Portugal: Scaring grannies with Standup Comedy

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The week just gone I had my 1st comedy gig in Portugal, the 1st since 2010. Unfortunately it didn't go down too well, I just didn't get the laughs. I had new material but also used some of the old set, even that got 0 laughs and I know that's funny.

Over here the expat community is mostly retired OAPs and that will have had a lot to do with it ... I think I'm just too filthy and wrong for them, they were probably confused, me talking about erections then my funny looking eyes. On the night there were 3 comics, 1 dude who came on for 25 mins, then I came on for 5 mins with random filth and then another dude came on for 25 mins .... they were probably thinking "so what was the purpose of guy #2?" ... I even cut my act short in real-time removing chunks out as things didn't work. I thought f^cking my nan would have gotten a laugh ... nada, but considering that 90%!o(MISSING)f them were probably nans that doesn't surprise me. I just rushed to the end, said a quick goodbye and walked off looking at the floor and sat in the corner thinking "dont look at me" <em class="_4-k1 img sp_ZrsPFjUrAQL sx_7e2fed">frown emoticon

I discovered something this week .... talking about the weather is a universal thing, I wonder why that is. When people don't know each other it's the same, an uncomfortable silence is usually followed by "bit hot today" or "windy outside int it?" ... I had a random Portuguese woman go past me then turned around and because we made eye contact, she laughed then said "beautiful day with the sun isnt it?" ... but she didnt stop there, she gave me a description of the weather, hand gestures included "because the sun is out, its hot, etc" .... so its just a thing people do, talk about the weather. The way I see it is: we are all experiencing the same thing, you can tell me its sunny or rainy or windy but trust me, I alreay know this fact ... so how about we chitchat about something else?

Last week I mentioned about the mobile phone package so I decided to restart a brand new 2yr contract with the cable company. Ended up being not as cheap with all the addons but so be it. Im porting my existing vodafone numbers over to the new TMN network. The process here is different to the UK ... there you have to request a code to do a transfer, I forget the name. Here you simply tell the new company the numbers you want transferring and show them an ID of the name that number is associated with (passport is fine) and then it gets done. Actually one of my numbers is a P&G and doesnt have a name associated with the account ... so there's no proof to show, it just gets transferred over. This surprised me as there's no security ... I could actually steal somebody else's P&G number by just saying "yh thats mine, transfer it to my sim card please" and it would be done ... crazy.

Anyway, the whole process was a bit useless. First on the phone when the guy's trying to sell me the new package Im told one thing and then what goes down afterwards is totally different. I wont go into details but lets just say I was in the shop for hours trying to get this sorted. Even other customers were p!ssed as the checkout girl spent over an hour on the phone to head office to do this for me, the entire process was disappointing. After all that, Im hungry (more on this later) so I go back down to the car park and see a guy taking a piss right next to my car. My response to this vision? "You filthy c*nt, there are FOUR toilets in the shopping mall above, wtf r u doing?" ... but I had to hurry because i could see the puddle spreading and wanted to get my car outta there before it hit the tyres .... sometimes I wonder what's wrong with the Portuguese ... I see so many spitting on the floor over here too (even grannies), it's just filthy man.

Another thing I tried to do this week was get into Harry Potter as I've heard good things and have never read/watched any of it. I watched the 1st one and thought "what was the point of that? the philosophers stone didnt come into it until near the end and the whole thing was childish with silly names ... i mean hogwarts, wtf" ... but I decided to try again and watched the 2nd one ... it was hard work, fell asleep in the end and had a dream about being stabbed but it was more fun.

Yesterday I washed/hoovered my car downstairs. I brought my UK 50meter extension lead with me so when I want to hoover the car, I plug it into the apartment with an adapter, then extend all around the stairways down 3 floors of the building and onto the street, use another adapter for the Portuguese hoover connection and wala ... I get to work hoping a client wont come out of an apartment door and walk into my dangling wires coz they could get strangled if they dont see it.

I also bought new garden furniture yesterday. I had the intention of buying this well-priced set for €300 but the cushions were too thin and not comfy .... I went in that shop everyday for a while just going in, sitting and bouncing on the seats, then leaving and repeating each day .... but this time as I walked into the newly refurbished shop, I thought "yep just get it, I can get better seating cushions custom-made for it, 300 is an epic price for over here" .... but as I walked in, my eyes caught this awesome rattan set for €800 and I just thought what I usually think with furniture and life, "Get the best bro ... BE THE BEST" .... and as I kept switching gaze between the other set and this one that voice was haunting me "BE THE BEST .... BE THE BEST" so I gave out a "YEEAAAHH" and clenched my fist and decided to be spontaneous and get it, coz I want to BE THE BEST. Was too big for the balcony but I thought I'd figure that out later, even if it means extending the balcony. In the end I managed to get it back to my place in 2 car journeys and changed the shapes to make it fit ... had to remove the BBQ from the balcony, thats now in the clothes wardrobe (storage is always a problem with apartments, wish instead of ACs above I had a loft). On the artifical 40mm grass that feels like real grass, this stuff looks wkd man. Last night I had dinner outside at 11pm (zero-oil kidney bean curry and quinoa spaghetti, ate for 3 people, more on that later) with my white dim balcony light on, lying on my rattan furniture, gazing at the night-lit swimming pools, citronella candle burning, had my laptop on watching Big Brother Portugal (educational purposes only) .... because with my cable package its possible for me to watch the channels on my laptop too, so potentially I can be watching 1 channel on the TV, another on a laptop, another on desktop, etc. It was peaceful and awesome, cant wait for summer time when the midnight skinny-dipping starts, got a power socket outside too so can get the tunes on.

The final thing I'll mention is that Im eating wayyyyy tooooo much these days. All week Im taking in twice my usual calorie intake, an I just cant get full, I have phases like that but never in this way, and I have urges for junk food too, a lot of takeaway crap, I dont get it. I went shopping for the week and caned the food in 24 hrs, eating and eating and eating, something doesnt seem right here. Im now thinking of stocking the car up with snacks so I can make it through a car journey from point A to point B without getting famished (car journeys around Tavira only take 5 mins btw). I guess the body knows what the body needs, just need to listen to it.

Have a fun week all !!

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