Boredom in Dolby Surround

You know, boredom is a vastly difference experience when you’re around other like-minded people, than when you’re experiencing it alone.

I hung out with my good buddy today and tonight, whom I will call Fifo. I couldn’t help but notice that Fifo and I really looked like a couple of sleazy old beatniks today. Picture this: we’re both about 6’2" and 220lbs give or take. He has long, shaggy hair to about his shoulders, sunglasses on, wearing black army boots, prefab faded blue jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, a black army surplus style greatcoat, and a vaguely Bob Dylan looking scarf. I’m wearing faded black loafers, tight black jeans, a wrinkled black collared short-sleeved shirt with a woolen sweater over it, also with sunglasses, and sporting shaggy-looking mid-length hair, the result of a short haircut that hasn’t grown out to a long hairstyle yet.

I says to Fifo, "Fifo," I says, "we looks like a couple of sleazy old beatniks. What we oughtta do is, we oughtta head on into the city, find us a street corner, throw down a faded old chapeau and a handwritten placard that says "Please support the Arts generously" in bad calligraphy, and then take up a humorously stereotypical weenie stance, arm raised as if addressing the skull of poor Yorick, and begin to recite terrible beatnik poetry off the top of our heads for small change!". At this point, I struck said pose, and recite…d… er, recote?.. umm… said:-

"I… am a rose.
A red rose.
Growing softly in a bleak dark world.
A world… of pain.
Of darkness.
In darkness I shine.
This tiny rose.
Growing.
Alone…"

Needless to say, nobody thought this was a good idea, and we instead just went to Fifo’s house to watch a B-grade movie on DVD…

I have to say, though, that despite my growing more misanthropic with every passing day, I do rather enjoy my time in this fellow’s company, albeit in shortish sporadic intervals. Boredom in his company is nothing at all like the hollow, soul-crushing boredom I experience when I’m at home alone. When we’re bored together, we tend to regress to childlike stupidity. Or, from another perspective, degenerate into mindless maniacs. We’re often known to spend great lengths of time throwing things at each other, playing rookie baseball with plastic balls and any handy length of bat-like object, from a fluorescent light globe to a sharp sword, lie on the floor and ramble at great length about what we’d do if we had super powers, or just sit there and play ferret tennis – his ferrets love to be tossed around like plush toys.

Tonight, myself and another mutual friend were messing about with our phones – in demonstrating to me the magic of Bluetooth, he’d sent an MP3 of Neil Diamond’s "Sweet Caroline" to my phone, and we were messing about trying to play it on both our phones at almost the same time so as to achieve a surround sound with echo reverb effect. After a moment, we are drowned out by a much louder sound – at midnight in the suburbs, Fifo has dug out a huge Neil Diamond live music anthology, and cranked Sweet Caroline up loud enough to deafen the average Pantera concert-goer, not to mention his neighbors.

So there I am, passing the time of a Saturday, yelling along to Neil Diamond whilst dry-humping an empty microphone stand with the gusto of a shitfaced accountant doing his best Mick Jagger impression at two-drinks-for-one Tuesday at his local karaoke bar.

Unfortunately, being that I was, of course, just slightly more sober than the Pope, the moment was short lived to say the least, but hell, it was good for a giggle while it lasted.

Anyways, enough about us bored cretins and our sad weekend antics for today.

On another totally random note, I’d like to share a theory of mine with you all. I call it "Venstein’s Theory of Relative Stupidity". The theory, proven by extensive demographic testing on a core subject group made up of myself, dictates that at any given point in one’s life, one can look back five years into one’s past and history and memories, and realize how utterly stupid you were back then. Mathematically, this would be indicated by the formula A – 5 = X, where the value of A represent subject’s current Age, and X represents eXtreme stupidity.

I’ve found this to be true all throughout my life. When you first hit double-digit age, you look back on yourself as a five year old child and laugh at how utterly silly you were and how grown-up you feel now. Of course, when you’re at teenager, you consider yourself as a child of ten with elite contempt for how stupid and clueless you were. When you reach the big Two Zero however, you contemplate how you used to be when you were fifteen, and shake your head in wonder at the clueless naiveté with which you tackled life. And just so, even at 25, you look back at when you were twenty with much the same view. As I haven’t yet hit thirty (contrary to reports based on my health and lifestyle which may indicate I am twice that age!), I have not yet concretely proven the theory beyond this point, however I state with much confidence that it will continue to prove accurate unto death. Anybody who can confirm or deny this, please do contribute your opinions and feedback to this ongoing study.

Anyhows, it’s just about my bedtime now, but before I sign off for the night, I’d like to leave you with what I hope will be something of an enjoyable note. To say thank you for sticking with me and for all the kind words of support offered me during my oddly uncharacteristically depressing weird emo babble recently, I’d like to pose a sort of Reader’s Choice option to you all now.

What I’d like to know is, what would you, the reader, like to see my next entry comprised of? Rather than just contenting yourself with whatever self-absorbed vain drivel I happen to choose to spew out next time I sit here to write, I’d like to know what I the writer can give to you! Please pick from the following options and leave a comment stating your preference and your reason. The option with the most votes will be the basis of my next entry. Votes may be posted as public or private notes at your discretion. In the event of a tie, I may pick an option at my discretion, or write about both options, or utterly disregard the options and post images of wild goatsex at my sole discretion.

So, in my next post, should I:-

1. Post ten random facts about myself in disturbingly honest detail?
2. Take and post a picture of myself?
3. Tell you a bit about what I do for a living, including the websites and chat rooms I run?
4. Tell a cynical yet witty little anecdote about somebody I know or used to know, or some random dryly humorous incident from my allegedly interesting past?
5. Answer any question left to me by you in your note here? (Please include the question with your vote, if this option wins, every question posed by voters will be answered.)
6. Post whatever idiotic mindless rant comes to mind like I usually do?
7. Shut the fuck up once and for all?

I am atyour whim, loyal viewer. Dictate me as you please. I shall relish the opportunity to see how many people actually care enough to pick an option, or if the extent of the effort my presence here deserves is that of a purely passive nature which requires no cognitive interaction with me whatsoever. >=P