First I get offered some pasta, and have to go through the hassle of turning it down, reaffirming my dislike for pasta.

I don’t like pasta. Big deal. Just forget about it. I know people who like cars. I don’t feel the need to ask them if they still like cars, on every possible occasion. But what’s the big deal with pasta? Why must I go through the “How can you not like pasta?”, “it’s good for you”, etc. every time? When you meet someone who tells you they don’t eat bread, you don’t (or I don’t) go “oh but what about the one with all the seeds? Really? What never? Not even granary, or tiger bread? What do you put in the toaster? But it’s cheap – you’d save a lot of time and money if you ate it instead of <whatever else they’re eating>.”

You wouldn’t do that, because it would be really annoying, wouldn’t it. I don’t have conversations with vegetarians that start (or contain at any point), “How can you not eat meat? What never? But what do you eat? Not even sausages? What do you put in beefburgers?”

During this, something falls over. Or rather, slides out. I opened the oven door to remove something and shake it, only for something else in there to slide out, onto the floor. Instinctively, I say to the oven “you motherfucker!”, likely preceded by an obligatory “Argh! For fuck’s sake!”

The reaction at this point is a bit like when you start watching a viral video with someone else in the room, and they ask “what’s this?” or “is it good?” when you’ve only watched the first 2 seconds of it. The immediacy annoys me. If I want to share what’s going on, I’ll offer. If I want help, I’ll ask for it. I don’t do sympathy, really.

Several people run to my aid. I don’t want this. They assume from my language I’ve just lost a couple of fingers, but as far as they’re concerned, upon closer inspection, it just appears that something in a foil tray has slid out of the oven onto the floor, resulting in no damage whatsoever to myself, oven, floor, or food. Then I get the reassurance I didn’t want. “It’s OK Ben”, and “don’t worry about it”. I don’t know why, but this annoys me more. No-one died, but why can’t I call an inanimate object in my own house – a cocksucker, if I want to?

Several oven checks later, I opened the door again, to find a different tray on a different shelf, containing something of a more oily nature, also making an escape bid. It poured hot oil on the floor, and again my instinctive reaction is to shout at it. What a motherfucker my oven is being tonight. This is never normally a problem. Again, I get the “it’s alright”. It isn’t fucking alright. It’s poured hot oil on the floor. I’ve earnt the right as an adult to call it a massive arsehole if I want to. And telling me not to get stressed about it, just makes me more stressed.

And then a minute or so later, people ask what’s still wrong. I’m tired, fed up, and I’ve had two near-ruinings of my dinner in 20 minutes. I’ll be fine. I’ll calm down while I’m eating. But I feel like I need a better excuse, as I’ve now got an unwanted audience checking on my well-being. I can’t see anything wrong with the oven, or anything to blame especially. I’d quite like people to just fuck off and get back to whatever they were doing (in the nicest possible way) now, to be honest, so I can get on with eating my dinner, if there’s anything still edible contained on one of these racks, which hasn’t been on the floor yet.

If there’s one thing I learnt during my several years of therapy, it’s that you shouldn’t bottle up your anger. I’ve still got problems expressing or recognising my feelings in some ways, but the next time something falls over, or I knock some food on the floor, I’m going to damn well call it a wanker, and there’s not a thing you can do to stop me.

For anyone that cares, the curtains which came with the room I’m renting are so long that they drag on the floor. Not a little bit either – about 30-40cm worth. They also hang right over the only radiator in the room, which I’d like to put clothes next to (for drying purposes) and/or to heat me, instead of just warming the curtains.

I’ve folded them in half and sewn them at the top (inside) because although that means I get the wrong side showing indoors, if I folded them the other way, over time one half (the bottom half) would get faded by the sun, and the other half wouldn’t….and then they’d look stupid/damaged/etc. and I’d get charged out of my deposit.

Also, the curtains are very thin, so doubling them stops the sun coming through. Sorta. This is possibly the most dull post I’ve ever done.

When trying to download a (free) bit of software from the App store this morning, after entering my password, I was asked to enter it again and then complete three security questions. Seems a bit overkill from the start – even my bank don’t need this many separate levels of security. Then I got to the questions. Oh dear. It’s my least favourite type of security questions. That’s right – it’s the ones where an American has decided what questions you can pick from.

It’s not quite “which college did you go to?” or “what was your GED?” (some kinda American-only education test), so it’s not as hard as applying for a job with them, but it’s not far off. (Re job application: I’ve never seen so many American-specific questions in one supposedly international job application form. At one point it asked something about if I’d ever been banned from Hawaii. I’ve never even been there. One of the other actual questions on their form, for completion by UK applicants is: “If offered employment by Apple, are you able to provide documentation of your legal right to work in the United States?” – Of course not! I’m a British citizen. I have a right to work in Britain though, which is where the job they were advertising actually was.)

In this case, you’ve got three sets of questions. One set per question. They’re all stupid questions, that both don’t really relate to me, are slightly ambiguous, and not particularly secure. They’re all very very similar. Here’s all three sets it offered me.

Apple – these are really shitty questions.

Which city were you first kissed? What am I? 12?

My best childhood friend? From the entire first 18 years of my life? There were several. They came and went.

My first teacher? What, ever? Like when I was 5 you mean? I can’t remember.

The first car I owned? I had a company car for a year before I bought one. Whichever car I put down in that list, I’m sure that when they come to ask me these, I’ll definitely pick the other one. BUT if you want to pick your first car for the first question (as many might), then you cannot pick your first job for the other questions! How stupid is this?

First job? Are we counting paper rounds in this, or is it my first adult job? Again, in 3 years when they ask me these, I won’t remember whether I was counting everything, or just the stuff that appears on my CV.

Some of them are going to be tricky to remember. “Where were you on January 1, 2000?”. If presented with that challenge 12 months from now, are you going to remember whether you said “Swindon” or “at home”, or whatever? And you will have to type your answer exactly the same, with the same choice of punctuation you used originally.  ”Where was your favourite job?” – even now I’m thinking “do they mean WHERE location, or WHERE company?” – you think I’m going to remember my answer when I eventually need to?

There are some things notable by their absence. Look back over that list. The ones that are ALWAYS in these sorts of sets of questions, are curiously missing. There’s no option to use the name of your mum/dad. There’s no option to use the name of your first son/daughter/dog. There’s no option for the town you grew up, or the place you were born, or your mother’s maiden name. The sorts of unambiguous ones you’ll definitely remember, are all missing. Yet, the ones that remain are curiously similar. First car, favorite car, least favorite car. First job, favorite job, least favorite job. First teacher, favorite teacher, least favorite teacher.

The people who have lucked out here are people who have just passed their driving test and bought a shit car. Their first, favorite and least favorite cars are one and the same.

And if you think I’m just being needlessly grumpy about this, then I’m not alone. These people aren’t happy about it. Nor are these people.

I should say I really don’t mind the ones where you can set your own questions. That’s fine. They’re much more secure. You can be as obscure (and yet memorable) as you like. I sometimes use names of characters from films that seemingly only I have watched. But your first car? There’s loads of people who know this of me. That’s not a secure question at all. It’s fairly safe to assume my first proper kiss happened in the same town I grew up in, and everyone who has ever met me has asked where I’m from. I bet it’s the same for most people.

So I don’t mind secure write-your-own questions. These? I’m very tempted to pick any questions at random and set “I don’t remember” as the answers. I won’t, obviously. What I’ll do is write them all down afterwards. Nice and secure, eh Apple?

P.S. On one of those links I gave, someone suggested contacting Apple and telling them exactly what you think of their security questions. So I have. I’ll let you know if I get a reply.

Update 22 April 2012, 11:24pm.

After a few back and forth emails with Apple support, where they advised me to change my Apple ID password and security question through their website, it turns out I was wasting my time, as I was then presented with the same stupid prompts to set three questions when I attempted to use iTunes again. Their response when I told them this, was:

“Ben, I understand your concern but from time to time, Apple enhances the security of our valued customer’s iTunes Store accounts. The recent changes are not meant as an inconvenience, but rather to help safeguard your account details and activity. Apple is pleased to provide this feature and hopes that keeping your safety in mind, will help you to better enjoy the iTunes and App Store.

With this new system in place, when a purchase is attempted from a new device or computer, the store selects, at random, two of the three challenge questions for your Apple ID to verify that you are the account owner. If the questions are answered incorrectly ten times, your account becomes temporarily locked. When your account is locked, you cannot make purchases using any device that has not previously used the Apple ID. It also prevents you from changing your challenge questions. However, you are still able to make purchases using a trusted device.

You will also have the option to enter a “rescue” email address. This option will allow you to send a message to the rescue email, should you forget the answers to the challenge/response questions in the future.

I hope this information was helpful. Thank you for your understanding. Thank you for being an iTunes Store customer.”

So basically what I’m going to do is pick three questions at random which don’t fit my needs, and/or would be very easy to find out about me, answer them stupidly, and write the whole lot down in an unencrypted form, for use in two years time when I buy a new device and need to remember them. Welcome to “secure” password systems in 2012, everyone.