Kermit the Frog once said that it's not easy being green.

I personally maintain that it's not easy being Kermit the Frog. After all, the Incredible Hulk has been green for years, but it's a foolish man who would try to make his life any harder. At the very least, you would need some sort of medium-level superpower before you even attempt to complicate the Hulk's day.

This isn't where I was really going with my train of thought, though.

The point I was originally intending to make was that, above all else, it's not easy being human. Granted, we're not eaten by other, bigger animals (at least, not often) like all other species seem to be, but at the same time, if we were, we'd certainly worry about it a lot more than normal animals do. Zebras, for example, display a shattering lack of lion-phobia in their day to day lives, despite the fact that it would probably be a beneficial condition for them.

Worry and boredom and a thousand other negative emotions are the curse of sentience. Whether we are the most evolved species on the planet due to our acute sense of self or whether other animals had it years ago and evolved beyond it, having dismissed it as a pain in the ass, is open to debate.

Anyway, life is hard. We have to work, we have obligations to others, we have to deal with money, we have to do all kinds of things, and as an exercise in charity, I thought I'd share with you some of the ways in which I make it through my week:

1) Gay Times spotting.

The other day, I was in Tesco, browsing the magazine section. In most supermarkets, or even newsagents, magazines tend to be organised by genre, as I'm sure we've all noticed. "Gay Times,” seemingly adrift in the mire of categorisation, was sandwiched between "Fishing World” and "What Car?”

I wasn't sure entirely how to take this. Was it implying that there was an abundance of gay fishermen shopping in Tesco? Or are there a lot of gay people without cars, who must therefore be poised to become a major force in the car-buying world within the next few months?

Intrigued by this, one of my minor hobbies is to check where Gay Times is located in various magazine racks. For example, I stopped in a service station recently during a long drive, and they had chosen to locate "Gay Times” on the top shelf, next to the porn.

Ignoring the slight incongruity of placing a lifestyle magazine for homosexual men next to publications like "Spunky Cheerleaders” and "Wet Gash Weekly”, it is also, I would imagine, slightly offensive.

I could be wrong, I've never actually read it, but I would imagine that the "Gay Times” was more akin to "FHM” or "GQ” than to out and out (and definitely "out”) pornography. If any gay guys actually read my stuff, feel free to let me know. Everyone else, feel free to play along at home. It's something to do when you're bored in the supermarket.

2) Google Scoring.

Let's face it, ther

e's a lot of nutters in the world. So, the other night, sat at home and, shockingly, dateless, I began entering random words into Google to see what they came up with.

I've already discussed in one of my missives how the amount of porn on the net is becoming silly, so I tried to think of what else the internet was used for. The obvious choice seemed to be conspiracy buffs and general fruitcakes.

Before I get complaints from the only social demographic with more time on it's hands than I have, let me clarify: I'm not saying there aren't aliens and UFOs out there. I'm not entirely sure I believe the Warren Commission. Maybe nobody ever really did land on the moon. But man alive, there are certainly some bad sites about these topics.

My top scoring words and phrases for sites that may well have been created by the mentally unstable:

Aliens: 27,100,000 results.

Vampires: 7,430,000 results.

Elves: 5,970,000 results.

Fairies: 5,580,000 results.

Pixies: 4,480,000 results.

Kennedy Assassination: 3,560,000 results.

Moon Landing Fake: 932,000 results.

Lycanthropy: 231,000 results.

I don't know what troubles me more; the fact that there are more sites devoted to fairies and pixies than there are to the basically un-solved murder of the most powerful man in the world, or the fact that people can clearly see a difference between pixies and fairies. Elves, I admit, are a bit different. Still, if anyone can tell me the difference between a fairy and a pixie, I'd like to invite them to get a life.

Actually, I know full well what scares me most out of all those results. The runaway winner for sites that might be frequented by people who aren't right in the head. What was it?

Guns: 48,900,000 results.

3) "Like” tally.

Find someone young and talkative. Count how many superfluous times they use the word "Like” when they talk. I freely admit that I do it, but some people have elevated it to an art form. There are no hard and fast rules, but I tend to do it by however long it takes them to make a point. Like, from when they start, like, talking, to when they think they've, like, got their idea across to you. My record for counting someone else's "likes” is 23, although that was, like, a really, y'know, like, protracted speech.

As a word of advice to novices, try not to count along out loud. First of all, it's rude, and secondly, it tends to put people off their train of thought, which makes them say it more, which is cheating.

4) Writing pointless drivel and posting it on websites…

Ha! And now you're all a part of that one! Mwahahahahaaaaa.

Who says I don't lead a rich, full existence?

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