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Well, if you don't get a girlfriend, there's your backup plan right there!

Sorry to say... don't count on it. Sometimes our siblings need to be thoroughly and convincingly cut off. I'm guessing you're the one who has most of his shit together in your family? Therefore you've always been the one to see the needless and copious amounts of leeway and "last chances" given to your more unreliable siblings, and in a schadenfreude-hope-they-get-their-godamn-comeuppance kind of way, resent being the stupid bastard born with an ounce of responsibility. I'm speaking from personal experience here, but it took my fecal-matter-in-skin brother being rendered homeless twice to turn himself around. My sister, who has always been in a bubble that includes her and my stepmother alone, has NEVER ever in her life felt like the shit has the potential to hit the fan if she pushes it ONE MORE TIME. And d'you know what? Much as I love my niece, and as glad as I am my sister is finally getting into part-time work after years of being a shitty, shiftless layabout: she needed a smack in the teeth aged about 15 the time she "ran away from home" when my stepmother half-heartedly forbade her from seeing one of the local scumbags. I spent an evening searching the fields with my father and the police, until she came home to very open arms and a declaration of "that sort of thing, you can't explain, but I understand why you ran off, I'll be a better mother". Fuck. And your sister, if she's willing to break your mother's heart like that at Christmas, needs to be definitiviely told that she's got work to do. Love, true love, may be unconditional: but the people who love you need better than recent performance to trust you with their love again. Until such time as you are able to show maturity, selflessness and common decency, your sister needs to be left out of the circle. No birthday cards, no weekly calls, no attempts to make the peace. It's on her, and until she has proved that she's worthy of the love, kindness and consideration that she's given, she's on the shit list. I really feel for your mother, it's heartbreaking for a child you've invested your life in to dick you over like this. You'll have to give my forthrightness on this, but really my Sibling Bullshit Quotient has been filled enough for several lifetimes.

This may sound trite, but I've found that the best way to avoid family bullshit is for them to be in an entirely different country. And then just see them once a year. And they call you on your birthday - if they remember. It's also incredibly sobering and lonely. BUT: the bullshit factor is reduced to zero.

Merry birthdays!

Merry birthdaychristmas!

Dude, according to the internet, I have Asperger's Syndrome, I'm a psychopath and I probably have skin cancer. Don't do it to yourself.

Thanks, you made my day!

I just got Fox and Link from Taobao here - 20 quid for both, which I think is okay for shit imported from Japan. I'm considering getting a Marth and leaving it unopened - valuable/not valuable?

So, grandad passed away at the weekend. "Months, not years" apparently meant "Weeks, not months." We always feel that there will be more time... I'll do it later, I don't have time now, I can't fit that in at this moment... But the time doesn't belong to us, it's not ours. It exists independent of us and our wants and needs. And then one day, time has gone.

I drink a glass or two of vodka a night. Neat. I can survive without it, but it's just a calming end to the day. Yesterday I didn't drink, or the night before. I don't think you're addicted.

Belated birthday wishes!

Lol,,, r u probably (still) 14?

Agreed. We were in the cinema watching III when Hayden Christensen shouts "I hate you!" and my friend just shouted "You fucking suck!" Just summed up the whole movie right there. That one line. Three words, so badly written, delivered terribly.

S05E08

I'm always of two minds: The government could do a lot more on this. As someone said, affordable housing is in short supply, and therefore something should be done to make more affordable housing available. That being said: the government is not responsible for your own lack of responsibility in failing to get off your ass, study harder and get yourself into a decent job. It pisses me off when people get all "Oh, the government is interfering with our privacy! They keep internet files on everyone! That's wrong!" And then say "The government needs to do more to help people! They need to pick up everyone's mess for them!" Come on. I don't think anyone is homeless by choice, but I have found in conversation with some homeless people that they were trying to prove a point at some stage: I'll run away and you'll be sorry; you've forced me to wreck my life; you wanted to control me, you can't control me etc. There are a lot of genuine cases where people have completely wrecked their lives through drug or alcohol abuse, or have been beaten into running away... but how do you distinguish? How do you know which person is telling the truth? And how do you know when there is too much government? And then where do you redraw the line?

I think I'd give 'em half: they paid for it, but it was a gift. If I won 10 million in my own right, I would pay off any mortgages or loans everyone in my close family had - on the understanding that they waited five years before selling their house.

That's terrible, I feel for you. Being robbed happens twice: First they take your property, and then they take your feeling of safety. Neither belongs to them.

I was bullied pretty much every day by one kid at my primary school. I don't know if I would say I "deserved" it, but I was a pretty arrogant child and didn't do anything to hide the high opinion I had of myself. Literally from the first day of school to the very last, this kid picked on me. On the very first day he gave me a nosebleed, on the very last he scraped his football boot down the back of my shin. Periodically, when I would go back to that end of the town, if I saw him I had to cross the road or I'd end up headbutted, dragged to the ground and kicked, or otherwise pretty badly hurt. Part of me says Yeah, you were the smartest kid in school, the teacher's pet and the number one soloist, so you were an obvious target. You made no effort to hide your abilities or the favour bestowed by the teachers. So you asked for it. But another part of me says, no kid, no matter how opinionated and snotty should actually be frightened of going to school. It stopped after about Year 8 - the last time I saw the kid I was with one of my mates, who was absolutely useless: I got punched to the ground while he just stood there bouncing a basketball. I pulled the bully down next to me and desperately cracked him in the head. I don't know if I stopped it that day: I never saw the kid again, so I don't know if he was shocked by my finally turning on him. I'll never know now. But yeah, the best way to tackle a bully is to show them your face, and never call for help.

Hoping to get the DLC later, going to buy an eShop Card.

I can get the time off, but here's the kicker: They will calculate days off at the full salary rate + allowances (ALL allowances!) then divide the result by the minimum number of days in a month (February, even though it's December) then remove the sum from the main salary. THEN I will still pay taxed based on the FULL SALARY + ALLOWANCE amount, even though I will not receive the regular amount. i.e. If my salary + monthly allowances = 2k, they will take off however much 2k/18 days x number of days off. Then still tax me as if I have earned 2k. The net result is, I would be out by almost a grand with bills still to pay, plus flight, plus gifts for the family, plus spending money.

Got a phone call from Dad last night: Grandad's cancer, formerly in remission, has now spread to his lungs and bones. He's got a few months, and there's no way I can get back to visit.

He, clearly, can haz cheezburger.

Absolute misery. We've just had parents' evening - until just before 10pm. Back the next day at 7:45am. Straight into book week where we are promoting a charity: but instead of money, we get snotty emails from EXTREMELY RICH parents who don't even want to donate a pound. "Why should we help poor people?" Literally. That was what was said. Then, immediately after Book Week, we have The English Festival. Which has involved us teaching NOTHING WHATSOEVER for about four periods a week (cue angry emails from parents "Why has my child not learned calculus yet?") due to needing the time to organise performances and rehearsal and then, FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT, the Headmistress decides that ALL performances need to have "Audience Participation" in them. So that needs to be worked in. By the way, we just worked through several consecutive lunch breaks marking mid-term exams with seriously crap rubrics for marking - because the Headmistress wants them done to give back to the pupils on Friday. We also need to write a full term plan and have it translated for parents RIGHT THIS MINUTE due to one parent - SINGULAR - complaining that they wanted this. THEN: we have two parents' observation days coming up, which means 3 periods of observation, one after the other for me. So those have to be planned. And rehearsed. And re-jigged because my co-teacher, bless her heart, would rather stand at the back of the room than do any actual work. And they are judging the teachers on their level of co-teaching. So I'm on to an automatic loser because she is basically a mouse in human form and I dominate the classes, because otherwise nothing would get done. Seriously, I tried planning her interactions in the lesson and giving her time to practice, and she just kept looking to me for instruction. Which is my fault. Oh yes, and we've just started a four-week professional development course that requires video-watching, note-taking, podcast-listening and essay writing. I'm looking forward to my three-day Christmas holiday, although I am a worried that I may have dropped dead or murdered someone by then.