All posts tagged time flies

Will I Ever Watch Them?

Life these days is so busy (with work) that I often complain about the fact that I never get a chance to watch TV any more.

In my youth I loved a bit of telly, but once computers arrived they sort of took over, and then they completely became my life. But in recent times, the quality of TV, especially US drama, has hit impressive highs. As a result, I wish I could spend more time watching TV. But usually I miss things on TV, so instead I ask for DVDs, since they make good birthday presents.

That is the theory. Instead, there are DVDs here in my room that haven’t even made it out of the shrink wrap, despite being on birthday and Christmas request lists for the last several years.

The fact that it took me three years to watch The West Wing from start to finish doesn’t bode well. I have a rule: never watch episodes of anything back-to-back. That way you get to stretch it out for longer. I did break that rule with Prison Break series 1, but that was worth it!

But, sadly, my life will not actually include time to watch all of these things I want to watch if I can only squeeze in a DVD episode once every three or four days. Being realistic, I need to be watching something every day, or I will never watch:

  • the rest of Prison Break (currently reached episode 7, series 4, and have been there for about two months)
  • Seinfeld, complete
  • recent Star Trek films
  • The Thick of It
  • Breaking Bad
  • Arrested Development
  • Curb Your Enthusiam
  • The Office (US)
  • Extras
  • House
  • 24
  • Homeland
  • Boston Legal
  • Red Dwarf (in its entirety)
  • Weeds
  • anything by Derren Brown
  • Family Guy
  • last three Harry Potter Films
  • Malcolm in the Middle
  • The Wire

I could go on, but I think that’s more than enough.

You will note that I am quite keen on US drama. I don’t know why that is, but no one does drama like the US. Yes there are many misses, but there is so much stuff being made over there that there are bound to be many classics too. UK drama is sometimes very hard-hitting, sometimes gritty, but usually only made in mini-series, therefore it doesn’t seem to have much time to really get you hooked on great characters and fantastic series narrative arcs.

The only things we seem to do well here in the UK are police dramas, which I don’t particularly find interesting, and period drama, ditto. Sitcoms, we are absolute rubbish at (it’s all been done before).

I used to love sitcoms, but I think as my life has got less joyous, my requirement to keep smiling has disappeared. Malcolm in the Middle might just be my favourite sitcom of all time. Well, at least the first few seasons were. I didn’t see much of the rest, but maybe I will by 2040 (at current watching rates), since they are finally coming out on DVD!

And, of course, new stuff is coming out all the time, so my list is added to at a quicker rate than I can watch them.

Bizarrely, I make more time in my life for shows like X Factor. I still don’t really know why. I should hate everything about corporate supremo X Factor. But something about the show, and my love of all things music, and seeing complete unknowns being given a chance, keeps me interested.

Talking of which, another several hours of my life is about to disappear tonight. Great.

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by Matt on Saturday, 3 November 2012 @ 19:32  •  Permalink
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Posted by Matt on Saturday, 3 November 2012 @ 19:32

https://mattleewright.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/will-i-ever-watch-them/

Where Did The Year Go?

It’s hard for me to look back on this year. 2009 has turned out to be a year of real change for me. Yet nothing has really changed all that much.

For instance, right now I’m writing this post while sitting in my parents’ house. All this in spite of the fact that I allegedly moved out of the parental home in October. I think, with hindsight, this was a bad move. So far the transition to living away and trying to make a living of my own has been a total failure.

Hence why I’m here. Indeed, the main reason why I’m back in the old home right now is that I’ve had loads of work to do this week. Work that has paid me some cash and will definitely see me through Christmas. I could have had a lot more if I’d stayed here, I’m sure.

But on the other hand, I had to go. I needed change. I needed a break. I just wish I hadn’t move somewhere so far away and so inaccessible.

This has been the biggest change this year. My life is now on its head. Split across a couple of hundred miles. Travelling all the bloody time.

And yet, I don’t really know why the year has gone so quickly. In truth, it has been a year of inactivity. With so much time to spare, and so little actually done in it, I should have been bored out of my mind, sitting here watching the clock.

There has been a bit of that, but broadly speaking time has flown by. It has been frustrating and immensely depressing, but it hasn’t mattered. Time has gone.

At the start of the year I knew it would be important. I remember saying as much to my fellow New Year revellers. But I don’t think I’ll truly know the significance of this year until I can look back on it in a few years time. Whether this was a false start, and a waste of money. Or whether it was the stepping stone to turning myself into the entrepreneur that right now exists in my dreams only.

I keep setting myself deadlines at which I need to have achieved X. They come and go, without me achieving anything. But I still don’t feel brave enough to scrap the current gamble and accept I really ought to live an ordinary life like other people, rather than sitting, waiting for customers.

It depresses me too much. That alone should make me reconsider. I once thought I was a fan of change, exciting, different things happening each day. But I also long for a bit of stability and predictability. And more predictability than being able to confidently predict that today would, yet again, be a lost day.

There’s something seriously wrong with me. I have no motivation any more. I am filled with depressing thoughts constantly. A feeling of total inadequacy.

And I don’t want to do anything about it.

2009 has been a great let down. Maybe it was for the best that it’s gone so quickly.

Now all that’s left is to hope that I’m not too down over Christmas. That would be extremely difficult for me.

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by Matt on Friday, 4 December 2009 @ 22:54  •  Permalink
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Posted by Matt on Friday, 4 December 2009 @ 22:54

https://mattleewright.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/where-did-the-year-go/

24

It appears that today is, again, my birthday.

Only this one is going to be one of the most non-eventful I’ve ever had the so-called privilege to experience.

The problem this time is that not only am I older, I have not achieved anything in the last year. At least while I’ve been in school or university, I’ve been able to say that – well, I’ve completed another year of studies. But this past year has been one notable failure after another. All of which has been tediously chronicled on this blog so much that I’m bored of writing about another week not doing anything.

But something else makes this birthday even crapper than normal. The fact that I’m still awake, and will be for another two hours at least, and will be then sleeping until approximately 11am. Only then to get up, have breakfast, do some housework, and then work from 3pm until 10pm in one of the scummiest areas of my home city. I will then come home by about 11pm, with approximately one hour left of my birthday in which to “celebrate” with my family.

Pretty rubbish. And it gets worse, because I’m then working nights the next three days, so there is no chance of us being able to go out for a meal in the evening – which is usually what we like to do for birthdays here. A little break from the norm of having to cook food.

On the brighter side, my patience with living here has finally snapped, due to a combination of family members, family circumstances and terribly behaved dogs which I really don’t like. But now with my new, old job, there is a definite prospect opening up that I could well be able to afford to move out.

There are some new apartments that have been built a couple of miles from here. They are perfectly located, with an ASDA next door, the train station a stone’s throw away, a major retail site nearby, and bus links that go all over the city. The apartment in question just about has enough room to swing a cat and costs a shocking £395/month.

But I think I can do it. In fact, for the sake of my sanity, I must do it.

So I’ve begun to make enquiries. The ball is well and truly rolling on this.

I feel like the only way I’ll get on in life is if I get out. Get out and resume the life I lived for four years. I liked my independence and freedom. I hate being answerable to parents, I’m fed up of living with family members who don’t even talk to me any more and with whom I don’t seem to have any relationship. And I’m sick of all the work I do in this house being taken for granted. They sure will be in for a shock.

So in truth, the best birthday present I could get this year would be a free pass out of here. That’s not to say I don’t like my family, but familiarity certainly does breed contempt. If I get out of here, that crucial distance may be what I need for re-evaluating my relationship with each one of them. Then I’ll be less of a “parent” figure and more of a sibling again.

Anyway. Time for a celebratory episode of Prison Break. Now coming to the end of the third series…

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by Matt on Thursday, 9 July 2009 @ 0:10  •  Permalink
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Posted by Matt on Thursday, 9 July 2009 @ 0:10

https://mattleewright.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/24/

What Happened?

I’m finding it rather hard to accept that the past week went by so quickly. But it did, just like every other half-term. My parents were both off last week, as were all my brothers and sisters and my nephew. So the entire family were all either not in school or not in work. 

And somehow, because they were all hanging around here all week in some form, that made the week just disappear. Even though I can’t remember that much of what we did, apart from trying to sell stuff on eBay. 

But at the same time, I think it also felt so quick for me because I had stuff to do. My work has once again dried up, but from Tuesday to Friday I had actual, real paying work. And now I have been paid, it’s back to sitting here waiting for the phone to ring or trying to dream up a new vision for the future.

I guess this is what self-employment is like. You live on your wits, waiting for work, which could come at any time. And then sometimes you’ll get work and it’ll be too much. Oh, I wish that would happen right now. I could do without another couple of weeks sitting here…

Though there’s not actually much chance of that at the moment. It seems everywhere I turn there’s something going on. The latest activity has come from the direction of my football team. Last Tuesday there was something of a crisis meeting at the league my team is a member of. The crisis is being caused because the league leadership intend to form a new, independent, league, and assume that everyone is happy to join in. Not so fast, said I and a couple of allies. We want to derail it. And that’s made us very popular indeed…

Today is the next crisis meeting, but this team the teams will be meeting with our local FA with a view to working out a solution to this problem. In fact, if all goes as I think it will, then I could end up volunteering to be a central organiser of the league, or at the very least a member of its management committee. Our goal, we think, is to topple the current management. We think we can do it once we put the full facts out to counteract the gross lies being told by the league secretary. 

So that means today is also going to be full of action. Well, tonight, as the meeting is at 7:30pm. But I can’t wait, as we’ve been worrying about the future of our local football league for months now. It seems we may finally be approaching an endgame.

The problem is that today is Pancake Tuesday. And, you know, it has been five years since I lived at home on Pancake Tuesday. In all those years, I’ve been living away, and I’ve never really bothered, possibly because I probably won’t ever be able to make a pancake as good as my mum. So why would I bother?

But today I am at home. And there will be pancakes made. 

I think it’s going to be a good day.

And that, my friends, is what happened.

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by Matt on Tuesday, 24 February 2009 @ 9:24  •  Permalink
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Posted by Matt on Tuesday, 24 February 2009 @ 9:24

https://mattleewright.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/what-happened/

Paper Man

It’s been a disappointing week, on the whole, largely due to the rapidly becoming obvious realisation that the classified ad in the local paper isn’t going to work. Yes, I should give it a chance, but we’re now into the second week and still no phone calls. Not even a joke one. I can’t believe that no one has a broken computer. More likely people just haven’t seen the ad. So now I’m beginning to wonder what my next step should be.

In the meantime, however, there have been plenty of distractions, so much so that I’m beginning to think time is accelerating. I simply can’t believe that it’s been two weeks since my mum’s birthday, and our little outing to Pizza Hut for a fabulous family meal, involving huge quantities of pizza, drinks and dessert for £45. And all thanks to a little discount voucher I got. 

Yes, it’s surprising me just how quickly these past few weeks have gone considering I’m doing absolutely nothing all day every day. Well, nothing is relative, I suppose. To me I’m doing nothing because I have no job or no work. But somehow I always seem to find something to do that will help me pass the time quickly.

It’s remarkable really. For instance, the past couple of weeks my brother has started doing a paper round. This ain’t no ordinary paper round though, because you drum up your own customer business, and then collect the money yourself. It’s almost like we’re a newsagent, and we get a weekly bill direct from the paper to pay. 

The consequence of all this is that, frequently, my brother is unable to do the paper round for whatever reason, be it an after school football match, or just can’t drag himself out of bed in time on a Saturday morning. So I volunteer to go and do it. And then I help him with the money collection, and then administer the paying of the money and the movement of funds to and from various different weekly collections as it goes to the bank or to my brother as his wages.

Something to do, I guess. Not very stimulating, but, in many respects, it makes me self-employed. Which is what I’ve told the taxman. So I’m not lying after all. Shame also that this, just like the so called business I’m running presently, is making me no money.

Going out to deliver the papers is probably the weirdest part though. Everyone expects paper boys to be young. You don’t often see a paper man. I look bloody stupid with my fluorescent bag, filled to the brim with cheaply printed local, parochial news, resulting in horrendously inky fingers by the time you’ve finished. The key is to remember not to touch your face at all while you’re out, or you’ll end up looking rather stupid. 

But a job’s a job and you just gotta get on with it. At least I’m getting out of the house and doing stuff. These days, I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever achieve anything with my life. So much potential, so much talent. Wasted. Crazy.

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by Matt on Friday, 13 February 2009 @ 10:12  •  Permalink
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Posted by Matt on Friday, 13 February 2009 @ 10:12

https://mattleewright.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/paper-man/