TFI Friday

It's been a hard going week this one. I'm glad Friday is actually here and I can enjoy a brief hiatus from work. Although having said that, I'm doing some work for my mother-in-law for her business - so will be doing work of a sorts.

I've mused before that I'm not totally happy with the title of this blog, Pickings was meant to refer to top picks from my browsing of the web - but it's hardly that any more. I've been meaning to post something about my bad habit and thinking about the word 'Pickings' leads nicely into it.

Ever since I can remember I've had an apparently nervous habit of biting and picking the skin on my fingers. It is something that I do. I never considered it too much, the compulsion to do it is usually so strong that I don't know I'm doing it until its too late. The results are pretty horrible, really, when I think about it. Right now I have 6 fingers out of 10 with some skin removed. Most often I have a little tag of skin by the side of a nail that I pull off, we call them 'quicks' but I don't know where the name comes from. Other times I bite skin and then pull it off in a chunk, usually my right thumb or index finger. I do it when I'm anxious or am stressed. The severity changes and some weeks I'm fine. But it turns out that I'm not alone. My parents, especially my dad, were always telling me off for biting my nails. It looks like this doesn't really help. So, now I've got a clicker I'm going to put it to good use and try to count the number of times I bite or pick the skin on my fingers and will use this info to try and reduce it.

My last thought for tonight is that I've seen news reports here in the UK about 'Happy Slapping' where someone, usually a teenager, is set-up to get hit in the head by someone while another gang member films it on a videophone. This isn't new, I've heard about it before and wondered whether it was really a 'real' thing or whether it was an urban myth that was being manufactured by the media. It seems to be quite real. Well, what a sad twisted fucking world this is that someone would get their kicks this way. Even sadder that it stems from the younger generation, who learn behaviour from the adults.

I also heard that kids in the US are trying out a variant of this where they open car doors as they're moving to try and knock cyclists off their bikes. Jesus Christ! (apologies) But how stupid can some people be??? There's a video file doing the rounds at work I saw this week wher someone actually leans out the car doing this but falls out instead and gets his head knocked by the bumper of a car going in the opposite direction- Ouch! In a way though, I hope it acts as a deterrent to anyone who contemplates doing something so deadly stupid. I hope the police come down hard on people they catch doing this.

I need to calm down now, so I'll go and watch my TV a bit.