Miss me?

Wow, I've been gone for two whole(ish) weeks. Bet you thought I'd given up didn't you. Never.

Actually in a way I sort of did. I have some random, and often quite severe, mood changes. I was talking about that a little in my last blog entry. Well, things got a little worse before they got better. I'm not gong to go into detail here, but when I get in to these kind of moods I just can’t do anything. Then, when it all goes away, I find it hard to work out why I was so screwed up in the first place. I have absolutely no control over the moods either, and it's not like anything tangible sets them off. It seems to be totally random, like I have a dimmer switch in my brain that turns up the depression.

But I'm OK now. Well, not OK, but at lest I’m not on the dark side of the mood swing-o-meter.

Like I said, nothing in particular really sets me off, but there are certain signs that I’m headed in the wrong direction. I start doing things like checking out friends reunited to see how lacking in success I am compared to old and long since abandoned university acquaintances are, all so as I can remind myself of how comparatively crap I am. Then I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about ex-girlfriends, thin king about how they were probably right to dump me all along (I do this even when I dumped them, reality is meaningless when I’m in one of these moods, the only think that matters is making me feel worse). Then I start to hope that things will go wrong just so that I can feel that short moment of elation as my assertion that my life is crap is once more proven right, all because I managed to drop a glass or something equally inconsequential. That’s terribly masochistic isn’t it?

Sometimes, I do start feeling better if I’m doing something I enjoy. Watching an old favourite TV show often helps. This time I whacked my DVD boxset of “Firefly” into the DVD player (though not all at once, I expect it would break) which seems, thus far, to be working. I expect it will only stop working when I finish episode 14, commiserate the fact that there will be no more episodes since the idiots at Fox cancelled the show and subsequently fall into a catatonic depression (if such a thing exists). Either that or I’ll find something else to watch, or maybe even a job. Oh yes, finding a job. Having finished the application for the PC magazine I asked my little sister (the teacher) to have a look at it. Almost two weeks later I’ve finally got it back (I hope she's faster at marking the little kiddies work) with a very teacherly note on it saying “Very Good”. Still, at least no misspelled words are underlined with red ink, which possibly means that there aren’t any. Of course it could simply indicate that she never bothered to read it and therefore didn’t manage to pick up on my poor spelling/grammar. Either way, it’s probably best if I check it over myself before I send it off.

Those of you who know me will know that things have been pretty bad for me this year. All the crap that went on at my last job has left me, in my dark moments, lacking confidence and generally feeling a little less than adequate. When I’m ok, there’s just a general undertone, a background noise of inadequacy. Sort of like people whispering just a fraction too quietly to be heard. When someone flicks the switch it’s like they’re sitting right next to me shouting in my ear, impossible to ignore. Now that I think about it my mum almost literally does that to me a great deal. I say almost, because she tends to sit (or stand) away from me when she’s deriding me. I often wonder what I’d be like with a little encouragement, what I’d be able to achieve. I guess I could answer that by looking at where I got to before my dad (who a great deal more helpful) died. With things as they are it’s a wonder that I manage to get out of bed at all.

Actually it’s been pretty crap most years since I left university, which is why I’m really hoping 2007 is better. I’d kind of hoped to start it, as tradition dictates, by going to some kind of New Years Eve event. I haven’t managed to find somewhere to go as yet, but that may not actually matter. With the number of my friends willing to participate dwindling on a daily basis, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that there’ll be enough left to make anything worthwhile. A bad omen for the year ahead perhaps.

Maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. I haven’t been sleeping well of late, waking up frequently during the night not being able to get to sleep in the first place. Added to that, I feel like crap because I seem to have put on a ton (not quite literally though) of weight. So I look like crap too, meaning any chances of pulling have gone south. Not that pulling would be the only reason to go, but it would certainly be nice. After all, it’s been a while. Well, regardless there probably wasn’t much chance anyway.

Enough maudlin shit, as I said, I’m feeling better now, but still not great. Just mediocre (a word that sums me up to a certain extent, but at least I can joke about that without bursting into tears).

So, what’s happened to me in the last couple of weeks?

I’ll go chronologically backwards. But not today. For now I’ve a little more Firefly to watch before bedtime. And I really have to start going to sleep earlier especially if I’m going to make it to the Coal Hole for 12pm on Friday to meet up with friends.

Also on my mind right now.

I was gong to say something about the other subject that was on my mind right now, However, after the longest post ever I've decided to hold it over for another day. I'd been thinking about someone a lot over the last few days and I just wanted to talk about the whole situation here, but given that it's 5.30am I think that that I should probably go to bed. I expect that it will probably be another long post and I'm pretty tired so...

Tomorrow I should also finish off that job application and maybe get some exercise. Exercise is something else I've been neglecting over the past few weeks. Admittedly I'd left the weights alone because I'd strained my shoulder (though I think I did it due to the awkward position I adopt whilst I use my desktop PC. I sit on the chair the wrong way round lean my left side across the back, with my left hand hovering over the keyboard and my right arm stretched way too much across to the mouse on the right hand side of the desk.) Regardless, I shouldn't have let that stop me from doing everything else. It's easy for me to stop though. Years ago a friend told me that she was quite literally addicted to going to the gym. She'd wake up and want to exercise. I don't seem to have that problem

Anyway, I'm feeling (and looking) a little flabby at the moment. I have been trying (I should emphasise trying because I haven't always been successful) to eat a little better and a little less too, so I'm hoping that will help.

I wonder if lack of exercise has also been a factor in my recent spell of depression?

Not Great

I've not been feeling too great recently, which is why I haven't posted for a while. Aside from trips to Sainsbury (one of which really fucked me off, but I maybe speak of that later) and a trip to John Lewis in Watford, I haven't actually left the house for about 10 days, pretty much the same amount of time since my last blog entry. I've just been feeling a little depressed of late. I've been feeling as if I'm never going to get out of here, I'm never going to find a job that won't make me dread getting up in the morning and subsequently I'm never going to be able to afford to buy my own place (especially with the way house prices are rising). I heard couple of days ago that I didn't get the job at the ASA, they didn't even want to interview me. I really don't understand why I can't get interviews. My CV is pretty good, I would say, but perhaps I need to exaggerate my achievements and tell a few lies. I hear that employers now expect your CV to be somewhat fictitious and downgrade their expectations accordingly. If they're doing that to my entirely truthful CV then... well they're not exactly getting an accurate picture of what I can do. I'm applying for another job this week though. I'd be working at a PC magazine as a staff writer. I expect that my chances of getting it are fairly slim, after all, I have no journalistic experience and there's bound to be somebody who's better qualified. Still, I suppose I'd better try. The application requires me to send in a review of my PC in the style of the magazine. I'm having some trouble keeping within the 500 word limit that they set; after all, every single one of the reviews I read on their website ran to about 750 words. So far I've got it down to about 600 words, but it’s now got to the point that I am no longer able to write things more succinctly without them loosing their meaning. Bah, I'm sure I'll finish within the limit somehow. I doubt that it will do me any good though. We'll see.

Actually, I'm starting to feel a little better as I write, which leaves me wondering. Have I been neglecting my writing because I haven't been feeling great? Or have I not been feeling great because I've been neglecting my writing? Hmm, one to ponder I think.

Well, the John Lewis trip brought about some good news; we’ve finally got a new television. The old 29” Sony CRT TV broke about 4 or 5 months ago. After a couple of attempts to get it repaired the TV was junked. The first place we took it to claimed to have got it sorted, but it broke down within a few hours of getting it home. A refund was duly given, but he still insisted on taking £20 to have a look at it, a charge that I don’t think should be applicable if he couldn’t mend it. As ever, my Mum acquiesced and the man got his money. I’d have argued. A lot. The next place reckoned that it would cost too much to fix. At that point we abandoned it. It’s a shame, the picture quality was great. All that was wrong with it was that it kept switching itself off every so often (though sometimes it would take a number of tries to get it to go back on). We’d had it for about 11 or 12 years, my dad had bought it after he got made redundant/retired, so that kind of made it even more of a shame. Anyway, since we finally gave up on it we’ve been using a tiny 20” Samsung CRT TV. Needless to say I haven’t been bothering to watch TV in the living room much. Instead I’ve made use of the 25” Sony TV in my bedroom (at least 15 years old and still going strong. It used to belong to my Grandma but she died about 8 years ago and I’ve had it ever since. I’ve had to spend about £100 on repairs since I’ve had it, strangely enough it was switching itself off too, but it’s been fine for the last couple of years and shows no sign of breaking, With my situation being what it is I’d rather it stayed working for a fair while longer too). The new TV is a bang(ish) up to date HDTV ready 32” LCD widescreen Toshiba. Compared to the old 20” it’s massive. However, because it has to display pictures from the sky box of a lower resolution than its native 1366x768 the picture actually looks a little worse than the old Sony. Still, I guess it’ll all be worth it when it’s coupled to an Xbox 360, HD-DVD player (I expect that Blu-ray will prove to be the Betamax of the High def DVD wars and fall by the wayside), and something capable of receiving some actual HD broadcasts, either through Sky HD or HD Freeview (if they ever start that properly and manage to improve freeview reception to my house; we appear to be in a small digital terrestrial blackspot. That said, analogue reception is crap too so the aerial could be partially to blame, as could the height of the flats across the road.) then I’m sure that it’s going to look way better. It was £800, more than Amazon charge, but John Lewis give you a 5 year warranty, so I suppose it’s not too bad a deal.

As I said before, other than that I’ve only been to Sainsbury’s which has been getting increasingly busy the closer we get to Christmas. On one of my visits (one where I was getting absolutely nothing for myself) I had yet more proof that there are an awful lot of wankers out there. Parking was limited and I’d had to drive around for about 10 minutes to find one. Eventually I noticed that a car was about to leave, so I duly stopped my car and began to indicate. They what seemed like a couple of minutes to drive off. I suspect that they wanted to go the wrong way along the car parks one way system, but since my car was blocking their path they couldn’t. They oddly chose to take the longest other route out which meant that I had to wait a second whilst they got out of the way. In the meantime, some bastard in a clapped out maroon H reg Ford Sierra (lot of detail there) pulled out of the queue of traffic that was snaking around the car park down the wrong way of the isle where the space was, and crookedly (in both senses of the word) parked his car in MY space. Bastard. I immediately honked my horn at him. He acted as though he were oblivious, shut off his engine and opened his car door. As he got out of his car I wound the window down the window. “Hey” I said “that’s my space, I’ve been waiting there for ages. Didn’t you see me indicate?” “Oh, were you. Sorry about that.” “That’s fine I said, expecting him to evacuate the ill gotten space. But the arrogant bastard didn’t head back inside his car “So, aren’t you going to move.” I asked, stern but polite. “No” he replied. “But that’s my space. I’ve been waiting for ages to get in there. I was here first” I protested. “He arrogantly responded “But I got in there first so it’s mine.” What an arsehole. By this point he was right outside my window. He looked like he was in his late fifties to early sixties; maybe he was younger but just very badly preserved. He looked scruffy with wisps of unkempt grey hair sitting atop his head with its pock marked face. He wore a grey anorak. He looked like a paedophile, or at the very least a dirty old man.

“Didn’t you see me indicating?” I asked. “No, I didn’t sorry” Two lies in one sentence; he clearly saw me indicating and he quite obviously wasn’t sorry.” Look, that’s my space are you going to, move.” “No. I’m not.” “I can’t believe that you just did that. Not only did you steal a space that I was obviously waiting for, you drove the wrong way up a wrong way road to get to it.” After all, had I move just a hair quicker he’d have simply smashed into my car. I only didn’t move more quickly because I could see that he was quite willing to collide with my car just to get the space.

“I don’t see what the problem is, I’m only going to be a couple of minutes.” he said selfishly, without a hint of regret or compassion. “It’s my space. Move your car.” “No”. “Wanker.” I shouted loudly before honking my horn again. He just walked away, no doubt going off to abuse some children or perve on teenaged girls.

A few minutes later, after rejoining the long queue of traffic I managed to find a space. As I walked towards the shop I noticed the bastard’s car. I gave serious thought to keying his car. I’m not sure why I didn’t. He certainly deserved it, bit something stopped me. I even went to give his tyres a kick but stopped just short of their badly worn rubber. I went inside and hurriedly did my shopping. It occurred to me that he might do something to my infinitely more expensive car (okay, it’s not worth a huge amount, but it’s probably worth x100 more than his piece of shit. I thought once again about keying his car as I went past it. I couldn’t though, it was gone. I checked on my own car. Fortunately there wasn’t any damage. It occurred to me that had I scratched his paintwork before I’d gone in he’d have been more likely to go after my car. It was probably a good ting that I did it. Besides, I realised, I’m not that vindictive. Well, I am pretty vindictive (I once publically chucked a drink at someone because he went back on a legitimate bet. He had to be physically restrained as I turned my back on him and walked of to the bar, complaining that I now had to buy a new drink), but I guess even I stop at illegal acts of vandalism. As I said, he might have decided to take revenge in my car so it was probably for the best. Then again, his car was such a wreck, that he probably wouldn’t have even noticed.

The problem is I still think that people who do tings that make the lives of others that little but worse simply shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this sort of thing. There should be some kind of karmic punishment. Maybe there will be at some point, unbeknownst to me, but my need for instant gratification makes me feel that I should be the instrument of karma. I’d usually feel guilty about doing bad things, but he would have deserved it. Besides, if I were only acting as the instrument of Karma I would actually be doing a good thing by, in a way, helping to bring balance back to the universe.

Actually, I really do hate that kind of thing. It’s those small acts of unkindness, of impoliteness and of selfishness that helps incrementally to make the world a far worse place. Just think about it. How much less inclined are you to do a nice thing when somebody’s just done something nasty to you. I mean it could be a small something, like letting a door shut in your face, or cutting you up, dropping litter, whatever. But it all goes towards making you feel a little less kind. And ten maybe you won’t bother to say thank you when somebody lets you out of a side road, they get pissed off and don’t bother to help an old person who’s trying to carry a heavy bag down a steep flight of steps. It’s a long chain that continues until everybody gradually becomes and unhelpful bitter old man who steal parking spaces and abuses kids.

Maybe I’m overstating it; maybe things don’t actually work like that. At least not for everybody else. Yeah, maybe it’s just me who feels that way. I doubt it though.

So for my part I’m going to try to break the chain as often as I can. If somebody’s crap to me I’m going to be especially nice to someone else the next time I have the opportunity. Actually right after my parking space was stolen almost straight away I had the chance to pilfer a space over which someone else had priority. But I didn’t. I guess I’m not anywhere near becoming that sad, bitter, old man in a clapped out old Sierra (who probably needed the space in a hurry because it was time for the local schoolchildren to leave). Not yet anyway. And I hope not ever.

And if you have the chance, maybe you could do likewise. Maybe, if we all did that the world would be just that little more bearable.

Dear Daily Mail - An uncontrolled rant

I was reading through a forum just now and I noticed a post from someone about how they thought footballers are overpaid. Fair enough, I thought, they are overpaid. Below someone had replied in agreement. However, they’d also made the point that there are other jobs far more worthy of high salaries and they included plumbers and builders as examples. Below is the full, unedited, text of my response.

"If you've ever needed to get a leaking tap fixed you'll realise that plumbers already get paid way too much. It wouldn't be so bad if they were even vaguely reliable, but I get the feeling that people from the aforementioned groups tend to hold their "skills" ransom, turn up whenever they feel like it and charge you an arm and a leg whenever they deign you worthy of their presence.

When I was at university I rented a house from a guy who made his living as a plumber. Having seen the size of his personal house I can assure you that he was in no need of further remuneration. And would he ever put his hand in his pocket to fix any problems with the house he was renting us?

For the money I'd become a plumber if only I were the sort of person who could live with myself after charging some poor old lady £100 from her meagre state pension for changing a washer.

Try teachers, nurses, firemen and policemen (and women) if you want groups of people who should be paid more.

Oh, and add, London Transport workers to the groups of people who should be paid less. Barely a brain cell between the lot of them and they still get paid more money and do less work than, say, a firefighter. Well, I mean they do less work when they have to go in, which isn't that often when you consider how much holiday time they have in relation to people in other, less well paid lines of work. It makes me sick that they strike so much, especially last year when they struck in a failed attempt to put the kibosh on many Londoners New Years Eve plans. I thought the idea of a strike was to financially inconvenience employers. Given that traditionally the tube is free on NYE all they were going to do was antagonise the general public, many of whom simply wanted to celebrate the coming of the New Year.

Most of the ones I've encountered (though not all of them) are ill mannered, rude and downright unhelpful. They barely ear a tenth of their salary if you ask me.

Yes, footballers do get paid far too much, but at least I don't have to put my hand in my own pocket every time one of them scores a goal. If the people who run the football clubs think that they're worth it then good luck to them. It's all to do with market forces I guess. People are prepared to pay for their exorbitantly priced season tickets that pay these overpaid idiots. Sponsors are prepared to shell out vast quantities of cash so the these "celebrities" endorse their products, which, they hope, will persuade Joe public to spend his hard earned cash on whatever rubbish they're selling. And it works, because people can be so easily led.

It's just a shame that the vast majority of footballers tend to piss away their earnings on some of the most lavish tat known to man. At least that's what they do when their not starting fights in nightclubs after an evening drinking overpriced champagne, living the so-called high life. If their not doing that they're sleeping with women who sell their stories to the tabloids for vast amounts of cash. And why do the tabloids pay so much for these kind of stories? Because there are people out their willing to buy this rubbish, and the thought of that makes me incredibly sad.

That's the problem with "celebrity" culture. People hear about all these "stars" getting away with murder (in the case of OJ Simpson, quite literally) and they think it's OK to behave like anti-social morons. It's effectively celebrity endorsement of hooliganism, every bit as effective as any advertising. Quite how Pete Doherty has managed to escape prison, having been tried for Drug possession is beyond me. So kids, apparently its OK to be a junkie because at worst you'll get a (proportionally) small fine (I think he was finned £770, probably substantially less than it cost to arrest him and take him to court) and told not to do it again. At least until the next time when the whole process is repeated again ad infinitum.

Sorry, rant over. Perhaps next time I feel like this I'll just write a letter to the Daily Mail or something."

And I could easily have gone on too. Every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes after I initially posted I kept coming up with more things to add. So, I edited my post and above is the final result. I'm still coming up with more things to add, but I thought that I'd better leave it there. It was after all just a forum about video games. I have a little more to say about video games too, but I'll leave that for another post.

At the end of my forum entry I was going to add the sentence "And you can say what you like about organised religion, after all I'm neither a proponent of it nor am I a believer, but at least in Jesus Christ it provided a reasonably suitable role model for today’s youth. Certainly more suitable than Jade bloody Goodie, who whatever new reprobate has been evicted from Big Brother this week. No wonder the county is going to hell"

I was going to add that (and, now that I think about it, so much more), but I thought that it may have been a step to far.

I think that the very fact that I went on so much suggests that I'm not all that happy (or that I may possibly be able to get a job on "Grumpy Old Men. Or maybe both).

First Cars

I can't believe it. Lee's actually bought a car (I've decided to come over all Ceasar-ish and write my journals in the third person. I'm not talking about myself, I can assure you). If you're reading this Lee, happy motoring.

Back in March I bought myself a new car, only my second since I passed my test back in August of 1995. For eight and a half years I drove an M-reg 1995 Vauxhall Corsa, originally in "Flame" red but latterly in partial pink. Never buy a red, non-metallic car, it will inevitably turn pink, or possibly orange. But, in spite of its cosmetic faults I truly loved that car. Aside from a dodgy window (that was eventually fixed by the incompetents at my local Vauxhall dealer after about four attempts at fixing the wrong part), it never went wrong in any major way. I had a couple of accidents in it, neither of which were my fault, at least as far as the insurance companies were concerned. I might have been responsible for the multi-car pile up that ensued after I mistook a right turning stop light for a straight on one whilst on my way to Kingston. The cars behind me were too close and piled into each other in my wake. I escaped after a small bump in the rear from the car behind which left me entirely unscathed. The other accident where some idiot in a tiny Bedford van pulled out from a side road on me was entirely his fault. I managed to stop just about in time, only lightly bumping the imbecile, only to have the fool move the van across my front scraping my bumper. The cheeky bastard had the gall to say that it didn’t matter if my car was a bit damaged since my paint was so faded. Bastard. I’m glad I eventually got the money put of him, but not before some considerable trouble with my insurance company. The bastards took months sort it out. They even tried to charge me more for my renewal because the claim hadn’t been settled. I actually had to say that I wasn’t going to pursue the claim to get a cheap renewal (in the end I found a new insurance company. Actually, the same insurance company through a different broker that somehow worked out drastically cheaper.), but fortunately, a week later, I got a letter from the idiot van drivers insurance company saying that they were going to pay for my repairs. Very serendipitous.

But there are good memories that go along with my little Corsa. It was the car that saw me through 4 of my 5 university years (I only got it just before my second year when I was living quite a way off campus). People I loved travelled with me in that car, friends that I cherished. One friend even tried to name it Colin (alliteration again). It didn’t stick.

It was reliable, I don’t remember it ever letting me down, but in the last few months I started to worry that it would. I worried enough to buy a new car, a 2002 Vauxhall Astra 1.6 litre SXi in Blue (my favourite colour) from a dealer in Reading (equally useless, they gave me a flat battery. Fortunately I made the journey back without stalling. The dead battery would have prevented me from getting it going again.) On the way there I hit terrible traffic. A journey that should have taken little more than an hour took nearly three times that. My little Corsa held just about made the final journey, though the wheezing coming from the front suggested that it was more than a little sick.

Just as I drove away from the dealer in my new car I looked back at the little red Corsa that had been my companion for so long, The little, red Corsa that I had shard so much with. I bid it a fond farewell. It was time to move on, I knew that. The trip to Reading had proved as much. But I still felt like I was leaving an important part of my past behind in a dealers forecourt in Reading.

So Lee, enjoy your first car. You’ll never have another like it.

MInd the Gaps

Note to self. Remember to eat before going out drinking.

After about 10pm I only remember bits of last night. Small patches do keep coming back to me. We went to the Maple Leaf in Covent Garden. I still remember that. Jamie was waiting for me at the station when I arrived. I was 5 minutes late, but that's too bad considering how late I left. I figured we'd start off at the Maple Leaf then head over to that Irish pub near Piccadilly Circus (O'Something or another'; yeah, I guess that's a pretty safe bet). As it turned out we stayed there for the whole evening (actually I think that Luke and his friends, possibly Jamie too, ended up at The Walkabout on Embankment). That's the problem with the Maple Leaf; it's such a great place to be and practically impossible to leave if get lucky and find a table. Admittedly I'm not too fond of the log cabin style refurb. And they got rid of the "Molson" chair. A portrait of John Molson (the man behind my hangover) hung over an inactive fireplace. In front of that was a table and a high backed, leather arm chair, the "Molson Chair". It was sort of chair that you'd expect to see being used by a man sporting a large handlebar moustache, smoking a pipe as he enjoys a good single malt whisky at his preferred gentleman's club. In the old days, when the Maple Leaf was just a little less busy we always made a beeline for the Molson chair. It's still there, but it’s no longer at the back of the bar by the fireplace underneath the portrait of John Molson. They've moved the portrait too. Nobody bothers to go for the chair anymore. Still, at least Bernie the stuffed (and slightly anorexic) bear is still about. Hmm, all of that sounded like it was building up to be metaphor for something. Well, except for the bit about Bernie (and it’s not like we’ve ever called him that; I’ve only just arbitrarily decided on an alliterative name for him).

Anyway, surprise of the night came when Luke turned up, complete with a girl from his office. She looked a little unassuming at first, wrapped up in a ¾ length, blue/green coat, but when she took it off she revealed a slender East Asian form, cloaked, very lightly, by a tight blue bustier-esqe top that cupped her small, but shapely breasts. If only I could remember the conversation as well as the breasts. I did talk to her for a wile. I’m told I was quite funny, if a little over the top with my good natured banter about Luke’s many deficiencies. Still, even if I was funny and charming it was all for naught; I found out later that the girl, Joyce, yes that was her name, was married, even though she wore no ring. I wasn’t interested of course. At the risk of being crass Luke had dibs anyway. No, I had no real interest in Joyce besides using her as a means by which I could keep myself amused, to prove that I could still hold the attention of a pretty girl if I so wished. It helped that I was in something of an exuberant mood at the evenings beginning. Even before the alcohol that followed. In another state of mind I would have undoubtedly found it less easy.

Now that I think about it, perhaps, conversely, my lack of any real interest in the subject (so clinical) rendered the exercise entirely pointless anyway. Still, it made me feel better for a short while.

Shots were ordered and I made Jamie seem foolish in front of the barmaid he fancied (at least that’s what the tell me). Jamie bears me no ill will; apparently he has no memory if it either.

Some other people turned up; I assumed they more of Luke’s work collegues, apparently only one of the three was.

I’ll reiterate my earlier point. It is essential that I eat BEFORE I go out.

I left at some point, of that I’m sure. It was an indeterminate amount of time after Ben and Craig left, but maybe not before Jamie. Certainly it was before Luke and his rapidly expanding entourage left (they went on to join Rosh at his gathering for the 19 year old girl, whoever she was, at the Walkabout). I vaguely remember finding myself walking across Trafalgar square, not my usual route to Piccadilly Circus (where I’d usually get the Bakerloo line, but not that day); the result, I think of an abortive attempt to go to the Strand branch of McDonalds for a burger. Quite what was wrong with the Leicester Square branch that I would pass by had I taken my regular path, I don’t know. Quite why I didn’t go for the burger after all I don’t know either. Maybe it had something to do with how queasy I felt going back on the Piccadilly Line to Rayners Lane (obviously I couldn’t muster the strength to change trains so as I could go directly to my closest station). Luckily the toilets weren’t open. The local youth must have decided to ply their vandalistic trade elsewhere that weekend. I continued to be unwell when I got home. For the first night in weeks, I had no trouble sleeping.

I notice that I’m naming names today. If anybody who reds this has any objections I’ll remove them. I’m Lee by the way.

Why did I bother?

I got a call from Craig at lunch time today. In truth it woke me up, but still, I'd been woken up a few times already by that point anyway. He wanted to play Halo 2 later. To sleepy to come up with a good reason why didn't want to (retrospectively I probably should have simply said "I don't want to") I said yes. So at about 9pm he called and, a while later (it was about 9.30pm, but it seemed like quite a while) we started playing. It was just as bloody awful as I remembered. Hordes of screaming, sub-literate American kids, gleefully attempting to mock you for your accent or kill you deliberately even though they're on your team. Then you have to put up with laggy game play where your efforts are seemingly further hampered by the unfair advantage that Xbox 360 owners seem to have with what appears to be a far more accurate and deadly auto aim, meaning that you die about twice as quickly as your richer (at least their parents are richer), younger, whinier, transatlantic cousins. That's if the Yank kids haven't already quit because they've gone 1-0 down after 30 seconds of the game. In the end the whole thing was starting to wind me up so much that I simply gave up bothering to play properly. In the past I even managed to get so pissed off with the uneven playing field that I threw my joypad on the floor. This would have been fine, the joypad's quite sturdy after all, unfortunately it's connected to the headset, which is nowhere near as well but and promptly snapped as it came off my head.

It wasn't fun. I probably won't renew my Xbox live subscription when it expires in February. I'm starting to think that Xbox live is a major contributing factor towards the rest of the worlds hatred towards America. I really do hope that the miscreants one encounters on Xbox live aren't in any way representative of the US population as a whole.

Craig has an Xbox 360. I'll probably never get one. He's been trying to persuade me to get one. He talks as if it's inevitability. It really isn't.

So, a complete waste of an evening. Sort of. I suppose at least now I know that I'm not missing out on anything good by leaving my Xbox turned off.

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.