I don’t mind wearing glasses, I rarely never have. I do have contacts somewhere but they are a couple of years old and I really don’t like putting things near my eyes.

There are only a couple of times that wearing em bothers me.

First one is fairly obvious, when it rains. I like the rain, I don’t mind walking in it, I usually quite like it. I just hate it when my glasses get covered in water and I can’t see straight. Just take em off if it gets really bad, but my eyesight is so poor that’s a bad idea.

The second is even less fun. I went to bed pretty late last night, got sucked into a team mission in City of Heroes and it was well after 1 when it finished up. So I stumbled into bed and turned the lights off and put my glasses on the table next to my bed…at least I thought I did. I took close on 10 minutes searching this morning to find where they had fallen off to. Early morning and blindness are not good combinations. So added to delays on both tube lines I take, I was late to work. *sigh*

Have an email from an old friend which has been sitting around for a couple of weeks waiting on a reply. No real reason for it other than it will take a bit of time to reply to and I’ve not made the time to do so. I was thinking about it last night as I did actually being to write a reply.

And here we pause for some work to meet deadlines.

I’m having another one of those mornings where I want to type something out but nothing looks right on the page. So I’ll go off back to my good old standby of a list.

– I have a deep love for Vanilla Sky. I rented it a couple of years ago and have watched it 4 or 5 times since then. I watched the original Abre los ojos last night and enjoyed it. I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as the remake, and I’ll put that down to Cameron Crowe. I love his style and one of the things which help sell me on it was the soundtrack. I went out and bought it very soon after seeing the movie and it’s one of the few soundtracks I own. I’m listening to it now infact.

– I saw Shrek 2 recently and enjoyed it alot. It made me laugh quite a bit and despite having little or no plot it was thoroughly entertaining. Well worth seeing.

– Saturday night was fun. Only a few people showed up so we sat around a table and chatted for the evening. There was much picking on Jamie and a couple of stories retold everytime someone joined the group. Good fun all round and a late one at The Scream.

– I’ve started playing City of Heroes and it’s good fun. I do like the way you can have many characters on many servers. It gives a lot more range and choice to start over or to just play around with things. Going strong on one character at the moment and had a whole lot of fun running around in a team yesterday. Not sure of it’s long term playability and it’s bloody pricy to start playing but I’m onboard for a couple of months anyway.

– How the fuck is a Nokia connection cable £27 fucking quid? Bastards.

– I am stupidly excited about Spider-Man 2. Apparently there is a showing on Tuesday of next week being mooted in a private V folder and I’m hopefully on the list in time to get a ticket for it. Cannot. Wait. It looks ace and all the reviews are good. I’m so tempted to just go home and watch it but I want to see it on the big screen…and then go home and watch it!

– Every day brings more and more hope for Batman Begins. It’s all starting to look like a Batman movie should look like and will with a bit of luck restore the franchise and give us a few years of good movies. Now that would be nice.

– I have to pack my entire desk by the weekend. This is probably a good thing but I have deadlines this week. I don’t think they are in any danger but a combination of factors is putting some pressure on em. I hope to throw out so much shit from my desk and be able to start clear. Tho we are getting much smaller desks from the sound of it which won’t be good. It also means that Friday afternoon is pretty much a write-off which isn’t too bad I guess.

– Tesco Mega-Value shelves are great for lunch!

– 8 people get into a lift. 1 person presses for the second floor. No-one else thinks to hit a button and seconds later we end up back at the ground floor to a few surprise faces inside and outside of the lift. Not the best Monday morning start but it was a laugh.

– Man I’m really shit at sending emails. Really really shit. Catching up on a couple now and it suddenly just struck me that I had a friend due in London last week that I never heard from.

– I just spent two hours in the CD lab, I have no idea what I did to deserve it. It’s a joy when things go right, otherwise it’s a complete fucking nightmare.

– And yes I still have to write up the rest of Glastonbury.

Jamie’s in town this evening so it’s off to the Ben Crouch for drinks. Coke for me. I’m officially not drinking for the near future. With festivals and work stuff over the past few weeks it’s been much heavier than I like and so time to stop.

I don’t really know where to start but I’m in the mood to type for a while.

– My Pixies DiscLive was waiting on my desk when I got back this morning. This is a good thing. Pleased with it overall.

– I’m moving desk next week, not just me and not just desk. The entire department is moving to another building. This is going to be hell but at least it means I have to clean out a bit. Already sounds like we are loosing quite a bit of space.

– Computer is still fucked and it’s really annoying me. Fonts all looks every so slightly out of focus and I don’t know whats wrong with it.

– Got a new phone today, at last. It’s a Nokia 6820, so expect some mobblogging shortly. Have to go and find a datacable now. £40 for a single cable is a fucking joke and CPW should be ashamed. I’ll get something a whole lot cheaper than that…or borrow one in work.

– The bloody tube strike made my bus journey this morning almost 2 hours. It was 10.30 before I made it into the office. Was very glad I had a book with me.

– Yay for HMV’s sale. I bought some DVD’s at silly prices. Some stuff I’ve been wanting to get for a while but would not pay full price for including Abre Los Ojos, Insomnia and Solaris, the latter two being the original versions natch. Not really done some movie watching in a while and I want to change that. I have a lot of stuff to watch and aim to start sitting down and catching up on em over the next few weeks.

– My music taste has changed so much over the years it’s amazing. A few years ago I’d never have considered listening to any Christy Moore or Billy Bragg or The Beatles or The Smiths…the list goes on. I guess it’s just being much more open to things now than I ever was before.

– Do events of so long ago actually mean anything? I’m pretty sure not, they don’t have any effect on my life now and they have not done in a long time. They don’t really evoke any feelings either.

– Sometimes I have a deep deep loathing for the internet. This is one of those times. Goodnight.

In happier news, I have just found out that Hope of the States are playing Camden next week and have booked myself a ticket.

In 5 years time they are going to be one of the biggest bands on the face of the planet.

Fuck sake. 3 hours to get my computer up and running again after what should have been a simple driver update.

My fonts are still fucked. *sigh*. And of course system restore failed…

So having just stupidly checked my email, I have a meeting when I get back to have some feedback on my other interview.

Guess that’s a no then.

Fuck 🙁

My clothes are so muddy they need a second wash. I’ve just put them back in the washing machine and will have to set them off again in the morning. Wow.

So yes then, Glastonbury. Just a brief rundown for now.

– Thursday.
Arrive pretty much on time. No problems on the train and I had a seat all the way down. This was good. Arrive to find myself unable to get in touch with the people I was to be camping with. Wandered around the site for about an hour trying to get through on mobile with no joy. Rang another friend and met up with him so I had some help to get my tent set-up. Not impressed and not how I wanted to start the festival. Anyway got set-up in an allright spot and was happy enough then.

Went off to meet up with Mr Watson by the Cider bus, my home away from home for much of the weekend. So we drank some warm cider, some whiskey, some schnapps and some lager and then managed to meet up with most of the rest of the V contingent. There was drinking and merriment till late.

– Friday
Caught a bit of Kasabian opening the Other Stage and they were not bad at all. The afternoon was quietish and I hung around the other stage with Ciaran for most of it. I am Kloot weren’t bad at all and I’ve just dropped their cd into my Amazon basket. The Rapture weren’t bad and Snow Patrol were a bland Ash. Then was Franz Ferdinand. It was an excellent set and the crowd were right there behind them…but the sound system was in trouble. It was fading in and out and spoiled the performance quite badly. May try and catch em live at some stage soon.

Then, the big hitters. Got around to the Pyramid Stage for The Kings of Leon. Excellent stuff. A lot of new tracks, not surprising given they had an hour on stage and only one 45 minute album out. Anyway liked the sound of the new stuff (I’m was already onboard for the new album) and the tracks from the current album were excellent. Enjoyed the hell out of ’em.

Oasis. Controversial already…for all the wrong reasons. It was a lacklustre set. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and it was exactly the singalong I was hoping for but there was no energy coming from the stage and it was hard to tell if they actually gave a fuck. A decent setlist, it opened with Rock N’Roll Star and went on from there. Probably in the minority but I was very glad to have Songbird on there. Overall I enjoyed it, I wasn’t feeling very well at the time and considered leaving about 10 minutes into it and that took a bit away from my view too. Straight to bed afterwards and slept through till 11 or so the next morning.

– Saturday.
It rained.

It rained some more and it brought the mud.

That really did just set the tone for the rest of the weekend. I started the day with the 22-20’s on the second stage in the pissing rain. Good set, decent support from a wet crowd and good stuff. Glad I have some of their cd’s already. Then it was around to the main stage to check out Scissor Sisters. Not impressed. Not really my thing and not worth any of the hype around them. So I fucked off to meet Al at the cider bus. Ended up in the circus tent for a while and wandered around bumping into various other people. Back to the Other Stage for British Sea Power which was great. Really good set, lots of energy and a really enthusiastic crowd. Then the evening’s dashing began. Over to the New Tent to see Hope of the States. I’m going to deal with that in a whole other post and indeed I’m considering actually writing something about it and seeing if Robot Fist or the like would be interested. Suffice it to say one of the real highlights.

Anyway, a run back to the Other Stage (not fun in the mud, let me tell ya!) to catch Damien Rice already in progress. Timed really nicely so that I slide to the field as he covers Creep. Well pleased with my timing. Even more pleased that as I’d wandered with Al earlier in the day we had caught the last two tracks of an acoustic set on a small stage. Made me much happier about missing the first 25 minutes. Good set, got a cover of Hallelujah and an excellent Seven-Nation Army cello cover.

And then, figuring that as I was given the chance to see a Beatle, I should take it. I went around to the Pyramid Stage to see Paul McCartney. Arrived about 20 minutes into it and the audience seemed downright passive. There was nothing going on. There was a reaction for the Beatle’s tunes but that was really about it. Surprisingly, he looked very nervous and I’m sure it didn’t help that it looked as if he’d be struggling for the evening. I arrived a couple of tracks before he did The Long and Winding Road. This got the crowd and as I wasn’t really enjoying the rest I was thinking about heading off to see something else. But I ended up staying. I think it was just because I wanted Come Together and Hey Jude. A few tracks later we got Eleanor Rigby which was the turning point, that was followed by another two classic’s Drive My Car and the sheer joy of Penny Lane. Around the crowd you could see people eating their words. This was a good act, and a headlining act. A few songs later when we were treated to Live and Let Die complete with fireworks and pyrotechnics, the entire crowd was won over. It was just one of those moments and the evening became a fantastic success. Getting Hey Jude, Let it Be and a rare live Helter Skelter. It was a memorable experience and I never thought I’d be saying that.

More tomorrow, it’s sleep time. I’ll leave you with a moral dilemma to ponder.

Here’s a dilemma for you… With all your honor and dignity what would you do? This test only has one question, but it’s a very important one.

Please don’t answer it without giving it some serious thought. By giving an honest answer you will be able to test where you stand morally.

The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation, where you will have to make a decision one way or the other. Remember that your answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous. Please scroll down slowly and consider each line – this is important for the test to work accurately.

You’re in Florida…In Miami, to be exact. There is great chaos going on around you, caused by a hurricane and severe floods. There are huge masses of water all over you. You are a CNN photographer and you are in the middle of this great disaster. The situation is nearly hopeless. You’re trying to shoot very impressive photos. There are houses and people floating around you, disappearing into the water. Nature is showing all its destructive power and is ripping everything away with it.

Suddenly you see a man in the water, he is fighting for his life, trying not to be taken away by the masses of water and mud. You move closer. Somehow the man looks familiar.

Suddenly you know who it is — it’s George W. Bush!

At the same time you notice that the raging waters are about to take him away, forever. You have two options. You can save him or you can take the best photo of your life. So you can save the life of George W. Bush, or you can shoot a Pulitzer prize winning photo, a unique photo displaying the death of one of the world’s most powerful men.

And here’s the question (please give an honest answer):

Would you select color film, or rather go with the simplicity of classic black and white?