June 21st, 2009 / No Comments » / by Finch
Woah, it’s been…a while. A while since I had time to even log in - let alone think about writing this. I can’t remember what the last entry was about, but things have probably changed a few dozen times over since.
This weekend is the first for a while where I’ve decided to switch off completely from the endless tasks floating around my head. I’ve been slouched in the living room watching shitty movies with a can of Stella at the ready. It’s nice to unwind every once in a while, but I’m not really one for sitting around doing nothing.
I’ve left my day job and taken up life as a full time affiliate marketer. I don’t care what anybody says about the freedom of working from home. It’s hard fucking work. People don’t really appreciate that while I can watch TV on the job, that job routinely lasts 14 or 16 hours a day.
I think that’s largely because I’m an absolute shipwreck when it comes to time management. If I could just focus my efforts where they’re needed, I’d be well ahead of myself by now.
This is what I want to do though. I worked my arse off to get in to a position where I could become self-sufficient. When I look at things realistically, none of my worries are beyond my own control. Nobody can make me redundant and nobody can screw me over. I get out what I put in. I’m tired of people mistaking working at home for not working at all though. I know that I have to make £x,xxx/Month to pay the bills. It’s not going to get paid to me if I doss off sick or go half arsed on the job. I could roll out of bed at 1 in the afternoon but what would be the point in that?
Combine financial responsibility with working in one of the most volatile industries imaginable and it’s a recipe for late nights and early mornings. Still, I’m loving the challenge. I don’t understand how people can scratch around for years in a dead end job.
I’ve only been doing this for a few months and I’m already visualizing beyond simply working for myself. I want to take on employees at some point next year. And I want to be financially secure for the rest of my life by the time I’m 25. Those are pretty tough targets but I know they’re well within my reach. I know because I’m speaking to guys who were in my position 18 or so months ago. They’re now making £xxx,xxx/Year. Some breaking the millions.
It’d all be pretty pointless without some kind of incentive beyond having a lot of money in the bank. I want to travel. It’d be pretty awesome to take a year out, not have to worry about a thing, and just go from continent to continent without deciding which country to stop in until I reached the airport.
This year, it’s just a case of enjoying the freedom. I remember looking at my old work holiday planner and seeing that the weekend of Latitude Festival had been booked out. I pretty much forwarded handing in my notice by three months so that I could have that off.
I get to see my girlfriend on Tuesday (which wouldn’t have been possible before). And with everybody else away at work, we can afford the luxury of having really, really loud sex. No, that’s just a joke. I think.
In all seriousness though, it helps to be able to see her. I get bogged down, all too easily, in a lot of economical equations - but when she’s around, I’m pretty much only interested in boobs and spooning. Which is the way it should be, I think?
I can’t believe it’s only three months since we “officially” started going out. You know, the Facebook relationship status change? The social display of we’re having it on and we want you to know about it?
It feels like a lot a longer, but not in a bad way. Probably just because we knew each other a long time before. I didn’t expect things to fall in to place so naturally after the bumpy ride that actually brought us together. Bumpy ride? That sounds like one of my famously erotic train journeys, but it definitely runs deeper than that.
We’ve been looking at going away together in the Autumn - hopefully to Rome. I just thought it’d be nice to go somewhere I can eat pasta that hasn’t arrived on my plate via a microwaveable ready meal. She’s probably only in it for the shoes. But isn’t that the goal of all womankind? I’ve been dragged around Debenhams enough times to see it how it is.
I expect Rome to be the polar opposite of my trip to Amsterdam last year. That’s assuming she’s still willing to be seen near me after experiencing my shapes at of Montreal next month, and then my erection skills at Latitude Fest. Tent erection skills, that is. You remember that episode of Bottom where Richie and Eddie camp on Wimbledon Common in the most miserable of sagging tents imaginable? Oh yes.
On a sidenote, if anybody wants to have their mind well and truly fucked over - go watch Battlespace. I watched it last night and my face is still hurting from the utterly stunned expression of how bad a motion picture can be. Seriously, go watch it. Words do no justice.
Posted in: White Noise
Tags: battlespace, long time no see, wimbledon common camping
May 18th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Finch
That’s right, TWITTER.
MOTHERFUCKING TWITTER.
http://twitter.com/FinchSells
Posted in: White Noise
Tags: MOTHERFUCKING TWITTER
April 28th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Finch
Yo, I haven’t forgotten about this place.
In fact, I had a post written up ready to go. But for reasons that I’ll explain later - which most people already know - I’ve been too snowed under to think much about personal blogging.
I have, however, just this very moment launched a new “work blog” which I’ll be using for networking in my new job. It’s about affiliate marketing and will be as enthralling to the uninvolved eye as watching paint dry with a bad case of swine flu. Get over that shit already. I can take the flu, just don’t go culling my source of bacon sarnies, alright?
Here is the work blog that you won’t be interested in: Finch Sells
Posted in: White Noise
Tags: bacon shortage, mmm pig, where is my sarnie
April 8th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by Finch
I’m the kind of man who struggles to cook his steak in one of only two ways.
Rare or well done.
Oh, but by rare, I mean it’s not often you get to see a cow so carelessly cremated. And yet it’s somehow to be expected at the hands of South Ruislip’s most forgetful bonfire chef. I won’t lie. I grilled a pie the other night.
This fiendish lack of self-control in the kitchen will eventually lead to my downfall, I’m sure of it. If I can succeed in patenting Chicken and Mushroom on Toast - which really should have stayed uninvented - there’s nothing to stop me from going one step further and gassing myself out in a heroic last stand. Conquered by macaroni, the stuff of kings.
I thought I could fix this dire predicament by recruiting a girlfriend. A woman is, after all, a safer pair of hands in the kitchen than the digits that type this sexist slander. But she so happens to live in Norwich and that’s, like, an epic train ride away. Not to mention the fact that she isn’t obligated-by-intimacy to rack up my grub on a Tuesday night. I’m all for equality in relationships, right? Which is why if she’s willing to pop down to Londis and buy herself a Rustlers, I will quite happily sit there and eat mine next to her. Equality. Done the right way.
Romance ain’t dead kids, I’m just holding it on life support.
I’m joking, of course. But this is all the result of one particularly amusing story I heard through, well - from - an American acquaintance who hopefully doesn’t read this blog. He decided he’d treat his girlfriend to a candlelit dinner complete with romantic music (knowing him, probably Plain White T’s or some equally barbaric ear-fuck). Anyway, I thought this was a sweet enough gesture.
But then he went and did the unthinkable. He made a Facebook event for it.
No, no, no, no, no, no and no.
Why in the name of Jesus Lucifer would you go and create an online event invitation for one person? That’s without even considering the fact that it was his girlfriend. Just pick up a phone and save your Web 2.0 for situations that actually merit it!
Okay, fair enough, he wanted it to be a grand public gesture of his love. He’d Photoshopped some cheesy graphics and written a blurb about their time together. Once again, a really sweet gesture. But then you stop and think for a second. Hold on. He’s made it publicly viewable to everybody on his friends list! I’m sitting here in my boxers, scoffing Pringles, scratching my nuts, and casting a judgmental eye over the quality of their Miami suntans. I’m blogging about it for Christ’s sake! It’s times like these where I want to reach out and slap people. Lovers should communicate in a way that’s fitting, civilized and classy.
You just KNOW I’m talking about a Facebook poke, baby.
Anyway, I’m absolutely snowed under with work at the moment. I’ve been locking myself away and occupying the night pulling out my hair and running over furious figures in my head. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to actually turn away well-paid freelance work because I can’t take on anymore.
I’m looking to give up my job within the next 3 weeks, and then it’ll be both hands to the deck launching a home business that I know I can make a success.
It’s an exciting future and one that will finally motivate me knowing that the money I make is directly related to the work I put in. Most people who try affiliate marketing are too stupid and too short-minded to be able to make money from it, let alone make enough to work for themselves. It’s a business saturated by retards and low-brow scam artists operating out of a tent somewhere in Nigeria. But that does leave great opportunities for those who actually know what they’re doing.
I’m working out a couple of trips for later this year which will help me mix and mingle with the kind of people who can get me to where I want to be. I’m planning to go to Affiliate Summit East in New York this August, then hopefully Ad:Tech in Chicago in November. It’s a chance to travel while I make money, the freedom I’ve always wanted to have, and the best way of networking in my line of work.
Maybe, just maybe, I’ll learn to fucking cook while I’m at it.
Posted in: White Noise
Tags: ad:tech, candlelit facebook events, nigerian scams
March 22nd, 2009 / No Comments » / by Finch
Not to be a man of exaggeration, God knows I’ve done enough of that on these pages, but the last three days have completely changed the trajectory of probably the next few years.
I had a meeting at work on Friday where the inevitable news broke that redundancies are on the horizon. It’s a word that’s supposed to inject fear in to the city, but I could only shake my head and feel sorry for those who might not have the same financial cushion as I do. I’m in the firing line, and if the axe is going to fall anywhere, it’s probably going to carve a hole in my Mac.
We’ve been told that one or two members of the five man web team will be getting laid off. The senior developer and the project manager are surely safe, so it comes down to myself and two other guys. I’ve been given reason to believe that my job would probably be safe - but I stayed behind after the meeting on Friday and volunteered myself for redundancy anyway. The other two guys are good friends with bigger financial burdens than myself, and I’m happy to take the fall if it saves one of their jobs.
I took a pay-rise six weeks ago under the pretense that if the company ever had to lay anybody off, they’d come to me first. I wrote that in to my terms to fend off any personal guilt knowing full well that I was the only one to receive a rise in the whole company, and that the only reason they’d increased my salary was to rebuff my notice.
So now that that one or two of us have to go, I think it’s only right that I volunteer myself. I can’t force them to accept it, and I’ve been told that handing in my notice wouldn’t affect their ultimate decision. So who knows?
As far as I’m concerned, from Tuesday onwards, I’ll be working for myself. I’m not looking for another job and I don’t need one. I’ve worked flat out to get in to a position where I can quit the day job and survive as my own boss. A couple of years ago I decided that I wanted to be working for myself by the time I was 21. That seemed a bit optimistic at the time. Well, I’m now 21. I’ve been racking my brain with the calculations, reading up on the complications and I’ve decided that I’m in a position to make it work.
I’m going to set up a home office at my Mum’s house and commit to a strict 9-5 schedule for the first few months. The good thing about what I’m doing is that the large majority of my income is being generated on auto-pilot.
I can work when I want, go where I want, and break out of the Monday to Friday prison. That’s the dream for me and I’ve got faith that I’m good enough at what I do to make it a success.
To say Friday was full of drama would be telling only half the story. I left work on the dot at 5:30 and headed straight for Norwich to spend some time with a girl who knows me so well that she’s probably read these blog posts in her mind before I’ve gotten round to writing them.
It’s hard for me to remember a time when I’ve had absolute faith in my feelings for a girl. I’ve seen relationships come and go, the dancefloor flash and fade, but I can’t remember a moment when I’ve felt as sure I do now that I’m not just running in a hopeless circle of lust.
I think we spent the entire night awake on one level or another. It’s been a pretty tough 18 months and there are things that I’ve wanted to say that I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, under the circumstances. I think any hesitation that I might have had evaporated from her arms on Friday night, and now I can only feel a relieved happiness that I’m with the girl who I should have been with all along.
I miss her a lot, but I feel like a different person around the house knowing that there’s a future there to fight for - and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve been suppressing smiles knowing that I care too much to repeat my mistakes, and probably because I can still feel the kisses. It’s a strange feeling having crossed so many paths to get where I am now, but it feels right. That’s something you can’t put a price on.
Posted in: White Noise
March 19th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by Finch
Has anybody visited the gents’ toilets in Watford Lloyds recently? They’re out of order. And by out of order, I mean very out of order. Every single cubical is flooded. There’s yellow toilet paper dripping from the tiles and enough splashback to bust out the swimming trunks for a paddle. I don’t know quite how a toilet becomes so out of order but I’m guessing it has something to do with vomit and mash-faced football fans on a Saturday night binge.
Best of all is the scrawled notice that the bar staff were kind enough to leave behind.
“Toilets out of order. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.”
Yes, that is quite the inconvenience.
I was tempted to write back to them.
“I’ve shat in your doorway. Sorry if this affects you.”
You know what else annoys me? The little green man when I’m crossing the road.
It’s rush hour in Farringdon and I’m on my way home from work. I’m taking the non-bustling route to the post office so I’m basically on my own. I come to a halt at the junction and peer across the street at my destination. It’s only fifteen meters away and the lights are red. The cars are stopped and theres absolutely nothing coming in the opposite direction. So why am I a complete and utter failure in waiting patiently for the little green man to show?
I have this irrational expectation that the second my shoe touches the tarmac crossing, a lorry’s going to fall out of the sky, swerve out of my way and narrowly miss flattening me in to a London Lite wrapped pulp. So there I stand with the cars lined up at a standstill in front of me. I could crawl across the road with my arse in the air and I’ve probably got time to top up my Oyster Card along the way - but no, still I wait for the comfort and relief of Mr. Green Man ushering me along safely.
So I’ve decided that tomorrow, I’m going to turn over a new leaf. No more red lights, no more little green men. I’m going to cross the road in my own time, arms held aloft as Jesus walking on water. All shall hit the handbrake before me. And if that doesn’t work out for me, well, that’s what the Small Claims Court is for, right?
I’ve been trying to spend more time with my family. Times aren’t easy and with my Grandad just released from hospital, we’re all making the effort to keep his mind occupied. He has a progressive disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which is where the lungs slowly harden and die. It means his lung capacity is falling and while his blood pressure is excellent, there’s not enough oxygen in the blood cells to keep the body going strong. It’s not comfortable for him to breath and he’s exhausted easily.
So admittedly, it’s a pretty grim diagnosis and his condition will deteriorate over time. But he’s 74, and I can accept that. What gives me some hope is that he isn’t fighting an aggressive disease, and that he might still have several months of living in reasonable comfort. There are things I still want to do with him that I probably won’t be able to. He’s not strong enough to go in to the city and his legs are creaking. But there’s a couple of people I’d like him to meet, and a couple of things I’d like to say that I’ve always choked back on in the past. I suppose most importantly of all - it’s precious time, something I’ve learnt not to take for granted.
Anyway, I’m generally quite smug about things at the moment. I’d grown used to making decisions that were convenient if rarely ever fulfilling. Well now I’ve got the chance to fight for something where I don’t have to justify to myself how happy it makes me - because I just feel it. I haven’t had that for so long and it’s nice to know that even if there’s a thousand and one hurdles to overcome, I don’t have to worry that kidding myself is one of them.
That’s all a bit cryptic, I know. There won’t be much cryptic about tomorrow night though.
Posted in: White Noise
March 9th, 2009 / 7 Comments » / by Finch
Hope is so often what keeps people going when faced with the idea of losing somebody. Hope isn’t always so easy to find.
I say that he’s my Grandad, but he’s my Step Grandad really. We’re not blood related and I’ve always called him John. But even though we’re not tied by blood, he’s been the most reliable father figure in my life. He picked me up from school, he took me to the park and he showed me around London from the moment I was old enough to appreciate it.
I turned his garden in to a golf course, hung tennis nets from his deck chairs and spent every single day of my childhood entertained by whatever he could find to keep me amused. It’s not just me. He’s been brilliant to our whole family and still takes my youngest cousin around London - just like he did for me - for no other reason than because he enjoys it. Leukemia is a devastating illness to deal with and I can see that it’s a struggle for him. He can’t fight father time like he used to, and Michael is probably a generation too young to appreciate that.
Grandads aren’t supposed to be as active as he was, and still tries to be. I remember going to the park when I was 12 and playing football to the point where I’d be tired and he’d still be sprinting. I remember being slightly older, upset that he couldn’t challenge me at tennis as well as he used to, completely ignorant to the fact that he was fighting Leukemia with creaking knees and tiring lungs. I didn’t understand what the illness was. But I still remember the moment my brother dropped the bombshell on me that the doctors had given him five years to live. It isnt an aggressive form of Leukemia and he’s lived his life so immaculately that I thought he’d go on forever. But everybody has to go away in the end and I think when that day comes, it’s going to be the hardest loss I’ve ever had to deal with.
I went to see him last night and I don’t know how I held myself together for the first fifteen minutes. He was short of breath, pale, fragile and all he could speak of was “sticking around” for his hospital appointment next month. I managed to get him in to conversation and it was the same as I’ve always known. He asked me about my job, my happiness, my life at home and my future. He still asks me about my ex, Hailie, how she’s getting on and whether we still talk. If there’s one memory that I’ll always take from that relationship - it’s the day the three of us spent in London.
I hadn’t been in to the city with him for years but with Hailie staying, I wanted to show her where I was from and what made me the person that I am; my culture and heritage. I knew that he’d be able to do that better than I ever could. There was a sub-plot to that day which went beyond my relationship with Hailie at the time. I wanted to give something back to my Grandad. He’d spent years taking me around the city to museums and parks. I wanted to show him that I appreciated it, and that I’d grown in to a mature adult. I was proud at the time, happy in my relationship and growing in to my own shoes.
He did everything that I knew he would and I know Hailie appreciates that day for what it was - but probably nowhere near as much as I do. It upsets me a lot that he’ll never get to see my own kids, or the woman I eventually end up with. Cliche is horribly overdone, but he’s the kindest man I’ve ever met, and if I could be half of that - I know I’d be on the right path. I’ve never met somebody so sincere and unselfish, so sure to avoid confrontation and turn the other cheek. I try to live by those values that he’s instilled in all of us, but I think I’ll always come up a little short, because that’s just how much I admire him.
Seeing him last night, it made me happy personally that I could distract him from the pain that I know he’s suffering. The first fifteen minutes were gut-wrenching but once engaged in conversation, he seemed to forget the medical reality and short breaths. He was smiling and chatting freely, weak and tired, but talkative.
When I had to say goodbye, I told him I’d be back soon and left to go home. The second the door clicked shut I could hear a splutter of coughs and it dawned on me that visit or no visit, it wasn’t going to change - it couldn’t possibly change - the time he has left. He’s terminally ill and looking him in the eye, any effort we make to pretend that the next day is going to be a little more comfortable is painfully lost.
I’m struggling to cope with that reality, but I guess the reality is that I’ll struggle as long as I have to because I have to stay strong and fight it as long as he does. I walked my Mum home then went for a wander to get my thoughts together. I don’t have space around housemates and friends to allow myself the time to think too much about it. But it hit me pretty hard. I broke down at the bus stop completely and that was that.
I got a phone call from my Mum this evening saying that he’s had to be taken in to hospital with more breathing difficulties, so I’ll be going to see him tomorrow night. His white blood cells are on the rampage and it seems that as we feared, rather than a chest infection, it’s more likely to be the Leukemia kicking in aggressively. I know his biggest fear is of becoming a “nuisance”, which is upsetting to write because being the influential figure who practically raised me, it’s my turn to give something back to him. I’ll happily visit every night if it comes to that. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to pay him back for all he’s done for me, I just wish I had more time to try.
Posted in: White Noise
March 9th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Finch
Posted in: White Noise
February 14th, 2009 / 4 Comments » / by Finch
I just purchased 4 Blu-ray DVD players, several 32 inch TVs, a new camera, a memory card and a Home Cinema. All for 10p.
Snap up a bargain over at the Panasonic e-shop. Before the guy who lowered the prices gets fired.
http://shop.panasonic.co.uk/page/home
Posted in: White Noise
February 6th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Finch
I could try and condense the last three months in to one blog post, one tumulus read, but the truth is so much has changed, it’d be faster to start from scratch.
I’ve moved house, turned 21, learnt to cook, embraced the true cost of living and just about steadied the sinking ship otherwise known as my tendency to binge. More has changed over the last 3 months than at any other point in my lifetime. Which is why I’m reinventing this blog to succeed in making even less sense than it’s author, and perhaps to chart some of my inevitable mood swings along the way.
I’m grateful of the situation I find myself in. There can’t be many 21 year olds who have a house with their friends, a distinct lack of student debt, a good job, a good future, enough money to travel, and the opportunity to throw parties whenever the mood suits. But when you look beyond that, it’s one big balancing act.
I like being out and about, and I need my independence. In the same way that I’ve had less reason to venture afield when the party’s on our driveway, my bedroom door has become a revolving canvas of activity. I never knew the true meaning of a Danger Wank until I moved in with my housemates. Now it’s like Roadrunner sprinting for the victory tape before his exploits end up captured, quite literally, on tape. Videotape.
I came home from work the other night to find a disabled toilet sign nailed on my bedroom door. And it’s this kind of lifestyle that has left me sleeping with one eye open. The first thing you’ll see me do when I wake up is yawn, stretch and count my eyebrows. One, two, and another night survived.
I don’t need Dear Deirdre to analyze the state of my love life. It’s fundamentally shagged, I know. You could say that time is a great healer, but I think time is a great revealer too - and not everything it reveals is so easy to accept.
I feel compromised by the fact that probably the closest girl in my life happens to be the girl I feel the most attraction to. You don’t always realize which wounds are hurting until you open them up and have a good look inside, if that makes any sense. I’ve made myself fractiously difficult to get to know, mostly through the scars of one severely broken down relationship in my past. And now that I’m finally ready to share, it feels like the dust has settled.
But it doesn’t really matter because anything that might have developed would have been tainted by my outlook at that time. Sincerity isn’t something I’ve been in any position to boast about over the last two years.
My values have changed, though, and I’m finding myself more attracted to the qualities that brought out the caring side in me before I fucked it all away. It’s hard not to feel guilty that those qualities belong to a girl who never got more than a fleeting reply or an emotional deadpanning of whatever attraction I felt for her at the time. 2007 saw me living like a loose cannon and even when I had a girlfriend last year, I still found it impossible to exorcise the doubts that America planted in my mind. I was emotionally unhinged. It’s only recently - the last couple of months - that I’ve been able to say that I like a girl for the right reasons. While I’m sure that’ll mean jack all to her, it’s as important for me to appreciate on a personal level as it is to let it go.
My house has become an instrumentalist’s wettest dream. We have two pianos, multiple guitars, a drum kit, recording equipment and possibly even a saxophone by the end of the month. I’ve taken the opportunity to teach myself guitar and I’m finally getting somewhere with it. Maybe that’s because despite living on Torcross for two whole months, we still haven’t managed to connect our television set to the aerial. Not that I ever watched much on the box anyway. I suppose sitting in my room strumming away on an acoustic has become my form of escapism when everything gets too much. And that’s hardly rare at the moment.
I can’t find my electric guitar though, and my gut feeling says it has something to do with my Mum’s transformation in to a frenzied bailiff whenever we hire a skip. She knows no bounds. I’ve lost wardrobes, snooker tables, perfectly vintage shirts and possibly now my guitar. All because “the skip has to go on Tuesday”, and I haven’t been home since last Wednesday. It seems time waits for no man and no garment.
Not even my Paisley.
Posted in: White Noise
Tags: complicated wet dreams, moving on up, paisley shirts
And this is Minor Disturbance, a cyber fuckton of useless quips and fictional memoirs. I'm 21, scruffy at the seam, and full of zombie groans. Web developing is my day job but I'm a busy writer kept occupied by several contractors. This extra-curricular slavery just about funds my extravagant lifestyle of £1.95 Mochas and trains to God knows where at the last minute.
