Month: December 2002

Radiohead have just debuted something new on their website. It is rumoured to be some new material which I am obviously eager to hear. However it is a) streaming in realplayer which is well shit, and b) timing out because of demand c) never good to try stuff like that on dialup. On the other hand, these things have to be done and I really want to hear it.

In other news, I watched Black Hawk Down which was ok and then I watched 24 1pm till 2pm which wasn’t bad at all. A nice little twist or two and some damn fine work by Mr Sutherland. Read some more comics today, got caught up on the excellent Fables from Vertigo and the so so Stormwatch: Team Achilles from Wildstorm.

I had been feeling a little, nay I lie, a lot better. I am no longer. I am in fact feeling a lot worse and I have a headache on top of that. I still don’t feel like sleeping, but when I do I sleep for a long time. I didn’t fall asleep until sometime close to 5 in the morning I suspect and then slept straight through till 2pm. Not ideal as it means like now I don’t want sleep.

My flatmate is now actually talking about moving out to move in with her fella, we talked about it a little tonight. I wonder how that would work out. She wants to keep the flat and rent it out. I know a couple of people who are not happy where they are at the moment and are looking to move. We shall see how things turn out over the coming months. Of course ideally I’d find myself a nice women and have her move in and not have anyone else. Be a little expensive but a decent size place for two of us. Ah well one can dream eh?

Oh I don’t know why, but that reminds me of something. Meg is easily the best writer I know, she has this wonderful grasp of language that I am very jealous of. I do remember her posting this and it stood out in her archive a couple of days ago. It’s fairly short and simple and a tad abrupt, but hey the gist is good.
How are you? Don’t give me any of that ‘ok thanks’ bullshit, really how are you?

I don’t know how common this expression is around your parts, but it’s common enough in Dublin. When someone asks how you are you can reply with “ah can’t complain”. Generally meaning things are well. It doesn’t tho does it? You can complain, if you really wanted to complain you could. But you just don’t. For whatever reason, you don’t/can’t complain. It isn’t an expression I use all that much. I can rarely think of a time when I could not complain about something!

You know why is it that Syria is the only country in the world standing up openly to the US? It really amazes me that none of the so-called First World nations are not calling the US on what is little more than a personal vendetta. Why is the UK so eager to go to war? What is the US going to do to the UK, if they don’t?

Gonna try and go get some sleep now. Wish me luck.

The V has yet again proven to be right headed. The Fischerspooner Remix of Kylie’s Come Into My World is indeed awesome.

Right a few comics and a little internet later I’m bored again. I quite enjoyed two new Wildstorm series’ from Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray ; 21 Down and The Resistence. Both fairly smartly written and backed up by decent artwork. Neither are runaway hits but I’m on board for the future.

I’ve hit most of the sites I normally visit five or six times already today. Don’t people have any consideration, I expect something NEW everytime I look! Damn you all.

Side note, Katrina just got home. Her first words ‘Hi Dave’ closely followed by ‘You’ve got a cold’ so great, I not only feel shit, I look shit.

Hot choclate is good, it helps me feel better for about an hour. Unfortunatly this didn’t help much with the sleeping.

I have a copy of Black Hawk Down out from DVDs on Tap and I have for a while. I might actually watch it later and send to back to them. That is if my head un-clogs at all. Unfortunatly it does not show any sign of doing so. Ohh I could also watch the last hour of Amelie which for some reason I have just never bothered to do.

I have some…quite a few comics to read too. I could sort all the recent stuff and actually read them instead of just leaveing them lying around…hmmm thats an idea.

I’m drinking hot choclate laced with lots of sugar. I don’t have..hold the phone thats not quite true. I have a small bottle of Mr. Jack handy. I might just have to put some into the next mug to see if that helps. I am never able to get to sleep when I have a cold, too much coughing and blockage in my nose. A lot of people in the office have been suffering with colds over the past couple of weeks and my entire family had just gotten over a pretty bad case (see hospitalisation story in early December archives), except for my dad who was still doing bad after having it for two weeks.

I’m listening to These Days by Bon Jovi. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know. I just am. It was on the shelf, I don’t think I have ever listened to it fully and it jumped out into my hand, damnit.

Slept in late today. I have 2.5 days which I have to take off work by the end of the year so I took the 0.5 today to let me stay in bed. It was good. Went into work and then grabbed a bite to eat with a friend before doing some very quick food shopping and coming home. My flatmate has just picked up Grand Theft Auto: Vice City…and is going away for a week at the weekend.

On the bad news front, I think I have a cold of some sort coming on.

There has been a question forming at the back of my mind for a while now. I had a thought earlier this evening which seemed to come from out of nowhere but if you join all the dots up I think it all makes sense. The question can be phrased a couple of ways. Neither way is accurate but the sentiment is. If they could be combined into one sentence, I suspect it would all make sense. The thoughts are:
Who do we have to live up to?
Why do we do the things we do?
Yes, right now for the line of thought that has been forming, I guess this would be using the royal ‘we’. I think that all just clicked into place and makes sense for me. I don’t like the answer, but hey I often don’t.

The world is a small place. I’ve mentioned this before. In case I left one out recently, it turns out the new guy in work (well kinda new, moved from Dublin too) is an old friend of a good friend that I went to college with. Like I said small world. The interwebnet is a much smaller place, I’ve just found out that several of my bookmarked blogs all know each other and the detail is somewhat scary. Blogging circles really are small.

Dear sweet fuck I’m now scared, this doesn’t make any sense at all. I know it doesn’t have to, but you don’t expect things like this, I mean you really don’t. I know that the internet is a small place but this isn’t small, this isn’t even 6 degrees of separation its ONE fucking degree.

Hmm, well thanks for sticking me with there. Believe it or not that is all the one line of thought…well not one line of thought but one area of thought. I am left a gibbering wreck lying here typing.

Oh other funny reaction of the day. I was reading Dark Horizons as I tend to do daily. There was a story there which just had me shaking my head at the screen. That’s not just an expression I must have read it three or four times and my head was still shaking. Eminem is being considered for the role of Batman in the film Batman vs. Superman when it happens.

‘Stupid White Men’ and other reading.

When this first came out nothing I had read about it made me want to actually read it. But I started to hear some good stuff about Michael Moore and this book and I then planned to read it at some stage. I finished the book I had been reading on the tube on the way to the airport on Friday night and then found out that the second book was not what I had meant to pick up and I had already read it. D’oh. So at the airport I wanted a book and once your through security at Heathrow, there isn’t that much of a selection. Stupid White Men was one of the books they did have so I figured I would give it a shot. As the night went on (and on due to fog delays) I sat at the bar having a few pints and reading.

Aside from the fact that it was funny and it did make me laugh out loud in places, it was really interesting. I am very glad I read it and I will make some time to check out his movie Bowling for Columbine. I also did something which is pretty much unprecedented for me. I like having my books in good condition. I bent not one, but two pages back to mark something. Had I had a pen handy, I would have highlighted the text. I lent the book to my Dad. I think it might fit with his sense of humour but when I get it back, you will be getting those lines with some comments.

Next up, bought from a vending machine at the gate as I was about finished the above 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.com. Hmm this was very mixed, in places it was funny, in other places it was kinda scary and overall it didn’t really flow. The story is simple and the book itself describes it as ‘Boy meets dot-com, boy falls for dot-com, boy flees dot-com in horror’. Unless that catches you, don’t bother. Once thing it has left me, is wanting to read books about my own company. I shall pick some of them up early in the new year.

I’m kinda finished with the big crime kick I think. Right now I’m not sure exactly what I want. I have an inkling to read some hard sci-fi, go back to the Masterworks series and read a few of them. I’m also in the mood for some semi/autobiographical roadtrip stuff. In the vein of Hunter S. Thompson I guess. To that end I’m reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

There is so much out there I have not read. I’m hitting Amazon at the mo to create a listing of stuff that I want to read. Their 20th Century Classics seems to be a good starting point. I’ve never read anything by Steinback, Salinger, Hemingway, Joyce, or Kafka and the list goes on. The funny thing is a few years ago this the stuff I would have hated. I actually considered reading Wuthering Heights recently and I remember hating being forced to do it in school.

Being back in Dublin over the weekend really forced home how some things have changed, no scrap that. It isn’t how some things have changed, it is how I have changed.

It is late and while I know I’m not in work till late tomorrow I shall go sleep…perchance to dream

And now this is the point where I scare myself by admitting this…its good to be home. Dear sweet jesus what the fuck?