Month: August 2004

It’s been another one of those days. The IM this time was to go and spend tomorrow afternoon watching The Thrills recording a 3 song acoustic show for Sessions @ AOL.

Not the best band in the world, lets be fair but far from the worse. First album was fun. Thursday is a big company do so out of the office from around 1 and then free drinks all day. Friday morning will be a write off and then Friday night more free drinks for a leaving do.

It’s not going to be a really busy week from the looks of it.

You know I cringe when I look back at some things. I really wish other people realised that at times.

Well that really couldn’t have gone any worse.

Actually that’s not maybe not true but it doesn’t change much. The evening has certainly ended a whole lot better than it started. It’s getting close to two and I’m about to go and get some sleep. Not so much drunk but I’ve already got a gear headache.

Tomorrow I am going to go and see the Directors Cut of Donnie Darko. It’s really really helping me keep going at the moment. As I can’t find my copy of the singles or the soundtrack right now, I’m downloading Mad World. It’s going to be a very welcome break in the Dylan stuff.

My eyes hurt, my head hurts, I hurt.

I’m gonna go to bed, at least I can sleep some of it off. If only it was that simple for everything.

A mostly excellent day, very quickly run down so I can go and sleep.

Guest passes are fucking excellent. None of this queueing in the mud bollocks. Straight into a carpeted bar where drinks flow. Didn’t realise for quite a while that the lads we got chatting to at our table were actually guests. Someone came up to ask for a photo and I twigged the badge. Perhaps I should torrent some Dirty Sanchez. The Hives, all dressed up at 11am floating around the mud in white suits, nice lads very happy to have a drink and pose for photos and stuff. Har Mar Superstar is an ugly ugly man. Naked News filming was um well naked and cute despite the rain and mud. And just for Jamie, Brody drinks white wine like a fish and seemed to be on something for the whole day.

Music wise, Modest Mouse were excellent, roll on Monday! It all kicked off for Float On and never stopped. I’m going to have to go and see the Hives at a gig. Twice at festivals now and they’ve been really fucking good. The Distillers were allright (Hives clashed with Peaches & the Donna’s so I caught the end of them instead) Ash were pretty good, The Offspring were solid and The Darkness were shit as ever.

Managed to get into the Sessions um sessions aswell due to some passes just being dropped on my lap. Some really good stuff going up on the web over the next few nights.

Ya know I hate networking, in the sense of only talking to someone because of what they can do for you. I was lucky this weekend and I did well getting the ticket and then having some friends on hand to look out for me a few more. Others who decided this wasn’t enough and went not just looking but hassling for more pissed me off. Dragging me into it annoyed me even more. As it turns out if I had wanted to, I could have done the same and gotten full weekend guest pass. Of course I’d have loved to, but it would have taken more to get than I was willing to give.

I have no idea if I’m going to be able to make that one make sense tomorrow when I’m not tried and thinking straight.

Sometimes I really do wish the world would stop for a second and let me get back on top. It does seem to enjoy it’s little ironies.

Also I’m an idiot. The most important thing this weekend is to go along and say goodbye to someone I barely know.

“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.”

So you know what’s nice?

I just went to the coffee shop to collect my breakfast. Got back to my desk to find an IM asking me if I was able to take tomorrow off as there was a VIP ticket for Reading just waiting to have my name written on it.

Sometimes just sometimes, I love working here. Luckily my boss has no problem with me having the day off despite over half the team having the day off anyway.

Not a big Darkness fan at all, but Ash, Peaches, The Hives, The Distillers and Modest Mouse should be excellent.

Really looking forward to it now!

I’ve started updating this first rather than my real blog. This is slightly worrying. I should break that habit.

There are a couple of big things missing in my life. This isn’t really news as such. However at least one of them is starting to look like it will fall into place in a few weeks time. It’s been a long time since I was a student, I wasn’t very good at it back then but I know better now and hopefully this time I’m going to be smart enough to actually do some work.

Not sure on the dates yet (and indeed still have to pass the enterence exam) but I should be starting a BA in French and Management in early October. Of course now that I go and mention it, it will jinx it all but hopefully it’s all good. If I don’t get into it I do have a couple of backup plans and whatever happens I’ll be studying by the end of October. I’m looking forward to it a good bit.

I hate it when special editions of things come out that I just have to have. I didn’t plan on spending £15 on the Legacy Edition of Grace this evening but at the same time I wasn’t going to leave the shop without it.

When someone played it to me at a house after a long evenings drinking, I almost proclaimed undying love for her. It was a good moment.

I’m reading Howard Sounes Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan. It’s good stuff, he comes across as having been a right prick even before he got a record deal. I hadn’t know that Blowin in the Wind was such an old tune or that it was written for someone else. Pretty easy reading too, I was expecting it to be a bit of a slog but so far so good. It’s really made me listen to songs differently. In particular after the tale of the recording of Rainy Day Women Nos. 12 & 35, such a fine song to come from what sounds like a drunken, drugged up debacle.

I’m still trying to work out my CVS issue (read, I’m ignoring it) and now I’m trying to fill in some parts of a business case. It’s not going so well. It reminds me so much of an English exam. I’m working off a template. Each section has a number of subheadings and it’s just flashbacks to sitting doing exams where you get a question and then get told the following areas must be used within your answer. I really have to stop staring at it blankly.

Why is getting flowers delivered so expensive?

Ended up in the pub last night. A quiet drink with some dinner turned into sambuca and whiskey around 8pm. I feel fine this morning which I’m slightly surprised by and quite relieved for. A total of £25 for the evening which wasn’t too bad at all given dinner was closer on a tenner and a couple of drinks for the bar. A very good night indeed.

So I misheard. I thought I was going to a birthday party on Saturday night, I’m not. I’m going to a last day party. Which well sucks.

Yay. I have just booked two tickets for the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Tate for the day before it finishes it’s run. I’ve a friend coming over from Dublin to see it and I’m looking forward to it.

Could Batman Begins have just gotten even better? A supposed casting sheet lists T. Welling as playing Kent. Everything I hear about this movie gives me more and more hope.

V Burn was whole lots of fun and I stayed sober! Got home shortly after 5.30am and of course ended up online until close to 7. Sunday was pretty much a write off. A massive CoH session culminating in a TF (where only 1 person dropped out!) bringing me to 935 shy of level 25. That’ll be health triple slotted then, another title and space for 5 more insp. Should be good.

Today I have been fighting with CVS. I’m working on my mac and I need to check out a whole tree. Unfortunately way down in the tree, there is a character my Mac does not like and it won’t check out the tree. I’ve tried various exclude commands for the directory with no luck at all. It’s going to be a whole lot of effort to check out the folders one by one. I would send an email to the CVS help list but I’d more than likely be laughed out of the building. I’ve bothered most of the people around here with no luck so far. I’ll email someone at some stage today…

So yes I’m really just killing time writing this. I really don’t want to go and check out several dozen directories manually.

If Michael Phelps was a country, it would be number 10 in the medals rank at the Olympics.

You know what makes it even worse?

He was born in June 1985. He’s 19 years old and has just won 6 gold and 2 bronze medals.

That first little nugget from Neil this evening at V: Burn which was excellent. It’s late and I’m really tired so I’m now finally going to sleep.

The set was:

‘In Heaven/Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf)’
‘Blown Away’
‘The Holiday Song’
‘Nimrod’s Son’
‘Mr Grieves’
‘Winterlong’
‘Here Comes Your Man’
‘Where Is My Mind?’
‘Vamos’
‘Planet Of Sound’
‘Crackity Jones’
‘Isla De Encanta’
‘Something Against You’
‘Broken Face’
‘River Euphrates’
‘Gigantic’
‘I Bleed’
‘No 13 Baby’
‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’
‘Dead’
‘U-Mass’
‘Velouria’
‘Gouge Away’
‘Cactus’
‘Caribou’

Encore:

‘Wave Of Mutilation’
‘Debaser’
‘Tame’