Month: October 2003

It’s been real quiet around here lately. This is not an accurate reflection of my life. Last night I get to bed about 2am. This morning I felt like I got to bed about 2am having had a lot to drink. Hmm I wonder if there was a connection there.

I had a shower about an hour ago. It washed some time away. It doesn’t feel like that was actually this morning but it was. It was of course then followed by a bad day at work. I had two nasty meetings in a row. The second one I had to stop after about 2 minutes to ask what the meeting was about and why I was there. Luckily enough I managed to turn that one around nicely.

I played my first game of Blood Bowl in a couple of weeks today, and a tournament game at that. I won two-nil. It was not the most convincing show but it got me some needed points and it was fun.

I watched El Mariachi earlier and it was ok. Don’t see what was so special about it but lots of people do. I’m going to go and watch the third season opener of 24 shortly (or leave it till the morning)…

Packing. I’ve still not done anything but I’m starting to think it’s all going to be good and not half as bad as I thought it would be. Get some of it actually sorted tomorrow late morning time and take it from there.

I got an X-Box today. Well I didn’t but I bought one and it was dirt cheap. There was a whole work thing and it was a snip

I feel generally like shit.

I have of course gone and jinxed the good news and it’s less good now. Indeed it may even been completley fucked. *sigh*

Ah well it’s not all bad it just means that my dreams have been treaded on and hard. Back to listening to some O by Mr. Damien Rice today. It’s still pretty and it is harsh and bitter and vindictive and well that’s me.

Gah. It’s a really shit day.

the dude abides

Ya know for the past couple of weeks things have been going right. There have been some hits and misses but a couple of things have sorted themselves out. I got some good news earlier today which helps sort out some other things aswell and I think it’s all going to be good.

There are two more things I want to get sorted out over the next couple of weeks…how I’m going to do that I’m not so sure but anyway

i) new computer
Possible, perhaps even probable in a couple of weeks when I have moved. I’m waiting to get the details of what could be a nice discount through work

ii) holiday
Possible, less probably but once the project is over, if I have some cash together I’ll see what I can book. I can take at least two weeks off work, perhaps even three. Boston, New York, DC and Vegas…well it would be nice but way over any possible budget I might have. I could leave it a little longer and do St. Patrick’s Day in Boston or NYC, I have to use up some holidays by the end of March so it might nicely tie in. A long weekend somewhere in Europe in January to get a break or perhaps even in December…Paris maybe.

So you never know.

I’ve just watched The Big Lebowski as you may have gathered from the title. I was talking about it down the pub last week and I wanted to see it again. It made me laugh.

Sleep now.

I seem to have lost the ability to sit down and read. The lure of multimedia gets to me, I don’t sit down and read anymore. Ok I do on new comic day but that’s about it. I read on the bus/train to work or indeed anywhere else I’m going but the days of sitting on my bed with some music on and reading are few and far between. I really want to finish off the last Phillip Pullman book but I don’t want to sit here and listen and read. I’m thinking about throwing on a movie, a comedy to be precise so I can laugh.

I just watched Ichi The Killer which I’ve been waiting to see for at least a year and well I’m very disappointed. I was expecting a masterpiece but I didn’t get it. I suspect I made a mistake in watching the dubbed version as I didn’t pay full attention to it as I would have to for subtitles. I shall perhaps revisit it one day.

Last night ended up being a night down the pub. One of the guys in work had a bad weekend and wasn’t in a good state, woman trouble at a guess and was in need of some cheering up so a few of us hit the Firkin. It was quite a surreal night. I spent most of it not drinking just chatting and playing some pool but he was well on the booze finishing the night with and I don’t even know what comes after quadruple, 5 shots of 10 year old Scotch in one glass. Suffice it to say he wasn’t looking that great this morning but he was feeling a hell of a lot better by the end of the night which made it a good night.

When I was in Dublin last month, I picked up a Dublin sport shirt in the Duty Free on the way back. I wanted something with some home colours and it seemed to suit. So of course I got home here and completely forgot about it. I found it over the weekend while I was getting some stuff out of a press. It’s a good shirt.

I’m so much closer to getting my hair all chopped off. Yes I’m blogging about my hair again…what are you trying to say? It may just have been the really bad conditioner I ended up with the last time I was in the shop, I got another tonight and it’s so much better. A shower before bed is often a lovely, lovely thing. So I’ll see how it goes. It’s in need of a cut again anyway. Maybe a quick trim before the weekend…maybe a very quick more than trim before the weekend.

The third season of 24 airs tonight. Torrents should be available by this time tomorrow. This is a good thing 🙂 Brings me back up to three shows; Angel, Smallville and 24

I’ve had to sign on via dialup to get that posted and finish a conversation. Network issues perhaps.

I had been thinking it was a light week here. I’ve not blogged much and never felt I had anything to blog. The thought even crossed my mind to stop blogging as I had nothing else to say. Not to worry, I have already dismissed the thought.

This afternoon I didn’t make it to Kings Road but I did make it to collect some comics and some large comic boxes to prepare for the moving. This is a good thing. I dropped these off at home and made a couple of phone calls. An evening of pool down Shepards Bush way was arranged. I got there about 6.30 to find that every table in the pool hall was in use and nothing was due to free up. So that put pay to that. Nick arrived with cough friend cough in tow and we grabbed a quick drink. They planned on drinking for the evening instead and I was not up for that at all.

So I took my leave and hit High Street Kensington to see Mystic River. Prefacing this by saying I enjoyed the book a lot and I’m a big Dennis Lehane fan. There is an article by him in this months Esquire where he says that he turned down a number of offers to have his books made into movies because he didn’t want to loose control and see them hollywoodised. So he has his assistant block any calls about them, until one day she says “you may want to take this one…it’s Clint Eastwood”. So he takes the call and Clint says that he wants to make a movie of it, but that he does not want to change a thing and so we get the movie. Anyway I enjoyed it, it was very well acted and well directed and it was the book. One of the more faithful adaptations I’ve seen. It’s got a good ending and it’s not a happy story.

Down the pub on Friday night, one of the lads had brought his girlfriend along. I was chatting to her for a while and she asked if it was normal for us to go out together after work as it was pretty rare anywhere that she worked. I told her that it was pretty common and indeed it is. It’s uncommon these days for me not to see folks from work over the weekend. Just last night I met up with one of my team mates who I sit next to and talk to every working day for a chat in the pub before the cinema. So um yeah.

After the cinema tonight I walked home with the soundtrack being The Strokes Is This It. Right now the soundtrack is Rage Against The Machine’s Rage Against The Machine and tomorrow is the release of R.E.M’s In Time and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood gives us his solo debut Bodysong. Music shop at lunchtime I think.

There was something else I wanted to blog and it was that which lead to the first paragraph but I have completely blanked on it.

Booked 10 tickets for a preview of The Matrix: Revolutions on the 5th. Head down after work, get some good, have some drinks and get in the queue early!

A four day week for me. I have Friday off work and then I’m not back in the office until the Wednesday after that, in fact that’s the aforementioned 5th. It’s all to give me time to pack and do everything else I need to do in order to get ready to move. I shall have to actually get down to doing that tomorrow evening.

I was annoyed to note while browsing in Waterstones yesterday that Michael Moore’s new book is a hardback and therefore expensive. One to pick up in paperback but I’m not going to pay £15 for it, it’s so not worth it.

So I have just sent off an email which I blogged about at least a week ago. I just never had a chance to sit down and do some typing. Getting in touch with old friends is a good thing 🙂

I’m thinking about getting my hair cut again. I very rarely wear it down these days. I walked home with it down and it’s really not very good. At the same time, I don’t really want to have short hair. I don’t know why I grew it long in the first place but I did and I like having long hair. Now that I’m blogging about my hair I’m glad I didn’t throw in a crack about the blog being boring in the first paragraph as I originally intended.

This was the Popbitch end of joke this week and it amused me

Two families move from Pakistan to America.
When they arrive the two fathers make a bet
– in a year’s time whichever family has
become more American will win.

A year later they meet again:
The first man says, “My son is playing baseball,
I had McDonalds for breakfast and I’m on my
way to pick up a case of Bud, how about you?”

The second man replies, “Fuck you, towelhead.”

Right, well it’s Sunday and it’s gonna be a quiet one. Toying with the idea of going to see Mystic River later this afternoon or seeing if anyone is on for a nights pool.

For the time being I think I’m gonna have a walk down Kings Road and the river. Hope it’s not too cold, get my discman going and have a wander. Of course I could go and collect my comics first…

Time for a little writing.

Last night was a fairly typical Friday night down the pub with the lads after work. As it was payday, this did lead to a few more people being out and it was all good.

I woke up around 11 this morning and spent the next couple of hours catching up on Angel and Smallville, all very exciting. Some work stuff going on led me to spend a while online doing some work.

Then it was into town to pick up a few bits and pieces, more to come on various media things as I work through them. Had the usual dinner at Ed’s and then onto Starbucks for a sitdown and a coffee.

I went into work for a little while to clear up some stuff and hit the Firkin for a while before I met up with Trev and we went to see a late night showing of my favourite movie; Donnie Darko. It still gets to me. I cannot watch the Gretchen moment at the end and as soon as Mad World kicks off it hits me. Noticed a couple more things this time around which was cool. I shall watch the DVD with the full commentary tomorrow I think.

People who don’t get HTML amuse me. A friend mentioned last week that she didn’t bother to apply for a job after seeing their website. It is pretty silly, I mean how hard is it to fuck up an href?

The work & stress thing is going allright so far. I had to do some work today, sure but that’s part of the job and there wasn’t any time spent stressing about it.

Clocks change tonight, I get an extra hour to sleep which is good 🙂