What Type of girl?

Last night headed to the Thieves Neck with Nick Becky and Jono, the chat was focused mainly on relationships.

Becky had uncovered and removed Nicks P0rn stash causing him much embarrassment then annoyance, then more embarrassment when she reviled she had show them to her mother!

In typical style she started asking me about women, what my type? Well to be honest I am not sure I have a type I've fancied load of girls, blond brunette, brown skinned fair haired. I'm not currently seeing anyone nor is there anyone I am particularly interested in after wasting last year trying and failing to meet anyone nice on the Internet and not being the type of guy who can pull when I go out my opportunities are pretty limited.

However my friends are now increasingly couples, and they don't want me to be the third wheel so keep asking the questions. Martin and Charlotte are more blatant I don't think they actually want me around anymore unless I've got someone else in tow oh dear.

Trouble is no-one seems to want to know me, I get on well with the girlfriends of my friends but on meeting me people (girls) don't seem to be attracted. I've lost weight I even do my hair and make somewhat of an effort but it hasn't made much of a difference. I guess being an introverted depressive doesn't help oh well perhaps one day.

Funny

In and effort to cheer yself up found a cool linux xgl demo and live cd.

Then I saw this from Wired table of miscontents.

:(

I feel depressed, even more than usual, got an email for Alison she is off for more adventure and I am still plodding along without a direction. Days like today at work make me wonder why I don't just buy a ticket and leave, anywhere would be better.

It's not that I have such a bad life its just I'm bored so bored I have done anything interesting in ages its just easy to be a clone another cog in the wheel.

I get home to my parents house and they are the same nothing changes they refuse to make even the slightest deviation I love them but they drag me into their malaise especially my dad he just has no ambition sometimes I feel like he actually goes out of his way to fail how can he have wasted so much talent? It's always excuses, and provocation, never action, I don't want to be like that.

2 Films

Tonight decided to stay in and chill, I've spent a good portion of the day working on the web project I think I am getting a bit closer to being useful but who knows.

Rented a couple of videos from block buster, Serenity and Ghost in the Shell 2. Serenity is some sort of tie into firefly the aborted Joss Whedon project, it was really to my taste to be honest, too many American frontier euphemisms for my liking, the state versus the individual, good guys on the edge and all that I've seem it am million times in one guises or another, to me its a fallacy sold by the corporations of ones with power to distract us from the truth but that&apos ;s another story.

Ghost in the Shell 2 was immensely confusing, even as Japanese films go it was incomprehensible, at its base its a continuation of the original the major ghost has disappeared into the void leaving Batou alone and adrift. The entire plot revolves around a his investigation into murder perpetrated by guinoids (robots designed for sexual pleasure) during his investigation he begins to question his sanity and the increasingly blurry line between human's and machines consciousness reality and dreams. There are all sorts of great quotes and dialogue but its very hard to follow and the plot is paper thin.

Trout fishing

Ian called me and arranged to go out on a Friday night! It seems now he no longer works at TGI he has a bit more time to spend with his friends which is excellent.
A few hours later he and I were sat in the beer garden of the John Millington, he was enjoying a beer but I decided to drive seeing as I have had a stomach bug the last few days.
We had a chat about business, life and how great outdoor heaters are even if they are causing global warming. A little later Phil joined us for more merriment, talking about Akido, life the universe and everything. We were getting ready to make tracks about 11.15 when two women started loitering around the table after asking for a light and being given a box of Zanshin matches they started chatting well I say chatting taking the piss would be more accurate unfortunately they were too stupid or drunk to realise we were doing the same.
Next we missioned to the Kennelworth to join the TGI crew after work, straight away I didn't like one of the guys with them he was a totally arrogant bastard. Phil was getting progressively more smashed on Jim Bean and Ian was chatting to faye on the plus side one of the Fridays girls Amanda was particularly attractive so at least I had somewhere to rest my eyes ;)
After kicking out time Faye Ian Phil and Myself headed to the Spicy Hut for a curry, and more chat it was fun except on the way out Ian moaning about his foot! I am sure it wasn't too bad mate you seemed to be walking alright to me :P

This is how it works

I've just ben listening to Regina Spektors brnad new single on the radio, its really good though I still prefer the current tracks fidelity on her myspace. I love the verse "you peer inside yourself and take the things you like".
Today was a weird one at work, this morning I got to go to a project meeting regarding our competitors web project, I have never attended that sort of high level meeting before, to be honest I felt out of place not least because I have had some sort of stomach bug the last couple of days. In the end nothing much happened I think we will be ready to show something much more advanced on when our time comes.
Watched a Russian film last night called Lylia 4 Ever about a young girl growing up on the ex Soviet Republic who after she abandoned by her mother falls into a spiral of drugs sex and eventually prostitution and the freedom of death. It was very depressing but well filmed, you felt sorry for Lylia but powerless to helpthe poverty, the hatred felt real I wonder how far away from that sort of life some people in the UK are.

Summer Evenings

After spending yet another frustrating day working from home, most of it on the phone explaining how to get things working I needed a relaxing evening. Fortunatly Bruce Nick Becky and Jono felt the same way so we headed down to the Davenport Arms for a couple of drinks and to catch the end of the Germany Italy game, which Italy won in style.
It was nice to sat outside the primised storm never appeared so it was hot and sticky, Becky and Nick seemed well she was teasing him about marrage and other things as usual, Jono offered them a tent to go camping in her response was a polite no then a kick in the ribs to Nick.
Bruce was in a good mood, havent seen him very frequently recently thanks to nights out, Ninaing and his cousins wedding.

Last Train Home (Never fall in love again)

Tonight after a hot and sticky day at work, it was a very hot and raucous concert at the Apollo Manchester. Joining a full house Phil and I went to see the Lost Prophets. They are a pretty hard rock band interspersing quiet slow pieces with loud fast rock, they played a really good set a lot of songs of the new album (which I don't have yet but ordering now) interspersed with their old classics my personal favourite were last train home and last summer.

I didn't realise but a large part of their fanbase seemed to be teenage girls which made me feel a bit like an ageing rocker surrounded by young women. It was fun event, the band really got the crowd going. The whole place screaming along to the songs, my ears are really ringing. Thanks to them being young girls they were shorter than me, a rarity at gigs so I could actually see really well bonus!

During the last song the crowd went mental a huge human whirlpool dragging more and more people in front of us into a human vortex, were were all drenched the high temperature coupled with lots of people jumping around really made the temperature soar. I am horse thanks to shouting I ache and I am tired but it was worth it, I had a great night though.

I've actually got this post finished there are currently two sat in the drafts folder and a load of pictures I need to upload, hopefully Ill find time soon, but I have been out a lot this weekend,
Rock on!

More Bbqs and leaving dos

I felt a bit rough this morning after the excesses of last night it had been a good one though. I woke up this morning sweating alcohol, not good I had a breakfast and sat and read the paper drinking some orange juice think that sorted me out a bit so stupidly i decided to go to the gym, I dont think I have ever been so hot and sweaty I felt like I was going to collapse by the time i finished. One of the big beefy bastard asked me to spot him whilst he lifted, felt like a proper gym goer.
This afternoon there was a bbq at Andy's house, in celebration of Andy's birthday tomorrow, Emiliy's leaving to work in London (and also the birthday of Emily's friend Kay).
Ian, Faye Paul and Danny turned up all hung over stayed long enough for a chat a few sausages cooked by Will (he wouldn't let anyone else near the BBQ, though he did a reasonable job).
I spent the day there, chatting to Kay, Andy, Emily, Will Lennie and the others. I did try and avoid Dan a rather odd looking chap in a dog collar apparently he is Kay's housemate, I think I would move out.
There were some funny moments watching Andy run around with his silly string gun spraying (silly string) all over the place. Laughing out loud as Lauren punctured a can of WD40 with a dart, Lennie managed to get it out of the house and Andy has to stand outside with WD40 pissing out all over the place.
After the first wave of bbqing there was a massive electrical storm we had been able to feel it building since I arrived the sky darkened and a few drops of rain fell so I was treated to the spectacle of Ian, Emily, Will and Danny putting up a gazebo talk about too many chiefs!
When the rain came it was incredible, the volume of rain thunder and lightning was simply ferocious, the temperature dropped from 27 to 19 in les than 30 minutes lights flicked and we covered inside as the thunder and lightning rolled through.
A late arrival Chris said the lights went out in the Trafford Centre, he said "I wish I had thought on and shouted loot loot!".
After a couple of hours the storm slackened off enough for us to resume BBQ activities under the cover of the gazebo, Will immediately go cooking the burgers, essencial bbq food sadly missing from the menu upto this point.
About 9.30 I started to fade away fast and people were either drunk or on the way so I made my excuses bid a fond farewell to Em and set off home, I pondered on the drive home whether I can really fit in with all the arty types I had found it hard sometimes to feel part of the group but then thats just me I guess.

Wollers Housewarming

After the nightmare that was watching England lose, I was feeling tired a little tipsy and hungry but I didn't have much time to spare Phil and I whizzed back to Woodford, a bbq shower and changes of clothes later and we were on our way to Woller's new pad in Smacclesfield.

We got a little lost on route then finally found the place near the old underage drinking ground from the days of hanging out in Hannah and Laura's Barn the Flowerpot Pub. It's a pretty smart house. A nice new build terrace compact but functional. Ian, Faye, Woller and Paul were out it was a nice group just achieving the critical mass needed to have a good time.
After a quick beer in the Flowerpot it was onto downtown Macclesfield for more drinking and fun I took some Pictures.

We started at the Wetherspoon's, and then moved onto the Lounge (I think was already a bit drunk). I think the Lounge was my favourite bar sat outside chatting in the cool evening air, unfortunately they made us come inside (it was dead inside) so we headed out to Chicago Rock.
Chicago Rock really isn't my favourite place cheesy music especially when a lot of drunk people are dancing to it, is a but much for me.

So we grabbed some drinks (eventually the bar service is terrible) grabbed the chairs and carried on enjoying ourselves. I think the funniest moment for me was having a random girl come over and start chatting to me. I didn't hear her name properly thanks to my inebriation, and the loud music. I do remember she said she was an artist from Salford, who works for Areghi Bianchi. Regardless it transpired it wasn't me she was interested in chatting up but Ian's girlfriend Faye!!

Penalties AGAIN!!!!

Now I have never been much of a football fan, but I am a patriot and I do love to see the three lions roar to victory.
The last two England games I have watched with Jo, Holly and Phil, today we went the the queen of hearts in fallowfield (what a blast from the past). They had a plasma screen outside, it was very sunny and we sat outside on the stone floor cheering on England. It was a good match the players really showed some heart after a lackluster (but successful) campaign.
It was a pretty tense close affair not much seperating the teams unfortunatlly the Argentinian ref choose to dislike England and made a few harsh desisions. I wont go over the details I am sure so many people will tell the story in a more passionate way than I can, but in the end dispite playing 50 minutes a man down in another emtional penalty shootout England were knocked out of the world cup.
I really got into weatching the game which is rpetty rare for me I usually love the rugby but the crowd at the pub dragged me into the spiret and dispite the result it was a good match to watch a rollercoaster of emotion.
Hope that one day we can win something give us our national pride back.

People are Strange

Another day of work, more changing tagets meeting plans and no actual achievements how depressing.

Another session at the gym listening to my ipod avoiding the gaze of the meat head blokes gazing longingly at the lovely looking ladies.

Another set of pcs to fix for friends and the sister of the same friend.

Is this it? Am I doomed to be only wanted for people that need things fixed, should I feel honored that Im important even if it is for only the briefest moment. Perhaps its me I have a tendancy to live more inside my own mind than in the real world, though im not sure if its a function of

One of the people I talked to was using the Russian Mp3 site allofmp3 ot that im recommending it, but I must say the interface it actually easier to use than sonys dreadful sonic stage software, and it dosnt add stupid drm crap. If only there were a legal site like that I would own thousands of downloads.

Smactastic

This evening Danny came round so I could fix up his ibook, once again people only calling on me to fix their computer issues. Dan wanted some software installing which of course only I am capable of doing, at least I got a pint out of it.

Macs are a lot more simple to maintain than pcs, they dont get as much spyware and viri whereas the average pcs is totally clogged up with the stuff.

Watched 3 Colours Red a French film and I enjoyed it quiet a bit the cinimatogrpahy was great the use of images to tell the story the dialog was a bti strained but I was reading the subtitles I guess it works a lot better if you can understand French.

BBQ and Football

Its been a long day I am feeling pretty tired and pretty full, so how did I get here?

The day started well I was a little hung over took the morning slow read my email found a very funny parody of creep. Then went for a swim and a sauna with Bruce so I was feeling pretty good.

Next stop was Jo Bergers house, to celebrate his 25th with a BBQ and too watch the football, now I don't normally watch football know very little about it and usually get very bored. However it was a good atmosphere a group of friends all rooting for England it was a hairy match a few times I though our guys would through it away. In the end though David Backham put us through so hurrah at least another game to go.

Next was the BBQ Bruce and Phil had gone to costco bought load s of meat and cake plus what Jo had in and his neighbours brought round some nice marinade chicken. So I ate and eat chatted laughed and drank all in a atmosphere of double celebration.

Phil had the biggest steak I have ever seen, which Joe ate practically raw if only I had my camera :p I finally met Liz Holly's friend she seemed nice enough but there wasn't any chemistry there so never mind, back to searching.

Next up watched the Portugal versus Netherlands match, the winner will go on to play England next round, and well what a spectacle not for the football but for the ref. Diving more card than ever handed out 20 i think, Men on both sides sent off diving time wasting fighting, to be honest I thought at one point there was going to be a mass brawl.

Strangly I don't know if it was the setting or because it was England (for all my faults I am still a patriot) or just the group histeria I was pulled into both of the games and really enjoyed them, still not as much as the Rugby but it was good to win.

Pizza Express and the watershed

Last night I took myparents for a curry at the La Quila, we had a really nice meal and a chat. I had promised to take them out last month after I got my pay rise, however one thing and another Phils brithday and a few other things came up so it got postponed until now.

After I dropped them home Phil and I went for a few drinks at the unicorn, and to ogle at the lovely barmaid Sophie I know I am bad. Martin met us there for a last orders and we decided to try and organise a meal out tonight.

I did some overtime during the day working on the website, to be honest it was a long frustrating day but thats a whole other story.

Martin organised for Phil, Bruce, Charlotte, Endo, Jo and ourselves to meet at Pizza express in Wilmslow, I hardly see Martin, Endo or Jo these days so it was nice to meet up and have a chat. Martin was his usual self loud and X rated, which Bruce found very funny as there was a family sat behind us (when I told Martin he just said "its after the watershed mate").
The food was nice but the drinks were way overpriced I baulked at paying £3 for a drink at the Foo Fighters but they at least were serving pints. Pizza Express were charging that for a 330ml bottle of Nastro Assuro, piss take! It was also very noisy and not just because of Martin the was a lot of noise even when the place started to empty I could bearly hear the conversation next to me.

After the meal we trouped off the the Coach and Four for a few more drinks I introduced Endo to magners, whilst Martin talked about pets, sex and the glands of the mouth. We were going to play poker but it never happened and I ended up at home playing a few more turns on Civ 4 before heading to bed.

Stacked Actors

Small success at work today I managed to get the Linux users to sync passwords between the servers. I set up ssh public private trust relationships then rsynced the files between the servers.

Did my longest run on the running machine only a pathetic 8.5km but it felt good, i think I have probably gone further outside but its hard to tell exactly at least it shows progresion.

Tonight I upgraded the coppermine galleries to the latest version and enabled statcounter rather than the bravenet one on johncooke.info and 1zanshin.com. Was a slight pain getting stat counter to work with coppermine until I found this post. Basically be editing the theme and inserting the following in the theme template it works.
[html]

all of the Statcounter code, no blank lines, no line feeds

[/html]

Best Of You

I didn't feel going out with Ian last night was such a hot idea this morning, that Star of Prague beer is quiet strong. Oh well I made it into Manchester Science park in time for our company meeting, it was actually a pretty valuble exercise. Whilst Roger is a brash American he is very business focused and helped us to develop our ideas a lot. I even managed to spend so qualit time with Mike and understand a bit more of what he is upto now. I have just typed up the meeting notes heopfully we can start to concentrate and hit the missing bits of the puzzell.

Just listened to a podcast with one of Pauls Songs whilst typing this pretty cool they guy dooing the podcast is really positive I hope his prediction comes true.

This is a Call

Finally caught up with Ian, he had also been at the Foo Fighters Gig with his girlfriend Faye. We hadn#39; met up due to their late arrival, and with so many people in the crowd is wasn't possible to meet. It was good to catch up and have a chat with him.
We went to the John Millington for a few beers. Bruce and Phil met us down their, it was also the first time I had seen him in over a week; he had been away at his cousins wedding. He bought me a cool Guinness Paper Weight from the Guinness Factory in Ireland :D

Everlong

This is the third time I have tried to compose this blog, first time was on the night I was very tired and managed to close the window down half way through, next time I got distracted and did the same so hopefully third time lucky hey!

On Sunday I went to see the Foo Fighters at the giant concert at Lancashire Cricket Club (Old Trafford), I got two tickets one was Phil's Birthday present so went went down about 2.30 in time to catch the supporting acts. First act were the Eagles of Death metal, they were alright the lead singer was fun got the crowd going a bit. Next were the Subways they were excellent really getting into the spirit of things. Angels and airwaves were dull dull Americana and made a long boring speech to boot YAWN.
The stroke's were good, but looked bored and though quiet a few people were in Strokes T-Shirts they knew who the crowd had come for, The Foo Fighters! However since hearing some of the songs like Juicebox and Ize of the World I have re-listened to First Impressions of Earth and i think I get it now, "Cold your so Cold Your SOOO COLD!".

Finally it was time for the Foo's, they played a video montage of all their hits before coming on just to remind everyone how damn good they are. They were amazing yesterday even in the rain Dave Grohl was supremely cool really getting the crowd going, there were sons off every album, Dave started talking about how it was 11 years since the first album before playing this is a call is it really that long? Some of it was just so rocky it made me want to jump around like a madman, Monkey Wrench I think the best of it was the encore though, Everlong was amazing then Taylor and Dave switch round for Cold Day in The Son, he proclaimed Taylor is the best drummer in the world and I should know! Then played an amazing drum set.

I am trying to find a full setlist because my memory isn't good enough to remember ill post it here if I find one.

Getting Home was fun Phil and I were buzzing but we had use that energy walking into Manchester (the metro was full) then catching the 192 into Stockport (surrounded by all the middle age women who had been to the take that reunion). Finally waiting for a taxi and watching one of the drunkest girls ever fall (or be push I am not sure) straight down with a real smack though we were going to have to do first aid but she just got up must have not felt it through the alcohol she will today. Taxi to Phil's then walk home it was 1.30 by then :S

Got the day off work today hurrah so I'm sorting out all the foul jobs which have been piling up, like my stupid pension sigh and reading my Shanghai travel guide.

Late Room

Yesterday I had a semi productive day, mowed the lawns cleaned my car did a few little bits of paperwork, then had a bbq yum.
In the evening I went into Manchester with a group of people to listen to paul. He was playing at the late room and quiet a few people came out to see him, most of Sandbox, Danny an Lynn, Berger and Holly even Nick and Becs made an appearence, remembered my camera for a change some photos here.
I enjoyed his set though my ears were ringing after listening to the first band (the loud and agressive alternative influence). They got told off by the engineer for throwing gear on the floor. Pauls sound wasnt the best I dont think the engineers were too hot, the place has the loudest system for such a small venue you can literally feel the music rather than here it. I am glad I went out it was good to see everyone, and dispite everything its always worth listening to Paul.
Nick Becs Danny went off for somethign to eat I was stuffed after the bbq so Phil and I went to bar thirty eight (we couldnt take the noise of late room anymore). I drank too much gin and started to go under a bit luckly Becs gave us a lift home after thier meal.