Bop Gun

Just been to watch sandbox, they did a really good set including some old favorites like light blue. Righni the ex guitarist turned up to watch, he said it was weird to watch someone else playing his bits. He was pretty drunk I guess he needed dutch courage to come watch. He seemed in good spirits though, he has a new bands and they *might* be supporting someone reasonably big at the Academy, good luck hope he breaks a leg.

Walking back to my car through Manchester I looked around and everywhere has become apartments. Its kind of strange to witness the transformation of places like Ancoats from Victorian warehouses to fancy apartments and offices. It makes me think about living in the city, I think it would open up a lot of exciting things to do. The only downside would be the commute to work, maybe I could ride the train?

Light my fire

Nothing much been going on since the weekend, work has been going ok, I managed to get to the gym this evening.

In the Backseat

I woke up to my alarm feeling more than a little rough; I guess that meant I drank too much! I had to vacate the B&B for 10.30 and breakfast was at 7-9am. As I paid so much for the room I made damn sure I was going to take full advantage of breakfast. Though I was feeling rough the full English that was brought out helped me to feel a little more human. After breakfast a long hot shower managed to prepare me for the long walk to the car.

Nekane had to work at the hotel, how she managed it I have no idea, but I had several hours to kill until we would meet. I carried my bag to the car it took me an hour to walk there. After dropping my bag off I spent the rest of the morning wondering around Cambridge. It is a very pretty city full of old building and houses.

I met up with Nekena at 2 and we went for lunch at one of the local pubs. She looked destroyed no wonder she had to get up for work at 7.

After lunch we took a walk down the river, then went to the Fitzwilliam Museum. I especially liked the medieval armour collection. We were also going to check out the botanical gardens but it wasn't open for long and there was an entrance fee so we decided to get a drink instead.

Walking back along the quietest road I have ever known was quiet early I was glad to reach the main road. We were joking it was like something out of a horror film. I think both of us were a little zombie like after last night drinking session.

We had a drink retrieved my car and headed to catch a film. I was heading back in the evening so didn't want too late a night and neither of us fancied drinking again. On reaching the cinema there were no films we wanted to see so instead we went bowling. Nekena had never tried it before, and I think she did pretty well for a beginner. I was my usual rubbish self barely managing a mediocre score. We both had fun though; Nekena said she was addicted by the last few frames.

We spent about another hour sat in the park chatting before I set off home. I was sad to say goodbye Nekane was a lot of fun, though Cambridge wasn't the most fun city I have ever visited, it was pretty.

I had a nightmare journey the A14 was closed for work so I had to follow a huge diversion. By the time I finally reached the M6 I spent over an hour longer than on the way there. I was feeling really tired so I had to stop off at a service station and grab a coffee. I made it home in one piece though.

She

I always think it is great to be recognised for your work, recently we have all be flat out trying to get a new system ready. Unusually the management recognised our efforts by taking everyone involved out for lunch. They took us to the new Gourmet Burger Kitchen. The restaurant is basically an up-market McDonalds, proper big thick tasty beef burgers with a variety of toppings and side orders. If you enjoy burgers this GBK definitely has appeal. I enjoyed lunch it was nice to do something social with the team.

I had booked the afternoon off because I planned to visit my net friend Nekena in Cambridge. Its a pretty long drive and I wanted to avoid the rush hour traffic. It took just over three hours to make the trip, a pretty straightforward journey until reaching Cambridge itself. I got a little lost as unfortunately my sat navigation decided it wasn't going to play ball today. Fortunately I managed eventually to find the station where I was met Nekena.

She is a Spanish girl from the Basque region, currently living and working in the UK at a hotel in Cambridge. We started chatting online about fours months ago. She is a wicked graphic designer funny and interesting so when she told me she was coming to visit the UK I definitely wanted to meet her.

Cambridge is not the most car friendly city and due to some rather bad upfront planning I couldn't stay at the place I was supposed to and so I had nowhere to park and nowhere to stay. After driving round for half an hour I finally found a street without restrictions about 15 minutes walk from the town center.

We wondered round the city for ages looking for a B&B that had vacancies, eventually nearly at the point of despair I found an completely overpriced B&B. Unfortunately we had walked right across the city which meant my car was miles away. It was getting late though so we decided to forget about it until tomorrow and go grab some dinner.

There was a nearby retail park so we went to the Nandos there. I had a Chicken pity and a salad. The Salad was great the chicken was a bit of a let down though.

Having found somewhere to stay and something to eat we were feeling much happier and set off into the town to check out a night in Cambridge. I forget the name of the first bar, it was nestled away on an ally way and bustling with people though we managed to get a seat. It was really nice sitting and chatting whilst supping Kroneburg.

We decided a change was as good as a rest and so headed out to another pub. The second one had a really good atmosphere and the music wasn't bad though the DJ was far from good at mixing. She ordered the drinks and accidentally managed to get herself Cider rather than lager. She also managed to start drinking mine, a trick she repeated later in the evening O_o

We would probably have stayed only there was no dancefoor, and Nekena really wanted to strut her stuff. The Spanish have a saying if someone dances badly, they "dance like a duck". It been a long running in joke that we both dance like ducks.

Apart from a club which had a rather steep entry and which was blearing out hip hop music the only other place with a dancefloor seemed to be Wetherspoons. Like several other wetherspoons I have visited this was cavernous and had a dancefloor and seating areas. In fact it reminded me of the huge one in Deansgate. We sat and enjoyed a few more drinks chatting away about life the universe and everything before dancing like crazy people. The bouncers got very cross because we were dancing holding our drinks so we had to take a short time out to finish them. Whist we were drinking two crazy Lithuanian guys started talking to us, one of them was a bit weird and scary, fortunately they grew bored and left pretty quickly.

By the time wetherspoons closed we both drunk and danced for quite a long time, walking back to our homes we were handed a flyer and hustled into another bar. Sat down both drunk on swivel chairs we made jokes and acted stupid. Nekena had a candle on her head. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I didn't get any pictures which was a shame as there were some priceless moments.

It took about 30 minutes to walk back to Nekena's place which mercifully was near to my own. I didn't have a key to get in and had to ring the bell and wake up the concierge. I was feeling more than a bit drunk at this point and glad to get into bed.

Where you end and I begin

Work went pretty well today, managed to get some points about my work across to the bosses about some of my recent achievements. I found one piece of work had generated an extra million pounds of business, in no small art down to my integration program. I also got invited out to a free meal with the customer on Friday.

I did a good deed for the day and gave my dad's old pc to one of the guys who comes to the lan. Its a bit buggered but he is at college so he has plenty of time to spend diagnosing the problem. Hopefully it means he will be able to attend the next lan event.

Mutations

I am obsessed. I have through my life struggled with a pretty obsessive nature, patterns organisation, the familiar are all things I like. I often try and do unfamiliar things in order to break of of habits. Like taking crazy overseas holidays and meeting new people. Unfortunately try as I might I usually revert to pattern behaviour.

At the moment I am still completely obsessed with Olya, I know I only spent a 10 days with her in another country. In my head I know I have built up a mental image beyond the reality of our meetings. The trouble is despite knowing all that I still cant stop thinking about her. I have chatted to her every couple of days, I keep revisiting the pictures from Turkey. I even rather stupidly asked her to come to Milan with me.

The trouble is while she is pretty much everything I could want, smart, sexy fun, I'm not.

One of my friends thinks I only want her because I cant have her, and in a perverse way perhaps that is true. Maybe in time I would find more about her out and realise we arn't suited I really don't know. For the time being though I just need to try and stop break out of this current habit and move on to something else. I just hope can find the strength to do it rather than just talking about it.

Its all in the mind

I havent really had much going on in the last few days so I thought I would try bloggin about an interesting article I read in the Economist. It is about the work of Dr Geoffrey Miller. He proposed an interesting hypothesis that the development of the human brain; his assertion humans brains developed rather like a peacocks tail in order for us to better appeal to partners. Increased mental abilities have more to do with sexual display than with hunting and gathering. The bones of the thesis are that men are driven to make a show of themselves.

Miller develops his argument by contrasting the differencing strategies men and women employ. Men have a higher tendency to show off they can provide more than their needs usually through conspicuous consumption.

I remember briefly reading a psychology book which belonged to one of my ex girlfriends. Fraud seemed to believe that the unconscious mind was ruled by repressed desires especially sexual ones. I suppose if the development of the brain revolved around mating it would follow the desire for sex should be pretty strong

It made me wonder though if perhaps something has gone a bit wrong though as a recent study showed Smarter Students have less sex. If you read the article many reasons are put forward as to why more intelligent people have less sex. Delaying reward to concentrate on study, and lack of desire are both citied.

Not being a psychologist I cant really say I fully understand the articles and nuances, and the arguments are fairly generalised. I can recognise some of the drivers being talked about especially the need for conspicuous consumption in order to impress.

Chopper

Spent most of today cutting a tree down outside in the sunshine. The eucalyptus tree next to my house has grown incredibly quickly from a couple of meters high to more like 15-20 meters. It took an hour to cut it down and about another hour and a half to cut the fallen branches up.

After the tree cutting exploits I had a pretty quiet evening, the only realy thing of note was a conversation with Andy Gilmore. Apparently he and Emily are back in Manchester living somewhere in the city. I am hopefully going to catch them later this week and have a look round their new pad, should be good fun.

Shine on you crazy diamond

Martin came round this evening, he had to settle up his hosting bill. It was weird really I haven't seen him in months, he has been working a lot and of course spending time with Charlotte.

He gave me the lowdown on the gathering I missed thanks to my Turkey trip. Apparently the guy I most wanted to watch Reyn Ouwehand was actually staying in the same hotel as Bruce, Martin, Endo and Phil. Apparently his set was amazing he played an instrument sampled the loop played it back then went onto the next one building up the track.

Was good to see him have to go out for a drink soon.

Stupid HTML

Today I wanted to do a really simple thing. I had a terms and conditions list which was points subdivided into sub points. It seemed a pretty simple thing to do in html, unfortunatly nesting ordered lists meant the numbering restarted so instead of 1, 2, 2.1 2.2, 2.3, 3 I had 1, 2, 1,2,3, 3. I found this article however while it provided a solutions it wasn't one I could use as its not supported in internet explorer. I ended up having lots of unordered lists with no bullet style and typing in the numbers myself :s rubbish! How come word processors have been able to do bullet lists at different levels forever but nobody thought it might be useful in html?

I might be wrong

Having a really hard time at work so much going on so much pressure to get it all ready. I was an hour late leaving today after heading in early. I find each day I have to be more combative just to keep my head above water. Worringly I am more and more sidelined on the new projects religated to picking up the pieces that remain on the old systems.

I felt way too tired to go to the gym and yet I cant get to sleep. I really need to get back into a routine, but I am finding it really hard.

Nick has spend most of the evening here searching for holidays. He promised to take Becky away so they can relax and have some fun. Only problem is its summer holidays and the bad weather has driven people abroad. He was dismayed to see the prices of short breaks now are more than weeks away a couple of months later in the year.

Tainted love

I chickened out of the gym, my back still hurts and I felt tired after work. In truth I feel tired all the time, I have trouble sleeping I am troubled by many things these days.

This evening I went round to the Brooks to watch a film. They had rented a film about the Africans contribution to the French effort during the second world war called Days Of Glory. It was an interesting take on the contribution of some of the forgotten people of the war. I guess I always think in terms of the Russian or US fronts, and maybe the French resistance but here was the Algerians and Africans fighting for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. It was quiet a depressing film the French treating the brave mostly Arab solders like dirt. No wonder the Algerian separatists caused so many problems later on.

Walking back from so many thoughts were running through my mind I am having a bit of a crisis. I spoke to a friend earlier this evening and I realised what I mess of life I am making. I have wasted the last year aiming for impossible romances, crying over the improbable. I have let vised two countries in search of someone special let my hope build my mind build up too much only to be left alone and unhappy. I have allowed other important things in my life slide, and fallen into bad habits. Sometimes I don't know who I am or what I want anymore.

I think I need to step back, relax and try to forget. So tomorrow I need start, to try and change. Attempt to break out of this downwards spiral. There are good things in my life, I just need to identify the piece I like and the things I can improve. Maybe drink a little less and be a little less negative then perhaps I can be happier.

Sappy

Today was pretty boring I went swimming and spent most of the day mesing about with my pc. Ther are a heap of programs I am struggling to get working under Vista.

Had a very uncomfortable evening tonight, I think it part of the "joy" of buying a house makes you miserable. I met up with Bruce and Nina at the Hesketh Tavern, they were both looking tired. Nina was upset with Bruce's mother who seems to be doing a lot of work on the house, maybe taking too much responsibility. This is always a delicate balancing act this is an expensive and emotional purchase, Nina wants to feel its hers not Bruce's mothers, whilst his mum is helping Bruce out in his new home. I often get pisses off with my parents doing too much for my never mind someone else's. On the other hand she is pretty handy with a paintbrush and things probably wouldn't have moved on as far without her. Bruce just looked tired from working on the house, I dont think he appreciated being set upon. Unfortunately it was my turn next, I was planning to have two pints of normal strength beer, which I have always regarded as being under the limit. Bruce and Nina started giving me this whole lecture about units of alcohol and such, they were both adamant the limit if one pint, so I couldn't drink my second pint after that. Fortunately it was kicking out time so I dropped them off.

mmm Simpson's

Bruce and I headed to Parrs Wood last night to take in the new Simpsons movie. I love the Simpsons TV satirical full of in Jokes and references. The film continues this tradition, Lisa delivers an environmentalist lecture entitled "an irritating truth" and at one point Bart wears a black bra on his head and says in a rather mousey voice, "I am the mascot for an evil corporation".

The main plot centers around environmentalism and religion. After a dark warning from grandpa Simpson, Homer does everything wrong and inadvertently causes the doom of Springfield after polluting the lake. He goes on to nearly lose his family (Bart even starts to idolise Flanders!) after moving to Alaska Homer faces some stark choices, will he be able to save his family and Springfield?

The only real criticism was the underuse and sometimes irrelevant use of all the other Simpsons characters. Monty burns, and principle Skinner had rather unfunny parts almost just to get them in. I suppose with such a wealth of material they just wanted to put as much in as possible.

I really enjoyed the film, I think they did try and take on an awful lot transferring it to the big screen. Especially whilst still working on the tv series. Some if it worked the main, there were some hilarious moments, both visual gags and dialogue driven. I especially loved the pig parodies, Harry Plopper and Spider Pig. Overall it should make you chuckle and feel good well worth a watch.

Lady

I woke up this morning and wondered why, why? My head was splitting my mouth felt like Id been drinking the waste water out of my fish tank. I knew exactly what did it to me,

Last night I went out with the some of the customers people. It is quiet rare they invite me to join them so I thought why not. I didn't have any other plans. Starting drinking straight after work is always little dangerous, no dinner (I am not counting the burger I floated on top of the alcohol later that evening.

Some time in the night I can of lost track of things I have some embarrassing memories though it was quiet enjoyable. I should have been more careful I wasn't out with my friend but with people I have to work with.

I basically spent the morning feeling sorry for myself and relaxing. I also seem to have pulled a muscle in my neck, I am not sure how but its really painful. It was quiet amusing though I think my company is sadly lacking the camaraderie that the customers site has. I suppose the age difference and geographical spread make it hard.

In the sun

I went to the pub this evening and we were chatting that sort of drunken chat that idles away the time in between slurps of beer. It was nice to relax after a hard few days / weeks at work.
I tried out the weird argument someone made to me at work. Basically if you wave power you are creating resistance on the oceans. The ocean currents are mainly created by the movement of the moon, so as every reaction has an opposite dost adding wave resistance affect the moon? I think logically it should but in a really insignicicant way, just like dense mountains slightly bend time slightly (as described in Einstiens theory of speical relativity) but not so as you can notice despite their immense size.
I left work late and chickened out of the gym only been twice this week and both for cardio no weights yet, I am finding it hard to get back into a routine.
I have been thinking really hard to find some new exciting things to try, its really hard to find much wiht the weather being so bad though. This has got to be the worst summer I can remember.

Why Go

I have been thinking a lot recently about moving, not just out of my parents house, but away. England is going to the dogs, taxed to hell to fund a bloated government intent on eroding the freedoms we spent centuries achieving. The only problem is I am not sure where I could go.
Australia was amazing one of the best times of my life. I am just afraid of being more alone there than I am here. Plus unfortunately IT skills arn't exactly in demand, and I am not sure what else I am good at. Probably lots of things if only I could find the time and inclination to try.
I often think despite my perceived problems my biggest issue is the fact I have it so easy that I don't try hard enough. I need to find some ways to push myself harder.

Downer

I have just got back from the Unicorn where Phil and I were setting the world to rights. We talked about life a bit and I guess it tapped into a lot of things I am thinking about. It was enjoyable an enjoyable conversation. At the same time it made me think. For a long time I have been trying hard to fight the fact that in fact I am a quiet boring person. I work, I visit the gym, I go to the pub. Always the same, the same drinks the same places with the same people. How did I become so staid, am I so incapable of finding things to amuse myself. Perhaps am not quiet as clever as I believe.
Or maybe I am just pissed off that I underachieve, that I am a coward who take the easy route hiding away on the net because the real world is so difficult. How can I be so wonderful to people on line then such a disappointment when they meet me in the flesh.
There are 6 billion people in the world I guess that means most of us are middle table mediocrity, is it so bad? Why do I feel guilty about it, has the media really convinced me I should be more successful, happy and well rounded?
Perhaps I am jealous that so many people I know are getting on with it whilst I sit and brood unable to deicide how to move on. I wish I had Nicks get up and go, or Ian's people skills or Paul's star quality, but I don't. I am just an ordinary guy, no real flaws but no real strengths, its just life rich tapestry I suppose.
Perhaps I should just go to bed and stop rambling.

Harry Potter vs Transformers

Saturday was consumed with PC building so I only managed to read about a third of the new Potter book. My mum got a copy from John Lewis for £5.

I made a proper start didn't get to start my copy of Potter properly until Sunday.
I read a good deal Sunday Morning, but I had to take a break in the afternoon to go visit the data centre, then help Bruce move some bits around his house. Its really coming along, the kitchens pretty much done the floors don't have holes in the floor anymore and the decorating is in progress.

In the evening we headed out to see the new Transformers film. I can still remember playing with them when I was a kid. Watching this film was an attempted at reliving childhood memories. The effects were spectacular, the transformers fought, lived with the actors. There were some annoyances, the plot was about as understandable as the Chinglish manual that came with my PC bits. I have no idea what the point of the security analyst / geek programmer were other than to have a beautiful girl ons creen. I would personally have confined it to the cutting room floor. Its worth a watch for the action, but its too long, too short on plot, and not really for kids there is a lot of adult humour and references.

I got home and hit potter hard, the story twisting and turning throwing the odd curveball. It starts out dark, and pretty much stays along at that level. Everything which Potter has endured thus far is firmly eclipsed (short of his parents untimely end) as the rise of the dark lord casts a dark shadow over the Potter universe. The usual trio, are nearly torn apart by the stresses and strains. A good section of the book read like something out of Lord of the Rings, they are cut off from the world facing incredible odd the situation worsening all the time.

Overall I enjoyed reading it though I do feel she hasn't quiet reached the levels of imagination she hit when writing Goblet of Fire. Too many loose ends were ticket off in a sort of screenplay fashion, I wonder it was aimed for the screen. A shame if so. I guess my biggest gripe with Deathly Hallows is how it ended. After everything Harry is forced to go through suddenly its over, very neat, there is even an epilogue. I am glad that its a series where Rowling has taken risks characters can and do die, the narrative can be gritty and real, examining issue like racism exclusion jealousy and love within stories about a teenage boy. Its certainly worth a read, especially considering how readable a writer she is. Somehow even complex narrative is always not just understandable but enjoyable. Would that I had even a modicumo fher talent I would be a happy man.

NeverAlways Be Lonely

Its been a bit of a mad weekend, for expected and unexpected reasons. Friday was a long day, I was meant to be catching Sandbox after work, but by the time I left work I wouldn't have had time to change, I felt tired and didn't want to turn up to a gig in my suit.
So my Friday night consisted of drinking a couple of beers and watching a dvd. It was a very very good dvd though, Pans Labyrinth. Its a film that crosses the dreams of a girls fertile imagination against a brutal backdrop of the end of the Spanish civil war. Well written well acted a good story this is the sort of film I really enjoy.
On Saturday my dads pc failed, this meant stress for me, as de facto pc guy I had to sort it out. I decided rather cunningly to give him my 18 month old old and to buy myself the bits to get a new one. I found aria were selling 4GB of ram for just over £ 100 and scan had a reasonable price on processors. I decided to go the whole hog and shelled out for Windows Vista just to give it a try. I would say Vista is a worthwhile upgrade if you have a powerful computer and like eye candy. Its got slightly less patronising pop ups then XP other than the box which pops up every time you want to install anything. I know its for security but does it really have to be that irritating. The graphics tweaks make Vista look good but switch between Windows has nothing on Apples expose. I was a bit worried when on installing Visual Studio it warned me about the incompatibility problems. I only had to download a 490mb patch to fix it.
I basically spent the rest of the day backing up, screwing together, installing and configuring this new machine, which was good really as I was feeling dreadful. Sometimes I find the loneliness consumes. I spend hours looking at photos of whats been happy times trying to cling to something good. I also find doing installs is a good way to avoid thinking about it, her.
To be honest I am angry with myself, my friend said it best. I make too deep connections too quickly so I end up hurt then shut myself away to avoid getting hurt again. Overcompensating in both directions like an emotional sea-saw. I supose things are not made easier by the fact the I received an sms telling my how much she was enjoying herself with her niece by the sea. Whereas I am sat alone, in the rain. I suppose it could be much worse I shouldn't complain my house isn't sat in the middle of a new lake right new. Bah the only problem is I feel guilty for feeling sorry for myself, but at the same time whilst other people have worse problems it dosnt actually change the way I feel, stupid emotions.