at knee height so you have to crane like a foetus to get under it, the fact that only the hot tap works upstairs (and it goes from tepid to volcanic in about four seconds, so you better be damn quick if you want to keep the skin on your hands), - if it wasn't for the constant creaking. It's a relatively new, modern house. There's absolutely no reason for it to sound like the centrepiece in a Tim Burton film. Also, it's right next to a field, which I'm fairly certain is being used by the government to grow the most hideous, determined, gigantic spiders in the entire world.
I have a few phobias. Wasps, heights and germs all rank fairly high on the Scale of Lame. But spiders are right up there at the top, just above drowning and just below being drowned by a spider. I recently read a post by Hyperbole and a Half (who has a great and hilarious blog that I have spent hours of my life on, giggling helplessly and emitting liquid from every facial orifice) about spiders. I immediately carried my laptop, power cable trailing dangerously close to the still squishy carpet, to my Other Half. I pointed at this http://tiny.cc/3toow, and explained that when I totally freak out over a spider (or indeed, over a piece of fluff on the floor, or a button, or anything that to my twitchy, paranoid peripheral vision looks remotely like a spider) this is what I see, or at least, think I see. Well, almost. I imagine them more as having a knife between their teeth as they climb rapidly towards me, multiple furred limbs blurring with speed, staring at me as the burning desire to eliminate me burns in their awful beady eyes. It's a kind of Inigo Montoya situation.
Other Half is my hero in these situations. However, being a vegetarian non-killer, she traps the spiders and releases them outside instead of killing them dead like she should. I know they'll just find their way back to base camp. They'll relay the details of the most recent mission, and the spider commanders will pore over their maps and charts, replotting my death, devising new and more ingenious ways to ambush me. Other Half thinks this is ridiculous. She says that spiders naturally enter the house. She cannot offer any explanation for the way they all seem to aim directly at me, or when I swing the bathroom door closed behind me, there is often a spider on the other side, like a kind of horror film assassin, trapping me.
Back to the creaking house of creakerdom. Let me explain, Other Half is not fearless. She has a fairly bad phobia regarding murderers being somehow in the house. I can understand this. Not many people would enjoy finding a murderer in their house, and since it's much, much harder to trap a man under a cup and throw him out the window, I can see why she considers spiders to be no real threat. However, it means that she wakes me from a deep and pleasant sleep on particularly windy nights to have this conversation:
Other Half: Wake up! Oh god, wake up!
Me: ...What?
I usually try to pull the "what" stunt, hoping that she'll resign herself to us being murdered and go back to sleep. This has never worked, but it's worth trying just in case.
Other Half: We're going to die!
Me: (stretching) Okay fine, I'm up, I'm up. Jeez.
Other Half trembles like a puppy in a bullpen as I flick all the lights on and check the house. The noises are attributed to creaking, or to our two mischievous cats, or to the wind, and not to rapey murderers hiding in closets ready to have stabby fun. I trudge, sighing morosely, back to bed, and Other Half is appropriately appreciative of my bravery in the face of absolutely nothing. I get back into bed, but it's usually only after Other Half's breathing starts to sound like what I like to refer to as Snuffly Hedgehog Noises that the thought occurs to me. Not murderers...It must have finally happened. The spider army are on their way, amassing to attack. Damn. Where did I put that hammer?
I have a few phobias. Wasps, heights and germs all rank fairly high on the Scale of Lame. But spiders are right up there at the top, just above drowning and just below being drowned by a spider. I recently read a post by Hyperbole and a Half (who has a great and hilarious blog that I have spent hours of my life on, giggling helplessly and emitting liquid from every facial orifice) about spiders. I immediately carried my laptop, power cable trailing dangerously close to the still squishy carpet, to my Other Half. I pointed at this http://tiny.cc/3toow, and explained that when I totally freak out over a spider (or indeed, over a piece of fluff on the floor, or a button, or anything that to my twitchy, paranoid peripheral vision looks remotely like a spider) this is what I see, or at least, think I see. Well, almost. I imagine them more as having a knife between their teeth as they climb rapidly towards me, multiple furred limbs blurring with speed, staring at me as the burning desire to eliminate me burns in their awful beady eyes. It's a kind of Inigo Montoya situation.
Other Half is my hero in these situations. However, being a vegetarian non-killer, she traps the spiders and releases them outside instead of killing them dead like she should. I know they'll just find their way back to base camp. They'll relay the details of the most recent mission, and the spider commanders will pore over their maps and charts, replotting my death, devising new and more ingenious ways to ambush me. Other Half thinks this is ridiculous. She says that spiders naturally enter the house. She cannot offer any explanation for the way they all seem to aim directly at me, or when I swing the bathroom door closed behind me, there is often a spider on the other side, like a kind of horror film assassin, trapping me.
Back to the creaking house of creakerdom. Let me explain, Other Half is not fearless. She has a fairly bad phobia regarding murderers being somehow in the house. I can understand this. Not many people would enjoy finding a murderer in their house, and since it's much, much harder to trap a man under a cup and throw him out the window, I can see why she considers spiders to be no real threat. However, it means that she wakes me from a deep and pleasant sleep on particularly windy nights to have this conversation:
Other Half: Wake up! Oh god, wake up!
Me: ...What?
Other Half: Someone's in the house!
Me: ...What?
Other Half: Get up! Get the hammer! GET THE HAMMER!
Me: ...What?
I usually try to pull the "what" stunt, hoping that she'll resign herself to us being murdered and go back to sleep. This has never worked, but it's worth trying just in case.
Other Half: We're going to die!
Me: (stretching) Okay fine, I'm up, I'm up. Jeez.
Other Half trembles like a puppy in a bullpen as I flick all the lights on and check the house. The noises are attributed to creaking, or to our two mischievous cats, or to the wind, and not to rapey murderers hiding in closets ready to have stabby fun. I trudge, sighing morosely, back to bed, and Other Half is appropriately appreciative of my bravery in the face of absolutely nothing. I get back into bed, but it's usually only after Other Half's breathing starts to sound like what I like to refer to as Snuffly Hedgehog Noises that the thought occurs to me. Not murderers...It must have finally happened. The spider army are on their way, amassing to attack. Damn. Where did I put that hammer?
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