Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Killing two birds with one stone (is far easier if you've already stapled them to each other), Sin recently memed me and this weekend saw hilarious filial birthday shenanigans, and thus I shall attempt to do both in the same post.

The rules are as follows:
# each player lists 8 facts about themselves
# the rules of the game appear before the facts do
# the player ends by tagging 8 people, which means listing their names and then going to their blogs to tell them that they’ve been tagged, then going back and commenting on their lists.
# any player may veto any single rule at his or her whim.

(1) I can't roll my tongue. Especially not with a mouthful of vile paintball paint. It happened embarrassingly often.

(2) Rather Enid Blytonly, on Sunday morning I went exploring the countryside. Unfortunately I did this at a different paintball centre to that hosting all the jolly chaps I was meant to be meeting. Mobile telephones only help communication in that working cooperatively the users are able to demonstrate that there can be more than one value of "here". And my own private paintball place (albeit shared with a District Camp's worth of Scouts) was down the end of a very long, partly flooded and grandly potholed track.

(3) I map read well, when I bother too, which I eventually did under the A3; given I'd chosen the non-A3 route this suggests it was a bit late. Map reading is also more effective if one remembers the destination, rather than expecting to get near and spot a sign, only belatedly discovering the printed out blurb doesn't include the address.

(4) Mud is not my friend. Mud is not my enemy either (they were the inept ones shooting the tree in front of me). I just don't see the point in getting muddy unnecessarily. Switching course while under fire to avoid Puddle Michigan cunningly completely confuses those shooting at me to the extent that they stop, assuming I've been hit.

(5) I’ve tried a number of positions, but none of them are now comfortable. I'm suffering from crouch end, which is that state of total thigh seizure that appears the morning after spending a day crouching behind oil drums and alike (shortly followed by an age of stiff-pedalled clutch control round Wandsworth).

(6) For one journey I annoyed assorted antipodeans (well, it was Clapham) by trying to keep pace and position relative to my brother's car, which works really well when his car's speedometer has a permanent flutter, he has a knack of just catching lights and of managing to find the last space on the other side of the hatching. He did stall more then me though, but his car is ostentatiously old and so each quirk adds character, whereas mine is just old, with a mud-pack covering the rust.

(7) I do not agree with Sin on this one. Anything's better than them trying to get Radio 4. This is in no way connected to paintballing, although the only bruise I have (apparently I'm not patriotic enough to have RAF roundels) is a plague-like ring above my right one.

(8) I simply cannot cope with being so tired that the world is swaying whilst knowing I'm on a boat so it might actually be swaying. The boat wasn't swaying, only snapping against her cables occasionally as she swung to the end of her tether, and listing to port, which conveniently meant the bar was downhill. Should anyone wish to know, the Queen Mary (I don't think it's the the) does nice fish and chips and burgers the size of the QM2.

So, in case you hadn't gathered, I went paintballing, with my brother and a group his friends, and none of my direct friends, because the only one who said she would then didn't, for his he-can't-be-that-old birthday (please don't point out mine is imminent and I'm only 3 years behind him). On the way there I got a little lost, found it, then found out it was the wrong it. Then spent the day trying to work out which helmeted person in black overalls is which, and whether they're just crazy cannonfodder random Brazilians, trying not to use too much ammo because I can't afford to (and because there's no point in shooting what you can't hit), cursing the idea of wearing black over the top of fully covering clothes in July, as the day somehow managed to be hot, sunny and utterly lacking in rain, even of the old-fashioned just-rain sort, rather than the books-destroying, kitchen-and-bathroom-redecorating sort.

It was all a bit hectic, all a bit tiring, all a hit confusing, which possibly explains why I suddenly perked up at midnight and felt fine, thus driving home through surprisingly undeserted south London.

My car has also developed an annoying whistling sound from somewhere off to the left, which starts at around fifty and gets shriller with speed. This makes speeding very irritating (hey, I wasn't the one who overtook me while I was driving at the highest pitch, when I was in the inside lane, he two over in the outside, and my car shock in his wake; I didn't even have time to work out what type of car it was).

So that was his birthday. Don't expect anything as good from mine, as Heroes starting at 9 on 2 is about as exciting as it's going to get. Might watch Casino Royale beforehand too, just to be really thrilling, having borrowed it from my brother at the weekend, thus annoying the SIL who gave it to him (don't worry the cardboard cover has been left at theirs for safekeeping; I would laugh, but I never have the nerve to visibly not trust people, instead just wincing, meekly trying to suggest the wreckers do things slightly differently, thus ending up hating them for evermore [that for ever more, forever more or for evermore?]). I managed to further irritate her by asking to borrow Hot Fuzz, as I'd mentioned earlier to my brother; he'd neglected to point out has his birthday present from her. I am of course writing this on her birthday, and... will they never end? It's GA's on Friday too.

But what was the best bit about this weekend? Being sent an unintentional email on Saturday from Flickr to tell me that the SIL (and bro presumably) have bought me a 2-year Pro account. For my real name account. I suppose the good news is that this means the person from my brother's firm's server who reads this is unlikely to be him. The bad news is that I have nothing to fill the me account with, unless I start seriously doing far more many shots of people I know. I could just upload the best of the Anyhoo account, be a very bad Flickrite, so making sure the shots are never seen by the public, and hope never the twain shall meet (filing plagiarism complaints against myself should be fun). Unless I divert the pro-ness to Anyhoo, but in the process have to explain to my brother, and so rest of my family, just how I came to have a Flickr account under a pseudonym, and thus the blog and its contents as I can't trust my mother not to be absent-minded enough to have to resort to Google to find me on Flickr.

So waste money or... I don't like wasting money.

Speaking of which, the worst thing about this ageing lark is that I am officially no longer young. My Young Person's Railcard ran out yesterday (having been bought on the last possible day), dooming me to a future of even more expensive trains. In a single second my car became logical again. Which of course means something will go wrong during the MOT.

Life is such fun.

Anyhoo,

PS. Er, that Flickr dualism may have just fixed itself. As I typed it transpires my father was exploring things connected with X, stumbled on the relevant Flickr tag, thought things looked familiar, then very familiar. No comments on certain stuff yet, or discovery of this orange thing, but er... Oh hell. It was nice to have something that existed outside parental judgement and criticism, but I suppose they were never Luddite enough for it to last. I wanted to curl up with a hot chocolate earlier because I was tired and things ached, but I think I definitely do now.

And now I'm worrying about if I should take out #7. It's not really PG, is it? And how sickening inappropriate is that category? I suppose Sin's not really PG, however charming and presentable he may beyond his blog. But I can't do an MQ and ditch the liable to... offend is the wrong word, or what I would hope would be wrong. Have I said "oh hell"?