JacobHDailyEffort

Paraphrasing the famous Andre 3000 famous quote in the title of this entry, I feel a resonance which is contextually very far away from Outkast's. As the Atlanta based hip-hop duo were announced winners of the "Best New Rap Group" category at the 1995 Source Awards, Andre 3000 and Big Boi were greeted with immense hostility stemming from the predominant shared belief at the time that hip-hop is only for the west and east coasts. A chorus of aggressive boos from a scary and very tough (both physically and mentally) crowd surrounded the pair as they reached the stage. What could you possibly say in this moment? Well, he nailed it. To the extent that 28 years later people still reference the quote today. Andre 3000 collected his award, approached the microphone and addressed the wrathful audience saying - "The south's got something to say. That's all I gotta say". An 11 word speech which absolutely addressed everything with such perfect brevity it almost ha...

With FPL over I'll be making a semi-cathartic semi-maddening return to overthinking venting. I'm hoping that sooner rather than later I'll have vented all I have to vent and then bring some more variety to my writing. Either that or I'll completely run out of ideas. I was quite enthusiastic when I first started this blog but its often an explosion of mental dirge. I'm clearly annoyed.  Whilst I'm still dirging, here's another one for ya! Is anxiety amplified by the left? The right don't seem anxious. The left is the main culture which embraces sympathy for anxiety, but is it also a significant cause of it? Fear of slight deviations from its prescripted doctrine causing an imposition of severe scrutiny and judgement is pretty anxiety inducing. Simultaneously, the left's ability to create a culture of both fear and compassion is a real double-speak headfuck. No wonder we are anxious. Blaming the broad term "the left" is obviously an oversimpl...

What a loser.  Triple crown! Both mini-leagues and the head to head. A 50k finish (very marginally outside the top 50k). Top 0.4% in the world. Not quite 0.1% but I'll take it. Despite being a lower rank, going from 2nd to 1st in both leagues on the final day made it feel more euphoric than my record ranking. I have Harry Kane to thank for it, legend. Every table in the pub was entirely occupied by FPL managers making the real-life relegation battle seem a complete irrelevance. One of the groups had a trophy for the winner. After their celebratory ceremony they went out for a cigarette, asking if we could look after their things. We agreed then proceeded to temporarily steal their trophy for my winning photo. 'That's Football' - League Champions: 16/17 - Josh Barnes 17/18 - Jacob Hutchinson 18/19 - Billy Kwong 19/20 - Josh Barnes 20/21 - Billy Kwong 21/22 - Jacob Hutchinson 22/23 - Jacob Hutchinson Into the lead! What a loser. What the hell am I going to do with my time...

Final day. Marginally second in both my mini leagues and obsessing over every possible permutation of the final day's oxymoronic predictable team leak surprises means there is little else on my mind. There's a morsel of Glastonbury in my brain but I may as well wait for that morsel to expand into a more sizable bulge before it's excision. And FPL isn't going to be relevant after today so no time like the present. I currently sit at 69,658 in the world out of 11,446,402 players so I'm in the top 0.6% in the world. What a loser. Last season I finished 13,976th (top 0.1%) so I won't be beating that. What a loser. I blame Alexander Isak. What a loser. Nonetheless I am still within touching distance of a famous double and a top 50k finish would also be nice. And I've finally beaten world chess champion and FPL master Magnus Carlsen. What a loser. Regularly finishing a higher rank that a multitude of successful FPL content creators, I wonder when I'll get my s...

In addition to the delusions of grandeur from Day 41's entry, I'm pretty sure I was also the first person to notice that Chris Martin from Coldplay continually exploits musicians deaths for his own attention. Tina Turner's death the other day duly followed by the inevitable Coldplay tribute expanding through the Twitter-sphere like an invasive weed reminded me of this. Hypocritically I am now exploiting Chris Martin exploiting death to boost my own ego. Am I as bad as Chris Martin? Well, in short, no. It has gotten to the point where I'm not entirely sure whether these things are in fact social media trends or merely just discussed so often in my friendship group that it feels as if they are globally accepted. I could check Twitter to confirm my confident assumption that people are indeed aware are of this Chris Martin phenomenon, but delusions of grandeur are less delusional if you start fact-checking. Not only do I think I invented various nationally or even globally ...

For my hubris in eulogising over yesterday’s above-par sleep I have been punished with an unscheduled 5am start today. Easy come easy go. Maybe tomorrow I’ll cash in - would be nice on a Saturday. A bank holiday of negligible plans is in some senses freeing but in others causes a level of regret-fuelled anxiety. It is the FPL climax on Sunday, which being a bank holiday is okay, but equally I have a whole Friday evening, Saturday day and Saturday evening, not to mention Sunday morning and early afternoon, to get through before that. It is this sort of instinctive train of thought which wishes your life away. Ideally I would be looking forward to 3 days off, but instead I am wondering how to fast forward my freedom. The obvious answer is to watch a film, but I’ve had plenty of cinema trips recently and I have plenty planned too. Lacking any creative spark, a film is still probably the answer. I don’t know why that idea is depressing me; Hopefully by later I’ll feel less depressed by tha...

Sometimes when you wake up tired a coffee only serves to apply a mild pressure on the crinkled puff which circles your heavy eyes. Heavy but also wearied, the force on your eyes isn't an overwhelming one, but it is oddly persistent for something so outwardly lazy. My forefinger and thumb tweezers some small pieces gristle out from the corner of them, hoping to simultaneously prod the eyes into action, but no dice. Today's precedent has been set. Ironically I actually managed a fully good sleep for a change, waking up after 9am, despite still having a dodgy stomach. Unexpected bonus. Various distractions mean I am continuing this entry after a two hour hiatus. The long anticipated third paragraph. Never lives up to the original. My eyes have gradually become accustomed to the day, removing direct linearity to the narrative, thus eliciting a growing air of dethatched irrelevance to each word which stumbles into questionable existence. To be fair, my eyes do remain somewhat reluct...

Another visual migraine onset by a combination of a disconcerting call with my line manager followed by a cinema trip to see Beau is Afraid, a pretentious overly-long adventure movie described by Mark Kermode as a 3 hour panic attack and fever dream. Last thing in the day my manager annoyed me; Preaching help and guidance but with a large stench of undermining and judgement, mixed with gaslighting. I was advised to go into the office on unscheduled days, even if I don't have a desk, instead to cosy up to my members of staff as if that isn't intruding on their personal space. "Yes I know this is your desk, but I am your boss and I am going to sit here and half your space as if I'm closely monitoring your every move." I said this to him in a politer roundabout way, to which he replied saying "well I do this with you, do you feel like this when I do it?". He absolutely has never done that to me, which I put to him, to which he replied "I do" and o...

I tend not to pay much heedance (is that a word? Is it just heed? I'm going to use it anyway) to warning labels until something becomes an issue, followed by a realisation that "oh right they put that there for a reason". Rennie's warn to not regularly take them for the long term (I'm paraphrasing), something which I ignored until I was prescribed Lansoprazole to counteract a debilitating inability to swallow my food (briefly eluded to in Day 16's post). For the last few years I've been choking on food and having to regurgitate it to be able to breathe and tests discovered that my the sphincter at the bottom of my oesophagus is remaining open when it should close up, meaning that foods and acids and all that inside stuff was obstructing my food's pathway.  These gastro-resistant capsules, which I presume 99% of their target market is the elderly, have actually been effective, which is a nice surprise given my success rate with hospital trips. On the ad...

Financial prudence once again gets the better of me as I recklessly opt for a free breakfast brought in by a colleague, instead of having my previously purchased porridge. Alliteration – the cheap man’s poetic flair. What can I say? I’m a cheap man. I’ve probably saved about 10p on breakfast by sacrificing my health and wellbeing. Nonetheless, even whilst in significant discomfort, there is still a large part of me which feels positive about saving that 10p. Not only is it a saving, but it is also a delaying of having to go to the shop. Both minimal gains, but two minimal gains, even the most minimal possible multiple, is still a multiple, so I’m in. Ironically this mindset is detrimental to my overall inter-categorical prudence, forever anxiously wavering over the most unimportant of quandaries. “Do I make dinner at half 5 then have a snack later or have a snack now and dinner later?” – That’s at least quarter of an hour lost every day. It’s strange how I can spend the entire weekend ...

What happened there? Whatever the specifics, the outcome was very depressing. At the top of his game, Bojan left the pitch injured, not long after scoring a screamer in an FA Cup against Rochdale and that was basically the end of it. It isn't uncommon for a player to never quite be the same after an injury but with Bojan it never felt like he was given a fair opportunity to gather any momentum and so there will always remain a strong sense of frustrating indignation of what might have been. In the summer of 2016, Stoke City signed Joe Allen from Liverpool, a signing which was presumably the ideal Glenn Whelan upgrade. It was obvious - A midfield duo of Joe Allen and Stephen N'Zonzi, Bojan occupying the central attacking space just in front of them with Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic on either side. Sounds amazing! But no. Joe Allen began the season playing in central attacking midfield with a disastrously and flukily great start, regularly scoring and getting assists. Obv...

I mainly want to want to talk about is my wanting the full Glastonbury lineup to be announced but having to decide who to play between Trippier and Isak, whilst hearing the voices of content creators babble through random player names is probably too distracting to do this properly. Also I have a train to catch which I need to set off for in twenty minutes and I haven't finished my tea or brushed my teeth yet so think I will save the Glastonbury thoughts for tomorrow. In general this will be a bit of a shitty cheat entry but one quick mention of the death of Smiths bassist Andy Rourke. My favourite Andy Rourke bass contribution, which I think is his highlight, is Barbarism Begins at Home. It was nice that despite everything, Morrissey wrote some very nice words on him: https://www.morrisseycentral.com/messagesfrommorrissey/beam-of-light It's reassuring to know that on top of being an entertaining acerbic madman, he is capable of being nice sometimes.

Newly installed blackout curtains are precariously clinging for life, latched onto my crumbling walls. Nothing is ever just simple. At least I get to use a power drill later. At least DIY keeps me busy. At least my stomach keeps waking me up disturbingly early so I have plenty of time to fill. Raw plugs, screws, Ronseal filler, power-drill, DIY, walls. What have I become? Ashamed of my newly found semi-competency but fuelled by my bourgeoise desire to overcome nature and block out the sun. A desire which is somewhat diluted by my internal mechanics, persistently determined to wake me up at 6am every day regardless of light pollution.  If it all goes wrong at least we have a spare room and a blog to keep me busy when I wake up 4 hours before anybody else on Saturday morning. That and a fantasy football team which in the last week has been humiliatingly emasculated by Callum Wilson and Pervis Estupiñán. I now enter the final two weeks of the season without Salah or Fernandes and...

International tournaments aside, it's been three years since I've listened to Guardian Football Weekly, after it leaving me increasingly annoyed. In their defence I tend to get sick of everything I listen to regularly, with the exception of Richard Herring, Karl Pilkington, Romesh Ranganathan and to an extent Conan O'Brien. So from the off I am willing to accept that this definitely my problem and not theirs (as if they care). Also in their defence my general interest in football has lessened over the past few years, although my irritation of Football Weekly began whilst I still listened to it twice a week, therefore during a time when I was more invested. Also in their defence I generally get annoyed at a lot of things all the time every day. But regardless of caveats I need to write something and this is what happens to have sprung to mind. Putting it bluntly, it feels like they, largely unknowingly, love the smell of their own shit. There is a general air of unintentiona...

Stomach issues have run me down over the past few days and have further compounded by woes by waking me up today at 5:30am. Beer is the primary culprit (plus some jalapeno pretzel bites I had at the pub on Sunday) but beer's benefits (usually) outweigh the negatives. I do not feel this was about peppers. I am now 90% confident that certain vegetables are bad for me, but it's difficult to fully come around to this way of thinking when for my entire life I have been advised to eat them in spite of having no major impulse to. Peppers are one of these (yes, technically they are a fruit, I know). Either one of, or a combination of glyphosate (a crop herbicide) and the natural chemical defence mechanisms of vegetables initiating stomach/bowel inflammation is seeming increasingly plausible with time. With this in mind, although conscious that eating peppers when already feeling rough is probably not wise, unused peppers from last weekend's BBQ were starting to turn and I tend to v...

At some point I think I will take a break from this but in order to do that I need to ensure I have an equally productive replacement for this daily enforcement. Currently on the horizon are comedy sketches and reading back through these blog entries to try to do something with all this genius prose. I'm not sure exactly what it is but I seem to be hitting a wall more than previously. Either I'm realising some form of depression or I don't actually have many thoughts in my head and I'm beginning to scrape my skull for the sparsest of minerals. Maybe a break will re-energise my brain. Conversely it might have the opposite effect, after all the point in this daily exercise was to wake it up. Will anything energise it? I'll keep plodding unenthusiastically on for now. I'm sure this motivational lull will make for great reading. It's annoying that for my own good I have to force myself to do everything. What even is this entry? Is this anything? Does this count ...

I don't care if things have aged badly. They're not being made presently so the present is a strange parameter to fixate on. The main thing is it wouldn't happen now, so let's focus on the positive - the present. It's rare there are many positives in the present but at least in progressive values we have some (although we haven't quite nailed our approach just yet, but that is a whole different debate). Are we so averse to praising the present that instead we choose to focus on being negative about the past? Fair enough to criticise something new for being a bit backwards, but to be honest even then, depending on the specifics, I'd most likely find it interesting that a director has chosen a controversial route rather than an easy one. Art is there to challenge, not to repeat the dominant societal mantra of its time.  Bored before it has even happened by the post-movie "that, this and this part was a bit dated" retort, at this stage I've alrea...

The main problem with people, myself included, is they think they are right. Every conversation 99% predetermined with hardwires opinions locked and loaded. The plan - look like you're listening and wait for a semi-relevant moment to say the thing you've been waiting to say regardless of how the conversation goes, then return home to continue to think what you already thought. This isn't a scathing judgement of others, I am guilty of it myself. I try not to act this way, but it's difficult. Plus you do need to tread the line carefully, as it is also ill-advised to go too far the other way and become a vapid and docile empty vessel, forever flip-flopping opinions based on the last thing you heard. Some level of barriers of resistance and self-assuredness are necessary, meaning that finding the happy medium is a punishing toil (assuming you're in a comfortable first world middle-class environment and don't have to deal with any actual punishing toils). "I met...

50 days in a row, not a bad effort. Might treat myself to a short one as a reward, particularly as what I write isn't often particularly positive. Plus I'm hungry and need to go to the shop in order to resolve that. My writing is usually a negative self-analysis something along the lines of how I am conflict aversing myself into a stupor, so what sort of reward is that? My other excuse is I'm struggling to come up with anything. A fog is filling my neural pathways with a damp sog which is preventing ideas flowing because as we all know, ideas thrive in arid environments. Last night's four Guinness's, being primarily, if not entirely liquid, probably haven't helped, but I did see Richard Hawley in the pub so every cloud. Every damp soggy cloud.  (Although he is well known to regularly frequent that pub so it is the most underwhelming possible celebrity spot) That'll do.

At the very least, writing this blog has reduced my amount of time spent obsessing with fantasy football, which has probably in turn made me more sane. Especially on a day like today, where I've all but worked out my transfer and the only remaining determinant is reliant on injury or leaked team news, for which the latter I won't get until tomorrow morning. But despite knowing that, it doesn't necessarily stop me trying desperately to think of something to consider. Today has worked out pretty ideally; Instead of an FPL podcast, Dr Syntax will provide the playlist for the walk from work to my dads, with a pub trip to follow, providing the perfect escape from succumbing to unnecessary FPL brain wasting. It's bad that I need to actively make plans to offset FPL overdrive. A full-on junky, only instead of being a rock star I'm a nerd. On the flip side instead of dying, I'm just slightly frustrated.  Even with the relevant distractions in place I'm clearly not e...

It's probably evident that my enthusiasm for writing has began to wane, which given that my enthusiasm for basically everything has waned over the past few years, I am mentally prepared. When first starting this blog I believe I even mentioned that I mustn't view this new exercise as some sort of magical cure for motivation. I've always been one to overthink but the latest development in my determination to not enjoy anything is overthinking the worth of my hobbies. Doing my fantasy football team, watching a movie, writing, editing sketches, the pub, etc etc. There was once a time where, like a normal person, I took to my favourite pastimes instinctively, without incessant review of how much I'm really enjoying it or how valuable this activity is. I almost now approach my hobbies as pre-determined tickbox exercises to achieve the requirement of filling time. There are clear examples of which activities are most productive. My comedy sketches being the clear example of t...

England's predominant approach to Saturday's is to spend a significant time dressing up to look your best with the intention of drinking to the point where you look your worst. Walking through both Leeds and Sheffield I was an outsider looking in, witness to the slow descent of  city centres. I spent the train journey back from Leeds expertly avoiding eye contact with multiple groups of strangers, an onlooker to the intoxication which has meant that everybody's normal state of British passive-aggressive suppression has abandoned them, rendering them compulsive to make friends with everybody by way of incoherent shouting. I'm not saying I'm in the right, I am the miserable misanthrope here. Plus I do get drunk myself, I just happened to not be in this instance. Although even if I was drunk it is unlikely I would have any compulsion to make friends with strangers on a train. Unintentional Hitchcock reference there but it'll do. Logic would suggest that if your int...

Trying to stay level headed unbalances your head. I try to not get involved with polarising discourse and a primary tactic is to avoid use of inflammatory words such as "woke", "triggered", "gammon", "snowflake" etc (for more examples see Day 6). It can be particularly frustrating making conscious efforts to abstain from lazy divisiveness when almost everybody else doesn't make this effort back. This is of course is an unfair expectation, as other people are unaware of my personally enforced set of rules and even if they were aware they still aren't their rules to follow. But there's only so much pressure my withholding of a cascade of predisposed bias I can take. Stay calm. Stay level headed. Remain cool. It's all good just stay calm. It's easy just be composed. Stay level headed. God they're just not noticing how calm I'm trying to stay. Why aren't they noticing the obvious effort I'm putting in here? It...

DIY averse and incompetent, I resolve issues with indisputably incorrect workarounds. Next up I plan to cut up some dish-washing sponge and stick it to some double sided adhesive on my wall directly behind the nobs on top of my bedframe. Every time I lean back, the wood knocks into the wall. The slightest readjustment to get comfortable or having an itch and I knock to alert my neighbour about it. Apparently I need to tighten the screws on the bedframe but I'm liking this sponge idea. It should be better than my last solution - small bits of card blu-tac'd onto the nobs on the top of the bedframe. As you would expect, this did very little and yet I have left it this way for two years. Sponge is a step up. A technological advancement of engineering.  Once I have "achieved" this, all required work on my room is basically done and I will be once again free to do whatever it is I do with my time. Strong emphasis on the word "required", the room is far from perfe...

I arrived home following a day in Leeds last night at around midnight, greeted by a sharp beep sounding from the fire alarm every 15-20 seconds. It is now twelve hours later. Still it beeps. Fortunately I was exhausted enough to managed to get to sleep despite its persistent and harsh character slicing my eardrums. I'm not so masculinly (don't care if it's a word or not) inept as to be unaware that this means the batteries need replacing, so at around 1am I made some sort of attempt to resolve the issue, using a table from the spare room to precariously reach anxiously over certain death lying beneath me in the form of an unapologetic staircase. Unable to de-claw the alarm from it's unyielding fist clutching tightly to my ceiling, my stoicism was cruelly unrewarded. You win this round alarm. Still it beeps. It probably isn't wise to act rashly so I now await the return of my housemates, not necessarily expecting the correct resolution, but at least if we all agree o...

 I have a huge mess of ideas and comedy sketches saved in Google Docs. It's somewhat organised to note down and save ideas, but is it still organised if the organisation is an overwhelming disgrace? Sometimes I psyche myself up to begin sifting through but I am forever defeated by my own chaos.  It's probably amplified by a lack of incentive. How possible is it to actually get these sketches recorded? If only I could act. Even on my own I'm almost entirely incapable, shyness and embarrassment destroys my ability despite nobody being there. If a me acts in the woods and nobody is there to see me, it definitely makes a sound. A painfully humiliating one.  The primary incentive I guess is to find sketches which are possible to make with very limited acting ability. Therein lies the motivational challenge. Hardly exhilarating, but when is exhilarating ever my motivation?

Undeserved hangovers are an unfair annoyance (unlike deserved hangovers, which are a fair noyance). Forced to deal with a difficult day of drudge, being a slight idiot whilst simultaneously feeling consistently mildly nauseas. It was only 3 cans, yet I find myself wandering the office in a semi-detached state of consciousness, walking somewhere then it slowly dawning on me that this isn't where I want to go, turning around then making the same mistake again. It's not horrendous, I can cope. I just feel a mild injustice. Caffeine hits me differently to other people it seems. For some it sorts them out. For me that is initially true but it is followed 30-45 mins later by a sickening dizziness. This isn't always the case, but it is a delicate line to tread. Yet another mild injustice.  Anyway I'm hungover and tired so that's enough writing. 

In the last couple of years I have seen numerous online posts drawing attention to the comical similarities in appearance between Jennifer Aniston and Iggy Pop. Although I agree that they are indeed unlikely lookalikes, my response to seeing these posts gain more and more momentum is not a positive one. This is because this was my observation first! On 23rd February 2019, I tweeted side-by-side pictures of Jennifer Aniston and Iggy Pop with the caption “Iggy Pop is Jennifer Aniston’s dad. Her real name is Jennifer Pop.” Evidence of the tweet - https://twitter.com/JacobHu13/status/1099410751679328256?t=E3UqWFbnFQBoQ90yhR1Tgg&s=19 Now I understand that different people are capable of making the same observations, I’m not claiming plagiarism. What I find annoying is as websites surge in popularity based on the traction of this comparison, my tweet back in 2019 remains on a meagre three likes. I need the traction more than these already popular websites, I want a greater reach for my c...

Which numbers when spelled out look most representative of the number itself? Forty is good. For = Four. T = First letter of Ten. Add them together, For +T = For T = Forty. Looks good to me.  Right we've got a lot to get through so let's get started. First off, One. I don't really know what to make of it. My immediate thought is it looks like it should rhyme with bone. Is that good enough for what we would all agree is the most important number? The foundation of everything. On the other hand the mysterious spelling serves as an apt metaphor for mankind's unsuccessful ongoing search for the meaning of life. If 'one' doesn't even look right, what hope do we have? Jury's out on 'One'. As of yet, undecided. Next up, Two. What the fuck is that? Ridiculous. What's that 'w' doing there? I know the word "too" is already taken but I think we need to swap the spellings around. "Too" works better for the number because there...

Is it just wastes of time which are wastes of time or is wasting time what life is all about? Two current wastes of time wasting my time at the moment are thinking of pretend band names and finding people on Facebook who have similar but not identical names to celebrities. Elton Johnson, Ronald Gump, Bonnie O'Sullivan etc. Most would probably unanimously agree that spending my time doing these things is most certainly a waste of time. But then most of those people would also probably sit for hours watching films, or go out drinking. Are those things wastes of time? Neither are productive. Yes they both offer enjoyment value, but so do my wastes of time. Even reading, with its intellectual connotations, doesn't actually do anything. So really the question is, does it matter if you spend your life simply wasting your time? Given that in the grand scheme of things, everything will one day cease to exist, so even productive things like knitting a jumper or building a shed are also ...

Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones Huge. That's all there is to it. Reunited - Wu Tang Clan In terms of consistency 90s Hip Hop is my favourite genre, yet I only have one hip hop song. This being the case, I've selected the all supreme Wu-Tang Clang, not only for quality purposes (great bars over a lovely and chill string instrumental), but it also provides a variety of rappers within a single track. Only four of them in this one, but still, four for the price of one (plus some bonus R&B vocals).  Joga - Bjork Some electronic sounds into the mix. It is starting become clear that I have a very tactical approach in attempting to cover a variety of styles. I love this song, but in the grand scheme of things there are admittedly plenty of tracks I prefer to this one, but in addition to adding variation to my mix, it also adds a female voice, which could be a nice reminder given that I may never hear one ever again. Also if I slightly lose my mind, I think this song would be pro...