Speedy Birthday III/XVI (Blog 145)

My birthday was yesterday! In the same way I did for my last two that I wrote about, I celebrated by going go karting. I’ve actually go karted on my special day for the last 16 years or so, but I don’t care. As the slang saying goes ‘speed kills’. As in speed is cool. I’m not sure why you keep hearing that expression on adverts, I guess karting is very popular - more so than good old takeaway pizza, it would seem, for example. But then again, I often don’t pay attention to what I’m supposed to hear, so really the adverts could be about anything. They’re definitely about speed, though.

The day before my momentous party I saw an advert online promoting DMAX karts, which are faster than the standard ones. At the time, I was thinking ‘oh no, I didn’t book the right mini cars! My birthday is going to be f***ing terrible.’ Fortunately after a bit of Youtube research I found that the slower and speedier vehicles do more or less the same speed on the track at Sandown. The good ones did a lap in about a minute and the cheaper ones were only three seconds slower. And then again, as I’m not a pro racer, they would probably feel the same for me. So f**k it. Perhaps the slogan ‘feel the difference’ was a challenge, rather than a promise. But now that I think of it, why did I actually see the commercial? Was it targeted towards me? But I’d already booked the event, beforehand. That was dumb.

Anyway, the day itself: I woke up with a bit of a sore throat, as I slept with the windows open with only a thin sheet as a cover. Not exactly extreme sleeping as there is no such thing in the Summer, so maybe you could call it the milder ‘enhanced sleeping’. I was worried I would be ill because of such an activity, but I really hate the heat, so I took a risk and it paid off. My mild discomfort was short lived. After I got out of bed, I did my usual activities: Check my emails for real mail, regular spam mail and of course that crazy spam we all get. The kind that says a few millions pounds have been rewarded to me by a generous but mentally ill man who had heard about me from a friend I don’t know, and that friend said I was really great. He would have donated to his family, but he hates them, and they most likely hate him back. Then I left to get a highly sought after hot chocolate and cream and then some clothes from Staines.

I quickly found some trousers with very handy zips, tried them on decided to buy them. Before I entered my PIN number, I was asked to rate the service from 1 to 6 (6 being the best). I was thinking to myself ‘all the staff member did for me was open a f***ing door…’ But I gave a six anyway, because the way he did open the door was damn fine. Plus I was in a good mood. (In another shop) I then bought a magazine dedicated to Iron Maiden, because I was intrigued to read what their 50 greatest songs were. Only later did I realise how trippy the writing was. But I’ll come back to that soon. I drove back home as careful as f**k. No one ever wants to crash their car, but crashing a car on one’s birthday would be mortifying. If I messed up my ride and had to pay a huge fine, it would be one of the worst me-days I’d ever had. But not as bad as the schizo ones. :S

Not long after I got back, I left for Sandown with my soon to be racing dad, to meet with my also racing brother, his racing fiancé and his witnessing children. All competitors were given a talk on what to do and what not to do on the track, but as I’d heard it many times before I naturally didn’t listen. Not that I ever really did. The rules really aren’t that complicated: Don’t be an aggressive dick, and if a worker tells you to slow down, you slow down. Is a 10 minute presentation really justified? When the nice and exciting karting practice was finished, the cars were halted and made to wait. As I was stopped in the top quarter or so out of 28, I smugly assumed I was among the best 25%, but sadly the positions were meaningless, because of people getting lapped and such. It was shortly after, the real fastest racers were signalled one by one to line up again, this time on the grid (yes that’s a more traditional place to start) and it turned out I was about half quickest. Damn.

During the main event, lots of dickish riding was practiced by all (it’s just more fun that way). I got bumped into and bumped into others many times, but amazingly I never really spun off. Sure I crashed into people who did, which slowed me up, but surely I must have came first in the action-packed spectacle. I was acing it. Like Lewis Hamilton. Actually and rather consistently, I finished the race in the top half, too. To be more specific, I came 15th. To be fair though, most of the other drivers were pretty scary looking, and we all know such people make efficient racers. It’s just the way it is. So go me. Admirably my brother came third, winning him a trophy without his name on it, making it meaningless, his fiancé came last and my dad came second last. Yep, the whole range of positions was covered by the Wiedemanns.

When we got home, we all just did a bit of chilling. More interestingly, my brother’s baby kept glaring at me. She may be less than one year old, but she beat me in the staring contest and that should be respected. Even so, as time went by, I was getting impatient as I was eager to spend my brother’s birthday money in Staines again, before HMV closed. I nodded to the group to hurry up and go home, but they didn’t take the hint. However, I eventually decided to spend the cash the following day (today), essentially giving me two birthdays you could say. So maybe I was better off that way. As it was decided that the baby needed sleepy time, I agreed to eat a takeaway on my own. There’s something a little bit sad about eating alone on your birthday, but I like it. At least I wouldn’t be distracted by wide-eyed babies.

As I waited for my food, I skimmed my magazine. I was horrified to read the writer thought Iron Maiden’s second greatest song of all time was the mediocre and relatively modern ’Paschendale’. Not only is it average, it should be spelt ‘Passchendaele’. There’s a warning right there. The band clearly don’t put the effort into their material in the way they used to, they can’t even be bothered to do a few seconds of Google spell checking. I felt so strongly about the rating, I wanted to write on Iron Maiden’s Youtube channel ‘this is NOT their second best song’. Of course, next to no one would know what I was going on about as they probably wouldn’t have my same mag, so I left it. It would also be in bad taste for me to post such a comment as most messages respectfully said how sad the battle was. Anyway, I’m not going to write about me eating, because what would be the point?

To finish things, my second birthday: Well, it wasn’t as exciting as I hoped. I just got some CDs. I know that was my plan all along, I was just hoping it would be as exciting as blitzing down a course. Of course it wouldn’t be. Why would it? Never mind, I’m listening to my fresh music right now. Fittingly, I’ve got Iron Maiden on my stereo. Later on when I’ve finished this blog, I can check my magazine’s dodgy top 50 again, and see which album tracks are on it. Awesome. Well, mildly interesting. Bye!