So time to type for a little while.
Today has been quiet enough. Hung around online for a while earlier. Never did make it into town, but went to Clapham Junction for some storage boxes. Threw some comics and books into them with more to go tomorrow. Decided to hit the cinema afterall but swung by Blockbuster first to have something to watch tomorrow. Went to Ed’s for a diner dinner and then walked on to the cinema.

I saw The Man Who Sued God which was funny enough. As usual the funniest bits are in the trailers but I enjoyed it. There was a really good quote which I wanted to remember to put up here but I can’t remember it fully. Ah well, it was about the Greeks, trust me you’d all have loved it.

Other that that, there isn’t all that much. It’s typical I’ve had so much I wanted to type and now that I can, it’s just no there.

Tipping I’ve meant to mention for a while. Tipping is a good thing, at least 10%. It’s very rare that I don’t tip, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t. I’ll often do 15% even if the service isn’t perfect. If I enjoyed my food and generally felt looked after, then why not? It’s a very different culture between lots of people. The English tip on the low side when they even tip and the Americans on the high side. Something is of course better than nothing.

Someday I’m going to be in a position where I can force the world to hear the beauty hitting my eardrums right now and they will fall down and thank me for it.

I’m reading two books at the mo. I don’t usually like to but I couldn’t remember where I put one and I needed a book. So I’m reading Luke Rinehart’s The Dice Man and my god do I want to go out and buy a die, and I’m reading Peter David’s Knight Life.

Oh I was watching the news last night I think it was and the newscaster said that 3 British troops had been killed in Iraq in an unprovoked attack. I was divided between amusement and frustration. Of course it was a provoked attack, the British invaded their country. There isn’t really much more provocation than that is there?

Grabbing some ‘food’ in McDonalds late one night during the week I had a bit of a, I don’t know what you would call it but it was strange. I was sitting down facing the serving counter. There was a girl in the queue who for some reason seemed very familiar. After about a second I realised that she looked exactly like one of my ex girl friends. Posture, dress sense, hair style was all exactly the same. Reason was telling me there was no way but every time I looked at her I was convinced it was her. Then of course she turned around and it wasn’t her. I was somewhat relieved. There are some ex girl friends I would not mind seeing again and some I would love to see again, she didn’t fall into either of those categories.

Now this is very cool news:
“Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation’s programme archives.” Details here

– A houseboat would be nice.
– My flatmate is away, I’ve taken the chance to wash everything that I own, almost.
– Willpower and more so the lack of is an interesting topic at the moment.
– I need a haircut and I’m very tempted to get it cut short. It’s too long and not really much good at the moment. I had people I’ve known for years claim to not remember me with short hair.

I’m missing Dublin more and more these days. I guess it’s because I’m unhappier in London than I have been in a while but it’s still there nagging quite a bit. I think it’s also strangely not helped by the fact my team is mainly Irish. Two of them are in Dublin for the weekend and all have been back more recently than I have. I don’t know exactly what it is but I want something that isn’t London but at the same time it needs to be familiar.
I’m working on a small possibility of having a week in France for the first week of September. My family are over there on holidays and I might just see if I can meet up with them for a weekend before heading into Paris for a few days. Wander around, see some sights, speak the language and generally chill. Even the thought of that sounds so very good. I guess we’ll just see how it goes.

This keyboard is still getting to me, but a lot less. Typing is ok, just editing and navigation is still iffy. It’s almost full keyboard layout which of course I’m not expecting from a laptop so it’s throwing me. Of course I’m happy to have it and be back online 🙂

Not that this is a complaint in any way at all but I miss not having a mouse. A touchpad just isn’t the same.

So it’s been a little slow around here for a while. I think I’ll just go with a list of stuff and see what happens.

– Nick lent me one of his laptops so I’m back online for a while. This is a good thing and I appreciate it lots. The keyboard is a little strange so I’m getting use to typing on it.

– It’s been a really bad week in work for most of the department. There has been a lot of stuff going on. It was mainly over on Thursday night and as we were all going to a party anyway we went on to celebrate freedom for some folks. However that all changed when we sitting around the table everyone’s phone starts to ring at pretty much the same time. One of the lads was knocked off his motorbike leaving the office. Luckily enough he’s not hurt all that badly but the first reports we got sounded really bad. It rather unsurprisingly changed the mood of the evening.

– Friday night we partied again, with everything that had happened we needed to blow off some steam so we did. Lots of beer, some pool and lots of talking shite. A good night mostly.

– It’s a long weekend here, Monday is a Bank Holiday so lots of people have gone away. For the few of us still in London, we arranged to meet up and do something. After the last couple of nights, no-one really wanted a heavy one so we figured we would hit the pool hall for the evening. It was a good night. 5 of us showed up and we got a couple of tables and played some pool. I’ve improved a hell of a lot. I lost 4 games last night, one to everyone. One of them being my own stupid fault but I won at least 15 games. I guess it’s to do with the amount I’ve played recently but I’ve beat people whom I don’t normally beat, and I’ve beat them well. So all good.

– Yesterday afternoon I hit my local comic book shop. Nothing really of interest except Batman: Child of Dreams by Kia Asamiya. This is one of the best Batman books I’ve read in a long time. It’s a piece which was serialised in a manga magazine in Japan and it just got the hardcover treatment from DC. It’s beautiful, the art work is stunning, gothic, dark and haunting. Exactly that Batman should be. I shall be looking for some of this as my wallpaper during the week. Very very happy with it.

– No other real plans for the weekend, a couple of movies I think. I want to head into town this afternoon and pick up a couple of bits and pieces.

– Just a little apathy going on at the moment.

Normal blogging has resumed for the next few days and I am online so ping me 🙂

Oh, I’m not online on my work nic, looks like I left my machine on.

Head hurts. Can’t believe today is only Wedesday.

– just had a really good meeting which was exactly what I needed to be able to feel better about myself, a lot better.
– I thought the last entry was posted yesterday, does that give you an idea of the kind of day I’m having?

– Going now, might be playing pool for the night, might not. Might be home early, might not.

Right so I’m pretty unhappy in work. There are lots of things going on and most of them are not good. It’s like on big black hole where stuff is going and nothing makes sense and nothing is good.

Yesterday a couple of the people around me complained it was cold and rang facilities. I scoffed at them as I didn’t think it was cold at all. By about 6pm I was in fact freezing and suffering from it. Oops. Stayed in work till eight to look after something, I think it’s safe to say that will be the last time I do that for the foreseeable future.

Went out and played some pool for the night with a couple of beers. It was good fun and then home to sleep.

It’s all just swirling around out of control at the moment. There are good signs on some fronts

So it’s Tuesday now I think. Last night was a quiet one as it badly needed to be.
I went home and I did sweet fuck all.

– Watched the end of Attack of the Clones which I still think wasn’t handleded too badly at all. Love the way the Clone army are under Yoda’s command and that the Star Destroyers are used by the Jedi.
– Watched something else but I can’t remember what in the hell it was, then again I’m not even..aha I just watched some of the extras on the disk.
– I have Risk for my PDA and I’m enjoying that lots and lots 🙂
– Dave was in Dublin for the weekend and brought back some Tayto. Lots of people happy with this, me being one of them.
– I’m in a surprisingly foul mood these days and I can’t quite put my finger on why.
– I could be in work until 8 tonight.
– My neck hurts, I felt it click strangely last night and it’s stiff and sore now 🙁

I have no idea what tonight will be like, a night of pool would be good but I don’t know, depends when I get out I guess and who is around and blah blah blah blah.

– Sometimes everyone really can suffer just because of one person and so needlessly.

– The Science Museum has an exhibition on about The Titanic now. I’ll bet they had a huge increase in numbers this morning. I had been planning on seeing this, so I shall have to sort that out pretty soon. The IMAX there is also showing Ghosts of The Abyss. I think an afternoon there has to be done and soon

– Awesome, I’ve been wanting to go and see Blonde for a while and I see it’s on special at the moment. Thursdays seem to be specials all day, perhaps I shall take Thursday week off and have a day out.

– Pay day on Friday. Need to sort out booking tickets for Iron Maiden for a few of us in December. Then I see some Radiohead tickets are still on sale and some Stereophonics would be good. Need to get back into the gig mood.

– Work is under way on the fourth Sigur Ros album 🙂

– So better late than never the build arrives and of course it’s lacking. *sigh* deadlines make such a nice sound as they whoosh by.

Right, lots of things so a quick point by point run down I think.

– Friday was fucked up beyond all belief. Plans for the night were for myself and Nick to go to a birthday party in town. About 5:15 this all fell apart when something happened in work. The plans then changed to drinking heavily in the pub right across the road trying to a) figure out what in the hell just happened and b) support some friends. It was an entirely fucked up evening.

– Saturday was not so fucked up but still a little strange. I was heading into town to pick up some things and felt like a movie. So I gave Patrick a call and we met up. Freddy Vs.Jason was the night’s movie and it was fun. I laughed quite a bit and enjoyed it a lot. Good fun all round.

– Sunday was not fucked up at all. I had a quiet morning in bed and then feeling like something to do for the afternoon I read in the park for a while. Getting bored of this, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean which was a whole load of fun and well worth seeing. Johnny Depp was excellent and stole every scene he was in. It had Zombie Pirate Monkeys! Great, great fun.

– I’ve always had a thing for The Titanic, I wrote what you Americans would call a paper on her for my final exams in school. It was one that you get to prepare before hand so I spent months studying her and reading about her. So when I got home last night and Titanic was halfway through on the beeb, I had to keep watching. It’s a movie that always gets to me. Watching the ship slowly sink and then break apart is harrowing. Seeing people slide along decks, fall into the water and be pushed into boats just gets to me. This happened, maybe not exactly as the movie depicts but too close for comfort. The band playing on deck as the ship sinks is something that has always stayed with me and gets me in the movie everytime. Now if only it had been done without the need for the love story, it would be a truly great movie.

– Teachers, I picked up the first season on DVD and spent the weekend watching it. It’s good fun and it’s funny and the sarcasm makes me laugh. Great cast, the third season is really missing the main cast members. I enjoyed the hell out of these over the weekend, it’s a shame there are only 8 episodes.

– Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia by Greg Rucka was excellent. I’ve liked the cover for a long time and Rucka is a damn fine writer. So when the softback came out I had to give it a try. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I’ve never read much on the character and this was another case of buy something for the creative team and with a bit of luck it’ll be good. With this team, how could it not be. I don’t know if this is enough to get me onto a singles run but it’s going to be thought about.

– The Lovely Bones is the book of choice at the moment. It’s a little haunting. I had to put it down after the first chapter. Almost finished it and enjoying it a lot. I had originally thought it wasn’t my kind of book but I’d try it anyway, but I’m not sure anymore. I think it is my kind of book and I’m just surprised so many other people in the ‘mainstream’ found it to be their kind of book.

– Last night I really missed the net. It was around 11pm and I was bored and more than anything I wanted to be able to come here and type. The lend of a laptop isn’t happening for various reasons and the budget isn’t going to stretch to a new computer anytime soon so that’s just the way it’s going to have to be I guess. I don’t have to be happy with it which is good, because I’m not. In fact I’m quite unhappy with it 🙁

– I’m annoyed with some people and more annoyed that I now think less of them. Some things are important, as much as you might talk about things, NDAs and confidentially and that are important and they need to be respected. You can make up all the reasons you want for not following them, but they are not good enough.

– Music at the moment is So Much for The City by The Thrills. An Irish band in the process of making it big. Heard good things about them and the album is selling well, so being slave to the fashions I picked it up. Good solid album. I can’t think what genre they fall under, acoustic rock maybe? Good stuff with the first song Santa Cruz being the best.

– Picking up a phone and talking to someone about anything use to be an option. It doesn’t work like that anymore and sometimes that’s a really bad thing.

– I watched Back to the Future a few days ago. It’s a great movie and it’s not dated at all. I was quite impressed by that. It’s a good movie, and one going on the list to buy.

– Last night I was so bored I started to watch Attack of the Clones, it’s not as bad as I remembered but some of the love scenes are really really shit. Left off the last hour as it was late and I was tired but that’s on the list to go ahead and watch tonight.

– Bad atmosphere here, really bad. It’s a shit morning and it doesn’t help that there are build issues meaning I don’t have a big chunk of work to just dive into. Fuck it all.