Mini People Visit Part 345,345,347,244,777 (Blog 420)

Earlier today, my brother and sister in law visited me and my dad with their three mini children! That meant I could finally give the littlest little person her birthday preset - a dinosaur themed puzzle, and… no death stare! Woohoo, a sign of a good present! I’ve learnt my lesson, no fluffy toys. Well not from me, anyway. For whatever reason my dad got no death gaze or terror when he gave her my old teddy bear. My dad seemed to think I’d miss the teddy bear and that he was getting to me, but yeah… Not really. I have to be honest, not really at all. I guess the thing brings back childhood memories and that’s kind of interesting in a way, but the thought I still want to play with it is offensive. I’m 35 years old… Anyway, 3 piece puzzles are more than doable by toddlers. I feel a bit bad getting my five year old niece a thousand piece puzzle, I’m assuming it was never completed. If not, it could be a suitable present for upcoming years, meaning I won’t need to buy anything else. Frugal Simon.

My family didn’t just visit to be friendly, they also came so I could donate my keyboard to my sister in law and older niece as I never really used it. It’s a damn fine keyboard, really it would only be truly appreciated if those two people decided to learn how to shred like Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater. They may not enjoy the band now, but I could start light and show them songs like the nice and accessible ‘Take the Time’, and a few months later I show them the truly crazy ‘Dance of Eternity’. Just like that, they’re fans. Some call that kind of behaviour manipulative, I call it in their best interests. My brother showed me his impressive Game Boy-like device that can play 15 thousand games from a range of consoles! As explained in my homepage, I earned myself the most expensive mech in SNES Mech Warrior, but for whatever reason the impressive mech wasn’t for sale in my sibling’s game. Disappointing, as obviously the most expensive mech was expensive for a reason. My brother suggested that you unlock it later on in the game. Maybe that’s what it was.

I always wanted Road Rash for the Mega Drive as a child, however when my brother asked if I wanted to play it today, I said no. Doing so really is one of those solitary activities that is a big event. I’d love to play the game with some pizza by my side and whilst listening to music. THAT’S living. Simply playing the game on the sofa however, isn’t the same. Even so, I had a chance to show my impressive retro game knowledge by saying Road Rash 2 is supposed to be the best out of the three games. In actuality, I know very little else about the subject. It’s like when I pointed out how a song I reviewed for MR ended on a Picardy third chord. Wow, right? Not really, as that’s honestly about as good as my ear training gets. I can also recognise the i, VI, VII chord progression as basically all Iron Maiden songs use it at some point. In fact it’s often used over and over again. But my knowledge of theory SOUNDS impressive and that’s the point.

I wanted to ask about going to Thorpe Park, but I felt too awkward to do so. There is no body language or facial expression I know of that signals the theme park or indeed any theme park, I just thought the words ‘Thorpe Park’ in my mind and nodded to my sister in law in the hope she knew what that meant. It probably didn’t work, but it was worth a try. The topic of how many takeaways I eat was brought up by her and I was slightly embarrassed to say I got one once a week. If you include cheaper fish and chips and kebabs, I actually eat two. I’m glad I wasn’t asked how much chocolate I eat, because if I didn’t do any exercise the amount could well be lethal. On a lighter note the same person said how she appreciated rainy and windy weather. Yes, me too! Whether she feels as miserable as me in the Summer time, I didn’t ask. I guess it would be ethically wrong for me to want her to miserable too, just so I didn’t feel like an odd one out, but going to the gym makes me feel a lot better so it’s not as if I truly hate the Summer. Just mostly.

There is a plus side to being depressed you know? To a normal healthy person, listening to grim bands like Alice in Chains is torture. If someone forced me to listen to the band in the hotter months in an attempt to break me, I’d actually cheer up a bit. Why, I don't know. I know that would be an exceptionally weird situation, but to be fair, I’d describe my life so far as VERY weird. Can it get that much weirder? Maybe not. My dad brought up the subject of him retiring in the upcoming weeks. He’s going to be in the house ALL the time? Dear God no. Then I heard he’d be still working at the school part time. Oh. That’s not TOO bad actually. So yeah, that’s another mini people visit described. There haven’t really been over 345 trillion of them, but it’s only a matter of time! And that’s it! Bye!