Month: April 2004

– Recent events have shown me how important it is to keep the friends that I have. I don’t want to loose touch with them, I don’t want to argue with them over stupid things, I want to be their friend and I want them to be my friend.

– I was not upset (much) tonight by some news. I would have been a short while ago. I was more upset than I should have been and more than I thought I would. I need to stop that, I really do.

– Some of my friends I miss a lot. There are some I stopped talking to because I did not know how to deal with them. I still may not, it does not mean that I miss their friendship. I guess it means that I valued myself more at the time, in some cases I still stand by that.

– I heard from a friend last night that I had not in a while. It was late and I did not get the voicemail till this morning. Some of the blog meant something, some did not. I will not be in the USA anytime soon and to be honest I don’t want to be. That’s mainly due to the rules and regulations of the current administration there, I refuse to submit to the procedures involved in entering the country these days. At the end of the day, they are not right and I like 99.9% of others have done nothing to deserve them. I am not the most political person in the world but I know right from wrong.

– Tonight was a great night. I met a couple of people that I have worked with fairly closely over the last few months for the first time and it was all good. The party in itself was one of the best I have been to, the crowd was great and I have a hell of a lot of time/respect for some members of senior staff.

– One of my friends, nay one of my cute female friends expressed surprise at my single status fairly recently. It was one of the nicest things anyone has said to me in a good while. Thanks Lis 🙂

– I shall more than likely make my first V Thursday DU in a while tomorrow. I am burning a DVD of stuff for it right now.

– I have sent some text messages tonight. I need to follow them up with email in the morning. I shall email myself a note now so that I remember. I am quite glad my boss had lots to drink tonight.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says:

“And who could blame them. The further down they went, the closer they got to the Captain” Revelation Space – Alastair Reynolds.

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?

Nothing

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?

I’m watching Deadwood episode 3 right now

4. WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what time it is:

23.00

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?:

22.55

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?:

The dog moving around

7. When did you last step outside? what were you doing?

My flatmate and I took the dog up Primrose Hill

8. Before you came to this website, what did you look at?

The V

9. What are you wearing?

Denims and a black top

10. Did you dream last night?

Yes and it was very disturbing.

11. When did you last laugh?

Probably on the tube talking with my boss on the way home.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?

A mirror and a wall tapestry of some sort.

13. Seen anything weird lately?

Um, no I don’t think so.

14. What do you think of this quiz?

It’s more interesting than the usual ones.

15. What is the last film you saw?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?

A house somwhere

17. Tell me something about you that I don’t know.

I shall be continuing my education very shortly on a proper course and all

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?

Kill off a hell of a lot of people

19. Do you like to dance?

Yes, but I’m not any good at it.

20. George Bush: is he a power-crazy nutcase or some one who is finally doing something that has needed to be done for years?

Power-crazy nutcase

21. a: Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her? b: Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?

a) Jen
b) Daithi

22. Would you ever consider living abroad?

I already do.

I spent most of the day so far at an off-site planning metting for the next while. It was actually quite interesting and managed to answer a lot of the questions and the confusion which had been going around about the documents we had seen. Some really cool stuff in there and some things I’m looking forward to working on.

I have just realised that I do not own a copy of Nevermind.

That’s pretty disgraceful.

A lot of people on the V’s recent Top 5 Movie thread listed the very new Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So I’m watching it now. I didn’t see it for the first hour or so, it just didn’t click and then all of a sudden (when he makes it rain inside), boom! I’m with it and it has got it’s moments of greatness. It’s similar in theme to Vanilla Sky and invokes quite a similar mood I think. Anyway worth watching.

Gotta go sleep.

– Underworld was full by the time I got there. Admittedly this was about 1.30 after a late drink and a good chat with Budgie in the Scream. This meant no clubbing and a walk home in the rain 🙁

– A decent evening out. Left it till about 5.30 to get there and had fun. A good crowd all round.

– And this is really a case of practicing what you preach, but when someone pays you a compliment, just roll with it. They generally mean it, I certainly do.

– Tomorrow I have to do some cleaning around the house and I want to actaully watch some stuff. I need to clear some harddrive space aswell as having the urge to watch a movie or two.

– I just finished reading Jennifer Government and it wasn’t bad. Easy to read but well written too. Good fun throughout with some interesting characters and ideas.

– I really have to read Mark’s Zenith this weekend. I shall take one of them to bed to start reading shortly I think.

– Oh yes, Fuck you, America. I shall not be visiting you anytime soon. “Land of the Free” my ass.

Not sure where this one came from but I got it from the LJ of no less then Mr. Wheeler and Mr.Barnett. It’s a listing of “underrated movies”. Ones I have seen are in bold and some (Casino, Rules of Attraction) I would rate highly.

1. A Simple Plan (1998)
2. The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
3. Mr. Frost (1990)
4. Nightwatch (1997)
5. In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
6. Night Falls on Manhattan (1997)
7. The Arrival (1996)
8. Time After Time (1979)
9. Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
10. Gattaca (1997)
11. Dragonslayer (1981)
12. Equilibrium (2002)
13. Deep Rising (1998)
14. Mouse Hunt (1997)
15. Space Truckers (1996)
16. The Blob (1988)
17. Contact (1997)
18. No Escape (1994)
19. Frequency (2000)
20. Alien 3 (1992)
21. The Iron Giant (1999)
22. Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)
23. She’s The One (1996)
24. The Cable Guy (1996)
25. The Ref (1994)
26. Nothing to Lose (1997)
27. Living in Oblivion (1995)
28. Top Secret! (1984)
29. Antz (1998)
30. Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
31. Fright Night (1985)
32. Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
33. Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987)
34. Cop Land (1997)
35. The Edge (1997)
36. State of Grace (1990)
37. Miami Blues (1990)
38. The Peacemaker (1997)
39. Ronin (1998)
40. Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)
41. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
42. To Live and Die in LA (1985)
43. James and the Giant Peach (1996)
44. Kiss of the Dragon (2001)
45. Nighthawks (1981)
46. King of New York (1990)
47. Heaven Help Us (1985)
48. LA Story (1991)
49. The Specials (2000)
50. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)
51. Universal Soldier (1992)
52. In The Line of Fire (1995)
53. Liberty Heights (1999)
54. Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
55. One False Move (1992)
56. The Money Pit (1986)
57. Drive (1997)
58. Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (1995)
59. Rounders (1998)
60. Birdy (1984)
61. City of Hope (1991)
62. Stir of Echoes (1999)
63. Society (1989)
64. Hollywood Shuffle (1987)
65. The Mosquito Coast (1986)
66. Ed Wood (1994)
67. 13 Days (2000)
68. Big Night (1996)
69. A Midnight Clear (1992)
70. 25th Hour (2002)
71. Jackie Brown (1997)
72. Super Troopers (2001)
73. Beautiful Girls (1996)
74. Casino (1995)
75. Clean and Sober (1988)
76. A Perfect World (1993)
77. The Rules of Attraction (2002)
78. Point Break (1991)
79. Jesus’ Son (1999)
80. A Knight’s Tale (2001)
81. The Tailor of Panama (2001)
82. Testament (1983)
83. Home for the Holidays (1995)
84. And The Band Played On (1993)
85. Zero Effect (1998)
86. Deterrence (1999)
87. Candyman (1992)
88. Last Boy Scout (1991)
89. Gods and Monsters (1998)
90. The Winslow Boy (1999)
91. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
92. Gremlins 2 (1990)
93. Pump Up The Volume (1990)
94. Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)
95. The Prophecy (1995)
96. Southern Comfort (1981)
97. A Life Less Ordinary (1997)
98. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
99. Breakdown (1997)
100. Falling Down (1993)

A few things then today before I head off out.

– Despite meeting and chatting with a group of student nurses in the queue outside until we got into the club, we failed miserably to speak to them again throughout the night. Good job us!

– Dancing for hours and drinking lots of water is a really good way of sobering up. Of course this helps in not having a hangover the next day either.

– I believe I have been out clubbing more times in the past 3 months than I have in the past 5 years. Last night was more pop 80’s then alt. 80’s which wasn’t as good but had some good tunes in there and of course some GNR for the ROCK quota. I did laugh and bop a bit when they played the theme tune to Ghostbusters towards the end of the night.

– As it turns out, I have no idea why no-one mentioned anything on the V. Fairly grateful too but I was informed the other night that way more people than I had thought had picked up on something. Oops

– I had a word with the health and saftey manager yesterday about my desk setup. He had a couple of things so some small changes to come there. He also pointed out that these days, most people taught themselves to type and so the positioning not so much on their fingers but on their wrists is wrong. This is quite true, I tend to move my wrists alot more than I should. So a new rest coming up and hopefully I’ll just be more aware of it.

– On the good news front I lost a stone in about 2 months which is quite good. Added a little with the Dublin weekend (it was fairly debauched) but a good start I think.

– The non-drinking officially comes into play on Thursday. Yes, right before a 4 day weekend but ya know I really want to do it and stick with it this time. The plan is for a month, at which point I’ll be in Dublin and can have a weekend then and then off again until the festivals start.

– I have a cut on the bottom of my right leg. I woke up with it last Saturday. I have no idea what I did to it, I imagine I ran into something while drunk on the Friday night. It’s not bad at all, bled a bit but is clearing up now.

– I’m tired but I suspect I’ll go clubbing again tonight and I’m looking forward to it a little. Shall have to see who is on for it and if we can convince all of the naysayers to come along 2 nights running.

– I am no longer going to see Shaun of the Dead tonight. I have given up my ticket in aid of a good cause and shall see it next week with the V instead.

– Tis a tight month for money with that Glastonbury ticket being £120. I have two more festivals to book for too 🙁

Anyway off to the pub

I’m not even sure where to begin…as usual.

The having a quiet one until the work party next week has failed miserably. I’ve ended up out drinking and clubbing tonight and looks like the same again tomorrow night after a preview of Shaun of the Dead.

I want to type but I don’t really have much. I’m annoyed that Alex and Lawrence were unable to get tickets this evening. The organisation shown by Aloud/Glastonbury was really poor. They must have known the site would take millions of hits within minutes. Had this been something we had been doing, we would have been load balencing for weeks beforehand and the bloody emails would have been staggered.

Andy and I were booking together. So we shot off to the pub at 6.00 to have some dinner and a drink and then back to the office. Couple of computers with a good network and headsets on the phones to let us ring and use the interwebnet. So we chatted with the lads and then headed back to the office for about 7.45. By 7.55 the phone line for tickets was out of service, a BT error message. Then at 7.59 I got the email from Aloud with the link in it. As it was loading, I IM’d it to Andy and others. At 8.01 I had a ticket booked and about 20 minutes later got the confirmation email. Andy was seconds behind me

I have again come to some decisions and I am slowly acting on them. One worked out wellish previously but then it all fell apart in the end I want to fix that. The other just needs me to actually do something but I really really hope to be a student again in October. More on that as it develops.

I really wish that some people would take even some responsibilty. I know that I don’t always take as much as I should but at least I fucking take some. It’s just one of those things that comes with the job….that’s just reminded me I owe my boss an email doing just that. Note to self time.

I hate spam. It’s getting pretty bad of late. My filters are not the best but they do a decent enough job. I need to actually create a block list and set that in place but it takes effort that I don’t really want to go and put in. I will not however change my email address as a result of it.

I was caught by two April fools today. 1 before middday, the other after (boo!). First one was that Aloud had put Glasto tickets on sale early to members and to follow this link. I didn’t even think about it I just clicked. Doh. The second was far worse, it was something in work so not too much details but for a second the team were discussing pulling a product…then we looked at the attachement. Damn Canadians!!! I was really going for a second. It was really well done.

Right, guess I best leave it at that. Nothing else seems to be coming and I need to go and sleep.