My first ever Blog…

So I’ve decided to enter the world of the blogger, my reasoning being that I’m rubbish at keeping diaries and this will hopefully help Future Me remember what Present Me is all about.  Hopefully this will be as interesting a read as it is to write and I won’t come to realise that I am as dull as a butter knife in a self-harm clinic. 

The first thing that I have come to realise pretty rapidly in the first couple of sentences is - I have no idea what the rules are to make a blog a blog. Not knowing any different I shall make it up as I go along, and hopefully you the reader (or should that be Bloggee) will be enthralled enough to come back for some more. At the very least I hope you come back to feel better about yourselves – “At least I’m not as mind-numbingly dreary as this t!t I’m reading now”!

Side note – is Bloggee the correct name for someone who reads a blog? It sounds wrong to me, like some encrusted snot stuck to the end of one’s nose which goes unnoticed by no one except the wearer!

Another reason for taking it upon myself to write this little ditty is the fact that I have been without my mobile phone for the last 8 days and have felt lost without it. It’s made me think back to many years ago when I detested the very thought of owning that unsociable brick that would permanently and self-congratulatory be held next to one’s head with an “aren’t I cutting edge” smugness reserved for present day Apple owners.

Technology has moved on so far that I for one struggle to perform everyday tasks without the use of modern gadgets.  I awake to the alarm on my mobile phone (I had to borrow wifey’s whilst mine was being repaired). I use my electric toothbrush on the daily chore that is brushing one’s nashers. A quick check on my phone again this time – internet banking (a daily routine after some nasty Nigerian stole a couple of grand from our bank account a few years back), email, Facebook, Twitter and BBC News and Football…  All this within the space of 20 minutes after waking!

Blogging at lunch!

Work is sat behind a couple of monitors doing various Microsoft led tasks as well as other IT type chores. During the day I will take random glances to see if anyone ‘loves’ me on – Facebook, Twitter and emails. The disappointment you feel when you get a notification and all it’s for is bloody Farm Animal Candy Hero Gangster is something I’m sure we all share! Then a quick scroll to see if anyone has done anything interesting lately, and no your cat ‘insert action here’ on your lap/chair/pillow/head does not count.

Side note – don’t think the irony of my complaining about being tied to modern gadgets/social media in a blog is lost on me. I totally get that but you can sod of for pointing it out, I’m writing this not you and like I said, I’m making the rules around here compadre!

Then back home to TV, laptop and mobile mostly at the same time, we have become a multi-task society, unable to concentrate on one thing at a time. I now struggle to watch anything with subtitles as the occasional glance at my phone or laptop would lead me to miss half the dialogue. Gone are the days when I could easily pop on a movie from French or Hong Kong cinema and relax, an effort has to be made to switch off. I have to get my electronic fix like some drugged up junky sat in Mother Superior’s Den of wasters Trainspotting the next Bond impression.

Side Note – A couple of good foreign language movies I really enjoyed many moons ago, only saw them once but like to see them again to see if they are as good as I remember… the Italian crime film La Scorta (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108059/) and the Wong Kar Wai film As Tears Go By (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096461/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

I suppose I haven’t asked myself the question… is blogging passé? I was late to the twitter band wagon, I haven’t gone on to Snap Chat and BB Messaging passed me by (although I never got the point of it!). Although having been on Facebook since 2007, I haven’t been totally behind the times. I was on Google+ just a day after it launched, that said I have only added two statuses in the meantime.  Google+ although nicely laid out is pretty pointless in the Facebook age. Yes I can search by email address for contacts but most of the people I chat with on the Book of Face I have no idea what their email addresses are. I think if you could have searched by FB contacts the uptake might have been a lot more then the 3 or 4 friends.

I do try to keep up with technology although not always successfully,  I remember having a heated conversation in 1998 over how long the internet would last… 10 years I thought! I would obviously make a terrible investor, I would be the Dragon who you would pay to avoid in the den!

And so here I am adding another fix to my electronic addiction…

If you’re wondering why the name Gone Back For A Refund  as the title of my blog, well I’ve always said that this will be the Epitaph on my gravestone… and I couldn’t think of anything better that hadn’t been used!

 

Please feel free to leave any comments you have below, any negative or horrible comments will be taken to heart and I will hunt you down… and cry on your shoulder begging for forgiveness!

  

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