Poorly Designed Food Packaging

It's rice and pasta packets I'm talking about really. Every bloody time I open one, no matter how carefully, it splits itself down the side. Try and pour the contents out and you get a worktop covered in rice. Fold it up to store it, using the little sticky re-sealing device, and the split grows, covering the kitchen again.

Who comes up with this shit? And more to the point, why haven't they realised that it doesn't fucking work properly? Take me to their house! I bet they have their rice and pasta in trendy containers with lids, the packets discarded long-ago. Well fine, in that case provide me with a trendy container when I buy pasta. Either that or don't design the packaging pretending that it works as a storage device. The top peels apart teasingly, hinting that a pouring spout might develop out of the folds at the opening, before the split starts to appear and then grow. And the sticky re-sealing thing. What's that for if not re-sealing and storing the food? They're laughing at me aren't they! The bastards. They've planned this. They want me to spill it all over the kitchen so I have to buy it more often. Either that or they own the trendy container companies aswell.

Well I'm on to them. I won't give in and buy trendy containers. I am going to fight this. I will overcome this packet injustice.

Mundane Monday

I read an article the other week about an author who, when he was an 'aspiring writer', went to a prostitute and paid for sex (not that you do anything else with prostitutes, I suppose). His explanation was that he was bored and wanted something to happen to him. He wanted some inspiration for his writing and some excitement in his life.

That's how I feel today. It's how I feel a lot of Mondays. Not like going to a prostitute, you understand. I just want something different to happen. I want some excitement in my life, something inspiring.

It's funny though because today hasn't been that bad, as days go. Two things of particular note have happened:

1. A pigeon flew into my head;
2. I saw a man who looked an awful lot like a monkey.

On any other day that might be enough for me - the day could end right there and I would be content. Not today, though. I want more. Much more.

Creative Distractions

During the process of finalising the plot details for a big fiction project, as I currently am, I often get distracted by small bursts of inspiration which, while sometimes worth noting down and even developing, do not really help my mind focus on the larger task at hand.

So, unashamedly inspired by Mike Carter's new venture, I have created an outlet for these ideas. It is not intended to be informative, insighful or amusing but merely a place for me to empty my creative bladder. And you never know, it might sometimes be all three of those things.

It's here, by the way.

Debit Cards

This weekend just gone I broke my own rule of using cash wherever possible. I went through a honeymoon period with my debit card some years ago, but those days of sponatneous spending and care-free money management are long gone. Or at least I thought they were.

The problem with using cards is that I lose track of what I'm spending and, more importantly, my Internet bank account doesn't accurately reflect the status of my finances. With so many other aspects of my life in perpetual uncertainty, I like to keep my finances in order - I like to know what's going on. In fact, I've noticed that I've begun keeping lots of menial aspects of my life in strict order, to near obsessive compulsive levels, but that's another story (or, possibly, another hate).

Anyway - if I use cash I know exactly what's going on. I can take £50 cash out of my account at lunch time and ten minutes later, back at work, my Internet bank account shows that withdrawal and the affect it has had on my overall balance. Nice, ordered finances. Debit card purchases, as I'm sure you're aware, may not show up for a few days. And when they do you get a day or so of teasing before the true horror of your frivolity is revealed. My account currently looks something like the following example, which I have simplified for the purposes of demonstrating my point:

Balance: £400

Available to spend: £150

That's £250 of, in my eyes, un-accounted-for cash. What the fuck have I been buying?

I know that in the next day or so all will be revealed, and I will suddenly remember that new exhaust on the car, but I hate this not knowing. I feel violated by my own money mis-management.