Oh, you know, stuff

Well, I'm stuck in waiting for a guy to fix the grill on the oven so I figured that I might as well write something. They're due between 2 and 4pm. Its gone 3.30 now and they're still a no show.

I actually applied for a job last week, so I guess the hunt is on. That said I haven't applied for anything else so the application count stays at a staggering one in four months (since I left work. It's only been two since I stopped getting paid. They paid me for 6 weeks after my last day. Quite frankly that's the least they could have done under the circumstances. I really deserved more given how badly they treated me.) I don't think I ever fully explained what happened. I will at some point, just not today. I'm a little fed up with talking about it to be quite honest.

Over the last few months (well, years, but especially in the last few months) I've been playing a lot of video games. Actually, that's not strictly true; I've only been playing Halo (PC) and Halo 2 (Xbox). I don't know why I was spending so much time playing games because I was getting virtually nothing from it. I'd get frustrated when I lost and an overwhelming of, well, nothing when I won. Plus I seemed to be playing so much that I was neglecting other, more important things (like applying for jobs and writing; why do you think I've posted so here so infrequently up until a few weeks ago.). In other words playing video games was having a detrimental effect on my life. It simply wasn't giving me the sense of having actually achieved something that I get from, for example, writing or applying for a job (though I'm still not sure if the later is futile. After all, I applied for literally hundreds of jobs after I left university and had no luck whatsoever). It was just monopolising my time and giving me nothing back. In fact, it almost took a sizeable chunk out of my finances. I was really close to asking for an Xbox 360 for my birthday, but that would have meant contributing at least £200 towards the cost, which is an awful lot. In the end I decided that it wasn't worth it. After all I'd just end up playing the same games I'd always played. In other words, it was pointless, but only a little more pointless than continuing to play as often as I did. Which is why I've pretty much stopped. Days go by without playing. I did have a go on a little Halo yesterday, but it was a totally unfulfilling experience.

Time will tell if I start playing again. I practically stopped before when I started university, only to start again towards the end of my undergraduate degree. In all fairness at that point I only played when I could play with other people. Well, I suppose that's why online gaming is so dangerous; there's always someone else out there who wants a game. By the way, the link at the side of the page for DVASquad.com takes you to the homepage of the Halo clan of which I am a member. See, I was so involved I was even a member of a clan.

I've just made the whole thing sound like some terrible addiction. It isn't of course. It was just a way of avoiding getting on with things. Or maybe it was just a way of avoiding the reality of my, fairly miserable situation at home. On that subject I just got a phone call from my mum. The oven repair guy still hasn't come and she's trying to say that I probably missed him because I took a shower at 1.30pm, about a half hour before the earliest time he was due to arrive. Let's not forget that when I've needed her to stay in when I've expected a package, she hasn't bothered. She's always blaming me for things though. Last night she (and my sister) had a go at me when the internet refused to work on my sisters PC. It turned out that my mum had damaged the network cable when she moved my sister’s bedroom around. So, I said that she could use a cable I had, but she'd have to get me a new one. All hell broke loose and the upshot was that I had to supply the cable and expect no replacement or everybody would stop contributing to the broadband bill. A little unreasonable don't you think.

And talking of being unreasonable, the guy arrived to fix the grill whilst I was writing. He promptly told me that it needed a new burner, the part that the previous guy said it didn’t need, despite the fact that the guy who came before him had said the contrary, and promptly sent back. So, now let’s hope that they get it fixed on their fourth visit. Once again, I’m not holding my breath. See what I mean about people being incompetent?

Anyway, I did actually men to write something a little more interesting this time round, and I've just ended up ranting again. Maybe next time I post I'll actually talk about some of the things on my mind.

I'm still here

I'm still around. I'll try to post something tomorrow (or today, it is 5.30am after all). After a week of going to bed at a reasonable hours I've defaulted back to post 5am bedtimes (meaning that I don't get to sleep until after 6am). I don't even need to since, for this week only, I have the house to myself from midday until 5pm. Of course that didn't stop the remnants of my family from making my life a misery for practically the entire 2 hours that they were both in. I like staying up late. I like being alone. I like the quiet. Goodnight.

Worth the Wait?

Finally it came. But was it worth it? Well, it's a little bit chunkier than I'm used to. At this point it occurs to me that I should make it clear that I’m talking about my new phone. I’m definitely glad that I waited. It looks really nice in silver and, as well as the bond stuff pre-installed on the phone, it also came with the two disc editions of 3 Bond films, Goldfinger, The Man with the Golden Gun, and Goldeneye. I’ve actually got all of the original single disc versions of the Bond films (put them altogether and their spines spell out 007), but it’s always nice to get something extra for free. Technically I guess that their not free, I did pay £90 for the phone after all. Then again my line rental has been cut by £10 a month, so I’m still £30 up on the deal over the course of the whole year.

I’ve had it for three days and the battery has just worn out. Not too bad for a first charge. It should get better with time (I hope). Besides, I won’t be playing about with it so much in the future, so that should let me get a better standby time. The camera’s great though. It has pretty much every feature that you might find in a dedicated digital camera. The flash is excellent; it even has redeye reduction. In fact the only feature missing is an optical zoom. Maybe they’ll have that in next year’s model. Anyway, the camera has so many features that I haven’t really worked out how to use them all yet. Hopefully I’ll get to grips with it soon so that I can get a few pictures to post on my Blog. That is, of course, assuming that I can figure out how to do it.

So, from the silver K800i to the film in which it is so prominently features, the new James Bond adventure, Casino Royale. So many people have questioned the appointment of Daniel Craig as the new, blond, James Bond. I myself was a little unsure of him since he seems to deviate so much from the established image of Bond. However, one should remember how much our image of James bond has deviated from that portrayed in the original Ian Fleming books. For that reason his portrayal most closely resembles that of the “first” James Bond, Sean Connery. He cold, yet charming. People have criticised him for lacking the pretty boy looks of some of his predecessors, but to my mind his appearance is far more appropriate. His face is far more anonymous, far easier to forget, surely a desirable attribute for a secret agent. He’s also obviously spent a bit of time down the gym. Fortunate, since this is a far more physical Bond. From the brutality of Bond’s first kill to the climactic sequence at the movie’s close, this one film has more exciting action that the entire oeuvre of Roger Moore’s Bond. Of particular note is the chase sequence where, Bond pursues a free running bomb maker that follows the films opening sequence. In fact the stunts throughout are great, with no CGI intrusions whatsoever. Just as a Bond movie should be. I don’t want to say too much more about the film just in case I spoil it for you. All in all, the film managed to respect the history of the Bond films; references are liberally smattered across the celluloid, but it also successfully brings the franchise up to date, dispensing with the suspension of disbelief defying gadgets. There’s no invisible car to be seen. But then I suppose that you wouldn’t see it even if there were. If you see what I mean. Anyway, without a doubt this is the best Bond movie in years. In fact it may even be the best Bond movie ever.

I despair

Believe it or not I told a friend of mine that it was easy to get an upgrade for his mobile phone. He said that he didn’t have time. I said that all you needed to do was make one phone call. It’d take five minutes tops. I think that this is the most wrong I have ever been.

Sorry to keep going on about this, but in this post I'm going to talk about my new phone. It didn't come. Instead I was sent yet another black one. I am somewhat more than mildly annoyed with o2. Apparently (I say apparently for, well, reasons that should be apparent), they are sending out the correct silver one tomorrow. I'm not exactly counting on it. I have absolutely no faith in their abilities to get anything right. I did get a sort of explanation why I got the wrong phone. According to the dim sounding guy at o2 "we didn't have any of the silver ones in stock then" before he added "but we do now."

We'll see.

Anyway if it does end up coming tomorrow I'll probably go shopping for new glasses on Friday. I've been wearing my current ones for way too long. They're so covered in scratches that I can almost see more clearly without them than with. There's also a small chip in the corner of the left lens from when a friend and I, drunk after returning to his house following a night out in Brighton, go involved in a play fight. Yes, immature I know, but surely alcohol provides a reasonable excuse. After a somewhat week and ineffectual punch to my face my friend caught his hand on my glasses. They went flying, the lens left the frame upon impact with the pavement. Luckily The chip is barely visible, unless you really look, which is why I’ve been able to get away with it for the last few years. I suspect my prescription's changed a little too as I tend to get a few more headaches than I used to. One night last week I had terrible eyestrain after an evening reading from my laptop. Anyway, it’s way overdue time for a change.

And on the subject of change, I think I may call up an employment agency next week, probably the one recommended by a friend. I really don’t have the stomach to go through sending off hundreds of applications, only to be turned down by pretty much all of them. I must have applied for hundreds of jobs straight after university. Rejection letters followed for some, most didn’t bother replying at all. A few actually called me in for interviews, but they never went anywhere. I only ended up getting my first job after a friend heard that there was a position going at his friends firm. And that didn’t exactly work out for me.

I haven’t really had much luck with work. All of my jobs have been pretty crap and they’ve eventually made me pretty miserable. Bearing that in mind you can understand why I’m so reluctant to embark upon yet another journey towards misery. Still, it’s got to be better than staying here. God, I really need to move out and leave Harrow behind for good. It’s not that it’s a particularly bad area its just so bland, so mediocre. People say “Oh Harrow’s not that bad. It’s got easy access into Central London.” You know that somewhere really sucks when the best thing that you can say about it is that it’s easy to leave.

Anyway, I have to go to bed soonish. I have to wake up early tomorrow so that I can stay in all day waiting for o2 to deliver the wrong phone.

Stupid is as stupid does

Well, after over an hours worth of driving (the trip to Hayes was not fun, the traffic was pretty heavy). I got my new phone. At least I though I did. When I opened up the box I discovered that the geniuses at o2 had sent me a black K800i, not the silver Bond edition that I asked for. I did actually make it abundantly clear that I wanted the silver one, so quite how they managed to send me the black one is beyond me. I now have to wait until Wednesday when they have promised (after I had to make phone calls to 3 different people, giving each of them all my details) to send me a replacement phone and collect the incorrect one. We’ll see.

Am I being to pedantic? Should I have simply accepted the Black phone? Am I making too much out of this?

I just get frustrated when things go wrong as they quite frequently do when they are out of my control. A part of me knew that this would happen. Things like this always happen when I have to rely on other people. I really wish I didn't have to. Nobody seems to really care any more. I'm not sure I entirely blame the staff though they must shoulder a far amount of the blame. It seems that a great number of companies have a complete inability to get things done correctly. I know that was certainly the case where I last worked. I would say that I spent about half my time sorting out complaints from people who had been sent wrong/damaged items, all because warehouse staff couldn't be bothered/weren't to do their jobs properly. All that made it difficult to actually do my job properly. Things had to be rushed and inevitably the odd mistake was made which caused even more disruption. I tried to explain that the warehouse staffs incompetence was causing me problems, but my boss just said "I don't care." When the problems continued I was told that I would have to inspect some of the deliveries that the warehouse prepared, costing me yet more time. It's crazy. That place was appalling; they didn't care about their staff and couldn't manage things properly. I really hope that it closes down. Obviously I hope that everybody who's any good finds another job though, but mostly I hope that the people who run the company find themselves poverty stricken, unable to buy toilet brushes costing over £100 (I know for a fact that the owner of the company spent this much money on one. Why should people be allowed to spend silly money on ridiculous extravagances whilst others suffer. It explains why they only pay such paltry wages, wages that were insufficient to live on).

I really haven’t had good experiences with jobs, and it’s making me reluctant to find another. At least I’m not prepared to work in a job I hate for a company I despise with people I loathe. Not again.

And I certainly don't want to work for a company who devote time to chastising their employees for writing notes on their notepads (which nobody, not even within the company, would see) in the "wrong" colour ink. It's pathetic.

Some good news

Well, after that extended rant about the inadequacies of couriers, I have at least discovered that some thing good has happened. Since I go broadband I’ve been saddled with a lowly 512K connection due, apparently, to my “poor quality line”. I got an email from my ISP telling me that there would be a short outage of my service today whilst they installed their LLU equipment in my local exchange. A little after 12am, my internet connection died. It came back on again 30 mins later and I continued with my www related business.

I just checked a download and discovered that it was going at a speed far in excess of my previous limit. So, I went into my router settings and low and behold I now have a 2mb connection. I’m sure that it’s probably temporary; maybe they’ haven’t set up their equipment properly yet, but it’s nice none the less.

DHL=Fuckwits

Despite the fact that I have waited in for the entire morning I have just had a note through my door from the so called couriers at DHL telling me that there was nobody in to accept delivery of my Mobile Phone. Clearly the courier is a fucking idiot who doesn’t know how to use a doorbell to let me know that he's here. Now, because of his fuckwittedness, I have to go all the way to sodding Hayes to pick up the phone that they should have bloody well delivered. It was either that or have to wait in tomorrow when he’d probably fail to use the doorbell again. Actually it wouldn't surprise me if he'd forgotten to bring the phone with him and is trying to get out of it by simply popping a "could not deliver" notice through my door.

To make matters worse, I haven't actually slept. I stayed up all night writing and by the time I realised what the time was, I realised that I had not time to actually sleep. Bloody great.

Sorry, but I'm a bit pissed off, very tired and extremely fed up with having to rely on other people to get things right. Nine times out of ten the cock things up and cause me trouble. It was like that where I used to work too. Is nobody even vaguely competent. To get a job do I have to be a complete imbecile.

Well, I’m going to use the intervening time to get my food shopping from good old dependable Sainsburys.

If I ever get my phone I’ll write copiously and enthusiastically about how great it is. Either that or I’ll discover that it’s shit/broken.

Or maybe I’ll just go to bed. By the time I get back with my phone it’ll probably be about 6.30pm. There’s always heavy traffic out there at that sort of time. It really doesn’t help that I have to go past my old place of work to get there, so I’ll get a reminder of how crap my time there was. Anyway, by 6.30, I’ll have been up for 30 odd hours straight.

Sorry for the rant, I’m just pissed off about how undependable everyone is. It's just solidifying my view that the only person that you can rely on is yourself, and that's a pretty sad way to think.

Time for a change

I'm fiddling about with the formatting of the blog at the moment. I'm going to try to personalise it a little with a new title page and maybe even add a few pictures to the actual blog.

I'm getting a new phone soon (hopefully tomorrow if o2 decide that I’m worthy) which actually has a better camera than my dedicated digital camera, which boasts a paltry 2megapixels. I'm going to use it to add a few pictures to my blog (provided that it's any good). I really do love my gadgets and I especially look forward to getting my phone upgraded every year. Sad I know, but what else do I have to look forward to? Anyway, it’s the Bond special edition silver version of the K800i, available for only 3 months exclusively on o2, so at least I’m likely to be one of only a few people to have one. I’m actually a pretty big fan of the James Bond movies which kind of lead me towards getting the phone. Plus all of my most recent phones have been made by Sony Ericsson, and I’ve been pretty happy with all of them. They don’t change too much, a few features are added or upgraded, bugs are ironed out and they make a few refinements. They do just get better and better to the point that I can only find a few minor faults with my K750i. Hopefully the K800i will have ironed those out.

I’m off to see the new Bond film, Casino Royale on Friday, so I’ll probably let you know what I thing some time after the weekend.

The Lazarus Post

The original idea was to use this blog as a sort of journal of my day to day life. I figured that I’d maybe write an entry every week. The more observant among you may have noticed that this hasn’t exactly happened. With things as they are I haven’t actually been able top muster up enough of my own interest in my life of late, so I’m sure that everybody else would care even less.

I am going to try harder to keep the blog alive though. This time I’m not going to make any promises about updating it every day/week/month. That’s blatantly not going to happen. I will promise to try to write something (situation permitting) every time I feel the urge. I say situation permitting, because I offer start writing an entry in my head whilst I’m unable to get to my laptop. Apparently laptops don’t work too well in the shower and I seldom carry it with me on the tube on the way to a night out.

I’ve also written a few entries that I haven’t had the courage to publish. Generally I tend to first write my blog on word (to help iron out any spelling mistakes and ensure that I actually have a copy of my work in case blogger decides to reject my entry, losing it some where in the internets’ darkest corners. Those are, of course very valid reasons for typing it up on word first. Of course it gives me time to be a coward and back out. I'll try to go over them at some point, finish them off and post them over the next few weeks. Most of the time, these entries are written when I’m feeling particularly depressed. I worry that if I show people how low I get that they won’t want to know me or wont come back for a read. Is depression contagious? I start to think so. I’m stuck living at home, because I had to leave my job. Because of that with no one on a daily basis in whom I can confide. I’ve tried to talk to my Mum about it, but I only get told to shut up because I’m “making [her] depressed.” That’s why I ask, can you catch depression?

Anyway, right now I’m feeling ok.

I stumbled across a blog last night. The author was so prolific that it shamed me into resuscitating my own ailing blog. Actually, perhaps it's been so long that it's really more of a resurrection. I’d been feeling ok, for most of the later part of the week (the part that came after my actual birthday on Wednesday). I guess I’d been looking forward to the actual celebration with my friends on Saturday, which kept me going; maybe I’ll talk about that later. After that I started to flag a bit, though coming across the blog helped to cheer me up a little. It’s nice to have a window on a complete stranger’s life, even if they occasionally draw the curtains. (Is it sad that I’m so proud of that metaphor?)

But to my birthday celebrations. I was really bad at trying to organise things. I couldn’t really decide what I wanted to do. Actually that’s not true. I’d pretty much decided what I wanted to do right away, but for some reason I kept trying to find something else. I wanted to go to The Roxy, a club just off Oxford Street. I’d had a lot of fun there the last couple of times I’d been there, but that was the problem. I felt like I’d been there too often too recently. And I wanted to be original. Honestly, I don’t know why I think that I should try to do something new when I can virtually guarantee that I’ll have a great time by going back to somewhere I know and love. So in the end decided that we should meet at The Royal George, which is a great little pub, with a small, but high quality selection of drinks (they serve draught Grolsh, my favourite), great food (as I discovered for the first time that evening, at least I made a little nod in the direction of originality) just off Charring Cross Road.

It’s got a nice atmosphere and is always just crowded enough. You can even get a seat sometimes, just like we did that evening, which was fortunate since it’s pretty hard to hold a plate in one hand, a pint in the other and still somehow manage to eat without looking like some sort of bipedal wild animal. On the annexe to our table were a couple of girls. Oh that’s another thing; all of the clientèle are seldom unattractive, so you’ll always be able to keep you eyes happy.

We’d managed, after about an hour, to get a table at the back of the pub. It was a low table, in the shape of an L. Two comfortable leather sofas provided more than adequate seating. We took up most of the L whilst two girls sat right at the end point. One had dark, almost black, hair that covered much of her face from my perspective. The other was a tall, slim girl, with light brownish hair. She was pretty much bang on my type from a physical perspective (there were a few aspects that I didn’t like, but a few minor imperfections in a girl’s physical appearance seem to be a key aspect of my type. I kept catching her glancing over at me, though maybe she was just looking at me in disgust. Was I staring too much? I thought that I was just making the occasional glance, but I have less control over where I look and how long I take looking after a few drinks. And by that point I’d had more than a few drinks, courtesy of all my friends (thanks by the way). I was feeling pretty drunk by the time I was offered a “car bomb”, half a pint of Guinness mixed with something else, something creamy and sweet in a shot glass. It was nice, but I’m surprised that I wasn’t sick as I left the pub. Of course long before I left, the two girls at the end of the table moved. Was I staring? Was I freaking her out so much that she no longer felt comfortable staying? Maybe it was nothing to do with me at all? Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Still, the upshot is that I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. Bah, I thought, there’d be plenty of girls at the Roxy.

The music at The Roxy is always great, loads of stuff that I like, stuff that you can drunkenly dance too and not worry about having to try to look cool (just as well since it was patently obvious that I didn’t). In fact conversely, my friends who decided that dancing was beneath them looked anything but cool.

It was a great evening and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. One of my friends even remarked that I should have my birthday more often (and this coming from someone who’d only just celebrated his birthday the week before). It was fun to dance the night away; not the entire night, we left at 1.30am, I suppose I must be getting old. And on the subject of getting old, it really felt like all the girls out that night were just a little too young. Perhaps that’s the reason why I just felt like I couldn’t be bothered to pull. No, that’s not quite right. If I couldn’t be bothered it means that I wanted to but didn’t want to make the effort. I simply didn’t want to. I guess that I’d decided to have a good time, that was my mission above all else and making an unsuccessful attempt to pull would undoubtedly mar that. Actually last time I went to the Roxy, I did make a vague attempt, which was spurned. I felt quite bad about it afterwards, like I shouldn’t have made an advance that proved to be unwelcome. Perhaps that’s what put me off trying to pull. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter since I had a great time regardless.

Besides, I tend to prefer to meet girls in quieter, less dandy environments. I guess it’s no coincidence that I’ve tended to meet girls that I’ve subsequently gone out with in such circumstances. When I put it like that it tends to make me seem less shallow; it clearly takes more than simply good looks for a girl to be attractive to me. Or perhaps my limited natural charm is enough to distract the ladies from my relatively grotesque visage? Well, limited charm coupled with plying the poor unsuspecting lady with alcohol.

I made finally made it back at 3.30 after a trip on the Night Bus, followed by a 30minute(ish) walk back from Harrow-on-the-Hill Bus Station. It’s the fact that it takes quite so long to get back home when I stay out late that puts me off doing all that regularly. I did, however, discover that I’ve been making the journey unnecessarily long. Most nights when I have to take the bus I tend not to notice the route that the night bus takes to get back due to tiredness/drunkenness or just possibly just my black of observational prowess. As a result, whenever I’ve gone to the Roxy I’ve walked all the way to Trafalgar square to get the bus. Once I’m there it takes me a good 10 minutes or so to actually find the right bus stop. What I discovered the other night is that I could catch a bus from a bus stop just about 10 minutes walk from where I started. This effectively means that I’ve been taking a completely unnecessary 30minute walk that, coupled with the first part f the bus journey, effectively takes me around in a big circle. Doh. However, now that I know where I’m going wrong I should be able to knock a fair bit off my trip next time.