Things to do in Derby when you're broke.

Fact of the day: I'm skint. I know I am because of the following:

1. I'm trying to choose between buying bin bags and buying milk.

2. I ate a crisp sandwich earlier with the two end slices of the loaf, and some Salt & Vinegar crisps that have probably been in my cupboard for about a year.

3. I've emptied my "change jar" (in my case, it's a gourd given to me as a flatwarming present) to see how many 1p and 2p pieces there are in there, and if there's enough to buy a can of lager to cheer myself up, and if there is enough money for said tin, will the lady in the shop look at me like I'm a disgusting alkie?

4. I've been reduced to seeing if tinned mushy peas go well with pasta. They don't. In fact, the resulting mixture looked like the Bog of Eternal Stench from Labyrinth.

5. As much as I love/obsess over my DVD collection, I think I may have to flog a few of them tomorrow just so I've got enough money to keep myself sort-of-fed for the next week or so.

As such, I'm bored, so have retreated to the safety of the internet. No matter how many painful, sober hours you have to wile away before it's an acceptable time to go to bed, the internet is your friend. As I was thinking of doing regular "top ten" lists on here anyway (for those days when I feel like I should write something, but can't be arsed to do a coherent entry), I may as well start with.....

Top Ten Ways of Wasting Time Online

1. The Wikipedia Jump. Basically, look something up on Wikipedia. It can be anything; a film, an organisation, a breakfast cereal, a bizarre sexual practise... whatever. For example, in this case, I put in something in my direct line of vision: an ashtray. Quite interesting what comes up; did you know, for example, that it used to be commonplace at dinner parties for each guest to have their own small, personal ashtray just behind their wine glass? I certainly didn't. Anyway, from the ashtray page, I clicked on "cigarette". That was fairly boring, so I clicked on "cannabis" from there. Turns out that cannabis plants can sprout both male and female flowers, thus making the plant even more confused than the people who smoke it. From there, I went onto "Gateway drug theory", and from there somehow ended up on "Sweden". You can easily keep this up for at least twelve hours.
   
2. Start a fake Twitter account. Let's be honest, Twitter isn't that great. I started one myself, clicked the wrong thing, and accidentally became friends with Tim Westwood, for God's sake. It's just the "status" bit from facebook made into a stand-alone site. So, why not start a fake one? Obviously, it helps if it's a fairly prominent public figure. Someone got it (almost) right last week when they pretended to be Kerry Katona announcing her fifth pregnancy (true or not, I'm convinced babies just literally drop out of her by this stage). It fooled a few celebrity websites, anyway, and made me fear for the future of the planet when I heard about it. So go for it. Start one pretending to be.... I don't know, how about the rumoured-to-be-a-transexual one from the Vengaboys? Obviously, it helps if you try to make it believeable, so you have to build it up over time, but the payoff might be as great as having your fake account mentioned in The Sun's Bizarre section.
   Failing that, you can always go down the "lOl WhAcKy StOoDeNt" route and come up with one for that annoying cunt off the Go Compare advert or something. Up to you.
   
3. Think of a film you had strong feelings towards (eg: something you either loved or hated, nothing where you were like "...meh"). Google reviews of it. See if critics agreed with you or not. If they did, pat yourself on the back and feel smug that you have such excellent taste. If critics mostly seem to disagree with you, I recommend downloading Good Luck Chuck. You'll probably love it.
   
4. Go through your facebook friends list, putting everyone in a group. I tried it myself, it took fucking hours. The more pointless the groups (eg: "People with freckles", "People I secretly detest", etc), the longer it takes, and the more time you've wasted.
   
5. Try to catch a paedophile. Like foxes, they've become wilier over time, so it'll provide a bit of a challenge for you. Just go into chatrooms going on about how much of a dick your Dad is for not letting you go out wearing such a short skirt, you're thirteen and can do what you want, etc. It's essential not to type like a normal person during these exchanges, by the way. I've yet to meet a thirteen-year-old who doesn't appear to type with their arse. Go with lots of ALL CAPS, no caps at all, too many exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and above all, don't forget to type "lol" after pretty much everything, regardless of how unfunny or even tragic.
   In all honestly, I should probably just have put "I hate thirteen-year-olds and everything they stand for" for that point. Which brings me to:
6. Troll a message board. Not just any message board you understand; you have to pick one wisely. First off, you need one where the mods aren't too strict, and aren't likely to be able to spot a troll straight away. Avoid forums populated by internet-savvy types who view cat macros as "soooo 2008"; they can sniff a troll out at two hundred yards. You need a forum populated almost entirely by thick people. As such, I recommend music messageboards. Band-specific ones, at that. Band-specific messageboards are riddled with people who have never had to develop a personality of sorts, because they have a band they really, really like instead. As such, they're the most fun people you could ever hope to argue with.
   The idea is not to be too obvious. Going in and saying "lolololol fallout boy suck!" will either earn you a banning before you've managed to piss anyone off, or, God forbid, faux-pity from the fans of said band for not "getting" it. Instead, what you must do is go in pretending to be a borderline-obsessive fan. You then come out with a completely ridiculous claim; for example, if you were trolling the McFly messageboards, you could type something like "omg i just saw dougie outside hmv in swansea n he shouted at a lady wiv a buggy and kicked da buggy cuz she was in his way!!!!!!!! i used to be there biggest fan but now im dissgusted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! shame on u dougie!!!!!!!!!"
   Everytime someone disagrees with you, get more and more insistant that that is definitely what happened. Occasionally throw in something like "its lyk dat tym he throwed a stone at a pidgin" or something equally unfounded and stupid. At the very least, you'll be able to confuse a few people. At the most, you might be able to convince people that Dougie from McFly does in fact have some anger issues towards toddlers and pidgeons. For this reason, it's best to troll the messageboards of a band who are just fucking awful anyway. Bring Me The Horizon, for example. Plus, in their case, you could make them out to be responsible for genocide around the world and people would probably believe it, either because it's "the devil's music", or because they saw that article about the lead singer bottling a girl who wouldn't shag him (allegedly).
7. Watch entire seasons of poor-quality video on various streaming sites. Regardless of the fact that it was probably made up from the cuttings on the Family Guy writing room floor, I watched the entire first season of The Cleveland Show in an attempt to stave off boredom. Be wary though, there's a good chance you'll eventually get into it and find yourself babbling on about iCarly to your friends the next day. Shortly thereafter, you will have no friends.
8. On a similar note, if you're in the mood to have your childhood shattered, write down every film or cartoon you loved when you were little. Then look for it on Youtube. It took me til the other week to find out that Maxie's World was incredibly shit. Seriously, for all the fond nostalgia, most cartoons age horribly. Captain Planet, Superted, Bucky O'Hare...... all shit. I feel so empty now, but ready to move on and do adult stuff, like finally take down those fairy lights around my window that have been there for a couple of years now.
   Stoppit and Tidyup is still ace though.
   
9. See if you really CAN earn $20 per hour by filling in questionnaires online. If it turns out you can, let me know. My time is worthless, so the thought of being offered however much $20 is in pounds per hour for it is appealing.
10. Porn. I wasn't going to put this in because it's fucking obvious, but nothing kills time (and calories, weight watchers!) better than the art of one-handed typing.
    

Oh, and following last entry's pondering regarding whether or not my hamster can swim, no luck on that front. I filled the sink, and she refused to come out of the cage, presumably aware of what I was up to. Clever little critter. That said, she has grown really long strands of fur behind her ears and on her arse, so she's now dragging around a load of fur like a kind of shit train on a particularly fuzzy wedding dress. And from the front, she looks a bit like Pai Mei from Kill Bill vol. 2. Weird.
Over and out.