What would you recommend?

When I was younger there was the 'local' video shop. Before the days of Blockbuster, these shops were little gems - they seemed to have one copy of every film you'd ever want to see. If the film was out, try again the next night. Nowadays Blockbuster has 20 copies of about 20 films, so your choice is somewhat limited.

One thing, however, has remained the same across all video/dvd rental establishments. You should NEVER ask the guy behind the counter what he thinks of a certain film. Why do I trust his opinion? He is nothing like me, and by virtue of his occupation if nothing else, he has completely different tastes to almost everyone on Planet Normal. What he thinks is great is almost always a bucket of shite. He is twenty years younger than me.

Nevertheless, if I am undecided about which of two titles I should rent, I will always defer to him for an opinion. He is always wrong and I am always disappointed, but I just can't help myself.

Although it was worth it once when I quizzed him about Deja Vu and he asked if I'd seen it already. Comedy gold - at least the first time you hear it anyway.

How Are You?

Ah, the period after Christmas/New Year. Many of us are back in the office/workplace now, and not looking forward to another year of drudgery. For me in particular, this time of year represents one of my least favourite formalities - smalltalk.

"Morning"
"Morning"
"How are you?"
"Good thanks. You?"
"Yeah, good. Good Christmas?"
"Yeah, good thanks. What about you?"
"Good....yeah.. good.
"Good"

To be honest, I don't really care. Whether you were round your parents or you parents-in-law is of zero importance to me, and what you ate in the way of Christmas dinner even less so.

Can we not just assume that we've all had a good weekend/Christmas/New Year/holiday/Easter etc unless we hear otherwise? I reckon I could claim back around half an hour of my life every day.