rammi.glomp.me

// February 23rd, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Me

Whenever I meet up with friends, I’m usually comfortable meeting them anywhere that’s convenient for them (within limits, of course; I don’t like travelling much). But if they suggest a train station in central London, my usual reaction is “HELL NO.” To explain why I’m so adverse to this idea, I’ll have to tell the story of what I like to call “the Emma situation.” …This story always fills me with a tiny amount of rage whenever I tell it, so bear with me.

The “Emma” is of course, another one of my friends. She’s one of the best people I know to go shopping with (as most of my other friends get annoyed with my attraction to shiny objects), and is normally one of the few friends I don’t want to bitchslap after a few minutes – my friends and I usually have a love/hate relationship.

Now, a couple of months ago, we planned to meet up to do some shopping (or window shopping in my case; I wasn’t working then and was therefore broke). As I was going to be in central London for another reason, I thought I might as well meet her there, as that’s where we were planning to go anyway. And so, at the designated time, I sauntered up to Piccadilly Circus station and waited.

If you’re not familiar with the London Underground system, certain Tube lines are completely underground (meaning you can’t get a phone signal at all), some are completely overground and you can use phones freely, and some are a mix between the two – on certain parts of the line, the train is overground, and you can quickly call someone, but the train soon goes into a tunnel and you lose your final connection with the world when that happens. Dun dun dun.

The line she was travelling on was one of those mixed ones; the Piccadilly Line loses all phone signal after a certain station (Barons Court, for those in the know). I phoned her and found out she was only a few stops from going underground.

Knowing she was going to be slightly late, I went to Starbucks nearby and got myself a drink.
As the shop was full and I couldn’t sit down inside, I decided to walk down the road to Leicester Square instead and sit on one of the benches. I thought I could sit down for at least 15 minutes without interruption. When she got off the train, she could ring me, I thought.

I opened up The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I started reading.

100 pages flew by. “Where could she be?” I wondered. “Surely it doesn’t take half an hour to go 6 stops on the Tube?” I rang her just to make sure. Yep, went straight to voicemail. “Maybe the train got stuck somewhere in between. It sometimes does that.” I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and carried on reading.

Another 50 pages, and still no Emma. By then, my patience had gone, and I was getting really, really pissed off. I rang her phone. “This phone is currently unavailable”, the message said, which suggested she was still underground.

20 minutes after that, and I found out she had been waiting on a platform in the station for me the entire time.

Piccadilly Circus, the station, is served by two lines/services. This means four platforms! AND NO WAY OF COMMUNICATING WITH PERSON WHO IS ON A DIFFERENT PLATFORM TO YOU/OUTSIDE BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE A BLOODY PHONE SIGNAL. Two lines/services also means I could have come to Piccadilly Circus from any direction, and used any of the other three platforms, not just the one she was standing on. Oh, and did I mention the size of the platforms and how easy it is to get to an exit without walking the entire length and breadth of the damn thing?
Besides, she already knew that I had arrived a while ago. What angered me the most is that after a few minutes of no one had turning up, she hadn’t gone upstairs, out of the gates, and outside where she could actually USE HER PHONE. What a fucking waste of an hour of my life.

I saw a major common sense fail there. And then proceeded to turn into my mother and scream and shout at her in the manner of a very angry Thai lady. Even though it’s been a while, writing this now to tell you guys why I won’t meet you at a train station – and don’t even talk about platforms to me – still brings back a large amount of the annoyance and frustration felt on the day.

So whenever someone (maybe even you) tells me they want to meet at a train station; a train station that has several platforms and is buried underground, I will usually say no. Or if there really is no other way, I will find a café or something similar outside (e.g. Platform 9 and 3/4 at King’s Cross), specify that I want them to wait there and only there, and keep on mentioning the word “outside” to them. Not on the platform. OUTSIDE, DAMN IT, OUTSIDE, WHERE I CAN PHONE YOU IF YOU’RE STUPIDLY LATE.

Neurotic and paranoid and controlling? Yes. But I’m not having a repeat of that situation again. Ever.

// January 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Me

2010 is looking like it’s going to be a great year. If every week is half as fun as this week was, then this will be the greatest year ever.

I took part in the first London No Pants/Trousers Day, and appeared in several newspapers and websites sans trousers. As Drusilla put it, I inadvertently became “the poster girl for exhibitionism.” Whoops.

Also this week, someone helped me get a life goal completed. I may not have told you this before, but one of my life goals was to be immortalised in song. I have zero musical talent (Grade 1 in violin many years ago does not count), and therefore am creatively challenged when it comes to music. The way I see it is that even after most of us are gone, music is timeless and will remain forever. So, in a really cheesy and selfish way, I wanted a song because it would mean that I’d actually existed, if you know what I mean? [/end long philosophical ramble]
Last year, I somehow managed to persuade Chris Blake through Twitter that writing a song about me was a good idea, despite me being a very boring nerd with almost nothing that was worth writing a song about (shh, it was a secret). Anyway, this week saw the arrival of “Rammi, Won’t You Be My Mommy?” and “Rammi, Won’t You Be My Grammy?” after I stroppily complained that “Rammi” was pronounced wrongly.

Oh, and the best part of this week? My friend brought me back BN biscuits from France! These chocolate-filled biscuits used to be sold in every supermarket in the UK, but due to poor sales, they were withdrawn in the early part of the decade. I loved these biscuits, and the accompanying advert. I can’t believe I’ve been living without BN goodness for about 10 years.

Do do do do do, BN BN! *disappears to go and eat these biscuits*

// November 15th, 2009 // 7 Comments » // Me, NaBloPoMo

These are my microwaves, timed for you, heating your foodstuffs, making you free… Yeah, doesn’t exactly have a ring to it, does it? But I can imagine people in the Church of Microwaveable Objects singing this with renewed vigour.

And yes, my house has three microwaves. Don’t judge me. They have multiple uses, as makeshift tables (as shown above) and storage cabinets. Here’s the problem, though. All three work (and two are almost new), but I only use one – the little old one on the right. And I’ve not worked out how to open the other two either.
“Why?” I hear you ask (well, you could care less, but I’m going to tell you anyway).
Now, before I launch into my long rant, let it be known that my cooking skills aren’t exactly Jamie Oliver standard. Despite most of my family being accomplished cooks (and my mother previously owning a Thai restaurant), the skills haven’t exactly been passed down into this generation. Ditto her geography ones. I can cook when forced to, and most of the time, my stuff is edible, but it’s burnt and grotesque-looking.
This is where my microwave comes in. It’s no Funcooker, but saves my ass on the occasions when I just don’t want to be frustrated at my lack of talent in the kitchen any more.

If microwaves are meant to make everything happy and simple, why are they getting so stupidly complicated?

Take my ‘baby’, for example. She/he was bought several years ago, has a power setting, a timer setting, and a little button I can push to open the door. What more could a girl want from a microwave? I can reheat the food I burnt the night before in it, defrost stuff, and cry when I forget about the food I’ve left in it. [I'm quite absent-minded; it does happen!]

Then you get the newer versions… Dude, I just want to heat things up. It’s all very well having a grill option, but if I wanted a grill, I WOULD BUY A GRILL – We actually do have a grill, making this microwave’s grill option useless for me. I don’t want to spend ages twisting a knob just so I can get to the right option to set the time, as opposed to setting the convection. Also, how do I open the damn thing? I’m pretty sure one of the buttons does it eventually, but my brief interaction with it ended in tears – the tears being “OMG WAII DON’T YOU WORK???!”

*cries and flails helplessly* What are these knobs supposed to do?! I DON’T WANT TO SET A COMBINATION OR CONVECTION OR THE WEIGHT, I JUST WANT TO USE THE DAMN MICROWAVE! At least tell me how to open the stupid thing!

I know the simple answer to this problem would be to read the instruction manual, but where’s the fun in that? It’s a microwave, it’s meant to make life simpler! It might not help that I don’t know where the instruction manual is, either. I don’t read instruction manuals for any gadgets I get and they seem to work fine until I break them, so what’s the difference here?
…I think I need to start a “one microwave per person” plan in the house. Otherwise, the only microwave I know how to use will soon die a slow and painful death, and then what will I eat? I’ll actually have to learn how to cook. *shudders*

Old microwaves really do do it better.

[If you've made it this far, it means you've read a 500 word rant on a simple kitchen appliance. Hooray! Oh, and you've probably also viewed the detailed pictures of these microwaves I spent ages taking. Great use of your £500 camera and Flickr subscription there, Rammi. *claps*]

// November 6th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // Me, NaBloPoMo

I have so many ideas in my head. Grand pictures with beautiful scenery, website layouts that are perfect in every way, songs with lyrics that are actually relevant to my life, and perhaps even videos that people favourite thousands of times because they’re just that awesome. Oh yeah.
The problem with this is:

• Art: I can’t even hold a pencil properly, let alone draw a masterpiece. I wasn’t blessed with the ability to see shadows and light, and could never shade appropriately in art lessons, making my art teachers bang their heads against the wall in frustration.
• Websites: I could probably make the website layout of my dreams if I was prodded really hard, but there’s that laziness thing. It creeps up on me on the rare occasions I’m actually feeling quite motivated, and makes me give up before I can get into that “OMG! I NEED TO FINISH!” mode, which usually only happens around an hour before I have a project deadline. Things I do for fun don’t have deadlines, therefore making me drop them like they’re hot whenever I start to get a little bit tired.
  I know I have major issues when it comes to completing things – most of my posts on this website seem to be rants about how I’m not getting anything done. Meh.
• Music: Song lyrics come to me easily (much like ironic poetry does), but my one attempt at a musical career was taking a Grade 1 violin exam many years ago (I passed, but never bothered to practice). I suck at theory; it takes me ages to read notes, and even then I’m not thinking in proper terms. For example:
  Me: “That’s where I’d put 3 fingers on the A string! Oh yeah, it’s D!”
  Other musicians: *facepalm*
  My singing voice is also of dubious quality, so I’m not even going to attempt that. I’ve watched the X Factor and American Idol. I’ve covered my ears and cringed for the contestants. What may sound good in my head doesn’t neccessarily sound good in anyone else’s.
• Videos: I have all the right equipment to make a kickass video, but I’m a n00b at editing, and too shy to rope other people into making them with me when I’m not sure how they’re going to turn out in the end.

I know people have different talents. I’m happy with the ones I seem to have been given – sarcasm and the ability to call people out on their grammar and spelling mistakes. But when I have so many weird ideas swirling around in my head that can never come into fruition, I sometimes wish that my skills extended to the media I consume obsessively on a daily basis.

// November 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Me, NaBloPoMo

I love going to concerts; feeling the atmosphere, meeting fellow concert-goers, buying overpriced drinks and merchandise. But I’m apathetic. I hear stories of people travelling across cities and sometimes even countries to see someone perform – I think one of my friends travelled to Liverpool to see Elvis Costello live last year – but I’ll never be that person. I’m quite laidback when it comes to seeing musicians I like. And I mean, really, really like. Artists I only slightly like don’t make the cut.* Unless I’m in the area for another reason already, then NEVER, EVER IN A BILLION YEARS will I go further than a few miles to see anyone I listen to perform.

It may be, no, probably is, someone I love listening to (if I wasn’t sure about loving them, then I wouldn’t even consider buying tickets). It may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It may even be the last chance I’ll ever get to see them alive. But unless I can get there and back within an hour or two for about £3, then it’s not worth it.
The furthest I’m willing to travel for my favourite performer is the length and breadth of London – well, as much as my Oyster card covers. Anywhere I can’t touch in/touch out in London? I’m out.

The average gig (or what usually happens to me)

7pm – You have paid £10-£50 for the privilege of coming here, being felt up, and having your ‘professional’ camera confiscated whilst everyone else is allowed to keep their point-and-shoots. You may have also parted with £1 – £3 of your money for a cloakroom charge, depending on whether you’ve had bottles of water/bags/cameras taken off you.
7:30pm – £2.50 of your money disappears as you buy a drink.
8pm -  £1 vanishes as you get a tiny packet of crisps.
8:30pm – £25 goes for a T-shirt that you just had to have because everyone else in the crowd has bought one each, and you don’t want to be the only one not wearing one.
8:45pm – Another £3 drink! [Prices have gone up because everyone wants one now]
9-9:30pm – The show might begin. Otherwise you’re left chanting the singer’s name whilst they’re on the loo or getting drunk backstage.
11:30pm – The show finishes. You may have made some new friends, had the night of your life, etc., but you are exhausted, your knees and feet could kill you, you’re thirsty and could really do with a drink without being ripped off.

If you’ve travelled from far away to be there, add about 4 hours each way for travel, or fork out another £50 to stay overnight at some crummy B&B. Travelling is tiring. And you’re never gonna feel as comfortable sleeping on a train or a bus than you are in your own bed. Why should I waste several hours of my life travelling back and forth for a few hours of entertainment?

The way I see it is if musicians want my money, they should come to me (or at least somewhere I can easily get to). If the artists I like have gigs near me, I promise that every gig they do, I’ll be there. I’ll buy their overpriced drinks, their T-shirts that don’t fit properly, and won’t throw that much of a fit when they confiscate my camera again. But please don’t expect me to travel for anyone. If I won’t travel for a close friend, why would I do it for a stranger who doesn’t even know me or care?

The best example of a concert venue for me is the Shepherd’s Bush O2 Empire. It may be dirty, the food may be of dodgy quality and pictures may be banned, but there’s a bus stop right outside with a route that deposits me in front of my house. This is the lazy girl’s dream. Whenever someone has a show here, all I have to do is get on a bus half an hour before, and saunter up when it’s time to go in. Who could ask for more?

I’m lucky in a way – I live in a big city, and most of the people I want to see come here after doing a big tour. But I know some will never have the budget or the time to, and this means I’ll probably never get to see some of my favourite performers live. And I’m pretty much cool with that, if it means I can get a few hours extra sleep at home.

*My one exception to this rule is if it’s free. I’ll see anyone within the borders of London, or wherever I am, if it means I won’t have to pay for the ticket. This is why I love the iTunes Festival so much.

// November 1st, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Me, NaBloPoMo

I don’t know what it is, but people seem to like asking me for directions. Usually they ask at an inconvenient time, as luck would have it. I’m either desperately late for a meeting with someone, am in a slightly crabby mood, or have my music turned up full volume and am completely oblivious to the world. If none of these scenarios fit, then it’s a safe bet that I’m with family, and am speaking in Thai. What makes people automatically assume (correctly) that I live in the area, and can speak English fluently to them?

When people ask me for directions, I will probably know where they want to go, but am crap at explaining. A simple direction such as “Turn left and walk up the crescent” turns into “Yeah, you need to turn left at the corner by that pink building, and keep walking straight until you see that long banana-shaped road…”, which usually leaves the person more baffled than they were in the beginning.

I visit central London frequently, and it’s populated with tourists. When I feel the need to ask for directions, I look for someone who works in the area. I go and ask staff in Underground stations and coffee shop baristas, not someone who looks very Chinese in an area close to Chinatown, where the chances of me being able to speak English are lessened.

I’m always so surprised when someone makes a beeline for me, and asks me where the toilet/fountain/big dancing donkey is. If there’s barely anyone around, I’d understand the need to not get lost, but when there are plenty of shops and public service areas with people who are able to give you clear, concise directions, I see no need for you to ask me.

Is it because I’m descended from people who have worked in the travel industry? Do I have a big “I LIVE AROUND HERE” sign stapled to my head? Or do people just enjoy getting “Rammi-fied” directions?

// October 13th, 2009 // 8 Comments » // Me

Dear gadgets,

I don’t know what I did that was so wrong, but it must have been something horrible to make you hate me so. If I could fix it, I would, because nothing compares to the hell you’ve put me through in the last couple of years.

You’ve made me go through one portable cassette player, two portable CD players, one Game Boy Color, an iPod Nano, two iPod Touches, three iPhone 3Gs, and have made me waste countless hours of my life at the Apple Store trying to get my Mac fixed. Not to mention all the wires I’ve broken throughout the years, both internally and externally. Let’s examine these in more detail, shall we?

Let’s start with you, portable cassette player. I adored you, although I still feel slightly guilty about having a hand in your death. Things were going swimmingly between us until I put a mystery tape into you one day. Things started unravelling, and your little door thingy (?) refused to open. For some reason, I can’t remove the tape, and I’m slightly afraid to. After several years, I’ve come to the conclusion that you two belong together, like some twisted Romeo and Juliet. I never heard what that final tape was.

After the portable cassette player came two shining portable CD players. With the first one, it was love at first sight. It served me well, but it failed to tell me that it was not not water-resistant – how can you have a relationship based on lies? It met its end in a puddle outside my school… After it had been raining, I slipped into a dent in the road that I swear wasn’t there before, and water filled my bag. ;_; Nothing I did could ever make it work again.

Trying to get over my grief, another CD player arrived the next day. I believe this one died peacefully, after a secret terminal illness that it just didn’t feel comfortable telling me about. After six months of service, your buttons just stopped responding. I hope your last six months were tolerable, if not pleasant. Cliff Richard on repeat has a way with other people that makes them want to hurt themselves. Now that I think about it, I don’t blame you, second CD player, for dying completely.

After the sound-related gadgets came the the “Atomic Purple” Game Boy Color. This just fizzled out one day, without any warning. I never really played you, as I’m really bad at computer games, but I mourn you all the same. With a little bit of prodding, I guess I could get you working again, but for reasons unknown/reasons involving a cat, the charger ended up being horribly mutilated, and your battery door cannot be prised open due to an unknown sticky substance.

My gadget pain does not end there. After these failed attempts at using entertainment-related gadgets, I decided to stick to one brand, in the hopes that my loyalty would pay off, and the gadgets would finally love me back. This was not to be. Apple is the company that has put me through so much heartache in the last few years. Thankfully, I have a good insurance policy (yay for Argos!) which means I can trade a gadget in as soon as it breaks.

After a long break from anything electronic, I bought an iPod. You were pretty and silver and I loved you. However, I do get a sense that my love was unrequited. As time went on, you lost your shine, became more and more tempermental with me, freezing your screen and refusing to show up when I plugged you into my computer. Then, one day, you gave in completely, and died whilst I was listening to Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. I like to think that Cathy’s spirit in Wuthering Heights was partly responsible, but I should’ve seen the signs. You were breaking up with me, and had been trying to for a long time.

So, doing the only thing I could do, I exchanged my ex-iPod for a younger model, à la Ronnie Wood. Out of all my toys, I think it’s safe to say that the iPod Touch was my one true love. You taught me basic SSHing skills, showed me how to jailbreak/use applications, and made me become an expert at hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots. I never wanted to part from you, but my excessive hacking of your system made your death come all too soon.

There really isn’t much I can say about the iPod Touch I got as a replacement. It certainly was slimmer than its predecessor, and had this posh Nike + iPod thing, but we never really bonded. I was too scared to jailbreak you, but you slowly withered away too. Screen freezes and frequent losses of data that restoring could not fix were what sealed your fate. I believe this iPod had some life left in it, but I shipped it off to my cousin before he could change his mind. It’s your problem now, sucker! ^_^

With two iPod Touches down the drain, I bought an iPhone. My iPhone history is pretty short; I managed to go through three within the space of a year.
The first one suffered from that lovely affliction called “stuck on loading screen” (yes, I restored and restored, but I think I corrupted one of my backups somewhere along the line, because it never worked).
The second? Well, software-wise, it was fine and dandy. The silent button falling off was what made it go into the Apple Store and never come out again.
Currently, I am on my third iPhone, praying that it doesn’t break before April 2010, when I can finally get an upgrade.

Lastly, the biggest problem I’m having gadget-wise is with my Mac. I got this Mac in November 2008, hoping for better things. Alas, it was not to be. “I’m better than a PC”, my ass. Your battery is fairly dodgy, sometimes only charging up to 90%. Your fan is tempermental, makes a stupidly loud buzzing noise, doesn’t work hard enough meaning the computer overheats within 5 minutes, yet behaves when in the company of an Apple Genius. This means I always look stupid when I complain about the “loud” fan. >.> Thankfully, you haven’t died on me yet, but I’m not holding out much hope.

Overall, I think I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ll never get on with devices of the electronic variety, even though I’ll always love them like a fat kid loves cake.

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.

// December 31st, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Me, Website

I’m sorry I haven’t posted here for a while. So many weird and wonderful things (ooh, alliteration!) have happened in the last month that I could’ve blogged about, but I didn’t. Why? I honestly have no clue. The time just flew away. You know, when I started blogging again earlier in the year, I told myself that this time, the blogging was for myself, and myself alone – a record of my life. Who cares if no one reads it?

The truth is, I do.

As much as I try to convince myself that I don’t, some part of me will always want a large ‘fan’ base, comments, interaction… You know the deal. I promised myself that this time, it would be different. I’d actually put some effort into maintaining this website, after so many years of neglect. That promise I made to myself obviously failed… The first thing I had on my list was to create a layout, and I don’t see that happening any time soon, at the pace I’m going.

Several years ago, I used to put most of my time into running websites, making sure everything – translation: almost nothing – worked, affiliating with others, etc. The key thing that’s changed now is the lack of time I have. Days go by so quickly, weeks are a blur, and months fade into each other without any significance.

Hopefully, one day, I’ll be able to take this whole website malarkey seriously again. Until then, I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with performing at a substandard level, for lack of better words. I hate that, but there’s really nothing I can do to change it.

// September 29th, 2008 // No Comments » // Me

My nail was falling off
I didn‚Äö?Ñ?¥t need the pain
Once or twice was enough
And it was all in vain
Time starts to pass
Before you know it it’s ingrowing

But something happened
From the very first time it turned blue
My foot melted to the ground
Found something true
And everyone‚Äö?Ñ?¥s looking round
Thinking it’s disgusting

But I don‚Äö?Ñ?¥t care what they say
My nail’s going soon
They try to pull it away
But they don‚Äö?Ñ?¥t know the truth
My foot’s crippled by the blood
That it keeps on leaking
They cut it off and I

Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding pus
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding pus
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding pus

I do apologise for this (and I’m really sorry if I grossed you out). This is exactly the reason why I don’t do song parodies any more.

// September 27th, 2008 // No Comments » // Me

Bodily functions are usually a no-no in the world of blogging, and I can see why. I mean, some posts I’ve read have almost made me spit out my food in disgust…
… Which is why I apologise for this post.

Ever since I did Yellow Umbrella Day (last week), my feet that aren’t used to running have been slowly recovering.
One of the problems I encountered was my toenails completely collapsed on me. Half of one fell off completely (painful and disgusting at the same time), and the one on my big toe on my left foot is stuck in the stage of being half on and half off. It is currently leaking sticky fluid as I type this on my iPhone – I did tell you that this post was going to be disgusting… Right? Anyway, er, it’s leaking, it’s bruised and battered,and only half of it (the right side of the toenail) is still attached to my foot. I would just leave it, but then I realised that I’d probably then end up with an ingrowing toenail, which would then make matters much more complicated.
I would also attempt to remove it myself, but there’s the slight problem of the leaking, and the fact that removing it myself would hurt A LOT.
I wonder if my doctor would remove my toenail for me…