Temporal Fluctuations...

Note: This one is a bit of a weird one, because I'm incredibly tired. It seems to me that everyone has two voices inside them - their own voice, and the voice of reason. Because I am so tired, for some reason - aha ha ha - not only am I talking what is mostly nonsense, but the voice of reason is sticking its unwelcome nose in things too. As a result, this is a very jumbled blog entry, and may be hard to follow at times Apologies in advance. Read on, Mcdonalds Filet-o-fish [what?]

So I pick up my Ipaq to put someone's phone number/address in it.
My eyes stop at the top of the screen. "Thursday, February 19th".

Hang on a second!

With a horrifying feeling in my stomach, I realise that I've once again messed up my days, and today is Thursday, not Wednesday.
But I've just got back from work, and I'm sure I had that shift down as "work, wednesday".
Or maybe I got confused and today really is thursday!
Which means that when I wake up it will be friday! Which means the day after tomorrow, I'm working!

This sucks! I was looking forward to two days off!!!

I frantically search the news sites. BBC news says "Thursday, Feb 19th". What the hell?! Where have my two days off gone?! I've actually lost an entire day!
Sky news says "Wednesday, Feb 18th". Hmm.

You see folks, I came home about an hour ago, at about half past midnight, completely blind to the fact that "this" shift actually started yesterday and finished in the early hours of today.
After over 24 years of living on this planet, my brain forgot that the date changes at 00:00.
I actually forgot midnight is where "today" becomes "yesterday".

Despite this, I managed to successfully complete a five and a half hour shift, operating a motor vehicle in light to moderate traffic, counting out small change, and generally being competent at my job, which admittedly, isn't too demanding.

I suspect what Scott Adams said is right. To paraphrase what he said, people aren't born idiots (though they sometimes die idiots). Idiots are simply regular people, and like all regular people, they move into and out of idiocy, often up to several times a day, without even realising it.

A few minutes ago while I was frantically searching the news trying to find where my missing day went, I was an idiot. Yet in the six hours that preceded it, I managed to complete my shift without mowing down innocent kittens/pedestrians etc, and then managed to walk from work to my house, without any dramas whatsoever.

Maybe "the stupid" is something you actually can catch.

So what else has happened? Well, I've been challenged by someone to go round the back of our shop into an alleyway to fight him. I refused for several reasons, among them the fact that I don't want a criminal record, and I also don't like fighting, but chief among them was the fact that this gobby little shite couldn't have been older than 11.

I'm serious. He couldn't have been older than eleven years old, and he actually asked me, a 12 and a half stone (79 kilos) 6 foot tall 24 year old, for a fight. He wasn't joking either.

I mean what the hell is wrong with people?!

He scarpered after I pointed out the CCTV cameras covering the side of our shop and the alleyway, but not before he remarked in a rather upset and hurt way that "do you think I'm scared of them?"
I mean bloody hell, when I was at school I figured out that the easiest way to get the "bad lads" off your back was to become mates with the bad lads. Admittedly, while I ended up subsequently nearly getting thrown out of school, the "bad lads" didn't seem anywhere near as bad as I had initially believed, and actually turned into pretty decent mates. Even if one or two of them still needed an eye keeping on them from time to time.
Among these lads were one or two that had been excluded from school once or twice, but bloody hell, I never met anyone as gobby or downright shitty as this spotty little kid. Are kids these days really worse than kids of yesteryear? Is it actually true that every generation is worse than the one before it? I'm beginning to wonder.

Oh well, he's prolly asleep under his Captain Scarlet blankets now.
The little prick. Ahem.

Moving on, because I don't want to devote any more thought to this... kid... I've had a bumper week!

After I got the house meticulously tidy, my parents arrived back from Paris bearing lots of souveniers (sp), including a rather nice and shiny/incredibly insubstantial and cheaply made keyring of the Eiffel Tower, bought apparently, for 30 euro cents, from an illegal immigrant of suspected north african heritage.
They also bought me a rather nice jumper/sweater, again with an illustration depicting the Eiffel Tower, along with the text "Paris" (in case you're slightly thick) and below, "France" in case I ever meet Dubya and he doesn't want to have to ask what's on my sweater.

Now admittedly, both gifts in and of themselves scream "I went to france, and I brought these back to prove how windswept and exotic I am! Look at me I've been abroad!"

BUT

They were both gifts, bought in France, by my parents, for me, because they thought I'd like them. And that, chief among a couple of reasons, is why I do. Because (at risk of sounding so incredibly saccharine that you'll want to put your finger (just the one, apparently) down your throat), sometimes it really is, perhaps not so much the thought, or lack thereof, but the intention to please, and cheer, and make happy, that counts, and that my rents bought me this stuff because they want to make me happy, not because I asked them to fetch me a sweater or whatever :-).

The sweater is actually very high quality - it's very dense fabric, which means not only is it very comfortable, but it's very warm too [reality check, why the f*ck are you sitting up at 02:09 telling people how warm your sweater is?]. So I'll use it as my indoor sweater for when it gets cold inside.
The Eiffel Tower keyring, I will put with my other cheaply made souveneir keyring, which my parents gave me when they went to Lago di Garda (anyone who tries to look for phallic imagery in the lake is not only sick, but wrong. It doesn't look anything like a penis. No, really, it doesn't).

Where I'm going with this, (and most importantly) is that they also brought me back some duty free. "Oooo, cheap cigarettes" you cry. No, I don't smoke. (I used to, which means I occasionally wish I did smoke so I could have one and stop feeling like I've got a hole in my head, but no, thanks to *very* occasional NRT I'm 6 months smoke free :-)) "Cheap booze?" No, you can get that here. 8 cans for I think £5.
No!
They got me... duty free toblerone! A special gold extreme super death turbo XL edition, apparently, and this one is a huge kickass beast of a toblerone, weighing in at not far off a pound (400g actually).

This, I took upstairs along with my other gifts, as well as my Garnet. (read below if remotely interested)
See ,when I first started my gem collection, I lost one of the larger stones I had at the time, which was a rather nice garnet, down the back of the recliner. So, over a year later, I'm sat in the living room with my tea, about to watch TV, and I can't get comfortable, because the recliner won't recline. "Bugger this" I think, and after 20 minutes poking, prodding and eventually, brute force, I get the thing to work again. At which point I notice a small object on the floor - my garnet, after a year of being nestled in the recliner, has actually appeared again, yay!

My brother finally came with my birthday present too. A super sparkly and incredibly (compared to the graphics card that I have (have? where is it? Oh hell I don't know where I put it) just replaced) powerful Geforce 8800GTS. 620mb of graphics ram, onboard PhysX support, a big sparkly super uber card, with a super powerful GPU, with a cooler so big it's got its own fan, heatpipes, and a damn fairing over the thing! Yummy.

So I eventually managed to get the thing fitted, and for the first time in a year, I've been able to play some of my favourite games including: Unreal Tournament 3 (BIG picture warning - yes the graphics DO look like that!!!), Silent Hunter 4, NFS Prostreet, NFS Most Wanted, X3 Reunion, Rainbow Six - Vegas, and many many more etc.
I haven't reinstalled Doom 3, because frankly, it scares the feck out of me.

So now, after the events and completely random stuff depicted up there ^^^ somewhere, I'm now completely exhausted. I'm tired, and thanks to the misplaced self discipline that forces me to concentrate on this blog until it's finished, I'm also incredibly thirsty.

So here are some vaguely relevant pics. Look at the size of the 8800 compared to the weedy lil 8400! Look at the size of that massive massive toblerone! :-)

And I still haven't bloody got round to putting those details in my Ipaq...

The following day...

I never did get round to finishing my blog yesterday, so I'll do it here.

Well. My family have a nice little routine where every thursday, my mum and dad go out to the pub for a meal with my grandad. It brings them all a little closer and they seem to enjoy it so that's pretty cool.
Now I had semi high hopes for my brifday meal this year, because last year we went to the boardwalk and everyone from the family was invited. Turns out this time, no one had been invited, and not only that, but we weren't actually going to the boardwalk.

Nope, because my dad didn't want to have two pub meals in two days, he moved the family night out with grandad forward a day, invited me along to their night out, and called it "my" birthday meal. Sounds a bit like cheating to me, and neither me or my sis (who with my eternal gratitude, having moved out of the house, now helpfully fights my corner against any shite my parents try to subject me to while I'm stuck here) were impressed.

That aside, I looked through the menu skeptically (gammon, fish, etc, NO burgers, NO pizza), and figured that hey, it's a free meal, so I should be gracious. Talk started, we all ordered beer, and the evening got nicer.

I started with soup, and bread that looked like it was covered in coconut.
And actually, it was pretty damn awesome. The soup was great.

The only thing that annoys me is that places like this seem to pride themselves on giving you the coldest block of butter ever, which means that you're an idiot if you think you can spread it onto your bread - noooo, you try that and you'll just end up with breadcrumbs everywhere and about 37 bits of bread.

Next, came the lasagne. And it was absolutely incredible. Loads of mozzerella, it was fantastic, really tasty, really nice and I enjoyed it a lot. I'm done with similes and suchlike so I'm not going to dedicate a paragraph to reviewing this lasagne, but it was seriously fantastic lasagne. Loads of cheese and lots of flavour and suchlike.

Finally, I figured I'd push my luck and order the Chocolate brownie for desert.
And it was incredible and other words to that effect. A nice hot brownie, with white chocolate ice cream (that's white chocolate flavoured, not coloured) with white chocolate chips in, on top, as well as normal chocolate sauce.

The whole meal was pretty bloody good, and yeah, it wasn't at my favourite restaurant, but hey it was free, it was damn good food, and I got beer too!

I got home incredibly tired, having stopped at the offy with the intention of getting smashed on my birthday night. I got home, cracked open a can, and swiftly fell asleep...

I woke at about 1am today, figured that while 1am was too early to end a pissup, it was way too late to start one. So I went to bed.

So I've had a sedentary day. My Bro came round with the good news that he wants to give me an Nvidia 8800GT (or GTX - hard to read the label when it's inside a case that is woefully opaque - not like mine) - as my brifday pressie. My sis, helpfully and loyally arguing my corner, surmised that I wouldn't want a hand-me-down pressie, and demanded more.

Of course, I accepted at first offer, with a huge grin. Come on, the 8800GT has got to be better than this piece of shit 8500GT thing that I've got going on in my case. Saved me at least £30 anyways :-).

So yeah, the day gets better.
My parents are now asleep after a few hours of running round like loonies. Seems they're off to paris at 4am, for a nice valentines/anniversary (sp) treat, so I hope they have a good time :-).

In the meantime, I've noticed with astonishment, that my dad has actually physically slipped a couple of extra cans of beer into my birthday alcohol stash! So I'm off to take advantage of that kindness, and here's a nice cold beer to you lot, whatever you may be doing :-).

Have a nice day!

You can listen to my playlist here (It's all bouncebouncebouncebounce music :D):

Joey Riot - "Holdin' On"
Joey Riot - "The Power Within"
Organ Donors - "Blackout"
Ruboy Vs Tampa & R Klos - "La Nina Mechanica" (only available on CD, not on youtube, sorry!)(bizarre comment somewhere in here)

And other similar tunes :).

Happy Brifday to Meeeee

God, 24. I'm getting old now.
That's alright though, so is everyone I went to school with. Buwahahaha!

Celebrations, if they can be described as such, started last night. After a lovely tasty but rather lamby (new word)Lamb Hotpot, my mum went out and brought in the brifday cake :-).

Quite a nice brifday cake too - Roulette flavoured apparently, decorated with little bullets (rounds actually) made of icing. The cake came with a little game on the pack - the game ends when someone eats the bullet "with the spicy surprise".

Guess who commented that "hey this tastes like it's got chilli powder in it!"
Besides, chilli goes quite well in chocolate and icing and stuff, believe it or not.

My sister very nicely got me a new t-shirt, which was really good :). Looks pretty cool and is comfy to wear - I'll try not to get cake all over it.

Some other birthday pressies arrived too. I was bored a few days ago so decided to buy some sparkly bits for my computer. Nothing too expensively sparkly, just a couple of neons and an LED thing.
The LED thing in retrospect was a complete waste of cash, because although it does exactly as it was supposed to - spotlighting components inside the PC - any illumination it casts is completely obliterated by the two supernova-bright neon/cold cathode/whatever tubes.

I interrupt the flow of text to bring some vaguely sparkly pictures :).

And my dad has interrupted the flow of me, to tell me with about 5 seconds notice that we are apparently going out.
Oh well. I'll update this when I get back I spose.

Anniversary!

Okay, not quite, technically the anniversary isn't until the ninth, but:

It's my birthday on the 11th and I don't want to have 2 parties in 3 days...
I'm working on the ninth...
I'm busy every day apart from today, and I don't know what else I'm working next week...
...soooooo...

Just like HM the Queen has two birthdays, the "Official" one and the "Other" one, my camera has three:

• The day it was constructed (which I don't know).
• The day it was bought by me (which I do know, but which it is not possible for me to celebrate annually).
• Or the day on which I have the spare time to go to the shops, get some alkyhol, and have lots to drink and have a generally cheery time, look through my photos, chat with mates and generally accept that my camera is, after nearly a year and over 4000 photos, very much a good friend.

Now this may sound very materialistic, or sentimental, but while I am "celebrating the anniversary" of having bought my camera, it is all very tongue in cheek and I haven't been putting up balloons or posters or inviting people to parties or anything. It is basically a camera-based excuse for a nice pissup. My camera is looking nice and sparkly, having been cleaned inside and out, and is temporarily sporting some sparkly ribbon decoration for the occasion. The camera will eventually be replaced of course, but for now, it's fairly new and we've had a very successful year together.

So the alkyhol is chilling in the fridge, I am chilling in my room, and all is well, generally.

So I'm off to go and drink a lot. If I do update the blog I'll probably be drunkenly ranting, so it's best not to pay too much attention to me. Still, here are some of my favourite photos that I've taken over the last year with the D200. They might not be technically perfect, nor artistically sound, but I think they're some of my better ones, and I like them :-).



Oh, and as a final note, my little finger mouse came today. Is it as cool as it looked? Yes, it is. If a little fiddly at first.

You have to love the Engrish on the back though: Picture below. Oh, and of course, here is my camera "dressed" for the occasion :p.

Never mind dark, I prefer white....

I'm sat here with the hugest ever grin on my face. After a few days of weather warnings, the clouds opened last night and we had our first genuine blizzardy type "can't-go-outside-you'll-get-snow-in-your-face" snow last night, and even before it went dark, it was settling on the roads and rooftops, roof sides, and roof bottoms.
It also settled on other things like sheep's ears, paper bags and bus stops, but we don't have any of those round here, so I noticed only the roofs. And the roads obviously.

Now, For some reason, I like snow. People I talk to have expressed the opinion that snow is one thing people never really tend to grow out of. People I don't talk to generally don't express opinions to me, unless they're standing under a sign with "the end is nigh" on it (like one bloke did for 20 odd years before realising that the end wasn't in fact nigh, hadn't been nigh at any point in those 20 years, and sodded off home to a new life free of insanity. What am I talking about? I don't know.

After watching the snow get higher and higher through the night, I was pleasantly surprised to wake this morning to find it still snowing, and everything covered in two or three inches of snow. Out came the camera, and out we went :).

[09:47 - it is now snowing very heavily and visibility is minimal! - this is awesome!]

It was really weird walking out and about in the snow, it covered everything (as you'd expect), and this was that crunchy squeaky perfect kind of snow that makes excellent snowballs. There was hardly anyone else about, and I just went round, slippety sliding taking photos of everything snow related, like snow covered fields, trees and missing golf balls. The little frozen tracks of some small animal, most likely a squirrel, criscrossed the path, and apart from a few dog walkers and the odd photographer, I had the whole park, and its snow, to myself.

Was really nice :).
I'll carry on with the blog once I've done some other things...