27th June

Details continue to emerge about the deaths of the Benoit family. I don't really want to rehash them - plenty of people have done it and done it better than I could. I'm not normally a massive Wade Keller fan but he's written a lot of intelligent stuff over the past couple of days. Dave Scherer and Mike Johnson had a discussion on PWI last night about whether it was a good thing or a bad thing for people (as in professionals not message board users) to speculate as to why it happened. Mike's argument was that it doesn't matter what caused it - it happened and there are no grey areas and to try and give reasons was basically the same as making excuses. Dave's argument was that understanding isn't the same as excusing and it would help everyone to have an understanding why it happened. I agree with Dave on this one - I believe (a big word but used after consideration) that you should always try to understand why people do terrible things. Because if you don't, it is possible to dismiss them as "just" a monster or "just" evil. Chris Benoit didn't kill his wife and child for no reason. Whatever comes out as probable cause may not make sense to us but it must've made sense to him at the time. Once you have some kind of idea what was in his head over that weekend, you can start to ask what role drugs, concussion, stress and lifestyle had on bringing him to that point. The media have leapt on "steroids" as an easy target and WWE have been very defensive about the issue - they argued that "roid rage" couldn't explain the 12 to 24 hour gap between killings. True, but it could explain the savagery of the first murder (where he tied his wife up, beat her and then strangled her) and the calm of the second (smothering his son without any other signs of violence).

It's too hard to really think about it yet - I still don't quite believe it's happened. Nothing like this has ever happened in the business before. There have been murders, mob hits, suicides and all sorts of terrible tragedies but this is on a whole new level. I wouldn't be surprised if those that have the power to do so will all but erase him from history. Vince owns pretty much his entire career and I can't imagine there being much of an outcry if he's edited off all future DVDs. Some will complain, obviously, because they have no sense of reality. To them an uncut DVD is worth being reminded of what he did to his family. The torrent channels are buzzing with people uploading and downloading Benoit tribute DVDs and match collections just in case they ever become hard to come by.

I'll follow the story until we have a better understanding of why this happened and then I'm happy for history to delete him. From a pure body-of-work perspective it would be like erasing Michael Jackson or Madonna. But if they did what he did, we shouldn't ever have to see or hear their work again.

Fortunately, my little nephew hasn't seen Raw and with luck he won't ever know about it. I had been "persuaded" to take him to McDonald's for tea this evening and dreaded having to explain it all to him even more than I dreaded just being in a McDonald's. He had a cheese burger, I thought the savoury potato wedges would probably be more or less safe.

And I'll leave you with another ADBS excerpt. They were discussing the most terrifying ordeals of their lives. Danny had a creepy encounter with a Ouija board, Baylen had come face to face with the Devil and David Kuo... well... David Kuo's idea of terror is a little different.

26th June

It was a shock to wake up to the news that Chris Benoit had been found dead. Nine days ago I wrote about how WWE's "Mr McMahon has been murdered" storyline was in the worst possible taste and them paying tribute to their "dead" chairman would come back to haunt them eventually. I didn't expect it to happen so soon. One of their top guys - considered in the running for one of the main matches at next year's Wrestlemania (at least as a back up because he was Mr Reliable and wouldn't screw everything up, unlike a Randy Orton or Dave Batista) - is dead and they're having to take out the same graphics and sombre tones and black arm bands they used for the fake mourning a few days ago.

Then everything got weird. Chris Benoit wasn't just another wrestler who died too young. The police have said their preliminary investigations suggest he murdered his wife and seven year old son before killing himself. The best wrestler in the world, the one guy in the WWE locker room that no-one had a bad word for, the quiet family man who was one of the last pro wrestlers that fans truly respected as an athlete is a murderer. It is scary to think what must've happened because no one saw anything wrong last week. Over a weekend he snapped, killing his wife and son on Saturday and Sunday, living with their bodies for at least a day before killing himself yesterday.

Heaven knows what will come out next - the investigator has alluded to some "bizarre facts" which he can't talk about yet. I don't know how this can get any worse but I have an awful feeling it will.

24th June

The wedding was fine. Strange but fine. Strange to see a bunch of people I know to varying degrees all dressed up. The gentlemen in suits and ties, the ladies in traditional Indian dresses. The bride's mother told me I looked nice. She also said I'd lost a lot of weight so I'm thinking her glasses might be due for their biennial service. The whole thing was videoed but I get to edit the video so I can pick and choose which shots to use. I really really really want to do a music video version with the ultimate music video backing song (this is my ECW past talking) - "November Rain" by Guns 'n' Roses but I feel that might be inappropriate. I also really really really want to do an artistic "start in black and white and then fade slowing into colour at the important bit" but I think they just want a bog standard record of events. So no "Lonely Road of Faith" by Kid Rock either. That would've been my second choice. I might do a "Four Weddings" homage if I can get one of the digital camera memory cards. Just as an Easter Egg. Actually, speaking of photos, I only realised later that my lenses will have turned dark outside so I'll look like a tosser on all the pictures. I never realise they're turning dark until I see my own reflection. I would rather have been squinting and bumping into things than look like the sort of person who wears dark glasses to a wedding. 

See how I've cleverly turned the whole thing into an entry about ME and not the people actually getting married? That's probably why I was the only adult guest not accompanied by another adult guest then. See - still all about ME.

If you don't want to know the result of the wedding, look away now.

Bride 1-1 Groom.

Those wanting pictures can click here.

Father got his new car on Friday - from the same place I got mine so I can look forward to a cheque for referring him. I give it somewhere between eight weeks and forever. Don't ask me why I referred him - I didn't. It just worked out well for me that he was going there every week as a prospective customer and so could repeatedly chase them to sort things out for me. Anyway, the two things to come out of his new car (which is two years old and a different make to mine, both of which are important) are firstly that it makes the same noises that have been worrying me about mine. They didn't seem to bother father (and he could hear them more clearly - see point two) so they're obviously nothing to be concerned about. This is good. The second thing is that his radio won't work because the fine people at the dealership told him he wouldn't need a code. He does. The absurdity of car radio codes only hit me when I was searching online for something that might help. The idea of the radio code is that you have to enter a four digit incantation whenever a radio has been removed from the car or otherwise disconnected from the battery. So anyone stealing a radio has a worthless box of buttons if they don't have the magic word. Except that each radio has a serial number on the back and if you have that serial number you can get the code online for somewhere between seven pounds and free. So if you have bought a car with a radio but have no code you are screwed (especially one where the radio is built into the dashboard) but if you steal it and just have the radio in front of you it can be made to work in about ten minutes. It is yet another example of the bizarre modern trend for security systems which punish only the innocent because the guilty can get round it in a matter of moments. It has made the black market a paradoxically safer marked for the average consumer because the benefits of bypassing the restrictions imposed by manufacturers outweigh the negatives of doing something illegal.

So anyway, I was riding in father's car because it is generally safer for me not to drive to such events myself. Not because I want a drink but because one (or both) of the following is likely to happen. (a) I'll get lost and be horribly late or (b) I'll go peculiar and disappear half way through. Father was doing a lot of chauffeuring around and one of his trips took me home to get changed before we went to eat. I wanted five minutes at home to find a torrent of Friday night's Shamrock vs Baroni pay per view. I found one at my usual PW/MMA tracker and left it happily downloading. I guessed it would be done when I got home in the evening and I'd be able to watch the show then. By the time I did get home it was almost done but the tracker site said the torrent was "nuked". Apparently this means it is a bad rip and shouldn't be used. The description said it was out of synch and missing bits. So that was a wasted few hours and gigabytes.

While at m'brother's, he was showing father the benefits of the Setanta Sports package (because he's a good son, obviously, and not because he works in Virgin Media's sales department). Setanta were showing the boxing which m'brother was staying up until who-knows-when to watch. Yes, he was spending his wedding night sharing an inflatable bed with his new brother-in-law so they could watch a boxing match at 4am. One of the Setanta channels had some boxing on and he said "This was one of the best fights I've ever seen". It was two guys standing and punching each other in the face. That's all it was. It was so ungodly boring. Round after round of two guys standing then and punching each other in the face. That's all they do. I've not seen boxing in years and had forgotten just how dire a spectacle it is. Because it's just two guys standing and punching each other in the face. For up to twelve damned rounds. I really don't know how anyone can watch it. Some might argue it is barbaric, some that it is sick but I just think it is dull beyond belief. No kicks, no knees, no elbows, no take downs, no submissions, no ground and pound, no grappling, no jui jitsu, no Mui Thai, no judo and the one thing boxing does have - punches - are rendered boring by those stupid big gloves. It is no wonder boxing is losing popularity in the US. Once people see what MMA has to offer they realise that boxing it one dimensional crap - draughts to MMA's chess - and can't be doing with it anymore. And best of all, MMA is safer than boxing so it wins on all counts.

21st June

It isn't quite at the level of the "tainted meat" story or the "green microwave" adventure but it is a Tesco tale of some merit. I was at the "baskets only" queue because I only had a basket. It is the one nearest the exit. While waiting behind an irritating woman (who put all her shopping in carrier bags before getting her purse out to pay, who paid £15.55 in exact money and who had finished everything when she handed over an O2 top up card and asked the cashier to put twenty quid on it. She did so, the woman paid in cash and THEN handed over her clubcard and asked for the points from both transactions to be put on it) I saw our old project manager (the one ITguy reported to back in the good old days) walk past, looking cool and in holiday mode, with his wife and their ickle baby. He did his usual thing when he saw me - a nod of head, possibly a wink and a mumbled greeting. I cooed at the baby and they walked off. Only for the security alarm to sound really really loudly when they went through. A burly security guard walked over and checked through their bags. He eventually found the offending item and, rather than just check his receipt, sent him back in the store (which set the alarm off again) with a rather ugly brown striped shirt. Our hero found the guy who was manning the self service till he'd obviously used and tried to explain to him what had happened. The people who man the self service tills are the ones not considered bright enough to man the regular tills. Being stuck behind this chronic woman I was able to watch the whole five minute spectacle as he tried to prove to the people of Tesco that he hadn't tried to steal an ugly brown striped shirt.

This was too much of a bargain to resist. I don't really have much need for it (though it would mean I didn't have to use my iPod in the car) but it looks nice and it sounds far too good to be true at under sixty English pounds. It plays MP3s, you can watch videos, it's a voice recorder, a digital photo album, it can record direct from TV, it's a portable hard drive and it's quite pretty. Basically, it's a swiss army knife for the digital media enthusiast. It's a shame I only bought it today as I could've taken it to the wedding and kept my little nephew quiet with Undertaker videos.

And I don't think I've ever mentioned Quidco on here. It's another thing that seems too good to be true. You earn cash back / commission just for using Quidco as a referral portal. It's not a huge amount but you can get 10% cash back on anything you buy from HMV (I'm getting double for some reason - they keep crediting me twice). Other stores like Play, DVD.co.uk and CDWOW offer rates of about 5%. It's a lot better than say a Tesco Clubcard with its miserly 1% or so. You pay them £5 a year out of your earnings and that's it - you keep the rest. It's free money.

If you want an example of the absurd from behind the Iron Curtain, here is a good 'un. Perhaps close your eyes while you listen to it - you will get a pleasant image in your head by the end.

If you want an example of the absurd from closer to home, the council have complained to the Company about people parking on back streets and causing problems for the locals. The main reason people have to park on back streets is that we have a car park which we're not allowed to use because the council won't allow it. For reasons lost in the mists of time, it was ok to build a car park on green belt land but not to actually park cars on it. So staff are suffering, local people are suffering, the police are getting tetchy and the council are sending delegations to protest and all the time it is that same council who are consistently refusing to solve the very problem they are bringing to our attention.

If I was Richard Littlejohn (which I'm not) I could get a whole book out of that.

17th June

"Utopia" looked as if it was going to be Just One Of Those Stories. A bunch of scary monster creatures, yet more "last humans in the universe", an impossibly long time in the future and a frantic rush to do something before something else happened. But that was just the coat rack. No one cares about the coat rack - it's just there to hang the coats on. The return of Captain Jack was one of the coats (though it didn't have much impact as (a) we already knew he was fine because he'd been starring in Torchwood - it would be like Angel arriving back in Buffy even though he had his own weekly adventures on the same channel and (b) we saw him apparently humping the Tardis as she flew through the vortex and banging a wooden box would only get you kudos if it was Uma Thurman's during the making of The Avengers). The other coat was the return of you know who. Much rumoured but, as with Sutekh last season, there was always the chance it was just a swerve. It wasn't a swerve. And it was fantastic. The best couple of minutes of the best season so far. This is the moment I'll probably be playing back a few times or more.

My little nephew greeted me this afternoon with the news. "Mr McMahon's dead!" he told me. I know I should kayfabe him because he's only six but I can't. I'm quite happy to look like I've got special powers when I correctly predict who is going to win matches ("No - I'm pretty sure John Cena will beat the Great Khali" I'll tell him. "No way - Great Khali beat him on TV last night so he'll win again tonight" he'll reply in his wide-eyed innocence) but when it comes to shit like Vince faking his own death I'm not going to play along. Because if I do, the next time an Eddie Guerrero or Owen Hart tragedy happens, he won't believe it's real. If Mr McMahon can have everyone mourning him and he comes back to life, then everyone else will too. But they won't - wrestling has the highest death rate of anything in the sports or entertainment genre and people he likes are going to die. They won't do it on live TV and go out in a blaze of glory, they'll have a heart attack in their bathroom or choke on their own vomit. But they won't come back in six weeks with a plaster on their nose and a main event angle.

Rather than leave it on a down note, here's another classic from Danny Baker and co. When have you ever missed your target? Here's a man who missed it target... with hilarious consequences.

13th June

I should be getting my car back tomorrow. They rang today to say it would be delivered and who am I to argue? It's a few days ahead of schedule which is good. I made the mistake of saying "Yes" when they asked if I wanted to pay the excess over the phone. So I've paid them without having seen the repair. That can't be good can it? Having driven an automatic for a week I've decided I like them in theory but I don't think I could drive one for real. Not one in something like a Clio anyway. Maybe a good quality German automatic gearbox would be ok but a flimsy French one leaves me, like Prince Harry at a fancy dress ball which isn't a 'Come as a fascist' theme party, always in the wrong gear.

I'm missing "Sugar Rush". I watched the whole of the second series over two evenings and I want more. Sadly, Channel Four cancelled it after two runs so there isn't going to be any more. No more Kim, no more Saint and no more Sugar. I only got it because I fancied the girl in "Gridlock"...

...and found out what else she was in. The moral of the story is to follow your lusts for they can lead you to some hidden gems.

On the downside, the show has made me realise I've missed out on just about everything in life. But I'm somewhere between half and two-thirds of the way through my life and it's a bit late to be worrying about that now. Although if I didn't worry so much I probably wouldn't be somewhere between half and two-thirds of the way through.

Someone at the end of their life (or so we are lead to believe) is Mr McMahon. After a straight three-hour WWE wrestling show we cut to the owner of the company walking through the car park, getting into his limo and, when he closed the door...

...it exploded. It may be the most random thing I've ever seen. I thought Vince McMahon wrestling God was the strangest thing he'd ever done. But now he's topped it - he's going to spend a few months having been blown up before he changes his mind and decides he wants to be on TV. Then he'll announce that he survived the explosion. It will be like Dallas (or at least the sort of writing which killed the biggest TV show in the world).

You don't get this with UFC. You just get Dana saying "fuck" a lot and people applying arm locks. You know where you are with that.

I forgot Winston Churchill's name yesterday. And today I couldn't be sure whether or not I'd ever been to Germany.

11th June

Don't ask how I came to hear this but I did. The Welsh are kicking up a fuss about not being able to talk to each other in their own language while at work in Thomas Cook.

The BBC's PM programme had a representative from the Welsh Nationalists on to stick up for the Welsh language. Except, she didn't use the phrase "Welsh language" - she had her own term.

10th June

We had a power cut this morning. It only lasted for a few seconds in itself but the effects lasted a while longer. For one thing there were all the alarms going off. When did people start getting alarms which just emit a high pitched whine? Not the traditional wah-wah or wee-wah or woah-woah but a high pitched sound which, when distorted by life, the universe and everything, could - just could - be the sound of a hard drive in distress. V+ boxes and computers make funny noises and so, apparently, do houses. More annoyingly, something must've gone wrong with the local Virgin Media loop because neither the V+ box nor the modem could connect to the network. Whether through volume of traffic or the need to reboot something after the outage, I was cut off from the entire world (unless telephones and going outside count which - I think - they don't) for a couple of hours. Woah, quite literally, was me.

Worse still, since everything came back, the DVD player on my PC doesn't work any more. It gives sound but not pictures. When the power went off, the monitor went black, then flickered white, then when black again. It's probably just a coincidence but it might have done some damage to the graphics card. Hence there are no pics in today's Only Fools and Horses and we'll have to wait a few more days to see if Commando Cody, the greasy man and womanly Joan survive their gas-filled office.

I won a meeting on Friday morning. It was only about the intranet but, by virtue of being the only one who went in with a vision, I got everyone on my side and my concept looks set to be the foundation of the new site. They've changed their content management system to something (apparently) more widely used so it would be something practical and new to put on my CV.

Something else that's new - and which I can't talk about yet - is a vaguely brilliant idea I had earlier in the week. There was initial enthusiasm when I suggested it but things seem to have become a bit quiet since then. I hope it does come to pass because (a) it is something I've wanted to do for ages, (b) something it will be interesting to learn how to do and (c) it will be fun.

My little nephew is into WWE this week. It's his birthday in a fortnight and he wants lots of WWE action figures. Which means I can finally buy him a birthday present on my own. Normally he wants something I've never heard of so mummy and daddy buy it, give it to me and I give it to him. But I think I can handle a trip to Toys R Us to get Undertaker, Batista, John Cena and Umaga toys. And while I'm there I might accidentally end up in the Transformers section. They won't be as good as they were back when they were the BEST TOYS EVER~! but it will be interesting to see what a more cynical and disposable age produces in the way of Robots In Disguise^TM.

7th June

What a palaver. Following some anonymous fuckwit's decision to damage my car, think no more of it and fuck the hell off without a word, everything seems to have become wildly out of proportion to the size of the dent. Yesterday, the people doing the repairs came and collected my car. Then I had to arrange to be picked up from work by the company dealing with the courtesy car. They told me where I would be taken and from where I would have to drive home. So I Googlemapped it and was all ready with print outs and mnemonics and PNGs on my phone. I did my home work. Just as I was leaving the hire compound, the woman says "Do you know how to get home?" I say yes and show her a map. "We're not there" she replies. They had decided to take me to a different compound. She then started giving me directions. I have a teflon brain where directions are concerned. I'm ok if you tell me to keep going until HMV or walk down the road next to M&S or to look out for a blue shop next to Tesco. But right here, left here, right here, second exit off the roundabout, left, right, left, left... and I'm lost before I've even put the key in the ignition. Luckily - and it was lucky because I was hungry and the car had been left with a mere sliver of petrol - it was close to Manchester airport and that is my emergency beacon. It's a simple system - if ever I'm lost I follow the signs to Manchester airport because I know my way from there. I say "know my way" but I did manage to make two wrong turns. Only two though. That's not bad. So now I have a Clio for the foreseeable future. It's an automatic - I've not driven one of those for years. I can see how automatics could be really really good but this one is a little too clunky. I don't really want to be moving into fifth only when I reach 70. I don't really understand gears (except that my Fiesta has a fat gear stick - it does - it is too fat to attach a crook-lock round) but I know enough that I wince at the sound of an engine in pain. Luckily, father had an automatic at the time I passed my test so I know the whole foot thing.

Not that my complimentary courtesy car is anything of the sort. Despite the insurance company's shill literature about how generous they are, the hire car lady tells me that the insurers only authorise the lowest possible specced car. She told me I could choose to "upgrade to something like a Micra". If a Micra is an upgrade, I don't want to know what the freebie is like. So I'm paying five English pounds (plus VAT) each day for my "complimentary" car. They've charged me for a fortnight but I'll be able (so they claim but I've stopped believing anyone who has any connection with automobiles) to get a refund if it goes back early.

It's all very annoying and time consuming and complicated. Still, it's all a learning experience I suppose. And to reach thirty before having to deal with insurance companies and shit is something I suppose. It just involves lots of coping with things and I'm not good at coping with things.

Especially this week as I've decided I'm not going to be a hopeless caffeine addict any more. With coffee and pills I've probably been taking the equivalent of twenty to thirty cups of coffee a day. I never take less than six Pro Plus at a time (often more) and they've stopped having any effect other than staving off the symptoms of not taking them. That has been my reason for stopping various prescribed medications over the years so why should caffeine be any different? I'm not giving up all together - just not taking the pills and only having one or two coffees a day. So I'm headachy and irritable at the moment. No one has noticed any difference yet. Boom.

Boom.

And I've been appointed the "sort of best man" for my brother's upcoming wedding. I'm pretty unqualified to be called a "best man" but it's family only and they need someone to sign the register. If I'm called upon to make an impromptu speech I can fortunately quote Hugh Grant verbatim. Then who'll be the one looking silly for believing "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is the best film ever made?

6th June

Keep playing to the end. It is a pip and a dandy.

3rd June

I'm not going to mention car parking. Some of you won't understand why, others will probably be relieved. Suffice it to say the company have decided to take a different approach to on-site parking and that they seem intent on causing the maximum harm for the minimum gain. From a communication strategy which was so inept that someone really ought to be sacked for it, to the subsequent revelation that they have decided to get all draconian without actually having done ANY research into actual numbers. So their decision was made without collecting any facts, was announced so as to cause maximum alarm, has apparently been timed so everyone is up in arms just as they had finally settled down and accepted the last change in parking policy, and perfectly reasonable questions are being met with "We're confident that won't be a problem" answers. Well, Chamberlain was confident that their wouldn't be a war in Europe and he at least had a piece of paper to back up his belief.

I hate cars. A couple of weeks ago - in the very carpark we're now all so furious at the prospect of being locked out of - some cuntwit scraped my brand new car. They'll have been taking a short cut through the drive-through spaces to avoid ten or fifteen wasted seconds following the one-way system and didn't bother to do the decent thing and leave their details. I haven't mentioned it before because I was planning on ignoring it and pretending it didn't happen (much as the other driver decided to do, the shitwit) but father spotted it this morning and said I should phone Direct Line. So now I get to deal with insurance company people, lose something called a "no claims bonus" (which sounds good because bonuses are great unless offered by a Nigerian in a spam email) and pay out a couple of hundred quid. But now I think about it, cars are entirely blameless - it is people who are to blame. I hate people. Come on bird flu / nuclear war / global warming - wipe this stinking race from the planet.

I'm thinking that KFD is fortunate to be starting a new life when he is. Friday was his last day (apart from Monday which is the awkward hangover day when he'll pop in at some point once he's sorted his cat out) and I joined him and TheArtist at a local establishment. I wasn't going to but eventually decided I would - I don't like pubs - they lend themselves too freely to extremely loud music and conversations about the merits of various beers, all of which look and smell exactly the same to me. Fortunately, the evening segmented itself nicely - a couple of hours before it got loud (outside where the English summer is) and then a football match (England vs Brazil) to watch so you didn't have to try and talk over the pub band that were playing. It is slightly surreal to watch a half-speed friendly while listening to a local lass belting out "Play that funky music, white boy".

Saturday's "The Family of Blood" marked the first occasion where the second part of a truly great story was actually better than the first. "Human Nature" (for I've come over all 1973 Radio Times and decided to call all two-part stories by the title on the first episode) is without a doubt the best the New Series has yet given us. The previous two contenders dropped off a touch after superb first episodes but this one didn't. Coincidentally (or perhaps not) it is also the first adaptation of a novel. One I've not read but have literally just downloaded from the BBC website and added to my SmartPhone for later perusal. Eighty five minutes of television and the only thing I didn't like was the "Family of Blood" name. It's too Hammer for something this good.

Also good is giveawayoftheday.com - a website which gives away free software. The different between this and lots of other sites is that this gives away software that you would otherwise have to pay for. The gimmick runs like this - for 24 hours you can download that day's application. You must install and activate it within the 24 hours. That's it - you then have a fully working program. The idea is that it gets people using the highlighted software, they get a buzz going and the companies selling the software get new customers. Obviously, with a new title every day the quality will vary. But it is worth going there once a day because you will get some good stuff. Just remember you have to download, install and activate by 8am UK time for it to work.