Footballers have problems too! Who knew?

(Sorry about the subtitles. Only decent copy I could find.)

I have seen this advert twice recently and both times I have felt...well...sickened really.

Honestly, what do Adidas' advertisers think they are doing sticking this sort of rubbish on our screens? I mean really, I know I find hope in the fact that David Beckham can get over what happened in 1998. After all, tripping an opposing player in a moment of adolescent-type stroppiness really is a "dark time". I don't know why people moan about their lives, when really none of us have experienced anything as awful as that. There is a lot of suffering in this world - people are abused, hurt, beaten, lose those they love and experience overwhelming depressions - but Becks knows what it's like to sink to the depths, after all, he did cry for almost 5 or 10 whole minutes! That is true despair. I can't even imagine how awful it must have been for him to cry for that long. And only have his millions of pounds and wife to comfort him.

I really have no idea what kind of idiot came up with the concept for this commercial but they seriously need their head examining.

There's nothing like the bond between a father and his daughter!

It wasn't until I was filling out a form this afternoon and had to write the date that I realised, "Oh, CRAP! It's my dad's birthday!"

I'd remembered at the weekend and half-heartedly thought that I should 1) text him and find out what he wants (Sidenote: He is impossible to buy for because he buys himself all the latest DVDs, CDs, gadgets and gizmos and we always end up getting him something totally lame) and 2) actually go and get him a card and a present early this week. But then what with everything that's going on in my life right now, and the problem with my leaky brain, it TOTALLY went out of my head until this afternoon.

I'm not close to my dad at all. I usually see him about once every couple of months I suppose. He's usually pretty good with our birthdays - better than he used to be anyway - but it's kind of a bit, out of sight, out of mind. He's really not a big presence in my or my brothers' lives, so it is kind of hard to remember things like this. One year we all forgot Father's Day and he didn't speak to us for about a month. Ironically, we didn't realise for about three weeks, because it isn't like he rings us all the time anyway. And in the end, after I'd asked my brothers a few times if they'd heard from him and they'd said no, I eventually rang him and found out he hadn't been talking to us.

Well, that clearly worked.

Anyway, when I realised it was 2pm and I hadn't wished him happy birthday yet, I sent a speedy text message saying I was pretty busy this week, but if he wanted to do something to celebrate to let me know and I'd see what I could do.

This is the text I got back:

Thanks for your message. Am out in Thailand

at the moment. Back in UK on Sunday.

Perhaps we can do something next week.

This is the second time I've texted him on his birthday only discover he's not even on the same continent as me! This just shows how close we are. Thanks for letting me know, Dad!

Oh that's so much Beta

Conversation between me and a 13-year-old girl:

Her: Have you got that new MSN Beta?
Me: No. And it's pronounced BAY-TAH.
Her: Oh, I thought it was 'better' like when you text and you're like, "r u feelin beta now".
Me: No, it's not better it's beta. It's the second letter of the Greek alphabet.
Her: Oh right. I thought it was called Beta cos it's, like, better.

It was an amusing discussion at the time. And now, woooo, I've upgraded to Blogger Beta. Note to self: Beta DOES NOT mean 'better'. ARGH!!!

Does anyone actually understand XLS or whatever. I tried to put HTML tags in there and it was all "Erm, excuse me, but what do you think you are doing, sullying our beautiful XLS with your cheap and basic HTML."

So I was all like, "But I don't understand XLS. *sob* My knowledge of HTML is basic enough, dating back to when I made that David Duchovny fan site (that totally rocked) when I was 16. That was like, 9 YEARS AGO, people."

"Well your rudimentary HTML is not welcome here, please use our drag and drop layout editor instead. Even you can use that without too much trouble."

Well yah boo sucks to you Blogger Beta. You are annoying. And I will find a techie XLS-knowledgeable friend to help me too. Until then, my header will look a bit crap. Sorry people.