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.
I've gotten up this morning to discover an agitated back that's complaining at most everything I do and some offline messages from Wend saying that I'm "very very rude". The first of the two I think has appeared from sitting awkwardly in the cinema yesterday, but the other isn't quite so clear. As far as I remember I've sent no pictures of body parts nor called her smelly so it's a mystery innit. I love mysteries :D
I've also woken up to a beautiful day. Wooooo!
As I've just mentioned we made a pilgrimage to the cinema at Teesside Park yesterday and watched Scary Movie 3. As far as I understand it the whole cast left after the second Scary Movie because it was just sooooo awful and the third film was subsequently invaded by bits and bobs of the Airplane team. As a result it's good, not special but good. Main comments are that there was too little of Leslie and that Charlie Sheen ain't half looking his age these days.
Nearly a year after I had a fit about my Computer Games Programming I've finally flicked away my physical revulsion to the activity of coding and have started playing around in C++ a bit. It's somewhat of a surprise to me how much I can remember. In fact I'm pretty sure that I can do stuff now I couldn't back in the day. What's more is that my fiddlings have also included OpenGL which is the area that finally made me flip in the first place! Well at the moment I'm trying to program a learning Wez (at the moment depicted by a yellow dot) that'll run about looking for food, running away from scary monsters, and the like. The idea isn't that I'll tell Wez to run away when she sees a lion but that she'll figure it out herself having been eaten a few times. It seems like a hopelessly difficult thing to do but I like a challenge and if worst comes to worst I'll attach explosives to everything instead and we can have meaty cat chunks and amusing sound effects for tea.
Mentioning Wez she's become a one cat sick machine, much to my mum's displeasure. Wez looks fine enough though; she's bright as a button; fat and still gobbling down the food. She's right lovely so she is.
Dream Recorder Holidays in a Center Parcs type hut thingy. Strangely whoever designed the building thought it would be a good idea to put the toilets (there were four of them) outside with no protection whatsoever from the elements. This wouldn't have mattered so much if it weren't raining with the force of twenty spilt pints per square foot. The only other thing I remember clearly is Gemma complaining because her sleeping bag was blue along with the clothes she was wearing and that when she got into the sleeping bag no-one could see her as a result.
Then I woke up, then I went back to sleep. And then I dreamt about having Mark, Capps and Jono all staying in my bedroom. Once again a sleeping bag played a leading role as I took mine to the toilet with me! Actually that's toilets again too. What on earth is my subconscious up to exactly? Perhaps it's in a constant cycle of toilet humour and feeling sleepy. Besides this there were a number of things wrong with the dream; for a start I have enough trouble squeezing Wend in to stay let alone those three! We'd have to be very friendly if we wanted to fit :D Oh and if I was sleeping in my bed then why did I have a sleeping bag?
Thursday, January 22, 2004
I don't know about anyone else but I can't comment in my own comments, which seems highly unfair since if anyone should be allowed to complain about me it should be me! Ah well, that's the way the tractor turns sometimes.
I've been mildly amused by these little quiz things that have shown up and, although you can cheat on them and the fact they have no bearing on anything whatsoever, they're good fun. I seem to have been fairly successful with most everyone else's quizzes though I am kicking myself for getting one of Capps' questions wrong. He's been going on and on about his Web Development course for so bloody long that you'd think that, even despite my quite phenomenal ability to discard those facts most useful to me, I'd know what it was called. But alas no, I said that his course was called Internet Computing (Internet Computing being the course Wend is doing) and quite wholeheartedly disgraced myself. As a once great man once greatly exclaimed; "Boy is my face red!".
Another interesting oddity is that Wend and Capps gave precisely the same answers to nine out of the ten questions in my lovely self-absorbed quiz. The exception being the question about which film made me cry, which Capps misread and gave the wrong answer to. I'm willing to bet that had he read the question properly he'd have picked out Forrest Gump and the pair of 'em would have supplied identical answer papers. Thinking about it I suspect they've been copying off each other. Right, detention the pair of you!
I'm generally being a bit bored at the moment and every time I think of some activity to pass the time it's almost always sleep, which I'm sure is no good for me. Yesterday a lack of things to do, plus the fact the inside of my house was comparable to the inside of the Millennium Falcon after Han Solo had turned all the radiators up and set fire to Chewie, forced me to leave the house and go on a little walk to the top of the hill behind my house. It was nice. I saw a plane sporting the D-Day invasion markings and a bellyflopper landing and taking off from some farm. This is what happens when you pay them subsidies Capps! They start riding around in helicopters when they should be tending to the animals and generally getting covered in muck! You can bet your bottom dollar that Airwolf never carried passengers sporting wellies. Oooooo sporting wellies, I think there's a gap in the market there. But yes I'm being a bit bored but it's my own fault for being lazy. If you suggest an activity I'll offer the same reply every time; "Nah, can't be bothered". Apathy, ladies and gentleman, has reached new extremes.
Having started reading it on Monday night I finished Touching the Void yesterday afternoon. I know it's a terrible cliche, but from the moment I picked it up I just couldn't put it back down again. It's a real-life (that's real life, not Hollywood's "based on a true story") tale of a couple of blokes who try to climb a mountain and run into... well lets say difficulties, and the subsequent harrowing account of their attempt to get off the mountain. It's written by one of the two fellows it's about (Joe Simpson) and he describes the events from his perspective. T'is all about the strength of human character and the hope and the friendship and all (don't pull that face at me!). He can be a bit technical at times, he's bound to be what with him being a proper style mountaineer bloke with all the ropes and hats and scarves, but it's the first book that's ever succeeded in really moving me. I got rather emotional at certain bits :)
If any of you lot actually read regularly then I'd recommend the book, it's only fairly short (one reason I finished it in less than 48 hours) and if you don't like the thing you can always hit me over the head with it for being a rubbish literary fairy. Oh and I had jokes made by people on the train about the title "Touching the Void" so you're too late to be witty and vulgar at the same time :P
On a bright note the rallying is on tonight and also everything I see (and I mean everything, even stuff in Middlesbrough) reminds me how lucky I am to exist. Right now I' m just really happy to be bored! Oh and I had a chemistry exam this morning which went well (illustrating how I find my studies so important that crucial exams are almost forgotten three hours later). Right then, time for some computer games methinks....... Nah, can't be bothered. I'll just go to bed instead.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
My spider sense is tingling! Three months ago I couldn't get excited about anything; the most marvellous things ever wouldn't even cause a raised eyebrow in advance. I hated it. It felt like cardboard, but cardboard inside my head. *wonders if flaming skulls are made to burn by packing them with cardboard* But today I'm experiencing excitement with absolutely no good reasoning at all. I feel like I'm a day from the first F1 race of the season, or hours from leaving to move myself to Scilly, yet the only thing coming up in the next few days is a chemistry exam! Honestly I feel like I'm about to be given a million quid or something. I keep having moments of a shiver down my spine, a big grin on my face, and in a situation of real excitement I'd start thinking about whatever wonderful event was headed my way. But instead I just give myself a puzzled look and enjoy the rather confusing but pleasant chemical signals I'm sending myself. Today, for no good reason, the world is especially good.
One thing I've been battling for recently is a workable sleeping pattern. I've spent the last two months going to bed at daft o'clock, waking up at even dafter o'clock and then sleeping during the day. It ain't been good for me and I'm pretty sure I lost some of my va va voom as a result. Well Jono said I was getting morbid at least, which I regard as some feat since I never think of let alone talk about death, and I was aware that I was finding it harder to converse and that when I was I was talking with little or no flair. No emphasis on the words that need emphasising. Like SMELLY. Now I'm going to make extra effort to talk like an excited person. Which I am. For no reason. Hmmmmmmm
I've finished Freelancer. Or at least completed the main storyline; there are many more worlds for me to explore and many more amusingly shaped asteroids to find before I hang up my flying goggles (You need goggles in space so all the grit doesn't get in your eyes). I've been playing Grand Prix Legends a bit too. This for, people who don't know, is a game designed solely for reclusive grand prixophiles who enjoy tweaking with the toe-in and the anti-roll bars. It's also the most difficult game I've ever played by a country mile and furthermore one of the most fun. It's a racing game where the need for racing is minimal and it's enjoyable enough just to drive around the track on my own. Of course the addition of other cars causes me to crash every five yards. This is a bad thing.
I have a flying pig. A dangerous flying pig powered by elastic bands. And I've started reading in bed (wtf!!!?). And I've started taking cod liver oil (wtjf!!!!!?). And I've all of a sudden rediscovered my need to learn new things. Hence the reading in bed and also looking up Celtic history and Viking place names in google.
Where the cod liver oil capsule thing has come from I'm not sure. They just sit there in the cupboard in the regular use of my parents and I'd never really paid them much due. To be honest they always seemed a bit intimidating due to their size plus their fearsome reputation for tasting rank. Oh do shut up Wez, it's an hour til food time! Then the other day I tried one and quickly realised that compared to the stuff I usually gobble down they are fairly minute, and of course being capsules that just disappear down your throat you can't taste a thing. Until you burp that is *cringes*. I've been taking vitamin thingies for ages too. I hold out no hope that either of them do me any good whatsoever but they're certainly not doing me any harm and as the pointless saying goes "Anything that doesn't harm me can only make me stronger". Or is it "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Hmmmmm, conflicting advice there.
Anyway if you've got something awful to confess, now is the time. I'm feeling very forgiving as nothing in slightest matters; anything smelly will soon be forgotten when whatever it is I'm getting excited about actually reaches me. And now, doing my best Cartman impression, "Screw you guys, I'm going to look up the Byzantine Empire"
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Hello all. Stuff's been going on but I'm not about to drag it all up in here. Well not the pants stuff anyways.
Stuff that isn't pants includes The Last Samurai which myself and the two Jonathans went to see at the cinema this evening and the multitude of new music I've ordered off Amazon (yes I'm totally aware I have a problem with spending money on there, but it cheers me up). Three Levellers albums, a Seahorses album and an album by a band called the Gone Jackals which was used as the soundtrack for a Lucasarts Adventure game that goes by the name Full Throttle. The latter is being imported from america which is a first for me. Presently I'm listening to one of the two Levellers albums that have shown up already, all seems fine and well with it. It's got me bouncing up and down in my seat anyways :D
Physics exam this morning and as usual I had to make things more exciting for myself by not revising one jot. I swear I was going to do some on the train there (yes a whole 25 mins worth!) but I got chatting to various people, and I couldn't be anti-social could I? And I've just discovered that besides the pants stuff I've really not been paying attention to much and as a result I've run out of thrilling information with which to shock and stun you all. Oh, during the days of yore Scilly was periodically inundated with floated oranges when ships got wrecked. Nowadays it seems to be nappies instead (NOT USED!). Goodnight folks.
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Yep. So it's me. Here I am again. And I think I'm writing because I was too snotty and too lazy to get out of bed this morning to go into uni and collect my chemistry coursework. As such I'm feeling a little tad guilty and figured that doing something very slightly more constructive than playing Freelancer all day would alleviate my penance. Scratch that. All of a sudden I feel no remorse whatsoever as a BT van sporting the broadband logo has just driven past. But nevertheless, as they say on Mastermind "I've started so I'll finish".
Presentation. Frightening thing to hear isn't it? In fact I'm pretty sure even the England forwards (to jump aboard the rugby bandwagon) start to sweat just thinking about it. Being informed that you're going to have to perform a presentation brings about the same wave of gut terror as being told you're about to die and unfortunately, unlike dying, you're still around afterwards to suffer the taunting and mockery. My abject cowardice when it comes to presentations is somewhat at odds with my general philosophy of not worrying about things that aren't worth worrying about. I never worry about whether my train is on time because there's nothing I can do about it. I don't worry about whether my hair looks nice when I'm hanging out with Capps because I really don't think he cares. But I worry something rotten about presentations. Being told I have to do one is bad enough, finding out that I have to do one just two days in advance and that powerpoint isn't playing ball makes me feel physically sick!
And so it came to pass that on Tuesday morning I hurriedly cobbled together some slides and, an hour later, ad-libbed my part of a group presentation on skin cream in front of the Egyptian Queen. The presentation topic was somewhat of a surreal one: as a group of three we had been told to produce a sales pitch for a bathing product that was to be used by the Queen of Egypt no less. We were to work out all the costs involved in making the stuff and work out other stuff with various types of plants and different types of slaves and to include this fascinating information in our sales pitch. Cue cheesy hieroglyphic background for my slides. As it was I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything serious and well presented because not only had I left the planning of my performance until an hour before I was due to start but also because, being me, I am totally incapable of doing ANYthing serious and well presented. Cue pictures of smiling slaves, real ale, and a roast turkey. In the end I got a few laughs and suffered nothing worse than a sudden need for the toilet so I guess it all turned out okay.
Exhausted, it was then on to York for a meeting with Wend. It's quite likely that I was exceeeeedingly tedious company thanks to getting up at half-seven having had a month of lie-ins and I'm sure going to the National Railway Museum wouldn't have helped spice things up for her much but I figured it'd be nicer to wander between steam trains rather than between clothes shops. As it was we ended up wandering between the shops too. And then off to the minster, Clifford's Tower and the like. And also to an eerily deserted Pizza Hut that was devoid of all life besides myself, Wend, a waiter who thought Fanta was brown and a haunted CD player. Well if nothing else I had a wonderful time; it was delightful to spend some time alone with Wend having not done so since she stayed at mine what seems like a year ago. It's certainly put me in a good frame of mind for my impending exams :)
While in York I checked at a cash machine and to my endless astonishment my loan has come through! This is a good thing as I was virtually free of cash and had I not had this shower of money at the eleventh hour I'd have been stranded in York, or worse we wouldn't have been able to have puddings at Pizza Hut. Now with my money I shall do things I have dreamt of for a long time. Then again my parents pay for me to go to Scilly and the F1 comes free aswell. hmmmm.
Talking of dreams I had one last night in which myself, my brother, Jono and Wend all laid in my parents bed watching an extended version of Innerspace. Strange.
Most Naughtiness: Breaking Onto the Driving Range At DJ
Scariest Moment: Meeting Wend in London
Most Purple Curtains: Stu's
Biggest Spider: The One That Got Away Behind the Stove
Thanks to:
Capps for giving in to being me, driving me everywhere, and keeping me warm on a night at Jono's.
Jono for not giving in to being me, driving me everywhere, and keeping me warm during the day at Jono's.
Julian for arguing with me and keeping me (relatively) sharp.
Ryan for producing moments of danger.
Mark for producing moments of danger to himself.
Harry for the curry undertones.
Chris and Chris for letting people stay in Scilly.
SkyBus for flying us there.
Dee for letting me watch the F1 at her house.
Liam for showing me the north sea, dancing with me, and talking sci-fi nonsense. Oh and the boots.
Beck for drinking wine and general organisational work.
Steve for my Crap award.
Gemma for that e-mail and for making me smile on a regular basis.
Jono's mum for the free first class train tickets.
Julian's mum for the Eurostar tickets.
Julie Henderson for my second shot at uni.
Wend for teaching me so much, for giving so much, and for leaving me with so many happy memories of 2003.
The endless other people who have made this year very special for me.
Oh and myself, without whom this year would have been pretty pants.
I'm sure I've forgotten something. Ahhhh yes, the beret. Your power and grace is an inspiration to us all.
Saturday, December 13, 2003
Time to do some awards before Capps has chance to beat me to it.
Category: Best Album
You've had the singularities, now here's the bunches:
Green Day - 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours In an attempt to fit into the schooling fraternity I was a part of during Year 7 I bought this album on cassette and found to my pleasure that I rather enjoyed it. Endless years on I've gone and trapped this album in this brand spanking new format called the compact disc. Very shiny it is too. This album came way before Dookie and is a simple blend of guitars, a silly fast beat, and Billy Joel's unique brand of literature in the lyrics. Good for singing along to, good for playing air guitar to, good for playing air drums too. Just generally good for making me feel alive. Top Song - Paper Lanterns
Symposium - On The Outside Once upon a time I had an album called Shine 9. Shine 9 had a disc 2. Disc 2 had a song called Fairweather Friend by Symposium. I had a liking for Fairweather Friend. I soon had a dozen Symposium songs on MP3. I had a liking for these songs. Soon I had many CD's. More guitars, more music that's good to sing along to and this album grabbed me particularly because the lyrics seemed to be falling out of my head. Top Song - Bury You
Symposium - One Day at a Time Once upon a time I had... I got stuck on this album because of one of the songs in which it's appropriate to shout You Make Me Sick! It's not even the best song by a mile, I just got so caught up I'd be exhausted by the end of the song. Top Song - Any of them.
Dire Straits - The Very Best of Mmmmmmmm 80's. I've always been a big Dire Straits fan thanks mostly to my parent's LP collection which was my only source of music through childhood. Well I could have listened to the radio but that was shite. This CD actually has songs I don't like on and I regularly find myself skipping tracks to get to the good ones. The presence of stuff I don't like though only helps to identify the tunes on here that I'd regard as some of the most beautifully written music in the history of existence. These tracks being specifically Romeo & Juliet and Tunnel of Love. They both mix some wonderful storytelling, Knopfler's finger picking good sound, and the sort of wonderful song structure I thrive on; those that build into a crescendo. Top Song - Tunnel of Love
My Life Story - The Golden Mile This lot are like a mini-orchestra for those who don't know (i.e. all of you). To hear contemporary music played with instruments other than guitars generally means you're listening to Vanessa Mae (sorry if I got your name wrong) or something else they'd have on Blue Peter. In this case it's some nicely written upbeat music with so many different instruments on offer it makes my head spin. Quite regularly the songs seem totally different to anything you've ever heard and yet totally familiar at the same time. Bizarre but brilliant. Top Song - King of Kissingdom
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon A trip in an album. And I mean trip in the drug sense, as Pink Floyd would have wanted it to be. Hours of listening to this in the early hours while playing minesweeper sent me barmy.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way The songs are consistently brilliant. One of which I considered no so brilliant actually totally took control of my mind for a number of days at it played over and over and over for hours. My constant singing along also brought it into the consciousness of a one Miss Wend with whom the song will be indelibly linked for me. Proof of this came the other day as it played in JJB sports and teal comic sans text started flying about in front of my eyes. Top Song - The Zephyr Song
And the winner is............... Symposium with On the Outside *applause*
These are the songs I've loved this year. Some because they hold emotional attatchment for me, some cos the lyrics just seem to fit, and others just because they're bloody brilliant songs. Note I have only included songs I have either heard for the first time or started loving during the year:
Green Day - Time of Your Life (Anthem for while I was booking the Scilly Holiday)
Green Day - Green Day (Drums sound like they're sneezing)
Green Day - Paper Laterns
Green Day - The One I Want (Hooked on the instrumental)
David Gray - Sail Away (Sailing is fun)
David Gray - Be Mine (His head falls of in the video. Nuff said)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Zephyr Song (*smiles*)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way
Martha and the Muffins - Echo Beach (It's a beach innit)
Evanescence - Wake Me Up Inside (Remix)
REM - End of the World (*gets up and dances*)
Symposium - One Day At a Time (Kinda my "up yours world world, I'll do what I like" song)
Symposium - Smiling (The lyrics are so cheesy but they're so me)
Symposium - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Good song, many an hour spent sulking to this one. Best sulked loud)
Symposium - Bury You (More cheesiness)
Symposium - Disappear ("Sometimes I like, To get on my bike and ride, Ride beside the river")
Symposium - Puddles (Always get caught up in this one. YOU MAKE ME SICK)
My Life Story - Angel (Nice story, beautifully written song)
My Life Story - Stars Collide (Just so happy smiley)
My Life Story - King of Kissingdom (Even more happy smiley)
My Life Story - You Can't Uneat the Apple (Not so happy smiley but quite nostalgic)
Coldplay - Shiver (Just you try and stop me)
Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench (Guitars. Fast beat. What more needed?)
Joe Satriani - Surfing With the Alien (No lyrics but plenty of guitar)
Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing (What fine Guitar. Can you tell these last three are from my air guitar album?)
Bennett - Someone Always Gets There First (Well they do)
Grass Show - 1962 (Graham Hill won the championship in 1962. Good song)
Candyskins - Monday Morning (For singing to Capps on a Sunday)
Monaco - What Do You Want From Me (For singing to myself when no-one is in)
Reef - Place Your Hands (For singing to Jono when we're in his car)
The Seahorses - Blinded By the Sun (Beautiful song. Good for feeling sorry for yourself to)
Gary Jules - Mad World (Not my kind of song at all. But I like it)
The Darkness - I Believe In a Thing Called Love (Their only really good song. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong :P)
Embrace - Come Back To What You Know (Reminds me of my brother. He used to sing it persistantly)
Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet (How romantic)
Dire Straits - Tunnel of Love (Just good)
If anyone reads all that then you deserve a pat on the back. My apologies for it.
