Month: March 2005

I seem to have lost the will to read recently. I’ve a whole lot of books that are waiting to be read and I’ve tried to start 2 or 4 of them with no joy. I get a few pages in and I just don’t feel like doing anymore. For the past three days I’ve not taken a book to work. I’ve read Metro on the way to work in the mornings and just listened to some music on the way homes. It’s a phase I go through every now and again. I hope it doesn’t last very much longer. I usually like reading and it makes the journey each way easier.

Strangely, it does not affect comics at all. I’ve been re-reading some old Superman stuff, from Death of etc to the more recent No Limits reboot. Some of it is fun, some of it is not, it’s too bogged down in continuity.

Home tonight to finish off the third season of Oz and then to possibly sleep early. Tomorrow being a long day and all that, but I’m looking forward to it alot.

The sun is shining.

It’s been a while since it’s been like this. I went out for breakfast about 45 minutes ago and it took a second to realise something was different. As I crossed the road, I realised, the sun was shining and it wasn’t cold. In fact it was even close to warm. Spring may well really be upon us. Soon I’ll be able to spend lunch outside again.

I was going to go to Stonehenge this weekend for the spring equinox. One of the guys in work invited me a long and I thought it would be fun. There is full access to the stones and a whole lot of pagan rituals and fun and games like that. It happens to be overnight on Saturday too, so no problems about getting there and back or taking time off or anything like that. I’m still thinking about it but there is a birthday party on which promises to be fun and a couple of people who haven’t been around in a while travelling down.

Before then, tomorrow is St. Patricks day. Of course, there are drinks going on. I’m sure there will be many many many drinks. There are a whole lot of people coming out boozing from work and I’m looking forward to it. I’m not looking forward to Friday morning at all. But tomorrow with a whole lot of good friends is about the best and indeed the only way to celebrate seen as I’m not in Ireland for it…again. Anyway the email has been sent, the troops are preparing to gather and the discussion over St. Patrick being a Welshman has led to much heckling over the coming Six Nations showdown this weekend. This then led to much heckling of Episode III. I don’t quite see the connection myself but the thought stream around here can move pretty damn quickly.

Listening to The Bravery’s selftitled debut this morning. I mentioned that I saw them before, a few months ago late one night in Barfly. They weren’t bad, happy to buy the album on the basis of that, but there really isn’t anything here to live up to the hype they are getting. It’s a decent album and well worth a tenner, but that’s really about it.

I meant to note that I found it strange to hear Peter Gabriel’s Solisbury Hill twice on Sunday. Once as in between act music at the festival and then played by the DJ as I walked into The Dogstar in Brixton. Strange, it’s not a song that I expect to hear much. The first time I was surprised the second even more so.

It is, of course, from the Vanilla Sky soundtrack. Great movie, great soundtrack.

Motivation is hard to create on your own. I don’t think I could be self employed or anything like that.

I just typed that out and then I deleted it and retyped it. Its not true, well its not always true. Sometimes motivation is damn easy to create on your own, maybe not create but certainly build up. There has to be some sort of a result to work towards even if its just personal satisfaction. The problem now is that is there isn’t anything to work towards and it’s impossible to create motivation. There has to actually be something to do for a set amount of time every day but right now there isn’t. There isn’t even something to last for a few hours.

I was thinking last night, that I would love to be able to come into the office and actually try and be happy and be productive here, it would do me the world of good but there just isn’t the opportunity. I have nothing to focus on to drive me. I’m not cut out to just pick up a book and learn without there being something to do with the knowledge and that’s what is killing me. I have so much time that I could use to learn something. I have the tools, I have the books, I have so many smart people around me who I can ask anything but unless I have a deliverable and some sort of a deadline, I just don’t have it in me.

I use to, and to a degree I resent this place for beating it out of me. It takes two to tango of course, I recognise that and I’m guilty but not to the same degree.

On the good news front, it only took one email to HR to remind them that I started working for the company back in Dublin in ’99 (so long ago, it’s scary) and that as such I qualify for the 5 year party next month. Apologies and an invite arrived within hours so that’s good. Looks like its getting a good amount of effort put into it. The new HR director seems to be a breath of fresh air.

That’s actually something there has been a lot of here in recent weeks and it’s helping me get through the day a lot. Something has to and I have a lot of memories of broken promises about how things will change but this time, for once the cynic in me isn’t as loud. I think this could really work.

If it doesn’t, well I don’t know what to do then. Anytime I think about leaving, I remember how easy I have it here. I’m very well paid and when I actually get to do my job I’m good at it. I work with good people and I do sometimes have a chance to learn and develop. It just needs follow through, that’s the big problem. I’ve been on some good courses, some useful to me and some that I managed to blag but none of them have helped in the long run because I don’t get to actually use and build on what I learn. It annoys me a whole lot. A few years ago I could learn for the sake of learning and I could do it myself, I don’t seem to be able to do that anymore.

I felt like writing, so I opened up this window. I didn’t think I had anything to write about, but there ya go.

Yesterday wasn’t so bad. Had a quick drink and a catchup after work and then headed home. Very happy to find the third season of Oz waiting for me and I watched the first 3 episodes of that. Its good stuff, looking forward to watching some more tonight. There was an interesting IM conversation covering a whole lot spread over a couple of these episodes too.

Wearing your heart on your sleeve is an interesting phrase. I like it.

Dara O Briain is a fairly famous (in Ireland anyway) Irish comedian. He was one of the announcer for the St. Pat’s festival on Sunday. I’m not a huge fan but he had to make a couple of jokes of course and what better topic than religion. There was one I like alot so I’m going to steal it and put it up here. He was talking about Catholic Ireland and how you just can’t get away from it. Everyone is born Catholic and you can’t just tear up a membership card or the like and leave it all behind. So the lines went.

Back in the Irish census last year, there was an option for all the atheists among you in the Religion category. “Ethnically Catholic” and it means I’m Irish, I don’t believe in god, but I still fucking hate Rangers.

It made me laugh and I doubt many of you will get it but it made me laugh a whole lot.

It did strike me off thinking about the whole religion thing again and how it was just like that forced upon me and indeed the rest of my family from a young age. I’ve touched on it before and it’s interesting how the little things that perhaps you don’t realise nevermind understand when you are a little kid make perfect sense when you are old enough to realise and ask the questions.

Actually that reminds me of a good example and a story which has nothing to do with that aspect and at the same time has everything to do with it.

I wrote about the IM conversation I had with my sister, Mairead, yesterday morning about her meeting an old classmate of mine in Tokyo. Well sometime later in the morning my dad rang for a chat before he headed off on business for a few days. I was telling him this story and I said I was surprised that the fella had recognised my sister. Having last seen her when she was 15, that would be 7 years ago. And my dad laughed at me and said you’ve changed a bit but your sister hasn’t. It’s the hair. Thinking about this it made perfect sense. Later that afternoon, I was talking to my mother over IM and she was telling me this same story. I expressed the same surprise to her that he had recognised Mairead and she said the exact same thing, the hair. It amused me slightly to hear my parents say the exact same thing un-prompted. Guess that’s one of the reasons they got together or something you learn over so long. And it’s just struck me, they’ve been married 30 years this year.

Fucking hell.

After over a week out of the office, I’m back at my desk this morning and it doesn’t even feel like I’ve been gone. By 11.30 I have no motivation as usual. I do have a deluge of email to work through, I’ve gotten through the important parts and I have a 1 to 1 with my boss this afternoon so that should cover the rest.

While I was waiting for my email to finish downloading (25 fucking minutes), my sister sent me an IM. Turns out she ran into someone I was in school with in Tokyo of all places, and he recognised her. I’ve not seen him in around 7 years, and when he last saw my sister it would have been at least 7 years ago and she’d have been 3 classes below. Small small world.

Yesterday was a long day. I got up early to head into town to the St. Patricks Day Festival and spent the afternoon listening to some live Irish music. It was good fun throughout. Then off to Brixton to see The Mars Volta. That was an expierence. I don’t think I’d go and see them again but I’m glad I did.

I really hate that point in a day dream when there is a sudden realisation that all it is is a daydream and it’s fairly ludicrous. Really, really hate that moment.

By about 3pm today I was very very bored. So I figured I’d go out for a walk with my camera. I’ve lived next to Regent’s Park for over a year and never even been into it. So I spent about 90 minutes wandering. Not many photos, nothing jumped out but it was a nice enough walk.

When I first got there, I had to walk past the Zoo for about 10 minutes to get into the Park itself. I don’t remember the last time I was in a zoo and I was going to go in and spend some time there. At least I was till I found it it was £14 just to get in. A little more than I was prepared to pay and so I just walked and walked.

I got home and Alex suggested pub this evening so I’ve texted the troops and will be heading up to the Washington after dinner. It shall be a light evening for me anyway, I’m not really in the mood for pub but it shall be a better evening than anything else I was able to come up with.

Being an idiot I headed straigt to the Tate Modern this afternoon. I got there and got inside to find all of the ticketing offices closed and no signs up at all for the directions to my exhibt. A quick scoot around found a poster for, and some directions on how to get to the Tate Britain about 7 tube stops away. Good thing I had allowed a whole lot of extra time for walking around and taking photos. So I made it on time no problem at all.

It was a good exhibit, I don’t know anything about art other than what I like. Turner’s work overall was the most impressive of the three. I liked his paintings of the burning of the Houses of Parliament alot, Monet’s 4 afternoon paintings were also excellent. For single paintings, Monet’s Venice at Dusk is deserved of it’s fame but the single painting to jump out and hit hard was also Monet’s ; Waterloo Bridge: Sun in the Fog. It’s not something that images do justice to. I like it alot.

I’m still not feeling 100% so I figured I’d take the riverboat back to the Tate Modern and continue with the planned photo taking. I hadn’t realised how cheap it actually is. Not all that much more than the tube and somewhat more plesant! As soon as we got moving it brought a rush of memories back. The last time I had been on a boat was in Tokyo in November 2002. For some reason I just flashed back to that bigtime. Anyway that was good and I wandered around for a few hours taking photos. Nothing major and all are up on Flickr already. Not that many photos but I did walk for 3 or 4 hours which was nice given I’ve been cooped up at home most of the week.

I’m pretty tired as a result and will crash pretty soon.

It’s Friday now. The week is finally over and it’s not been a good week. I’ve missed two gigs because of this fucking cold so I’m not impressed. I had today off work anyway. I’m booked into to see the “Turner, Whistler, Monet” exhibt at the Tate this lunchtime. I’m going along to that and I hope to spend some time wandering around the Tate and taking some photos. So update on Flickr later.

I hate been off work for so long. Aside from having to catchup on everything when I get back, everything seems to happen when I’m not around. I met a friend to hand over the tickets on Wednesday and he filled me in. Sounds like lots of hopes have just been dashed. So there is the joy of that to go back to. Yay 🙁

I’ve been mainly doing two things this week. Playing games and watching some DVD’s. Neil lent me the first two seasons of Oz recently and I finally got around to watching them. Excellent stuff. HBO seem to just have this knack for doing drama and doing it well. For a first drama show, it certainly laid a whole lot of groundwork to get more out the door. I shall have to track down some more seasons. Speaking of HBO, the new season of Deadwood is excellent. So good, such a good cast. Looking forward to more of this a whole lot.

Games wise, I succumbed to Knights of The Old Republic 2 and my god is it buggy. It’s a whole lot of fun when it works but talk about your rushed release. I have to wonder what sort of QA was done on this. Not just minor bugs but I don’t think I can actually go any further in the game as I wasn’t offered a quest that I need. It’s huge fun when it works as you would expect from a game which lets you build your own lightsabre but so buggy. I’m not going to be happy if I can’t play more till the patch comes out.

And on a similar note the trailer for Episode III finally graces the public. I’ve been waiting to mention this for a while. It’s good, it could even be very good but ya know we have all been here before. The movie isn’t going to live up to it so drop those hopes right back into the pit where they belong.

Now I gotta go to get to the Tate.

Welcome to Saturday night at home not feeling well instead of being out with say a lovely young lady.

*sigh*

I only know it’s Saturday night because my flatmate told me just before she went out. I left work early yesterday not feeling well at all and went home to bed On the way I stopped off to pick up some night nurse to help me sleep. My head was so bad that I had to unplug my radio alarm clock as it was too bright. So I went to bed around 5.30 having taken about a dose and a half of night nurse. Well that did two things. The first one, it knocked me the fuck out. I slept pretty much straight away until 11.00 the next morning. It was a good sleep. The second thing it did and man did it do this, dreams, I dreamed like I hadn’t in a long time. So real, so vivid, and so solid in my memory. The strange thing is one of them was perfectly normal and wasn’t so much a dream as a dream about me sorting something out. The second was way out there but no less real at the time. The first (naturally) links directly to my life, the second not so much. That was the note to self I left earlier to write about.

I seem to have kicked off a flickr craze. It’s shot around the office and my family and lots of people upping to pro. Glad to see it, it’s a good service and deserves some support.

I played some CoH today, more than I intended infact. I just completed The Manticore TF. It was pretty easy overall, shame the team was bit loopy otherwise we’d have had no deaths at all. Mainly fun. I’ll ding 36 soon.

I’ve also caught up on a whole lot of TV Lost has cemented itself nicely as the best thing on television. So well written and so well acted. Show of the year without a doubt. 24 continues to entertain which is good. It’s fun, a whole lot more than the last season. Alias has picked up with the two parter and that was fun for a change. The show was broken because the arc was too over-blown, the solution was not to remove the arc (and the fans 3 year investment!) but to scale it back and find a balance. I’m hoping they’ll keep this up.
And I love the internet. Screener DVD’s of the first two episodes of season 4 of The Shield. Most importantly, Glenn Close NOT annoying! A good character and a good performance. She takes nothing from the show and seems to add a whole lot. Two fun episodes nicely showing the new status quo and setting up the season ahead. I’m glad. I was worried this would tank after 3 excellent seasons.

Note to self for next time. “Death Of Superman”, CoH, capes and fly.

Now I’m going to bed.

Dreams, they complicate my life.