Off Message

but now I think about it, I did twitter about this blog yesterday. I guess that might account for the increased views. Duh.

Also, I really should be doing something other than pissing about on the internet.

And, I changed the design of Off Message, but it only seems to be showing up on older posts.

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So I’m still pissing about on the internet.

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And not doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

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Fuck it. It’s Friday.

The number of views of Off Message jumped astronomically yesterday. What the hell happened? I’d managed to run the audience for this ridiculous blog down to virtually nothing via a combination of writing utter rubbish and, perhaps more pertinently, not blogging at all, but yesterday the views bar shot up. Where’s this new audience come from? I’m slightly mystified.

Well, whoever you all are, doubtless you won’t be back again now you’ve realised what a colossal waste of time Off Message is. Move along, nothing to see here…

I usually carry a bag with me, wherever I go. It’s a record bag, containing stuff like magazines, a book, pens, random bits of paper, an umbrella – that sort of thing. And within the bag, there is another bag. A black plastic bag. The drugs bag. It used to be I’d have maybe a box of painkillers in my record bag, and, in the summer, hayfever tablets. Now I have a whole other bag-within-a-bag, containing painkillers, hayfever tablets (there all year round nowadays), nasal spray, decongestant, throat sweets, a sachet of Lemsip, moisturiser, hand cream, a virtually empty pot of hair gum, and another pack of hayfever tablets in case I run out of the main pack.

This is possibly a little obsessive.

So if you have a look at the post below this one, you’ll notice a comment has been left – another spam, in fact, and rather a long-winded one at that. Using my remarkable skills of detection, I have established that whoever it was left that comment resides somewhere in Descanso, California. Although the Google map points to a lonely road in a dusty expanse of nothingness, with a few houses dotted about. I reckon there’s an underground spam base there, filled with legions of drones sending out unwanted messages to unsuspecting bloggers, safe from the prying eyes of Google’s satellites, like a crap version of Hydra or A.I.M.

Then again, there is a house at the end of the road, so maybe Google’s little red pointer is slightly off. Can you hear me, whoever you are, out there just off the Twin Springs Road in Descanso, California? I’m watching you…

How’s tricks? What you been up to? Anything interesting?

No?

Right. Okay then.

Well I shan’t keep you.

Bye then. Yes, bye.

and it’s by GoodBooks, if you’re still reading, whoever you are.

Hmm. Seems we’ve been spammed. Comments have appeared on over a hundred posts praising Off Message, and even I’m not egotistical enough to believe they’re genuine. Mind you, I update this bloody thing so infrequently I should really be glad anyone takes the time to look at it, even if, er, they didn’t.

Apparently, today is That Day. According to the BBC anyway. Or rather, according to “psychologists”. Which psychologists? How many? Five? Ten? Seven hundred and fifty-seven? Was there some big psychologists convention where all the psychologists IN THE WORLD met up in the hotel bar, got drunk and decided to dub a day The Most Depressing Day of the Year, FOR A LAUGH?

There are criteria, again according to the BBC and these so-called psychologists. The factors are: “weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing our New Year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action.” And to be fair, it is pissing down right now and dark already; I am horribly in debt; Christmas is a dim memory; I’m still masturbating into my girlfriend’s soiled panties when she’s not around; I can’t be arsed to finish this sen—

So five out of six ain’t bad. Well done, “psychologists”.

I’d forgotten all about this bloody thing. And look: now it’s 2009. We appear to be in the future. Which, out here in the sticks, looks remarkably like the past.

It’s good to know that in the six months since I last posted anything here, my innate profundity hasn’t deserted me.

I knew there was something I’d forgotten.