Naich

This month’s searches

This month, people have mainly been stumbling across this blog as they searched for:

• “green poo toddler” / “baby yellow vomit” / “dark green poo toddler” / “pale poo vomit” / etc. etc. Nice to know that I’m still number one for the rainbow of diseased bodily fluids. Yay.
• “bmw angel eyes daytime running lights insurance” – er… Yes, very probably.
• “brakes making squidy noises” – Mine sound more like an octopus being fed through a blunt bandsaw.
• “does cocaine make green poo” – I had to look that one up myself – it doesn’t look like it does, interestingly enough. Probably something you ate.
  
• “fire coming out of a monkey tab” – It’s something to do with guitar notation for a song by the Gorillaz. Thank fuck for that.
• “fucking bmw drivers” – Taking the handbrake off and rolling them over a cliff should do it.

Right. I’m putting the words “celery”, “anal” and “leech” into this post to try for some interesting search queries for next month.

Number One!

Searching Google for “brightly coloured poo” brings up my blog as the first hit out of 17,800. Naich’s Blog. Number One for people who like their turds with a bit more colour.

I found that out because the server logs (ho ho ho) showed that 2 people have landed at my page following a search for exactly that term. Other searches that led to my blog were “can you get chickenpox in you bum”, “dark green poo toddler” and (rather disturbingly) “your first enema”.

Highlights for June included “baby clear glob”, “naked bmw driver” and “clearing the nose of vomit” (I’m proud to be number 2 on Google for that one).

It’s then pretty dull until we get to April, with “help masturbation” (sorry, I’m busy at the moment) and “gotta survive or try to stay alive ho how old”. Well quite.

Finally, March has a disturbing “symptom coughing up lung”, presumably followed by a search for “how to clean bits of human organ out of your keyboard”.

Still gasping after 8 months

October 19th 2006. A historic day… President Bush welcomed President-Elect Felipe Calderon of Mexico to the White House, JCC marketing were honored at regional conference, and Schrödinger application scientist Shashi Rao discussed features and capabilities of Phase 2.0, as well as underlying scientific methodologies.

Yes, as you can see, Google is utterly shit at finding interesting events that happened on a certain day.

Another thing it missed was my last ciggy. It’s been 8 months since I gave up and my life is an empty shell without them. Well, not quite but I do miss the little buggers – especially when I go out to pick something up from the shops and I find myself thinking “excellent, just the right time for a little rollie… ah nuts”. Still, I must be healthier than I was. With a good tailwind I can now hurtle along on my deathtrap of a bicycle at truly terrifying velocities (I’ve fixed one of the brakes now, so it’s slightly less suicidal) and I can make it to the top of the stairs without collapsing into a puddle of twitching phlegm at the top. So good news really. But I do miss them.

The strange thing is that I don’t think I could start smoking again, even if I wanted to. I’ve got a little confession to make. It’s normally considered somewhat reckless to put confessions on web pages that are not only accessible to billions of people worldwide, but will be archived by Google and The Internet Archive, thus making them available to billions of people worldwide for the rest of time, but I’m that sort of person – i.e., stupid.

It was a few weekends back and Jen had left me in charge of wallpapering the tallest bit of the hallway. It was a 15 foot vertical drop where the stairs start and downstairs ceiling stopped, giving way to the full height of the house. Jen had papered up to this point and I had to hang the next roll along, teetering from a ladder propped over the upstairs banisters in a truly shit-crimping way. Jen and Wibs had popped out to go down the park and I was left at home, sweatily labouring under the misapprehension that I could achieve more by trying to wallpaper the hall than by doing the washing up, picking hairs out of the plughole, or just putting my feet up and watching telly. In fact, it would have been better if I had simply burnt the roll of paper – I wouldn’t have wasted the wallpaper paste and the house would have been slightly warmer. But hindsight is something you only get after you discover that a) you’ve cut the paper too short, b) you forgot to fill in the holes in the wall, and c) the bit of paper you are lining up against is on the tilt, meaning you are going to end up with a 3 inch gap at the top. I ripped the soggy paper off and threw the brush down the stairs.

    Bollocks

        Bollocks

            Bollocks

                Bollocks

A while ago, while tidying up, I found Jen’s secret emergency stash of 5 squished Malboro lights. I was shocked and chided her for her weakness, giving her a short lecture about willpower (noting how I didn’t need a crutch), and threw them in the bin. Then, when she wasn’t looking, I picked them out again and hid them in my underwear drawer. Yeah, like YOU’VE never done anything that made you feel like a weasel of a hypocrite of a weasel. And it’s a good job I did.  I decided that pathetically standing in the middle of a pile of gluey wallpaper counted as an emergency, so it was time to have a smoke. Upstairs.  Drawer.  Rummage. Pants. Socks. Aha. Outside. Light. Suck. Ahhhh… Agggggghhhh… Blough. Chwoaar. Hwuuurck. Whaaark. Gasp. Holy shit. What the? Again. Suuck. Ahhhhhh? No! Chhwoooagh. Chuurf. Wheeze. Clouarch. Pant. Retch.

What has happened to me? In my time I’ve smoked joss sticks, hay, fireworks, match heads, banana skins (no, they don’t), wood, hemp seeds picked out of bird food (they make little explosions that blast red hot grains into your eyes), and none of those made me cough, gag and retch like this cigarette did. Well, I suppose to be fair, it didn’t make me think I was dying like the time I tried the firework smoke, but it was quite shocking, nonetheless. In the olden days I could out-smoke a petrochemical plant fire but now I can’t even handle a single drag on a low tar stick. I had to put it out after 3 puffs because I felt so sick. I suppose that’s good really.

Right. That’s the entry done. I’ve just got time to nip outside for a quick… oh figs.

Seven things no-one tells you about your first kid

You might be lacking sleep and money, but one thing you won’t be short of is advice. This will come from friends, family, cow-orkers or just people who come up to you in shops. It usually goes along the lines of “don’t worry – it gets easier. After 20 years, ha ha”. Whether you merely fantasise about punching them or whether you actually deck them is up to you, but here is some advice that is slightly more useful.

1. Use drugs. Lots of drugs. Drugs are good. Some drugs work better than others though and, while every baby is different, these are the ones that most people agree are worth smearing on, and inserting into, your little angel.
   • Metanium. You know how it is the day after a really good curry? That’s nothing compared to the state a baby’s bum can get into, and the poor sod didn’t even have the pleasure of a nice hot curry first. The better-known cream, Sudocream is OK for minor instances but when those cheeks look like they are about to burst into flames, a thin smear of Metanium will work wonders, especially overnight. I’ve seen bums that have been about to blister returned virtually to normal overnight with this stuff – it’s that good.
   • Medised. Everyone knows Calpol; it’s nice, safe paracetamol-based strawberry yumminess. Medised is like Calpol, in that it’s got the same amount of paracetamol in it, but it’s also got an antihistamine in it to, er… “help clear the nose”. Yes, it’s to help clear the nose. Honest. It’s just that, well, the type of antihistamine they use is not a non-drowsy one. Ooh, better stick a warning on the box not to drive or operate machinery – nudge nudge. It’s not intended to cause drowsiness, it’s just a side-effect. Wink wink. Yeah. That’s why the last 3 letters of the name are the first three of “sedate”. Ooh, did I mention the “S” word? Nah, it’s not written anywhere on the box so it can’t do that, can it? But I’ll just say that for minor fevers and colds, it can provide a pretty good night’s sleep for everyone concerned. It’s not so good in the day though, when it’ll just get him stoned. While it’s quite funny to see him staggering around the place, it’s not the right one to use and you will feel guilty for laughing.
   • Fenpaed. Once they are old enough to have ibruprofen, this stuff will tame fevers that Calpol can’t touch and it’s good for teething pain. It’s also got a stupid name; what more do you want?
   • Eurax. He’s got chicken pox? Smear this on the spots or you won’t get any sleep. Poor Wibs couldn’t lay down for 2 nights because his spots were driving him mad. If it hadn’t been Easter or if the bastard emergency chemist had actually been open, we could have got some, lathered him up and got more than 2 hours sleep. On the 3rd day, when we did eventually find some and goop him up before bed, he slept like, well, a baby. Forget Camomile lotion or baths in baking soda; they just made things worse for us.
2. Buy a PVR. It’s the only way you’ll get to see a whole TV program for the next 6 months or so. Well, maybe the news headlines or a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but anything longer will be punctuated with at least one nappy change, feed or rocking session. And even after they grow up enough to sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time, you will occasionally have to dash out at a crucial point in a show. In short, get used to watching films in 10 minute chunks. Don’t rent DVDs because you’ll never get to the end of one by the time it has to go back.
3. Take up smoking. Or start some other addiction; crack cocaine or chocolate maybe? – whatever it is, it’ll be something that you can say to yourself “I might be getting up at 3.30am but at least I can have a smoke/pipe/creme egg afterwards.” Personally, I smoked and found it did genuinely help to have a proper addiction that I could look forward to feeding at any hour of the day or night.
4. Before your little bundle of noise is born, take the time to cook up several thousand portions of spag bol, shepherds pie, lasagne and bung them in the freezer. Unless you are really into beans on toast, you’ll want some other things you can cook in the 5 minutes you get to yourself every day.
5. Don’t listen to advice from your parents. It’s been years since you were a baby and they will have forgotten what it was like. Things have changed since then anyway, and modern medicines tend to work better than the bizarre dark age semi-faith-based remedies they’ll come up with. “That’s a good idea, we’ll try it next time” is a good phrase to use when your mum suggests an ice bath with a mercury enema to balance his humours.
6. Wrap the little bugger up. Try to imagine it from his point of view. There he was, quietly jostling around in the nice warm dark confines of the womb when *squelch* – everything is now really bright, noisy, cold and where the hell have the walls gone? You can make things a bit more womb-like and comforting by strapping the arms in with a blanket. Actually, I’m sometimes tempted to see if it still works on older kids; for example 2-year olds who misbehave. Yes, I’m talking about you, Wibbles.
7. The following things are normal:
   • Brightly coloured poo, ranging from black to green to yellow. Make sure it’s the right colour though. For example, having green poo when it’s supposed to be yellow means they aren’t getting enough fatty milk or if it’s pale yellow when it’s supposed to be mustard yellow it could indicate jaundice. You think worrying about the colour of poo is a bit odd? Welcome to the world of parenting.
   • Constant illness, sometimes with colds actually overlapping each other so there isn’t even a gap between them. He’ll then pass them on to you.
   • Urine fountains as soon as the nappy is removed. You know how it is – the cold air hits and you just have to go. Accept that you will be pissed on every now and again.
   • Spots everywhere and strange rashes. Get them checked out if they last more than a few days.
   • Hilarious farting noises. I suggest recording them and when he’s a teenager you can use the threat of playing it to his mates/girlfriend as useful leverage.
   • Minor hallucinations from lack of sleep. When I’ve only had 10 minutes sleep in a night I tend to hallucinate pornalised versions of words on signs, adverts etc., .e.g. “Eddie Stobart Whorage” or “Tescos Value Aluminium Fart”. Enjoy them. They provide some light relief from reality.

I think that’s about it. Good luck.

Death Race 2006

Ever heard of “risk compensation“? It’s “an effect whereby individual animals may tend to adjust their behaviour in response to perceived changes in risk”. Being an individual sort of animal with a reduced risk of smoking related illness, there has been an adjustment in my behaviour when it comes to cycling.

My old heap (it’s called Dying Fleath and was bought as a replacement for my previous bike, Flying Death) is a fairly sorry sort of piss-poor excuse for a bicycle. The gears change of their own accord so they’ll chunk into top gear as I go up hills (imagine trying to submerge a continent by pushing it down with your foot), before dropping down into bottom gear for the other side, making my legs spin round like windmills. They need copious swearing and brute force to pursuade them into any sort of remotely useful state. There is no bell, the entire frame and handlebar assembly is just a ball of rust, and the brakes are broke. Well, actually, they do sort of work in that they make a lot of noise to alert people to my presence. They just don’t slow me down much. An emergency stop for me means a noise like a howler monkey being cooked alive on a spit accompanied by a gentle glide to a halt over the equivalent length of two football pitches. In short, I make oil tankers look nimble.

So you would think that I ride it fairly slowly, wouldn’t you? Well, I did when I was smoking. My lung capacity prevented me reaching any speeds even remotely close to double figures (either KMPH or MPH – take your pick). Now that I can get to the end of the road without coughing up lung nuts the size of acorns, I can go a hell of a lot faster than is sane, safe, sensible or smushy. Sorry, I ran out of adjectives beginning with S there. My increased physique, coupled with my perceived reduced risk has made me a danger to other road users, path users and people who have just chucked themselves in a bush because they thought they were about to get attacked by a charred howler monkey. Not only do I have the capability to zip along at an un-snail-like pace, I can’t stop doing it. For some reason I feel that I now have to ride at 100% all the time. It’s very disturbing for someone as deeply and fundamentally lazy as me. If there isn’t already a psychological term for being unable to cycle a death trap at anything less than 100% effort, then I’d like it to be called “Ohfuckshit Syndrome” after the noises made by it’s sufferers as they hurtle towards oblivion.

It’s even worse in the rain. If there is one thing I don’t like (actually there are several; you might have noticed), it’s getting wet. If you see someone riding a bike-shaped lump of rust, dressed up in cheap, leaking waterproofs and enveloped by a blue haze of obscenities, that’ll be me. Of course, in order to reduce the amount of time I spend getting wet I have to go even faster. And the brakes are even worse in the wet. And they stop making that noise so you can’t even hear me coming. And it’s fucking lethal – far more dangerous than smoking ever was.

If you see me coming, get out of the way.