Month: August 2003

Not that this is a complaint in any way at all but I miss not having a mouse. A touchpad just isn’t the same.

So it’s been a little slow around here for a while. I think I’ll just go with a list of stuff and see what happens.

– Nick lent me one of his laptops so I’m back online for a while. This is a good thing and I appreciate it lots. The keyboard is a little strange so I’m getting use to typing on it.

– It’s been a really bad week in work for most of the department. There has been a lot of stuff going on. It was mainly over on Thursday night and as we were all going to a party anyway we went on to celebrate freedom for some folks. However that all changed when we sitting around the table everyone’s phone starts to ring at pretty much the same time. One of the lads was knocked off his motorbike leaving the office. Luckily enough he’s not hurt all that badly but the first reports we got sounded really bad. It rather unsurprisingly changed the mood of the evening.

– Friday night we partied again, with everything that had happened we needed to blow off some steam so we did. Lots of beer, some pool and lots of talking shite. A good night mostly.

– It’s a long weekend here, Monday is a Bank Holiday so lots of people have gone away. For the few of us still in London, we arranged to meet up and do something. After the last couple of nights, no-one really wanted a heavy one so we figured we would hit the pool hall for the evening. It was a good night. 5 of us showed up and we got a couple of tables and played some pool. I’ve improved a hell of a lot. I lost 4 games last night, one to everyone. One of them being my own stupid fault but I won at least 15 games. I guess it’s to do with the amount I’ve played recently but I’ve beat people whom I don’t normally beat, and I’ve beat them well. So all good.

– Yesterday afternoon I hit my local comic book shop. Nothing really of interest except Batman: Child of Dreams by Kia Asamiya. This is one of the best Batman books I’ve read in a long time. It’s a piece which was serialised in a manga magazine in Japan and it just got the hardcover treatment from DC. It’s beautiful, the art work is stunning, gothic, dark and haunting. Exactly that Batman should be. I shall be looking for some of this as my wallpaper during the week. Very very happy with it.

– No other real plans for the weekend, a couple of movies I think. I want to head into town this afternoon and pick up a couple of bits and pieces.

– Just a little apathy going on at the moment.

Normal blogging has resumed for the next few days and I am online so ping me 🙂

Oh, I’m not online on my work nic, looks like I left my machine on.

If it was in a movie yesterday’s events would not be believed.

Head hurts. Can’t believe today is only Wedesday.

– just had a really good meeting which was exactly what I needed to be able to feel better about myself, a lot better.
– I thought the last entry was posted yesterday, does that give you an idea of the kind of day I’m having?

– Going now, might be playing pool for the night, might not. Might be home early, might not.

Right so I’m pretty unhappy in work. There are lots of things going on and most of them are not good. It’s like on big black hole where stuff is going and nothing makes sense and nothing is good.

Yesterday a couple of the people around me complained it was cold and rang facilities. I scoffed at them as I didn’t think it was cold at all. By about 6pm I was in fact freezing and suffering from it. Oops. Stayed in work till eight to look after something, I think it’s safe to say that will be the last time I do that for the foreseeable future.

Went out and played some pool for the night with a couple of beers. It was good fun and then home to sleep.

It’s all just swirling around out of control at the moment. There are good signs on some fronts

So it’s Tuesday now I think. Last night was a quiet one as it badly needed to be.
I went home and I did sweet fuck all.

– Watched the end of Attack of the Clones which I still think wasn’t handleded too badly at all. Love the way the Clone army are under Yoda’s command and that the Star Destroyers are used by the Jedi.
– Watched something else but I can’t remember what in the hell it was, then again I’m not even..aha I just watched some of the extras on the disk.
– I have Risk for my PDA and I’m enjoying that lots and lots 🙂
– Dave was in Dublin for the weekend and brought back some Tayto. Lots of people happy with this, me being one of them.
– I’m in a surprisingly foul mood these days and I can’t quite put my finger on why.
– I could be in work until 8 tonight.
– My neck hurts, I felt it click strangely last night and it’s stiff and sore now 🙁

I have no idea what tonight will be like, a night of pool would be good but I don’t know, depends when I get out I guess and who is around and blah blah blah blah.

– Sometimes everyone really can suffer just because of one person and so needlessly.

– The Science Museum has an exhibition on about The Titanic now. I’ll bet they had a huge increase in numbers this morning. I had been planning on seeing this, so I shall have to sort that out pretty soon. The IMAX there is also showing Ghosts of The Abyss. I think an afternoon there has to be done and soon

– Awesome, I’ve been wanting to go and see Blonde for a while and I see it’s on special at the moment. Thursdays seem to be specials all day, perhaps I shall take Thursday week off and have a day out.

– Pay day on Friday. Need to sort out booking tickets for Iron Maiden for a few of us in December. Then I see some Radiohead tickets are still on sale and some Stereophonics would be good. Need to get back into the gig mood.

– Work is under way on the fourth Sigur Ros album 🙂

– So better late than never the build arrives and of course it’s lacking. *sigh* deadlines make such a nice sound as they whoosh by.

Right, lots of things so a quick point by point run down I think.

– Friday was fucked up beyond all belief. Plans for the night were for myself and Nick to go to a birthday party in town. About 5:15 this all fell apart when something happened in work. The plans then changed to drinking heavily in the pub right across the road trying to a) figure out what in the hell just happened and b) support some friends. It was an entirely fucked up evening.

– Saturday was not so fucked up but still a little strange. I was heading into town to pick up some things and felt like a movie. So I gave Patrick a call and we met up. Freddy Vs.Jason was the night’s movie and it was fun. I laughed quite a bit and enjoyed it a lot. Good fun all round.

– Sunday was not fucked up at all. I had a quiet morning in bed and then feeling like something to do for the afternoon I read in the park for a while. Getting bored of this, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean which was a whole load of fun and well worth seeing. Johnny Depp was excellent and stole every scene he was in. It had Zombie Pirate Monkeys! Great, great fun.

– I’ve always had a thing for The Titanic, I wrote what you Americans would call a paper on her for my final exams in school. It was one that you get to prepare before hand so I spent months studying her and reading about her. So when I got home last night and Titanic was halfway through on the beeb, I had to keep watching. It’s a movie that always gets to me. Watching the ship slowly sink and then break apart is harrowing. Seeing people slide along decks, fall into the water and be pushed into boats just gets to me. This happened, maybe not exactly as the movie depicts but too close for comfort. The band playing on deck as the ship sinks is something that has always stayed with me and gets me in the movie everytime. Now if only it had been done without the need for the love story, it would be a truly great movie.

– Teachers, I picked up the first season on DVD and spent the weekend watching it. It’s good fun and it’s funny and the sarcasm makes me laugh. Great cast, the third season is really missing the main cast members. I enjoyed the hell out of these over the weekend, it’s a shame there are only 8 episodes.

– Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia by Greg Rucka was excellent. I’ve liked the cover for a long time and Rucka is a damn fine writer. So when the softback came out I had to give it a try. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I’ve never read much on the character and this was another case of buy something for the creative team and with a bit of luck it’ll be good. With this team, how could it not be. I don’t know if this is enough to get me onto a singles run but it’s going to be thought about.

– The Lovely Bones is the book of choice at the moment. It’s a little haunting. I had to put it down after the first chapter. Almost finished it and enjoying it a lot. I had originally thought it wasn’t my kind of book but I’d try it anyway, but I’m not sure anymore. I think it is my kind of book and I’m just surprised so many other people in the ‘mainstream’ found it to be their kind of book.

– Last night I really missed the net. It was around 11pm and I was bored and more than anything I wanted to be able to come here and type. The lend of a laptop isn’t happening for various reasons and the budget isn’t going to stretch to a new computer anytime soon so that’s just the way it’s going to have to be I guess. I don’t have to be happy with it which is good, because I’m not. In fact I’m quite unhappy with it 🙁

– I’m annoyed with some people and more annoyed that I now think less of them. Some things are important, as much as you might talk about things, NDAs and confidentially and that are important and they need to be respected. You can make up all the reasons you want for not following them, but they are not good enough.

– Music at the moment is So Much for The City by The Thrills. An Irish band in the process of making it big. Heard good things about them and the album is selling well, so being slave to the fashions I picked it up. Good solid album. I can’t think what genre they fall under, acoustic rock maybe? Good stuff with the first song Santa Cruz being the best.

– Picking up a phone and talking to someone about anything use to be an option. It doesn’t work like that anymore and sometimes that’s a really bad thing.

– I watched Back to the Future a few days ago. It’s a great movie and it’s not dated at all. I was quite impressed by that. It’s a good movie, and one going on the list to buy.

– Last night I was so bored I started to watch Attack of the Clones, it’s not as bad as I remembered but some of the love scenes are really really shit. Left off the last hour as it was late and I was tired but that’s on the list to go ahead and watch tonight.

– Bad atmosphere here, really bad. It’s a shit morning and it doesn’t help that there are build issues meaning I don’t have a big chunk of work to just dive into. Fuck it all.

This is an actual group email thing going on up on the third floor right now. Updates as they happen.
***
Dave:
Hello

It’s been talked about at many a session down the pub while in various states of drunkenness but a weekend away in the countryside near a pub is the topic at hand.

Sherwood Forest (no Richard, you may not bring your cross bow) is a front runner. Aside from it being Sherwood Forest, Nick informs me that Nottingham has both the highest ratio of pubs to area in the country and the highest ratio of women to men. A winning combination I think you’ll agree.

Nobody so far seems to be free on the same weekend so we have a choice of weekends anytime from now until the weekend of 20th September and someone might be available. Don’t think it will be all that expensive, put together a few tents between us and the most expensive thing should be beer and maybe the train fare. Cheap weekends are a Good Thing.

Is anyone actually interested and available or have any thoughts?

***
Patrick: I thought they cut the forest down?
***
Dave: Richard’s going to help save the rest of it while we have some beer
***
Rich: SEE!!!

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=460500&y=362500&z=3&sv=Sherwood+Forest&st=3&tl=Sherwood+Forest,+Nottinghamshire+[Forest/Wood]&searchp=newsearch.srf&mapp=newmap.srf

It has tree shaped things!

So still there.

😛
***
Andy: Can I bring my axe and checked shirt?
***
Pat: I’m a lumber jack and I’m ok!
***
John AKA Hamo AKA Sparky : fuck the axe, I’m bringing a can of petrol and a lighter
***
Trev:
Now that is scary…..I’ve seen Hamo start a bar-b!!!!
***
Dave:Or we could just re enact Battle Royale. Rich – Crossbow, Andy – Axe, Sparky – Petrol bombs. Who gets the frying pan?
***
John: One last point.. we have to make sure not to distress any little animals while cutting/burning their habitat, I wouldn’t want that to ruin my weekend… I’ll feel terribly guilty.
***
Andy: Well, I’m not planning on going hungry, dunno about you.
***
John: Do you like bite sized sparrow… I hear they are rather nice, I’ll help you hunt
***
Andy: Yeah, with a Kestrel egg omelette on the side.
***
John: No, use the sparrow hawk eggs instead, then there are more sparrows to go around the group… Make sense?
***
Fred: Yeah, that makes about as much sense as anything else in this conversation 🙂 How are the Badgers and Mash up in Nottingham?
***
Andy: Indeed, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush(e)

>Email was momentarily delayed while I threw a rubber ball at Andy.

Richard: Anyone have flame-proof tents for this blazing inferno that we’re going to be camping in?
***
Dave: See Richard, you’re learning. We are more important than the enviroment.
***
Trev: no tent can protect you from Sparky’s flames……they don’t call him Sparky for nothing!
***
Pat: can we reenact the Blair witch project?
***
Rich: Is that where you end up dead Pat? 😛
***
Rich: A study was done recently on the demise of the sparrow… I don’t believe they took into
accounts Sparky’s culinary predilections
***
Pat: No he doesn’t eat them he just hunts them!
***
Nick: im confused…. or maybe i shouldnt have that pint at lunch, but none of this is making sense any more
***
Andy: I had a pint at lunch, and it’s like working with the panel from Have I got news for you…
***
John: Patrick is right, I capture them for my aviary… anytime I go into the woods, I bring a cage and make sparrow mating calls, then they just flock to me.. excuse the pun
***
Rich:Given those sparrow mating calls of yours what Patrick really should have written was: “No he doesn’t eat them he just humps them!”
***
Fred: What is there not to understand? This is standard planning for any of our trips.
***
Nick: fantastic – im sure it will be a great success
***
Andy: We’ll never end up going anywhere, but we’ll have a laugh planning it
***
Pat: But wheres the boat?
***
Andy: Hold on, hold on. What?
***
Nick:HMS Sparky??? ::flees:::
***
Trev: Do we have jobs?
***
Fred: Define jobs please.
***
Nick: Anyway now the emails have slowed down – im always up for a bit of camping :o)
***
Andy: But no eating birds…

>At this point I’m giving up trying to order the threads, just refer back for more.

Nick: nope no birds here – leave them to the bushe
***
Pat: Depends is it an African or European swallow?
***
Trev: That has vibes of this rabbit/human cloning craic that has been going on. The Sparky Sparrow?
***
Rich: He doesn’t care if they swallow.
***
Dave: so getting back to the topic at hand. Does anyone have any other thoughts?
***
Andy: Lots, thanks.
***
Fred: I guess there’s a first time for everything.
***
Dave: And would you like to share with the group any of these thoughts
***
Pat: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
***
Andy: Sure. People who forget to flush the toilet – do they also forget to wipe to their arse?
***
Pat: Hmm you know in the middle of winter when you sit on a warm toilet seat it feels nice…. ever think why it’s warm?
***
Andy: Because we have indoor toilets these days, you bumpkin.
***
John: Want to know why the weather is so hot lately? Whales fart! Don’t they consider that they are contributing to toxic emissions and directly contributing to global warming? Thanks to Dave Bushe for informing me about this one, so after camping do we want to go whale hunting???.. I’m sure Richard will be able to tell us good places to harpooning.
***
Andy: Indeed, and Patrick can help us out when we come to sell the corpses to the Japanese. Tell you what, who needs xxxx <- internal joke listserv? *** Trev: The advantage of xxxx is that you can unsubscribe
**
Rich: The population of whales has been shown to have drastically changed from what it once was: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=21635&newsdate=25-Jul-2003
I hypothesis then that it is actually people who are responsible for increase in global warming due to their flatulence from eating the whales who had chronic flatulence in the first place.
***

And at this stage it got a little more on topic and we sorted out some details. Some great laughs throughout and an entertaining afternoon.