Eternal Sunshine Of The Next Big Blind

Day two has arrived.

It will be a late start today as I've had a busy morning. Went to the doctor's to sort out a free prescription - thank Fuck for the NHS (and all you healthy people who help to pay for it).

Being diabetic means I am supposed to get myself regular checks of my eyes (and feet for some reason) so I decided that today I would finally get off my arse and find an opticians. Forget the feet for now. I walked (carefully...) into Bearwood and stumbled across an opticians that advertised 'Free Diabetic Screening'. Perfect. Trust me to choose Thursday the 12th to book an eye appointment for the next day though. It's just one beat after another.

"Can you come in tomorrow morning?"
"Tomorrow...?"
"Yeah, Friday the 13th."
"Yep, brilliant!"

I'll be blind by Sunday, guaranteed. I'm glad I've finally got it sorted though, it's something I should have done weeks ago.

I then went into Somerfield to do some shopping feeling pretty happy with myself that I was finally giving the illness the respect it deserves and thinking vaguely responsibly towards it for the first time. But then I saw a monster 300g bar of Toblerone on offer for £3. Fucking snapped it up, great purchase.

Sitting in front of my laptop, as I have been doing for the last couple of weeks, there has been something really troubling me day after day - my music collection. Or lack of it. I have no CDs at the moment and the only music I have is on my laptop: Elvis Presley - 30 No. 1 Hits, Massive Attack - Mezzanine, and Dusty Springfield - Hits Collection. All absolutely world class, granted, but, I have to say, they have started to grate on my brain a bit over the last couple of days.

Trolling through Youtube would do the trick but it just isn't practical whilst 6/7-tabling the Omaha. But I really need something to listen to to keep me sane(ish) while I'm playing. So after the ill-fated Somerfield trip I suspected I'd have a lot more success in the relatively safe sugar-free zone of the Acorns Charity Shop.

And I wasn't disappointed... A handwritten sign on a dirty sheet of lined paper was music to my eyes, 'All CDs - £1'. Such a bargain. I plan to buy at least one album a day from there to keep me happy while playing, I'm fairly sure they'll pay for themselves even if they only succeed in keeping the tilt away for one track an album.

They had a fairly healthy collection but for some reason had the singles mixed in with the albums, all £1. Which nutter's going to buy a single? They should make the singles like 20p or something. I'd buy them. If I ran the place, that's what I'd do. In fact, once I've bought all their stuff I may have to open up my own one to get rid of it all again. So bare that in mind, if you ever need to buy a single come to me in a years time when I've bought out Acorns. 20p.

I bought two albums to keep me going. The first is Music for Summer Evenings - an exclusive compilation for BBC Homes and Antiques Magazine. And the second, Eternal - Power of a Woman, their difficult second album from 1995.

I look forward to trying them out after a bit of lunch (Toblerone on wholemeal toast). Due to the late start my aim is to play about 1k hands today and make it up over the week but I'll see how I'm playing.

Inabit.