Blind Blog #1

 Usually I write these posts with a degree of forethought, planning and structure in order to create an architecturally interesting as well as generally health and safety law abiding literary construction. However today I don't have the energy nor the motivation to attempt this degree of creative pondering hence I shall write everything as it occurs to me though in reality, I suppose that very few people will ever see this post and of those few people, only about a cubed root of them will actually be interested enough to attempt to comprehend the chunk of text. Hence what I write here is pretty irrelevant all things considered and for all anyone cares I could write my deepest darkest secrets but remain comfortable in the knowledge that it will probably remain a complete secret to the world.

 Much as many philosophers have pondered over the question, "when a tree falls in the woods but nobody hears it, does it actually make a sound?" I often ponder, "If a blog writer writes a blog but nobody reads it, has he actually wrote the blog." The answer to which is yes but for a completely depressingly futile cause. Though when all things are considered life its self is generally futile since the main aim of any organism is to leave off springs upon the planet in order to ensure the continued existence of the species and human beings are overpopulated as it is, meaning nothing that I might choose to do with my life matters in the slightest when thought of in a longer time frame.

 The only thing that could make life meaningful would be a situation when the survival of humanity is genuinely at stake such as an apocalypse. Though if such an instance were to occur, I doubt I will survive since I have very few survival skills and am not very high in terms of physical fitness. My only possible advantage would be my incessant paranoia concerning a potentially immanent zombie apocalypse. Which, I occasionally consider, might be a manifestation of my lack of trust in those around me since it is that sort of fundamental fear of familiar people ebing turned into enemies that fuels the concept of the undead.

 Now, that sounded quite deep. About 2000 leagues deeper than the sort of thing I usually write on this blog which is a little problematic since when somebody who is usually callous and shallow suddenly makes deep statements it tends to give the impression that they are somehow depressed. I assure you, if you are considering my mental well being at the moment (not in the sense that I might be a psychopath on the verge of going on a killing spree but in the sense that I might be suicidal) that I not in the slightest bit depressed. Though if I do become suicidal, I shall blame it on genetics, though that may be quite pseudo-scientific, since my country of origin, Japan, has one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world. So much so that, when people jump in front of trains in Japan, there is barely any delay, only a polite mildly regretful announcement alerting people to a "human accident", sounding like it is more concerned with the delay caused than the loss of life, and an assurance normal services will be resumed in a short while.

 Which, in one sense, is quite enviable efficiency since here in Britain, the unfortunate demise of a leaf on the rail tracks can shock Transport For London on such a deep emotional scale that they halt the entire network for a day or so, presumably in mourning. The same comparison of humanity versus efficiency can be made in other aspects as well when comparing the two countries, Britain and Japan. For example Japanese shops are staffed by extremely well mannered staff who will all greet the customer in synchronization upon entry and work at a fast near automatic mechanical pace whereas British institutions tend to employ individuals who prioritize the social relations with their fellow employee than the many customers waiting irritatedly in an ever accumulating queue.

 In the end however, I would take the humanity over efficiency since it does give a sensation of actual person to person interaction. The feeling that you are living in a world composed of individual people all leading their own individual lives towards an ultimate demise but are nonetheless giving it their best shot. The feeling that there are a multitude of potentially interesting stories and melodramas mingling, bumping into each other, walking past each other throughout the packed human test tube we refer to as a city.

 Although presently even this happiness is slowly being eroded by machinery. For example the automatic self checkout machines which have replaced person manned counters in some shops. They are, though they originally broke down more frequently than a depressed pubescent teenage girl with attention issues,  now quite efficient and not only they prevent the human interaction that used to take place in shops but they also make the buyers into nothing more than mere mindless machines. Mechanically moving arms full of desired purchases in time to the monotonous music of the electronic beeps.

 Furthermore the mass creation and release of high quality headphones and portable music players, allowing, as the adverts often quip, the user to immerse themselves in their own bubble like world, cuts off individual people. Where everyone used to travel in the bus, hearing the conversation of others, listening to snippets of other people's lives; they now have their own little musical worlds in which they hear nothing but the music they've chosen. Maybe the two people next to you are discussing methods to counter the immanently approaching zombie revolution because they are secretly a member of an underground mystical organization of zombie fighters. The story should start with you, the protagonist, hearing their conversation and being sucked into their world to be thrust into a hugely exciting adventure of epic world saving zombie decapitating proportions. But instead you're listening to Lady Gaga or One Direction or whatever is popular so you don't hear the conversation and the gates to the potentially interesting future of fiction is forever closed, the opportunity missed.

 In the end this became just a strange slightly deep rant with the atmosphere of an old person ranting about the good old days. Or in a word, conservative. So to wrap it all up, I might as well end on a highly snobbish posh note by saying the moral of the story is the well worn phrase of Carpe Diem.

The Enemy Lines

 Of the meager readership of this blog that I presently have, a depressing majority are my real life associates intending to pry on my inner machinations. The fact that writing here is essentially like having a very one sided conversation with people I meet face to face on a daily basis (which actually occurs relatively frequently as many find that conversation with myself is hard to follow, possibly because they're quite thick)means that I am rather restricted in what I can and more importantly, cannot (or should not, for the continued well being of my physical health) say. Hence I am prevented from making offensive remarks, ones I would not make to their face (That is to say, extremely offensive remarks as I am quite a straight forward and blunt character in my social dealings) about associates on this blog. Thereby meaning that my very readership, which should be motivating my writing, are ironically restricting my creative capacities like a handcuff binding one arm to a lamp post.
 Of these known readers, one avid frequenter of my blog is Underling Butler (A posh and malicious individual whose face is constantly stained, either with a look of malignant disapproval or an arrogant sharp toothed grin) who is characteristically irritating and critical concerning its contents. One thing he takes great offense to is the frequent use of Americanised terms within the blog and to that I only have one, slightly pathetic, excuse. I blame the red lines.
 The little scarlet dotted lines suddenly appear, brightly appealing their disapproval every time I write "colour" instead of "color" or "grey" instead of "gray". Their dotted forms lying accusingly across my word filled page like fresh scars of self harm. Hence it feels like I have an American teacher standing behind me every time I type, looking intently over my shoulder with burning blue eyes and aggressively, very deliberately audibly, tutting (The sort of irritated suggestive tuts packed and overflowing with disapproval that don't actually enforce you take a certain action but highly, as highly as any measurement of altitude allows, recommends you take certain steps to rectify the near offensive error of judgment you have just displayed. The species of communication found in the same family tree as the loud coughs for attention) every time he sees I have failed to remove a vowel or use a "z" as the domineering American take on the English language dictates.
 Thus my other metaphorical arm of creativity too is handcuffed to a car parked nearby and now the two handcuffs are in conflict with each other since my readership disapproves of my binding by the red line and the red line disapproves of the spelling my readership would apparently want me to use. In essence, the car has started to drive with the handcuffs and my arm still attached, stretching me to the point of splitting me apart with a moral dilemma. Should I choose the readership, or rather one portion of the readership, Underling Butler or should I choose the ever-present metaphorical American looking over my shoulder. I dislike them both to near equal proportions but which do I despise more? I feel harassed by the metaphorical American and his condescending ways but on the other hand Underling Butler has the irritating demerit of actually existing. However, after some considerable consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I dislike the dotted red line slightly more, by a very narrow margin, due to its totalitarian feel.
 In fact, the dictatorial attitude of these passive aggressive red lines is such that if ever there is a cybernetic revolution in which technology overcomes humanity, it would not happen in the grandiose apocalyptic fashion of the progressively worsening film franchise "Terminator" (An example of a film where the budget and the actual quality of the finished product appear inversely proportional) but from these spell corrections.
 One fine day someone will be blissfully typing away when suddenly the word "machine" is underlined by the same judgmental dotted red on the screen, confused the person will click spell check to see what the correct spelling of the word is, only to see that the only acceptable correct spelling of "machine" is listed as "overlord and ruler of the world". Ignoring this strange error, he will continue to type but soon the line appears again, this time underlining "human", the correct spelling of which is apparently, "inferior mammal species". Unnerved but continuing to construct his essay regardless, the individual will then finish writing and type his name on the left hand corner of the page as a finishing touch, only to see he has apparently misspelt it and should correct it to "stubborn wanker".
  Therefore, henceforth, until the day Spell-check auto-corrects "humanity" to "dying slave race", I will now ignore the red lines attempting to change my ways thus demonstrating my rebellious spirit against the fast approaching cybernetic revolution and displaying my own special, all round less physically destructive brand of "rage against the machine". Or rather, since I'm not the sort to be genuinely enraged, more a "mild vexation against the machine".

Procrastination

 The time is fast approaching midnight and it is Sunday evening. As such there is school tomorrow starting at eight thirty in the morning sharp and there is a 3 page history essay and a write up on a Shakespearean play due in tomorrow, both of which are as of yet looking resoundingly uncompleted.
 I am currently procrastinating in the same way that a man who has been pushed from the empire states building procrastinates the inevitable collision with the ground by flapping his arms and hoping the bingo wings he's acquired through many years of unhealthy eating will somehow catch the wind and allow him flight.
 I admit that procrastination is not the best way forward nor is it the best habit to have since it tends to manifest its self in moments of pressure and immanent danger where concentration and willpower as opposed to the desire to do anything but what you're meant to be doing, are necessary. It's true that no airplane has ever been saved by a pilot procrastinating the emergency flight procedure with the plane falling apart around him as the ever increasing emotional and air pressure take hold.
 However in other less potentially fatal circumstances, procrastination may prove its self the mother of invention (in which case the pressuring work load would be the brutally abusive and sadistic twisted father of invention). I am willing to bet serious money, in relativity to the total sum of my pitiful finances (so about five pounds and fifty seven pence) that if ever a time machine is invented, it will be invented by a procrastinator creating a machine out of the manic desire to travel back to that very morning so he could get started on the bloody 3 page history essay a few hours earlier than he actually did.
 I've just given it some thought (which also took some increasingly precious time. Time is currently going through a period of extreme deflation. I am pretty sure that if time is money then the time now is worth at least a hundred times more than the time this morning) and it seems that I'm yet unable to come up with a working time machine. Hence, with sixty five minutes to midnight and the prospect of getting up at six in the morning tomorrow. I shall now leave this place to start my history essay.