Month: December 2004

dirty old town

I was up at 7.15 this morning. It was hell. I came into work an hour early so I could get off an hour early. The two lads from work I’m going with work until 5 and rather than having to join them an hour later I’m off at 5 today too so we can all head off to Brixton for a drink or four before The Pogues tonight. Really looking forward to it, it should be a good evening, certainly with some good company. And a bit of a drunken sing along will do nicely. I’m not as familiar with their stuff as I should be but I can mumble through a few numbers.

Weekend was quiet. Worked my way through the latter half of season 5 West Wing, not so good overall. Good in places but only where they remember it’s about the characters. Season 6 is waiting but I’m not too worked up about it. Post Sorkin it’s really gone downhill which is a shame. Saturday night ended up in The Ship with Doug for a quiet few pints. Such a good pub. Busy enough but with plenty of space to stand at the bar and enjoy a few Guinness. Great music, don’t know a better pub for it. To go a whole evening without hearing a single bad track is pretty unusual.

One thing about being up early this morning was the view while I took Hebe out for a quick walk. It was fucking cold and pretty deserted all over and the sun was still rising. There was a lovely red tint to all the clouds over Primrose Hill and it looked very pretty. So of course since then I’ve had the, well I don’t know what it is but it was always touted as a farmers saying “Red sky at night shepherds delight, red sky in morning, shepherds warning”. Anyway it was pretty.

There goes the fear

A thunderous live track. Along with Pounding it’s almost worth paying to any Dove’s gig to hear.

There goes the Fear
Out of here
We’re out of here
Out of heartache
Along with fear

There goes the fear again
There goes the fear

Close your brown eyes
And lay down next to me
Close your eyes, lay down
‘Cos there goes the fear
Let it go

You turn around and life’s passed you by
You look to ones you love to ask them why
You look to those you love to justify
You turned around and life’s passed you by
Passed you by again

And late last night
Makes up her mind
Another fight left behind
There goes the fear again
Let it go
There goes the fear
Let it go

Close your brown eyes
And lay down next to me
Close your eyes, lay down
‘Cos there goes the fear
Let it go

You turn around and life’s passed you by
You look to those you love to justify why
Think of me when you’re coming down
But don’t look back when leaving town
Oh think of me when he’s calling out
But don’t look back when leaving town today

There goes the fear again
Let it go
There goes the fear
Let it go

Think of me when you close your eyes
But don’t look back when you break your ties
Yeah think of me when you’re coming down
But don’t look back when leaving town today

afflunce

I have a new toy. I have two in fact. 1.8Ghz dual processors Macintosh G5’s with 1gb of RAM. Nice. Real nice. Just waiting on a switch box to be sorted out. Right now due to the joys of technology, I can only use my XP box with a USB iMac keyboard and my nice shiny G5 with a standard Compaq keyboard. I’m hoping IC will be back soon to sort this out.

I’m back in work today and not feeling so bad. Walking to the tube this morning wasn’t fun but I had taken some painkillers just before I left the house so I guess it could have been worse.

Last night, against my better judgement I went to see Dove’s in Hammersmith Palais. I didn’t leave till late so as to minimise standing around. The gig itself was allright, only real highlights (much like the Dove’s career) were Pounding and ending on the excellent Here Comes The Fear. Home to bed and didn’t feel the best I must admit. Hopefully back by Monday for The Pogues which should be awesome.

Reading stuff, lets see I’m actually reading 4 books at the moment which is unusual for me. Still labouring slowly with Alan Moore’s Voice Of The Fire, also speed-reading John Grisham’s The Last Juror, an Irish taxi driver collection; Tales From the Rearview Mirror and Short Fellow, a biography of Charles J. Haughey. So a little varied there I’m sure.

Comics wise, Ultimate Spider-man continues to entertain and I even broke and bought volume 11 in softback because I wanted more. Superman: Birthright, overrated. It’s nothing special at all.

CoH got deactivated today, it’s all Eve for the near future. Lets me watch stuff at the same time too. Moving towards the second half of season 5 of The West Wing and loving it. It’s nowhere near as good as the first two but it’s still good solid enjoyment. Started watching The Wire after numerous V and AllTV types shouted about it. It’s not half bad at all and I’m enjoying it but 6 episodes in, I’m not sure what it’s getting all the hype over.

Other stuff. I read the first two Ross O’Carroll-Kelly books recently. They weren’t bad, I would have enjoyed them a lot more a few years ago. Made me smile, really made me smile (and go off the rails a little) in one place.

“The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, ‘You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.'”

Recieved that via text a few minutes ago. I was out walking Hebe in the cold and generally feeling sorry for myself. I don’t think it could have been better timed. It helped, man did it help.

Poor Hebe is now stuck with me for two weeks. Alex is off home in the US and I’m looking after Hebe. Poor dog.

I need to to a full reinstall on my computer. It’s not happy as of life. I went over to Scan to order a new harddrive and found another £100 of stuff just seemd to appear in my basket and decided I’d wait a while. I’m not sure why really. I just did

Oh yeah I’m on proper perscription drugs now. Back to work Thursday I expect and there isn’t anything for it. Come back if I still have the problem in a week. I can’t really take all that off work. Aside from the fact I’d go mad…not that work will help with that but the doc said I have to keep moving. So I guess I can pace at my desk for a while. I use to do that a lot, back when I think I gave a fuck and had stuff to say. Way back..

I think I may have to go and watch Lost in Translation now. I just flicked on the soundtrack and it may be just what I’m in the mood for. Then again…maybe not.

I saw a preview of Team America: World Police earlier in the week. It wasn’t bad, it was a whole lot better than I was expecting. Very funny in places, enough to keep it going till the end but with typical US/South Park humour it repeated the same joke too many times. Still enjoyable and worth seeing.

It’s late and I can’t sleep. I’m going to be up early in the morning anyway. I need to make sure I’m not sleeping late so that I’m able to wake up early on Thursday. Not sure what I’ll actually end up doing but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

My shares may be worth selling. It would be a holiday paid for. I shall have to keep a close eye on them over the next week or so.

Sleep

There are many things I would like to say to you, but I don’t know how.

It’s been a while. This one has been drawn together over a few days from a few things in draft.

– I’m not feeling any better at all despite double doses of drugs. Sleeping is hell as I can’t manage to lie down anyway comfortably. I’ve let my boss know I won’t be in tomorrow and probably not Tuesday either. I can see my doctor on Tuesday which happens to be when I had an appointment anyway. Fucking doctors over here. I’m annoyed as hell I missed last night, it should have been a damn good night.

– Oasis are laughed at a bit these days perhaps rightfully so. A lacklustre Glastonbury and no-one having given a shit about “Brit-pop” in a few years probably hasn’t helped. It’s worth remembering that the first two albums are stunners. It’s somewhat surprising every now and again when in the right frame of mind a track from either can just hit hard. I don’t think any after are worth bothering with, at least they have never really appealed to me.

– I’ve been trying to put something together about Dublin. I realised what was going on, or at least a way that I can describe, even I way I can understand what I’m thinking. It’s a romantic notion. That’s all. Well it’s very easy to type “That’s all” but its a very hard thing to get over. Not that I even think it needs to be gotten over. I’m already flying off the tracks here. There isn’t a whole lot to go back to. Job wise, I think I could go as far as to say there is nothing. It’s not true I could walk into a whole lot of entry level jobs but I would have to take at least a 30% paycut and that’s in number figures alone. I can’t do that, I have too high a style of living. I have too high a one generally but I can’t do that. One day with luck. Until then, I don’t know. I’m either going back on a regular basis or I’m not. It’s really as simple as that. In late September next year I’m going to go back for at least a week. One of my cousins is getting married and it will be a good chance to see my extended family. It will probably involve a weekend in Galway too which should be good. As to Dublin again, who knows?

– On more musicwise. A while ago I got a copy of The Michael Jackson 30th anniversay concert. I finally got around to watching it last night. It was awesome. The man is a legand and deservedly so. Someday with luck I’ll get to see a show, fuck knows if there ever will be any more but given the chance I’m going and I’d travel for one. He’s been there since the begining and I’ve never stopped coming back. Bad was the first album I ever owned. The sight of so many people in the crowd being overwhealmed wasn’t really surprising, I don’t understand it, at least I don’t understand it fully but I’m not sure it’s bad thing either. And no I’m not sure if that made sense.

– I’ve been working through the fourth season of The West Wing and damn it’s good telly. I wasn’t expecting the best to be honest, but it’s far more on track than the third and it’s funny and and I care about all most of the characters. Almost done with it now. I am not going to stay up all night watching it. Well at least I hope I’m not, with luck I can sleep for a while.

– Alan Moore knows the score. Thursday was an excellent evening. Nothing like what I expected, but I’m not entirely sure what I expected either. He was smart and funny and it was a good interview. I’m told there was nothing new in it, but I found lots of things new (like his dislike of The Killing Joke). Highly enojyable evening, the show airs sometime early in the new year. It’s due to be 30 minutes but we got close on an hour and 15 of Moore. Rock. I am re-reading all of his Swamp Thing as a result.

– I’ve not been writing much lately. Aside from not wanting to be sitting in the same place for very long I’ve not had much of an inclincation. I did consider, albiet briefly, getting up at 6 this morning when I could not sleep to type some stuff out. I’m behind on emails too. I tracked someone down…well I took the step of using google to find an old email address as I want to try and clear something up. Aside from the fact that I really don’t give a fuck about whatever bad blood went before, I dislike seeing others blamed for something they did not do.

– Eve, man Shiva is everything I wanted and then some. City of Heroes is getting suspended at the end of the month, I’m back playing Eve. So glad I trained up over the past few months. I can fly lots of ships and even a good few of the new ships which have some with Shiva. I actually went mining the other day. So yeah I’m back in there and having lots of fun. New corp all good, making some small money and having some fun. Spending some money too, actually buying good modules and that. It’s nerdy but it’s fun and it keeps me out of trouble. My old alliance (Xetic) actually seems to have grown a pair and went for a formal war declaration. It actually had me thinking about going back to them. Instead of blob wars, anyone in the other alliance could be fired upon anywhere. So much fun… My old corp of course left the alliance in an act of pure cowardice. Carebears/miners/researchers or not, leaving an alliance like that was disgraceful and plainly cowardly. Xetic have every right to be pissed at them. End Nerdage.

– no music, no life.

– I’m not sure I’m going to leave the del.ico.us stuff there. I’ll think about it.

– Moving swiftly along and to cover a whole other musical aspect, this post has been brought to you in association with Pantera’s 1992 classic Vulgar Display Of Power, now to try and sleep.

Tonight there should be drinks in town. For the first time in quite a while there has been an organised lads night out.

I’m at home with lots of anti-inflamatories and pain killers.

joy.

So late on Tuesday I noticed twinge in my lower back. Wrote it off as just being over tired and not feeling the best that day in the first place. Wednesday afternoon it was back and a little worse. Figured I had twisted badly at some stage or something and hoped a nights sleep would help. It seemed to and by Thursday morning there was barely a twinge. However by the time I finshed work yesterday I was having trouble walking. Not so good. Went along to the Alan Moore thing (more on that later) and was in agony for the 30 minutes standing waiting to be let in and then fine for it while I was sitting down. I had to walk home from Camden or wait over an hour for a bus and that was hell. I took well over twice as long as it should have and then I had a whole lot of trouble sleeping. Anyway I lay down wasn’t helping at all.

Of course this morning it’s even worse. I already had a doctors appointment for early next week for something else and I’ve been onto them to see if I can be seen today. I won’t know for another while if they can, I have to ring back at two.

Sitting at the table isn’t too bad but I’m certainly not going to be able to do it for very long.

Not happy, and if the doc can’t fit me in today, it’s either wait till Monday or go find an NHS walk in.

Not happy.