The words contained in this here journal may not make much sense and they may not bear any relation to reality but one thing is for sure, they'll contain the word pasty.
Sunday, May 18, 2003 Chapter 3: Saturday, or any day, is good for something And so it proved that this particular Saturday was good for meeting some stonking people. You're already aware of how stonking I think Wend is but Liam and Ste also proved themselves to be fine members of the human race (even if not actual members by default then surely they should be given honorary membership for special services).
Liam reminds me very much of one Douglas Mulholland who was my best friend back in the heady days of primary school and although he is disappointingly un-camp (preliminary reports suggested otherwise) he seems to be working on a similar level of "intellect" as me which is good. As such he not only competed against me on the dancing arcade games but also brought about me, he and Capps scaling council barriers at four in the morning in order to access the coastal path. The barriers had some rather nasty metal prongs and were a good ten foot high so it wasn't all tinned peaches and loveliness you know, we may look like pansies but we are actually highly skilled at crossing terrain in a rugged and manly way. The girly screams were purely an ironic gesture, honest. We then rested after our dice with death on a bench and watched (shivered) as a cloudy sky got a bit lighter. Hardly a spectacular sunrise but it's better than nothing. The hair is crazy, and the bumfluff beard is well quite frankly disturbing, but he's good fun. Cheers for putting up with us all this weekend!
Ste too seems a good lad, we had a fair quantity in common so we managed to wax lyrical on a number of different subjects without too many awkward silences. He had a number of opportunities to push me to my death off some rather shear drops but I'm still here typing so I guess I can't have been boring him that much. Oh and he lent me his gloves when my hands were cold. What a guy! I shall look forward to seeing him at the strawberry fair in a few weeks time.
And Wend? Well Wend was just as she always has been, a great pleasure to be with dodgy re-stylings of my hair and all. When I mentioned in here how much I enjoy her company Liam accused me of being a soppy git, and he's probably right, but I was only telling the truth. Can't wait to see you again Chuck :)
***Coming Soon!*** Chapter Four: One Cricket Match, Three Sleepy Donkeys and a Pack of S Club 7 Stickers...........
Chapter 2: "Which way is north again?" We had fun trying to get to Liam's the following day after consulting Multimap.co.uk which provided us with over a page of extremely complicated instructions. With Sulu at the helm we'd have been struggling, as it was our navigator was someone far less skilled even than him; me. Even I knew that our first move was to head north on the M1, it seems that Capps on the other hand had different ideas and made a sudden break for London and headed south! Even after well over a day I can't decide whether it was a genuine mistake or if he was just displaying a subconscious desire to not face the fear of meeting Wend, Ste and Liam. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little intimidated myself.
After a second's worth of deliberation I then opened the passenger door window and launched the navigational scriptures out of the car. The bloody things were suggesting that it would be a good idea to leave the A64, drive around the York city centre for a while, and then rejoin the A64 further along!!! If that's the fastest way from Sheffield to Scarborough then I'm a kumquat. So I cast them out the window and from then on we were driving blind, relying only on the wits of the navigator and his faultless sense of direction to get them through. Personally I thought I did a fantastic job of successfully reading the name Scarborough on many road signs. Once actually in the seaside town we just drove about a bit until we found the bridge I've seen so many times through Liam's webcam. Easy.
Finally back from what was a rather enjoyable jaunt to other parts of that fabulous region of the world known as Yorkshire. It's s difficult to know where to begin, or even to know whether I can be bothered. We did so much this weekend and yet we did so little of note besides enjoying the coast and each other's company (with a little F1 mixed in for good measure).
Chapter 1: Beck's house Staying over at Beck's house was rather odd perhaps because her living room (where we set up camp for the night complete with bonfire) bears an uncanny resemblance to my brother's old house, wall to wall with music, music playing equipment and TV's. Minimal room for anything else including, or course, the human inhabitants. It is a rather odd sensation being somewhere totally new and yet feeling as though you're almost at home, I'm guessing it's a similar attack on the consciousness as provided to people with amnesia where they know the place but not it's meaning. Most of our time was spent playing GTA Vice City, watching TV and chatting to Liam, Wend and co. in yahoo all of which was rather good fun.
Thursday, May 15, 2003
It's half twelve and I've spent the last hour listening to Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd while working my way through the windows games, hearts and minesweeper etc. This seems to have left me in some sort of weird transcendental meditative state, either that or I'm tired. Whichever is the case it's probably time I got myself to bed as tomorrow begins the "Great Journey", first to Sheffield to stay with the great Oracle of South Yorkshire before heading north east across the barren wastelands of the Northern Shire of York Moors to pay homage to the Beret.
I might get round to spouting some nonsense tomorrow but most likely not, farewell, Godspeed and… and what am I saying? Every single one of my readers is going to be in Scarborough! Pfft
The Dream Recorder: Dreamt that I had defected from the British Imperial Army alongside one Indiana Jones. As far as I could tell we had dug a system of tunnels into a large sand dune only to blow them up with rather primitive looking explosives. It certainly didn't seem sensible to me to create an all purpose device that was both a bomb and a candle at the same time. To my lasting regret I woke up before everything got blown sky high.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Sunny, left house to walk to barbers and it started raining. Sat having my hair messed about with while staring longingly at the sunshine outside. Walked home again, rain ensued approximately thirty two yards from the funny pole with the spiralling red and white stripes. If this is what life is like without the internet then I think it's about time I wrote that strongly worded e-mail:
I've got about 10 hours of internet access to last me for a week!! How on earth have I managed to use up 140 hours since the 22nd of last month? That equates at about six hours a day! So now I'm stuck here in the embarrassing situation of having to write my journal into a text file so I don't use up any of my precious time. No Beck, no Capps, no Liam, no Web Board, no F1 sites and *sigh* no Wend.
Well I’ve decided to jot down a list of Gavin/Internet Separators for the next few days:
1) Sleeping
2) Eating
3) Drinking
4) Reading stuff
5) Writing strongly worded E-mails to BT
6) Re-inventing the theory of relativity (You didn’t think I’d forgotten did you Vicki?)
7) Going to the toilet
8) Riding my bike
9) Getting my hair cut
10) Entertaining the cat
What I could really use at this time is good computer game to distract me, something to totally immerse myself in so I can forget just how lovely that lovely, lovely internet is. If you guys and gals have any other ideas for things I could do then I’d be ever so grateful.
Right I’m now off to partake in activities 2,3,4,9 and 10, all at once. Farewell for now.
Monday, May 12, 2003
I finally took the plunge, after a week of putting it off I went into uni and spoke to someone about my impending move to the science side of life. The personal tutor I saw turned out to be a rather nice young lady which made it all the more easy to smile about the situation and get some guidance as to what I am to do next. She said basically that theres a fairly good chance I can make the move no worries so (Warning: Gav is about to swear) it's buggar off programming, hello fascinating science and stuff.
I missed the train back home by a few minutes so I had an hour to kill in Middlesbrough until the next one came along. My first idea was to browse in WH Smiths, damn closed. A paper from the paper shop? Damn closed. What to do? AHA! Broadband phonebox! So I jumped in there, stuck a couple of quid in the slot and started tippy typing away. 9 pointlessly silly text messages to Capps, 1 pointlessly silly text message to Jono and an e-mail to Wend. As far as I know none of them have actually got through yet so my love affair with BT has just continued it's merry way, gently dodging the many mines and booby traps I have left for it.
Sending the E-mail to Wend was fun because the silly wee computer thing only gives you five minutes to type it, presumably it doesn't want me writing any novels and hogging the empty booths for too long. I have no idea how much I managed to type into the keyboard (The sticky keys of which have me sure that some poor fellow lost a whole pint down there) but as I frantically bashed my name into the thing the coutdown was gently ticking into single figures. My identifying name entered it came to the action of manipulating the trackerball so the curson pointed directly at send. Right... need to move the curson down.. so I need to move it liiiiike this... *cursor disappears into the top right* AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Three seconds left, relax, plenty of time. A quick screaming jab of the buttons later and the message was sent, with one second to spare! PHEW!
Well that was quite enough excitement for me, I've been feeling shattered ever since. The curry was its usual bright self with Jono on storytelling, me on surrealism, Mark on cheeky playfulness and Capps being the embarassed adult. We'd never get away with our dangerous antics except that we are regulars there now, so much so they are going to get some puddings in just for us :D
Thanks to the guy with the beret for that one, obviously he has watched it. In response to the question "Do you ever get residual polymorphic changes in the psyche of the people around you? The interfrastic field strength has to be pretty strong within twenty foot" he also says:
"It is pretty strong, so I use a residual formant matrix to counteract the polymorphic anthropomorpic x-base quotent of the residual effects when y above x equals z to the power of 2. So this spelled out means that the residual effects are minimal to the locality of the polymorphic force (me) in that case."
Jen -----> Likes science, Dire Straits, Capps, Tim-Tams and things with big engines. <------ Gav
If that's not terrifying for a person I don't know what is!
Other famous Jen's include:
-Jen Saunders (30% of French and Saunders)
-Jen Anniston (?% of Friends, never watched it)
-Jen Hackman (10% of all Captain's portrayed in hollywood blockbusters)
Beck and Capps did indeed turn up at my house to do some chilling yesterday, here's a list of yesterdays chilling activities:
1) Sitting in front of the TV.
2) Sitting in front of the computer playing Worms.
3) Sitting on the sofa in the conservatory.
4) Sitting eating fish and chips.
5) Sitting in Capps' VW Beetle.
6) Sitting grumpily as Capps bashes in strike after strike at ten pin bowling.
7) General sitting.
And who says that students and civil servants don't lead full lives?
Beck decided that it was a good opportunity to ride a bike for the first time in god knows how many years so I went and retrieved my super dooper mountain bike, what possessed me to entrust her with my wheeled pride and joy I have no idea. I suspect Damo won't be so forthcoming in handing her the keys to his lovely Mk1 Escort! And so off she went up the garden, very slowly, gently swaying from side to side as she disappeared into the distance. She did this about five times and each time, to my utter astonishment, she came back in one piece. And the less said about her and the ice cream the better, needless to say that the cone reminded her of a certain bit of anatomy...
Had a rather heated debate about smoking with Liam last night, I think I may have a) Offended him, b) Pissed him off, c) Sounded like an arse, d) Gave him the impression I think he's an arse or e) All of the above. I can be such an eejit sometimes.
