GUEST BLOG: Domestic Jedi

Someone else has sent me a thing! A big thanks to the SCIENCELORD @magicdarts for the following selection of words.

Do you find yourself summoning The Force to retrieve everyday items instead of moving?

@magicdarts sent me this on Twitter.

Picture the scene: I'm at home on the sofa and something is just out of reach. Do I move? Do I hell.

I concentrate, trying to feel the Force flowing  amongst all things, even the remote and the beer bottle. I stretch out with my feelings, I will do this, I won’t just try.

If I’m feeling particularly energetic I’ll reach out with my hand and maybe even close my eyes. I can feel the remote moving, flying towards my hand like Darth Vader plucking a blaster bolt from thin air.

My eyes open...

Nothing has changed.

I sigh, and have to do things the old-fashioned way using muscles and energy and other boring non-Jedi techniques.

Do you do this? Are hokey religions and ancient weapons a match for having a beer in your hand or the ability to change channel?

More importantly, does it work?

Text to impress

When you know someone's reading what you're texting do you try to impress them?

I'm quite an open man I don't really care who knows what about my life because really there's nothing that interesting. So when I know someone's reading my texts instead of being annoyed or embarrassed I tend to put on a bit of a show for them.

For one I start using words I'd never normally use like 'combobulate' or 'umbridge' and avoid using caps WHICH I BLOODY LOVE DOING NORMALLY. If you text in caps and someone reads what you're writing it looks like you're angry and I'm not angry, I just like big letters.

I also wind up deleting what I'm writing and try to make it more interesting which, if you're someone who receives texts from me, you know I'd not normally do unless someone was reading my screen.

'I'm good thanks, how're you?' becomes 'Dude this train is combobulating through the galaxy at a million miles an hour and my brain takes umbridge at how it has to cope with how brilliant everything is. Is your life the veritable rollercoaster of commutable joy that mine is?'

Well, really, it depends on who's looking. I admit: often you're trying to impress an attractive person who you believe will fall in love with you based purely on your textual prowess. They never will though, because your textual skills are just too intimidating.

WHAT YOU SHOULD NEVER DO, never ever ever ever do, is write a message to the person on the phone. That's just plain creepy. If someone's looking over your shoulder and you text 'Hi, I can see you reading this. I like your face' they are legally allowed to shoot the phone out of your hand. And then shoot you*.

 So, do you text like nobody's watching (even if they are)?

*Jallford is not a lawyer. Not even slightly. He can say OBJECTION! and point at things but then so can a monkey* and you've never seen one of them as a lawyer have you.

*Jallford is also not an expert in animals (though imagine if monkeys could talk - no wait don't, it's too frightening)

Master of Darkness

Do you consider the light switch a last resort?

I don't need lights. Every single time I enter a dark room and leave without turning the light on I pat myself on the back three, maybe even four times. Preparing dinner? Grabbing snacks? Pretending to be a ninja? None of these require light. It's a personal failure if you have to flick that switch, it means cats and bats both beat you.

Also I'm saving the planet because I'm not using its precious lifeblood to compensate for my inability to find a Pepperami at midnight. I'm practically an eco-warrior.

But, as with all the best things in life, there are pros and cons to being a darklord.

PROS

• Sheer misguided pride
• Get things done slightly faster
• Easier to hide from people you don't like or question the point of
• Easier to sleep while performing mundane tasks
• Lower risk of electric shock

CONS

• Freak out anyone you live with who enters the room. 'Why are you in the dark?' '*Scowls* I DON'T NEED THE LIGHT!' (this has actually happened)
• Potential injury - but most of my posts carry that risk
• Culinary mishaps
• Eye damage
• Move slower
• More vulnerable to surprise zombie attack

Do you shy from the light?

GUEST BLOG: Commute Superstar

Do you turn every commute into a music video?

I don't do these things, but a person called Morsho (@QueenMorsh - she's not a real queen) does. If you like my words you'll probably like hers.

This is not me

I spend 2 hours a day (at least) commuting to and from work, so I listen to music on the train. I fly into a RAGE if I forget my headphones, but when I listen to music I always unwittingly end up pretending I am in a music video.  

Sometimes it's quite subtle, I’ll listen to the song and move my head to look up and down the carriage in time to the drum beat, or cross and uncross my legs in time to the music. Sometimes I'll wait until a line of a song says something along the lines of “the first time I saw you” and then glance up and stare intensely at the nearest man, pretending that we are both in a music video and the song is about us. That tends to get me a few weird looks and restraining orders though.  

I have been known to pause a song on my iPod because I am about to get off the train and the song I am listening to is the perfect song to accompany my walk to the next platform. One of my favourites is Are You Gonna Go My Way by Lenny Kravitz when you are walking from the Bakerloo Line to the Central line at Oxford Circus – the guitar riff at the beginning is perfect for a purposeful Britain’s Next Top Model style walk down the long corridor at the bottom of the stairs.  If the song is started the minute you step off the train, you can even fit in a glance left and right and then a full pelt model strut towards the stairs that perfectly fits in time with the music.  

I also HATE it when there's a break in the song when you're walking downstairs, but the song starts up again before you've reached the bottom. I've legged it downstairs before just so the music doesn’t beat me.

Do you own the secret imaginary-commute-dance scene?

(Incidentally if you do things and want to know if other people do them send an e-mail to doyoudothis@gmail.com or buzz (not sure what that verb means in this context) me on Twitter @jallford)

More to follow from Morsho later!

Bus loyalty

Is every movement you make an inevitable betrayal of every passenger around you?

The perfect bus experience is getting the slightly raised chair, not sitting next to anyone and staring wistfully out the window like you're in a terrible movie that no one would watch.

The reality is often your favourite chair is taken and you're forced to sit next to someone ugly or foolish.

If I sit next to someone I will want to bail as soon as possible, but in a way that makes it look like I did it for practical, rather than personal, reasons. It's very hard to convey this message in a movement, so my solution is simple: do it fast. Just run, don't give them time to think or be offended.

There are times when you freeze in your chair out of 'bus loyalty', that is if you move you feel you will break the status quo. I've seen whole buses frozen by cold because no one stood up to close a window, and the person next to it didn't even know it was open. Why? Bus loyalty. As soon as you stand up the bus world is SHAKEN, everyone's disturbed, it's like you're steamrolling through a jungle.

You have exactly 2 minutes after sitting down to stand up again, after that point if you stand up when the bus hasn't stopped you are some kind of maverick who might kill someone or everyone or ask for money or start dancing and no one wants that, not at 7 in the morning.

Where do your loyalties lie?

Safe word

Do you make a noise when you're in pain?

When I was young I did karate (I was a Karate Kid, HYUH!) and when you did a second punch the instructor said you had to make a sound to 'release your energy'. Most people made the following sounds:
'HYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!'
'HOOOOOOO!'
'HAAAaaauuuuh!'
When it came to me I made the following sound:
''
And I was promptly told to 'SHOUT!!' so I said the following:
'Haaa...'
Instructor was not impressed. But then I beat his favourite pupil in a spar and I didn't even have to make sounds like a baying gorilla to do it.

I don't know why people make noises and this especially applies to pain. If I get hurt, hit or burnt I don't swear, make a sound or do anything. Am I an invincible juggernaut? As far as you know yes (no), but how does saying useless words or grunts help relieve the pain or express it? I normally REFLEX MODE to get out of the way or hiss to myself but that's it, there's no time to think to say words!

All it does is draw attention to you and, say you've just hit your head on a door that you were shutting which I totally didn't do yesterday, the last thing you want is for people to notice by shouting loudly as if to say 'LOOK AT ME, LOOK HOW FOOLISH I'VE BEEN'.

I've never had my arm cut off or been attacked by facemelting acid and maybe then I would make a sound. Up to now though? Nothing. I am the silent pain man.  I can only hope someone somewhere finds that arousing.

So do you shout when you twist?

Never been less like a statue

Do you have difficulty standing still?

I don't mean you're a hyperactive gitchild who, when told to stand still, freaks out and starts kicking everyone. I mean more like, you're standing there, but you're doing everything possible to not just be standing there.

For me this sense comes from the fact I look a bit suspicious, and if I'm just standing there doing nothing I look even more suspicious. No I'm not about to maul your child, I'm just waiting for a friend.

So what happens?

I KNOW, PHONE!

I don't get texts, so when I take out my phone it's either to look at the time or pretend I have texts. Now you can whip out your phone, but there's an etiquette to fake-phone using. You can't stare at your phone slack jawed you have to be doing something, so you hit buttons but which buttons? You don't want to call someone by accident or you'll have to talk to them and I don't know if you've met my friends but I don't want to talk to them.

So instead you flip through bizarre phone functions you never knew you had like a useless calendar system or memos. Maybe you'll change your phone background to a picture of a flower or something I don't know.

Anyway the phone can only last so long otherwise people will twig on that you're fake phoning so we then...

LOOK AROUND

Looking around without coming across like a psycho is difficult if you're standing still, alone, in plain sight of everyone. You can't rotate your head sideways like a turret, but if you move your whole body it looks like a terrifying dance.

What I do here is probably the worst way to handle this: I rotate my whole body one way, then rotate it the other way. My arms normally swing with me, aimlessly. At this point I usually get a weird look, and what do you do then?

LOOK UP OR DOWN

Looking up or down while in public is the stupidest thing you could ever do, especially while standing still. You look like you're on drugs if you look up at nothing (unless you're looking at what someone else is looking at, to judge if they're on drugs), and if you look down you look petrified of the world.

But there's no choice if someone's cornered your gaze and you're standing there. So you look down slightly as if you've seen the most interesting thing in the world slightly below them and then you look away and the situation is disarmed.

Well that's nice, so now you can...

SHUFFLE UNEASILY

At this point you're busted: or at least paranoia and awkwardness have taken over and you think you're busted. Either way at this point your body is moving of its own volition and you're rocking backwards and forwards and while you probably don't think it's that weird it looks very, very weird.

You don't look like a zombie, but it's the sort of thing a zombie would do in its more docile, aimless moments. You're somewhat stuck at this stage. You have one option and really it's something else a zombie would do at this stage too.

WANDER AIMLESSLY

There are shops and signs which, while normally irrelevant to your life, are now the most fascinating things in existence. You need to stay within view of where you said you'd stay, but that could mean anything. You have essentially at this point given up standing still.

At this stage I will half-examine any piece of literature, signage or advert around me. If I wander into a shop (god help you if you do) I will realise I don't want to spend any money, but will continue scanning products that I don't want or need, whilst trying to convince any shop attendants that yes, I will eventually make a purchase and am not, simply, an idiot occupying space or a criminal mastermind hoping to steal a million Wispas.

I reckon this is a long shot but, well, do you do this?

Two step Tommy

Do you take two, perhaps even four stairs at a time?

I can't go up stairs one at a time anymore. Even if I'm carrying heavy suitcases or a koala or something I shouldn't be carrying I have to go up two at a time. The one exception to this rule? When I'm with a group of slow ass mofos.

Walking as a group is generally quite stressful for me because I can't hear people very well and I naturally want to zoom ahead whereas they walk slow because 'that's how people walk'. Then you get to stairs: you can't talk on stairs, and it's very hard to keep to any formation. I end up behind or in front.

IF you zoom off on the stairs you end up having to turn around and then it's just goddamn awkward really isn't it? You look like some kind of crazy stair maverick.

So I slow right down and seriously almost lose my balance: I'm just not used to it. How the hell can you go so slow? Even going downstairs I go two at a time.

So how about you? Are you a slow ass mofo? If you are, you're probably less likely to to fall down stairs and die, which is good I guess.

Washing up with MAGIC

Is everything magically clean when you wash up?

For some reason even though I'll wash my hands after touching someone or even looking at something dirty, when it comes to washing up I assume bacteria don't exist.

I pretty much rub a sponge across stuff, using liquid that I'm not even really sure what the hell it does, and then as long as there's no marks I slam it in a cupboard and leave it. I assume this ritual will destroy all bacteria ever and go on my merry way.

During this process I'll leave dishes on dirty cabinets, not clean things properly, wash with clearly dirty sponges and yet, despite all this, I remain reasonably confident that everything is clean. Even though I know it isn't.

The one thing that is never clean? The bottom of the sink. Even though it's probably no worse than the sponge, the bottom of the sink is germ hell where every bad thing ever lives and if your dish touches that then by sweet jebus you better throw that dish away before it infects your brain and or soul.

So do you do this? Part of me hopes you don't.

Cool walker

Do you walk properly?

It's sunny which means people go outside. I too sometimes go outside and when I go outside I normally travel by walking, it just seems to work out that way.

But I don't really walk properly. If I had it my way (and I rarely do) arm movement would not be necessary while walking, nor would having to bounce around or move your shoulders in any way whatsoever.

Now hear me out: I know it looks weird when people do this. I've seen people do it and think 'dude, you are walking weird'. But it's my natural way of walking! The arms don't move unless they have to. Why would they? It's the legs doing all the work.

So I morph into 'cool walk', which is, I plan every single step and have to make my arms move even though they don't want to and I don't really want them to either. I also walk quickly which means if my arms don't keep up with my legs again it all looks horrific so either I start flailing my arms around frantically or look a bit like a robot.

So do you walk this way? Talk this way.

Bag Hercules

Do you have the power of a whole hand in your finger?

Carrier bags are weird, wonderful and useful things. They are also a test of strength. When you go shopping and you come back carrying 3 bags, that's sort of the normal amount. 4 bags and you're pushing it. 5? 5 and the handles will be killing your fingers.

And that's really the test of carrier bags: the handles dig into your fingers like some crazy torture device supermarkets dreamed up to punish you for trying to live. Bag for life? No one has those.

But when you carry carrier bags how do you carry them? Most people I know carry them with all their fingers but these people are foolish and, most probably, weak.

I carry them with two fingers and when those two fingers get sliced up I alternate to another two fingers, eventually swapping hands to whichever group of bags weighs the least. Because I'm lazy I equate it with weight lifting, only you're lifting weights with your fingers because you're just that strong.

I also have excellent bag control, being able to twirl bags in and out of obstacles like a modern day ninja probably would if he went shopping and people kept getting in his way but he wasn't allowed to kill them.

So do you have excellent bag control, or is it just me?

Ultimate road crosser

Crossing a road is the battlefield of kings and queens

As a pedestrian your abilities are rarely tested. You are the weakest member of the transport world, you can be beaten by train, car, bike and even unicycle. Except when it comes to the road cross.

I've spent a fair amount of time in London and in London pedestrians do not know fear. The green man is a lie: the green man is when fools cross, YOU cross ages before the green man even thinks of appearing. In fact if you wait for the green man you've already lost.

No one says it, I bet even fewer people actually know it, but if you cross the road first and don't die you are the best. Here in Cambridge people are terrified of roads and will always wait for the green man - there's almost no challenge. People look at you in awe as you slide to the front and cross what is often a tiny road with a speed limt of 20mph.

Back in London you have to fight your way to the front because all the people will be too slow, then when you, as an expert, have decreed it safe you walk and the people behind you will follow.

I'm not saying be reckless, in fact if you get run over you lose harder than if you waited for the green man. The ultimate road crosser is a person of judgement, but a person who acts fast, who lives in the now, who isn't led in life by buttons, noises and green men.

I'm an ultimate road crosser (just noticed that rhymes with tosser). Are you?

Bus maverick

Are you immune to gravity when on a bus?

I know I'm not the only one who does this because I've seen others of my kind in the wild. Daredevils, loose cannons, renegades: bus surfers.

You see the railings on a bus aren't necessary, those of us skilled in the art of balance can use the momentum of a stopping bus to propel us forward just the right amount.

What is just the right amount? Fast enough so you don't get stuck in the aisle but not so fast you go hurtling into the old lady in front of you.

You are a bus maverick if you:
1) Stand up before the bus has come to a stop or even started to slow down
2) Do NOT hold on to any railings whatsoever
3) Manage to thank the driver despite moving at breakneck speed

There is a maverick greater than I and that is the upstairs maverick. Balance enters a whole new scary world on the upstairs of a bus.

So do you do this?

(NOTE: I do not advocate bus surfing if you've not done it before. Despite what you've just read it's immensely stupid and I only do it out of habit. Also I should add literally no one is impressed by this and an elderly gentleman once tutted at me for doing it)

Lockpick genius

When you get locked out do you pretend you're the finest thief in the lands?

You're late, you're in a rush, you've had a rubbish day, you leave the room, the door slams shut behind you and you reach into your pocket for your keys. They're not in your pocket. And if they're not in your pocket where are they?

They're in your room and you're not in your room anymore because you just left your room and the door slammed shut: you're locked out. There are three ways to react to this situation, well no four. 1) panic, 2) kick down the door 3) attempt death defying stunts to get through the window or 4) become the lockpick genius.

As the lockpick genius it doesn't matter if you have little to no experience in picking locks, lock mechanics or anything to do with locks in general. All you need is a paperclip, a little luck and a determined look on your face. We've all seen it in movies, they stick in a wire or whatever they find, twist it around a bit, something about tumblers and then bam the door is open. Real life? Turns out it's not that simple.

I know I do this, I've done it numerous times and I'm ashamed to admit I have never picked a door. I then resorted to 2) but gave up and wound up sleeping on the floor in the kitchen. And perhaps that is the rightful place of the lockpick genius.

So do you do this?

Secret agent mode

When you go clubbing do you pretend you're a secret agent?

Do you do this?

Often when you go clubbing you get split up or someone has to go outside to smoke. Sometimes you get split from your group.

This is when you become a secret agent.

There's smoke, lights, people dancing all over the place. You vaguely remember what your group were wearing and, indeed, who you're with. You go to where they last were: there's no one there.

Now you have to scan across that room like you're the freaking Terminator. Each and every dancing body could be one of your pals. If you don't find them you might not be able to get home, your mission, regardless of whether you accept it, is to find those particular dancing goons.

So you have to navigate through people and move them aside without starting a fight. You have to look at everything, shoes, faces, sometimes you have to wait for the lights to shoot a certain way.

So do you do this, or is it just me?