Alan lubin lets the toy decide

So with the new domain name all in place - it was time to see if my ovoid chum can continue bringing home the bacon.

In impressive piece of intuition on Unazukins part last night gives me confidence and unnervingly part of me feels even more compelled to believe that Unazukin is capable of forcing the event rather than predicting it. I am so glad she chose not to bet on the England match as we had enough problem scraping a win against Equador without this pocket monster using her powers to turn the match against us.

Today Unazukin decides to continue avoiding the easy games and instead of coercing me into sticking some nice safe money down on Brazil drubbing Ghana - she opts to bet on Spain v France. This game would be a tough call for any human but luckily Unazukin isn’t preoccupied with nonsense like current form or the fact that France’s team are verging on geriatric. All she has to rely on is the fact that she simply knows the result.

“Unazuuuuukin” I wail (in a zombie fashion because I feel that me and Una know each other well enough for me to be a little flippant now and again) “Will Spain avoid choking like they normally do and finally reach their world cup potential?”

1 shake. Harsh. The Spaniards do have a well earned reputation for underachieving but to think that they will lose to a frankly average French team who are so far over the hill is unlikely at best. I am sure that this is a momentary blip and worry that my theatrical impersionation of the undead might have put her off. I think that she will probably shake her head to France and get things according to plan next time around.

“Unazukeeen” I say with a cod french accent that truth be told probably originates somewhere between France and Mexico “Do you sink zat ze mighty French weell beet zose orrible Spanish persons?”

2 nods. Frankly I would admire her balls if it wasn’t my money that she was playing fast and loose with. I feel in my heart that her losing run is going to stop here and for a moment wonder if it is worth putting the money down. Then I put things into perspective - I have been on a pointless trip to Glasgow on the say so of this toy - I would be letting myself down badly if I didn’t bother to keep on with the plan now. Besides it looks like the perfect opportunity to see if Unazukin does the power to force her will upon the result.

I get 2/1 on France to win which in my estimation seems a little tight. OK i’m aware that there are only 2 possible winners but still - Spain have some incredible young players who in the heat of summer are going to run Zedane, Viera and the rest of the French grave dodgers into the ground. Spain topped their group whereas France scraped through by the skin of their gallic teeth. I select my bet of £10 and mentally say farewell to the cash and the gambling phase of the Unazukin project.
Except I don’t. After going one nil down - France have a revolution. In the dying moment of the game, when the elderly French gents should be hankering after a glass of warm milk and a nap, they come alive and spank Spain 3 -1. Everybody is stunned. The TV pundits can’t believe it and eulogise about how nobody could have predicted such a course of events. They are wrong - Unazukin predicted it - and I start to genuinely believe the Unazukin was somehow partly responsible.

Current Unazukin gambling streak winnings £46.50

I’m getting right into this now. I’m pretty happy with the job I did of integrating this blog software seamlessly into my Unazukin themed layout - and so i decided to top it off with a new domain name. The old one is ceasing to exist as of today so on the off chance that anyone is reading this, you might want to bookmark www.thetoydecides.com to read this blog from now on.

I’ve been scowering the web to see what bizarre Unazukin content I can find to liven the place up a bit. The toy is huge in Japan and I’ve managed to find some interesting home-brew Unazukin pics which i have added to the stuff area. If anyone out there can read Japanese and can navigate their way through Japanese Unazukin fans sites - please feel free to send me any little nuggets of Unazukin goodness that you turn up.

After my successful weekend of gambling I am starting to think that this project might not be such a wash out after all. I will get back to setting myself up for an Unazukin based fall at the earliest opportunity, I promise, but not until Unazukins brief winning spree comes crashing down around my ears.

Todays pick is Italy v Australia and Unazukin is protecting her run of 2 for 2 by going for the obvious choice. I plough a tenner in at the almost pointless odds of 1/2 absolutely certain that in a few hours my account will be a massive £5 heavier. I’m not usually a gambling person - the fact that i needed to open up an online gambling account for the first time a few days ago probably underlines this. I am a football fan however and would normally rather eat a bowl of earwigs than watch Italy bore their way to another excrutiating 1 - 0 win. If nothing else, putting money on games based on the nod of Unazukin has opened up a new dimension for me and for the first time in my life I sat down and watch Italy with some anticipation. It is just a shame that I actually wanted them to win.

Although the game finished 1-0 to Italy - it was far from the forgone conclusion that it ought to have been. The ozzies didn’t disgrace themselves and if it hadn’t been for a dubious last minute penalty we might have been seeing the Italians on a plane home. And this time they wouldn’t have been able to blame anyone but themselves unlike 4 years ago in Korea when it was everybodys fault but their own.

So Italy won, Unazukin and I won and as usual the only loser was football.

Running winnings total = £36.50

Day 2 of my Unazukin get-rich-slow gambling challenge. Unazukin’s footballing feast de jour is Portugal v Netherlands (or Holland as we English like to call it - when did it suddenly become the Netherlands?).

The other match is England v Equador I am pleased that my plastic eggy friend decided not to get involved because an unsettling thought crosses my mind. If Unazukin picks the winner of a football match, I have to entertain the possibility that she isn’t guessing the outcome - but is in fact somehow harnessing the powers of the universe and somehow  actually dictating the outcome. In effect it becomes some kind of cosmic self fulfilling proficy - unlikely I know especially since she has so far won one bet which was placed on the out and out favourite. However if she told me to bet on Equador and Equador won - I wouldn’t feel entirely sure that I might have somehow jinxed it for England.

I’m glad she didn’t put me in that position. Despite having some big names Portugal look to be a very bog standard team and Holland boast a wealth of riches including some of the most expensive players in the Premiership. So I ask Unazukin for her guidence.

“Unazukin” I encant “Will the ancient Figo and the diving cry baby have the cahones to turn over a talented Holland side?”

2 nods. Although 1 and 2 nods both means yes - I take this as a big yes from my battery operated friend.

“Unazukin” I chant ” Will Van Horseface and his allstar cast of Dutch masters be too strong for the Portugese?”

2 shakes. I have to say that this is a pretty decisive answer from Unazukin. It seemed unlikely to me and I was with an air of resignation that I put the tenner on a Potugal victory.

The match was pretty eventful to say the least. 16 yellow cards were dished out (making an world cup record) for any number of petty offences. It put me in mind of an old sketch on Not The Nine Oclock News where a racist cop has been repeatedly arresting a black man for bizarre and unlikely offences such as “Looking at me in a funny way”. Another world cup record was the 4 sending offs.

Most impressive was the fact that Unazukin called it. An Early goal by Portugal was the only one of the game and the tenner I put down at 5/2 won me £25. Unazukin paid for herself with my first bet and has now managed to cover half the Lobster/Champaign.

All gamblers believe that once you are on a roll you should make the most of it. By proxy I am going to make sure that Unazukin will be no different.

Sorry about the lack of blog action yesterday. I have a good excuse I promise. I was in scotland, which may not come as a surprise to you. It did however come as a surprise to me and certainly would have to AG.

I had planned to do go to London for a forum on web 2.0 standards, something that I ought to learn more about but at the same time a concept that was sending me to sleep even before I got on the train. As I stood in a long snaking queue for my ticket the urge to run todays itinary past Unazukin became more and more intense.

Now we’ve already ascertained that once Unazukin gets involved, the options cannot be anything that would mirror my real life. Since the choice of “go to your mind numbing forum” is pretty much on a par with my “go about your daily business” post from a few days ago- this option becomes invalid. Basically, by invoking Unazukins powers at all my attendance at the Forum is automatically cancelled.

I decide that I can probably learn all I need to know about web 2.0 standards when they’ve actually been ratified and decide that my destination will be decided by a higher power. I pull out Unazukin and without clouding my mind with the logistical problems of any choices or the possible fallout I think of two random destinations from the top of my head. Wales and Scoland. At this time it was 9.10am unaware that 4 hours later, as I was passing through Birmingham, I would be wishing that i’d paid a little more attention to the logistics.

“Unazukin” I said, with 2 people in front of me in the queue and the ticket office only moments away “Shall i blow out this forum and head for Wales”

2 shakes - She seemed pretty unequivical and it occurred to me that she had a vested interest in getting it right since she would be joining me on my sightseeing trip.

“Unazukin” I continued “Shall Scotland be the reason for our non-appearence at todays event”

2 nods - the clearest decision to date. So clear that it actually gave me comfort and unwavering belief that despite being an unorthodox start to the day - it would turn out to be a day to cherish.

“I’d like a return ticket to Glasgow please” I say to the miserable looking care in the community candidate behind the bullet proof window.

“Coming back when” the crone enquires.

“Tonight - in fact can you find out what time the last train from Glasgow would be?” I ask hopefully. The Crone huffs slightly, gets up from her seat without saying a word and walks off. I wait. After a while I start to feel guilty as there are quite clearly people queuing up and whose trains are leaving very shortly. I want to tell them that it’s not my fault that the Crone has disappeared, I only asked the question assuming that these kind of details can be accessed at the press of a button. I never asked her to go to Glasgow to find out the answer. Where on earth is she? For all I know my request might have been the final straw for the Crone - she might have decided to end it all and simply walked of to hang herself in the bogs.

Just then the Crone re-appears clutching a post-it note covered in scribble. Assuming that this isn’t a suicide note which she has decided to leave with me, the catalyst of her decision to top herself - then this could be the info that i so casually requested what seems like hours ago.

“The last train from Glasgow leaves at 6pm and it will get you back here at 2.30am” says the Crone. At that point I started to understand the enormity (insanity) of my mission. But at least leaving at 6pm ought to give me some time to nose around Glasgow to at least give some kind of point to my journey.

“What time am I likely to arrive in Glasgow” I asked with a certain amount of hesitiation. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear the answer. The Crone referred to her scrawl.

“If you hurry you can catch the 9.49am to Victoria. Providing you get all your connections you should be in Glasgow by 5pm.” she scowled. I had prepared myself for the worst, however I have to admit to feeling pretty downhearted as the reality of the situation hit home - namely 1 hour in Glasgow and a glorious 15 hours on a variety of trains. I made it known to the Crone that I would like to purchase a ticket.

“That’ll be £130″. It just gets better.

“At which point do I catch the Helicopter?” I enquired sarcastically.

“There is no Helicopter - this is a train station” the Crone replied without any hint of irony.

“Really? I imagined for £130 there must be a private helicopter and possibly a champagne filled Jacuzzi involved” I sneered - trying to make sure that I got my money’s worth out of her at least.

“If you’d have bought the ticket two weeks in advance it would have been much cheaper” the Crone assured me with a sense of smug satisfaction.

“Yeah brilliant unfortunately two weeks ago I wasn’t even letting Unazukin decide my life - let alone this trip so there is no way…” I cut myself off realising that trying to justify my lack of organisation by blaming it on a small Japanese toy wasn’t going to score any points. I think I saw her mouth the words “special needs” to a colleague who also looked like he had arrived on the ugly bus. I offered my switch card and realised that a good proportion of the journey would need to be utilised in putting together a viable excuse for the money leaving the joint account held my AG and myself.

The journey itself was unremarkable. The Virgin trains were nice, quiet and on time - they even had a little plug socket that allowed me to recharge my PSP and help the journey go that much quicker. I was surprised that for £130 i wasn’t offered the opportunity to reserve a seat but the train wasn’t all that crowded so it was never an issue.

Glasgow itself was nice I suppose. I didn’t really get to see that much of it. Most of my attention was taken keeping one eye on my watch and the other eye on the station make sure that it was always somewhere that I could see it. I did manage to get into a chippie but was disappointed that they weren’t offering the deep fried pizza or mars bars that I had been led to believe was the staple diet of people north of the border.

At 5.50pm I hopped onto my train back down south. I called AG to tell her that the London conference had been great and that I was going for some drinks to “network” with some new contacts - and that she shouldn’t wait up. I arrived back home at 2.45am and was the last person in the station before they locked the gates (I have no idea why they bother to do that because they open them again at 4.30am). I toyed with the idea of getting a cab home but since I had already spunked to much cash on travel I elected to walk - despite my weary state. It’s amazing how sitting on a train doing nothing for most of the day can make you feel so tired.

And that was yesterday. Today I didn’t have the mental or physical energy to set any harrowing task for Unazukin to inflict on me. Since trying to pander to Unazukin seemed to have cost me a disproportunately large amount of money so far - I wondered if maybe she could return the favour. Obviously there are very few jobs that a small plastic egg can undertake - her physical frame just doesn’t allow for it although her mental capacity seems to be on a par with most traffic wardens and electrical store employees. As her main skillset seems to be choosing between two different things, it occured to me that she could try her hand at gambling. Being that we are in the middle of the world cup, I decided to let her choose the winner of a football match and then I would lay money down on her behalf.

There were two matches to day and so I asked her to chose between Germany/Sweden and Argentina/Mexico. Being that my Unazukin is based in Europe she decided to stick with what she knows, quite possible a little reticent to get involved in what looked like might be an typically unpredictable (is that possible?) South American fixture.

“Unazukin” I asked “Germany have the home advantage and are going from strength to strength. Will they win”

1 nod

“Unazukin” I continued “Sweden looked shaky against England and look unlikely to turn over the host. But will they?”

2 shakes

I realise that I had weighted the questions a littlebit but I believe that the power of Unazukin is so strong that she can cut through all that. So Germany to win then. I went to Ladbrokes website and opened up a new account placing a tenner on Germany at 4/6. For anyone who doesnt do betting that basically means that for every 6 pound you put on you get 4 back (plus your original bet). These are not great odds but a football match is really only a 2 horse race so you have a much better chance of picking a winner. Plus Germany were obviously going to destroy Sweden.

And they did. The score was 2-0 and Sweden were lucky to get 0. Our winnings were a massive six and a half quid. Now given the outlay on the lobster and trip to Glasgow I am still out of pocket but I have decided that it would be quite interesting to see whether some laws of chance or averages might give her the ability to help compensate me for other decisions she has made. Either way it will be less aggro than sitting on a train for 15 hours and is exactly the sort of thing that can be kept hidden from AG. I vow to let Unazukin continue to gamble until she loses.

OK. I’ve got it. The blatent lying choice was, in my opinion, to good to waste and so I have rigged the formula to force it. It’s not exactly the way I wanted to do this, I did’t want to force Unazukins hand. I need to give her carte blanche - but the reason I started this was to inject some fun into my life therefore “do what you would normally do” cannot be considered as an option. Since I have two things to accomplish today, both of which present obvious opportunities for malarky, I thought that I should phrase my questions thus:

“Unazukin - I have a doctors appointment today. Should I lie blatently in answer to every question only to contradict myself with the truth if prompted.

1 shake

“Unazukin - I plan to go to Vodafone and open a mobile account - should I tell them lies?”

2 shakes

Ok. Then lets try again.

“Lie to my Doctor?”

1 shake

“Feed Vodafone a web of lies”

2 nods

Secretly I was very pleased with this outcome as pissing off some pleb at Vodafone has less long term ramifications than a misdiagnosis by my doctor of 15 years - who could also easily have me sectioned if he thought that I warranted it.

After waiting 20 minutes to be served by the spod in the Vodafone shop, I am actively looking forward to wasting some of his time. On this performance I am pretty much convinced that I don’t want to become a customer of theirs anyway and I think subconsciously this strengthens my resolve to supersize my lies.

I chose the most elaborate looking phone in the shop. It’s half phone/half walkman. This has always seemed like an idiotic idea to me, i mean, as if an MP3 player is such a major hassle to lug around. What is this obsession with having just one piece of equipment that does everything? Yay i can use my phone to listen to my music - because what I really want is a mobile that will have no batteries left when I really need to use it.

Anyway. I tell Spod that i’m interested in the nice white iPod looking mobile and he asks me:

“Are you familiar with the features on this handset?”

“I certainly am” I say trying to stifle a giggle “but I ought to be since I invented it”.

Spod looks at me in a manner that suggests that he doesn’t entirely believe me but stranger things have happened in his life to discount the possibility entirely.

“You see where it says SonyEriksson?” I go on “Well i’m Eriksson” (I thought pretending to be Sony might be stretching it just a little even)

“Really?” says Spod smiling with look of fake recognition plastered across his bumfluff covered face.

“Of course not” I reply truthfully as I am bound to by my promise to Unazukin

“Oh” says Spod with a mixture of mild embarrassment and not a little disappoinment. He is a professional though, I’ll give him that, and he continues valiently on with the signing up process whilst filing away a mental note that at best his new customer is a bit of a joker and in fact is actually more likely to just be mental.
“We need to choose a plan for you, how many minutes a month do you think you will need?”

Now i dont really use the phone much and so have no idea. But i’ve chosen to supersize my lies and tell him 500 which feels to me like an insane number. Spod isn’t in the least bit wigged out by this and continues as if spending 10 hours a month talking on a mobile phone is perfectly normal behaviour. It seems that I am going to have to try harder.

“Right” says Spod “I’ll need your full name”. After a disappointing lie on the minutes I knew that i’d really need to pull it out of the bag on this one.

“Archibald Spankhammer” I fire back at him. Right of the top of my head i’ve come up with something that I think is pretty sweet. It’s obviously ridiculous - but its not too ridiculous to be true is it? I mean parents can be very cruel especially celebrity parents and as far as Spod knows mine might have invented acid or something. I’m happy with this name - it’s pitched at just the right level to cause angst in Spods mind. I bet he wants to call it as a fake name and laugh it off, but he can’t because he’ll lose his job if it turns out to be for real. Who knows, I might even be the kind of person who will turn around and sue him for mental cruelty. Deal with it Spoddy boy, but be careful how you tread because you are walking on eggshells here laddie.

“how are you spelling that?” asks Spod in a matter of fact way that crushes me inside.

Damn this guy - he is good. He probably gets nutters in here all day everyday. He is probably an old hand at dealing with my kind. He’s probably been on courses. He probably see’s me as a featherweight at best and is trying to remember every last detail so that he can sit around mocking my lame attempts at mentalness with his chavy mates as they share a tube of sour cream and onion pringles over lunch.

“Date of birth” asks Spod.

“25/12/30″ I reply. Yep that’s right laddie - i’m not done yet. Not content with giving the same birthday as Jesus - I’m also an OAP. Let’s see what you’ve got.

“So that would make you…” (counting of fingers, furrowing of brow, rolling of eyes) “..about 76 six years old”

“yes. yes it would” I nod confidently.
“you’re not 76 though are you?”

“nope”. Oh yeah, take it you spoddy twat - feel the madness within and understand that you are dealing with a whole new level of nutter here buddy!

“So what is your correct date of birth?” asks Spod with tired resignation. He doesn’t miss a beat and looks bored more than confused or scared. I wonder briefly just how mad his usual customers are and quickly cut myself of from that train of thought before the reality of modern Britain sinks in too deeply.

“30/6/70″ I replied looking a little bit sheepish and possibly at this point my face is starting to redden a little.

“Address?” asks Spod. And thats when I choked. My mind goes blank as I desperately clutch for a nonsense address. Don’t misunderstand me please, I have an imagination and have no shortage of ideas. After all i’m a designer by trade and I also hatched this plan to live by decisions made by a Japanese toy and so coming up with ideas is not a huge problem for me. It’s just that in order for me to lie effectively - Spod must be realise that I am lying to him so there is no point in saying an address that seems feasible. i know that i’ll need some bills to back it up eventually but thats a quite a bit down the line and i’m here for the quick fix. I need an address that comes with a gigantic arrow pointing at it that is filled with flashing lightbulbs spelling out the word “lie”. I’m ashamed to see that Spod is looking bored rather than exasperated and is tapping the desk in front of his keyboard with a pen.

“address?” he says again impatiently.

There is a cue building up behind me and I can feel the eyes of other customers burning a whole in my neck which is getting redder by the minute. I’m beginning to wish that i’d lied to my doctor instead. What’s the worst that could have happened - 6 months of chemotherapy or having a knacker removed? Compared to being considered a poor quality nutter by Spod and a dickhead by the chavs in the queue i’m not sure that I wouldn’t go for the medical option right now.

“10 Downing St.” I offer lamely.

Spod doesn’t even answer and just looks at me with contempt. We both know that i’ve lost this brief battle of wits.

“Mate - it’s really busy here” yawns Spod “are you going to stop wasting my time?”

“Yes” I say, pathetically lying as per my mission.

“Really?” says Spod, his face finally verging on annoyance.

“No” I admit sheepishly, my face now moving along the embarressment spectrum from red to purple. I hear the word twat uttered by a chav in the queue and I take that as my cue to leave. On paper it was going to be so funny - like Denis Penis meets Jackass with hilarious consequences. And I could have reinvented history on my blog - coming up with replies after the fact that would put a whole different complection on things. But I have undertaken a project which required me to tell it like it is - warts and all. In this case there were lots of warts.

On the plus side AG doesn’t need to know and as far as she is concerned that lobster thing was a temporary blip. I’m not sure how long that can last.

OK. I hit a bit of a snag today. It was actually something that ought to have been plainly obvious from the outset but either my eagerness to start or simply my lack of forsight got the better of me.

By giving Unazukin the choice between one sensible option and one bizarre, there is a 50% chance of me having nothing interesting to report what-so-ever. Obvious when you think about it - but plainly i didn’t think it through properly. If you don’t quite follow then i’ll explain.

Take yesterday for instance. Luckily (depending on your point-of-view as obviously the girlfriend would beg to differ) Unazukin came up trumps and I was able to stuff myself full of lobster and have a mildy interesting anecdote to report back. It could easily have been a very different story. If Unazukin had seen sense she (i’m convinced she is a she now) would have compelled me to spend my grocery money on a chicken, veg, oven ready chips, sausages, a selection of cleaning products and so on. This was clearly one of the options on offer and through sheer luck it just so happened that this dull course of events simply failed to materialise. If the decision had gone against me then yesterdays blog would have contained nothing apart from my normal life - and we have already agreed that reading excerpts from my non-Unazukin enhanced daily life is something that is best avoided.

Yesterday could have been oh so dull. Unfortunately, dear reader, today was that day.

It was a shame really as I thought that I had come up with quite an interesting proposition. Something that I thought would be quite amusing and most importantly would have no direct impact on angry girlfriend (from now on to be known as AG) - giving my relationship a day off to recover from last nights marital hiccup.

“Unazukin” I beckoned “should I take every opportunity at work to tell whopping great lies to my workmates in answer to any questions that I am asked?”

2 shakes

Unazukin” I continue “should I just act normal at work today”

1 nod

Immediately I realise my mistake. A big bonus for me and the continuation of my employment - but not much meat for the rubberneckers amongst you desperate to witness a web based slo-mo car crash of a life. So today is a write off i’m afraid. A temporary glitch which will be iron out by tomorrow I promise. I’ll rethink the process and work out how to skew the results in order to guarantee a definite result each day. Sorry.

Well I got of to a mild (ish) start. I went for something that I thought was only mildy controversial but ended up causing me enough aggravation to serve as a warning shot for future options that I put to Unazukin and raised my awareness that I might want to consider the potential outcomes a little more carefully.

I looked for opportunities to make an outlandish 50/50 decision at work today and this only served to depress me by underlining just how little autonomy I actually enjoy. It is now sadly obvious to me that they only kind of work related decision I can take is - to go or not to go. And since I was already there it was a little late for that. I considered “to go home ill or stay at work” might be a viable last minute alternative but it’s hardly something that doesn’t occur to me at regular intervals normally and on that basis would easily make it into the run of the mill blog detailed on day one. Unazukin ought to be used for something a little more imaginitive or at least something that I wouldn’t normally do and so I counted the hours until, paradoxically, i would be free to let a toy decide my future.

After work I stopped at the supermarket in my role of hunter/gatherer. Despite being the alpha male (well only male) in my domain I also have very little autonomy when it comes to exactly what I am expected to hunt/gather. The household requirements have been previously relayed to me by way of a handwritten list and my role is simply to put them in a basket, queue and pay. This is the way that it was, is and always will be. Until it occurred to me that this is exactly the kind of situation where I ought to be playing my little egg shaped Joker. The supermarket was my one remaining chance to make bring Unazukin into play, I knew that as soon as I got home my options would be limited to asking Unazukin whether or not I should watch Eastenders (a quandry that wouldnt have even made it into that run-of-the-mill blog) and so there, in the middle of Tesco’s, it began for real.

I pulled out my Unazukin and place him/her in the palm of my hand. Ignoring the stares from other shoppers that are probably normally reserved for proper mentalists - I pause for a moment, think of a question and begin to invoke my chants.

“Unazukin - do you really want me to spend this weeks grocery money on household essentials?”

1 nod

Thats the sex of this thing established - quite plainly a girl.

“Unazukin - should I spend the entire £50 on luxury food and drink”

2 nod

Definitely a woman. Contractory answers because she wants to have her cake and eat it. As previously established either 1 or 2 nods carries the same weight and so the penalty shoot-out continued until I got a firm winner and loser.

“Unazukin - household goods?” i repeat.

1 shake - my heart skipped a beat.

“Unazukin - Luxury foods?”

1 nod - game on.. the motion is carried.. we are through the looking glass here people. Time to throw caution to the wind and tantailise the angry girlfriend with an entire evening of gourmet action. Only it didn’t quite pan out like that.

When I arrived home with a prepared lobster plus exotic looking veg and bottle of champaigne my angry girlfriend was noticably upbeat. I basked happily in her warm smile for a full five minutes until the reality of the situation became more apparent. Initially she tried to work out what we were celebrating - pay rise perhaps? a long lost dead rich relative maybe?

Her smile gradually became more forced and a look af confusion slowly spread across her face. “If you used the grocery money for the lobster, what about the stuff that was on the list?”

“there wasn’t enough cash left to buy any of that” I explained matter of factly.

In the five years that we have been together I don’t think that I have seen so many emotions flicker across her face in such a short period of time. Happiness, confusion, realization, incredulity, anger (there was definitely anger) and i’m ashamed to say a hint of tears. What wounded me most though was the distinct look of hurt. In blowing the best part of a weeks grocery money on one meal, without her consultation, I think I probably betrayed her trust and made her question my reliability which to date has pretty much been my only saving grace.

Although, and i’m sure that she’d never admit it, I believe that deep down she found it refreshing that after years of being safe and a little boring - it appears that i’m still capable fo throwing caution to the wind and getting a little bit wild. She was probably saying exactly that to her friends whilst sat in a pub after storming out in a door slamming fit. I could certainly feel my ears burning whilst I sat alone in front of Eastenders wolfing down an entire lobster and a glass of bubbly.

Unazukin. You work in mysterious ways - you little egg shaped psycho you.

Ok i’m back. I quickly skimmed through the start of “The Dice Man” and the underlying principle appears to be that at least one of the 6 dice options must have an obvious negative consequence. That’s ok for Luke Reinhart who is a fictional character in a book and only has a 1 in 6 chance of something untoward happening. Alan Lubin, on the otherhand, will be harnessing the mighty power of the Unazukin and will be subjected to the whim of a 50/50 chance. If I were to include options as potentially damaging as Mr. Reinhart I would be dead or banged up by the end of the week.

The decision making process seems like it will be straightforward enough though - draw up a list of two options and put them to Unazukin in a “penalty shoot out” style format until he/she (not sure what gender this thing is to be honest) has definitely agreed with one and vetoed the other.

I have toyed with a variety of processes. Bear in mind that Unazukin actually isn’t as black and white as you may think. There are varying levels of yes and no that he/she can reply with as he/she has 4 different replies:

definitely yes = two nods

yes = one nod

definitely no = two shakes

no = two shakes

For my decision making process I cannot have various shades of right or wrong, there is no room for fence sitting vaguery in my brave new world and so from now on 2 nods or 1 nod are both a resounding yes. Both 1 or 2 shakes of the head are both an emphatic no.

In my rush to define the process and excitement to get it underway it occurs to me that there is one important aspect that I have neglected to consider. Do I tell my angry girlfriend about the mini odessy that I am about to embark on? If I do tell her, I risk the wrath of her calling me for the time wasting. flippant idler that I probably am - cue endless conversations about our future and my lack of ambition or direction. If I don’t tell her - I risk her questioning my sanity if or when I start to make bizarre and unusal choices.

Oddly enough, I am genuinely unsure which is the lesser of these two evils and cannot choose between the two. It seems like it might be time for Unazukin to step up to the plate.

“Unazukin - Shall I tell angry girlfriend that from this point on I will be delegating important decisions to a battery operated kids toy?”

1 shake

hmmm.. now to offer up the other option. “Unazukin - shall I avoiding mentioning our bizarre little pact to the missus?”

2 nods

Thats pretty emphatic and almost scary if am to be honest. Unazukin sits there looking like butter wouldnt melt and advises me to basically lie to my other half. I said yesterday that there was something mildly malevolant about this and when she slowly nodded to me with her inexpressive little face I swear I got goosebumps as this pocket sized PG version of Chucky starting to impose it’s will on me. But ultimately a deals a deal and it looks like my bird is going to be kept in the dark about all this.

Hello world. I’ve always wanted to write a blog but couldnt see the point in writing one before. It has always seemed to me that there would only be any point in writing down my daily antics if I ever did anything worth reading about. And in general, I don’t.

My name is Alan Lubin and I work as a freelance web designer. It is far from the worst job in the world (In fact I can think of hundreds of jobs that i’d much less rather do - big shout out to the traffic wardens and toilet cleaners) however my work hardly offers the levels of excitement that might leave a reader hooked and desperate for more. If I were to actually blog my life - my daily blog would probably read:

“Wasted a day putting together a CSS site based on visuals that the client has now seen fit to change. Forget the fact that these visuals have been set in stone for a week. Ignore the fact that the client has happily signed them off. The muppets have decided to wait until I started the coding to “simply make a few amends” and therefore wasting a day of my life into the bargin.

Decide to head to the pub on my way home to reflect over a few pints. My angry girlfriend calls to demand details of my wheabouts and my ETA. Since my answers weren’t “at the front door” and “in 5 seconds” a world of sonic pain was launched via my mobile handset.

Went home and sat in silence with aforementioned angry girlfriend and we shared quality time staring at the television for the rest of the night”

Ok compared to some blogs that little insight into my life might appear to be a rich seam of pure blogging gold, but believe me when I tell you that it would become boring very quickly. I know. I live it.

So given the tedium of my life - why am I about to unleash the dull monotony of it all on the web loving public?

I think that I might have found a way of guarenteeing at least one moment of brief interest every day. I am not quite sure exactly how it will work but I have managed to cobble together a solid enough concept to give you a rough idea.

A mate of mine recently came back from Japan and, knowing my love of kitsch Japanese toys, brought me back an Unazukin. Apparently its big in Japan, think Tamagotchi or Shampoo (shite girl band not the hair product). If this blogging
software works like its supposed to then there ought to be a picture following now.

You are looking at that and thinking “Hold on! Thats just one of those Weebles from back in the day!” are you not? Well you are very wrong my friend. This toy is like a Weeble with supernatural powers. This toy laughs at feeble Weebles and their pathetic ability to simply “wobble but not fall down” when you give them a nudge. Believe me when I tell you that this is an Uberweeble that can help you live a better life. It listens to your questions, considers your predicament and offers you advice. A bit like Claire Raynor packed tightly into a small egg.OK. I’m making it sound a little bit more feature rich than it really is. It’s not like you can expect a long insightful dialogue sprinkled with advice on the finer points of commercial law. Unazukin basically shakes or nods its head in reply to your pleas for help - but since it cost just over a fiver I think you’d be hard pushed to expect much more.

Anyway, Unazukin is innocent looking, cute and i suppose probably meant for kids. But it occurred to me that there was something almost malevolent and potentially mildly amusing about a grown man surrendering his decision making process to this simple childs toy. The idea put me in mind of a book that I read about a decade ago entiled “The Dice Man”. In the book a psychiatrist creates a cult of people whose lives revolve around making decisions based solely on the throw of a dice. The cult members select 6 alternative actions and then let the dice decide which action they embark on.

It struck me that using Unazukin to follow a “toned down” version of that lifestyle might make for an interesting project and enable me to hopefully come up with something interesting to blog about. To clarify a point; when i say “toned down” I mean that in two respects.

Firstly. Instead of the 6 options available to the dice cult - Unazukin only affords me a yes or a no. I will have to work out a procedure to ensure this limited response can optimised for different kinds of decisions that may be needed.

Secondly. Luke Reinhart (the main protagonist in the Dice Man) is a nutter who gives the dice some pretty unsavoury options. If my memory serves me right, the first action that the dice compells him to do is brutally rape his downstairs neighbour. Now my life may be a little dull but a 10 year stretch for commiting an aggravated sexual assault is not the sort of thing I am looking for in order to spice things up a bit. Coming to think of it - considering that my downstairs neighbour is a very well built homosexual man - any attempt on his virtue would be unlikely to get as far as the police. Depending on whether my attention was unwelcome or nor I’d either end up being his bitch or spending the rest of my days in a wheelchair - either way a lifestyle change that i’m not quite ready for.

So after all that waffle i’ve finally come to the point. I’m going to try and let Unazukin decide events that change the course of my day and report back on the results. I’m off to re-read the start of the dice man to see what rules i can lift and then will try and work out how I can work Unazukins “yes” or “no” replies into a bullet proof decision making process.