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Friday, July 10th, 2009
unknownj
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22:51
Finalé of Torchwood was outstanding. Far more BSG than SG1 as endings go, only with more guts. Peter Capaldi was amazing, and the conclusion of his story thread was the best TV I think the BBC have broadcast in... years? Ever? I don't know.. Fucking excellent.
That is all.
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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
unknownj
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15:54
What the hell is wrong with me? I just read Baptist Church as Rapist Church. Worse - I laughed.
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Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
unknownj
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21:15
You've got to be joking, right? I've been wanting severe weather for over a week now, kept being promised something dramatic, and nothing happened...
... the first day I'm out of London, they have flooding, hail storms, thunder, etc...
... and I'm in Bristol, with blue skies, sunshine, and fluffiness. Bloody typical.
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Monday, July 6th, 2009
unknownj
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23:08
Four and a half years into our relationship, and I learn that all this time I've been reading Naomi's tattoo upside down :o(
Stupid Chinese symbols :o\
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Sunday, July 5th, 2009
unknownj
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15:50
Just ten days to go now..
It's been what, fifteen, sixteen months since Naomi and I last lived together full time? And now it all just comes down to these last ten days.
Of those, Monday night is going to be spent at Naomi's house, and Wednesday and Thursday will be spent in Guildford together, so really we're only talking seven days, more or less.
Next Wednesday evening, once we're finally in, I'm going to spend some time de-spidering the house. Without any furniture in there, it should hopefully be fairly easy. Every corner, every cupboard, every window, everything. There will be no spiders when Naomi moves in :o)
And then perhaps we can get back to, or indeed re-discover, some sort of sense of normality. Having our own space again - not just space that's ours, but space that we own, and can do with as we wish.. Being able to spend evenings in front of the TV, or cooking, or doing whatever we want, without having to consider anybody else in the world - it'll be bliss :o)
It's weird, because I keep on thinking back to the first time we officially moved in together, which was more than three years ago now, and I still get the same rush of excitement at the thought of doing it all over again. In spite of how nice it's been living with my family again, and exploring the countryside for the last year, living with Naomi is the happiest I've ever been, and I really can't wait to get back to that :o)
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wicker_girl
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15:36
sunday bloody sunday
Oh my god I am so freakin bored. I'm dangerously, criminally, offensively bored. All of them time. Lately I just feel like a child in the middle of the summer holidays stuck at their grandparents in dorkesville or something.
So bored that the other night it actually seemed like a good idea to play a drinking game that envolved sellotaping glass bottles to my hands on a roof.
I need some new hobbies or some new friends or both, but as is so often the way when you feel like this, I just can't seem to work up the energy or sustained attention to do anything much about it.
Anyone have any ideas for fun activites? My life is just all reading, drinking too much and sitting around doing nothing in particular. The Jonathan Creek box set arriving was actually the highlight of my week last week. I totally need to get my arse in gear about this MA, because as far as I can see it's the only possible way out of the mental stagnation and social isolation in which I seem to have immured myself.
In a bit me and Ally are off to drink cocktails and then watch Johnny Depp draiving like a madman in awesome thirties suitsd shooting the hell out of people. Fiiiiiit. How I love the romance of crime.
In other news, I want some more tattoos so badly I can taste it.
And I really need to get my internet fixed, really really badly.
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Friday, July 3rd, 2009
herdivineshadow
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23:45
I swear I am still alive. Just busy.
current mood:  tired
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Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
embitteredpoet
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22:37
stop the world, stop the world. I'm getting off
I spent all night doing an application form. The deadline's tonight. Their website has crashed.
FUCKING SHIT. (Edit: Turns out you can just email them)
Why is a dead paedophile more important than everything else?
Why are bad things in Iran more important than bad things in Africa?
Why are politicians unable to admit they've made mistakes or say sorry until it's far too late?
Why are Labour making ID cards voluntary and not scrapping them?
Why was Radio 4 telling me that Labour were unwilling to countenance the scrapping of Trident's replacement?
Why was this apparently because they didn't want to make the debate about machismo?
Why can't Labour try and be Labour and stop trying to appeal to core Tory support by being nastier than them?
You can't win them all.
Why can't they say:
We've fucking cut the waiting lists and introduced the minimum wage. Some of the money we've spent has been wasted, but the Tories wouldn't have done either of these things and rich people would've been richer.
Why can't someone explain to people that Inheritance Tax is fucking awesome?
Why won't anyone give me a job that requires a graduate?
Why have I become obsessed with trains? I fantasise about building new train lines and stations and Greater Manchester approving the congestion charge.
30 Rock starts slowly but by episode three or four it is awesome. But I'm a fanboy.
Why doesn't pressing F5 fix someone else's server.
The Stone Roses were fucking awesome.
Then they were quite good and then they broke up.
I am going to research new internet for the house. I want to get wireless so my Mum can use her laptop and stop nagging me.
I have to get up in seven hours. Night night.
current music: The Stone Roses
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unknownj
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09:59
Part 3 - Sunday
Sunday morning was just about my only rest over the last few days, in which I allowed myself to sleep in until 10am (seemingly a rare luxury, and possibly undermined by the fact that I was also up and about between 7am and 8am anyway).. Still, it was good to get a lie in - presumably my next one of those will be this coming weekend...
So at around lunchtime, I grabbed the coach to Oxford, and from there took a couple of trains to get to Naomi's. We had a nice (if slightly embarrassing) afternoon in which I demonstrated quite clearly that I am not the world's best table tennis player. Shock! Still good fun though :o)
Then in the evening, it was time to go out into London to see Aqualung live. The gig was in Notting Hill, which is actually a tremendous scum-hole in a lot of areas - who knew? There was a little drama with the train tickets - they don't actually tell you that they're invalid for the journey you propose to make until after you've bought them - clever, eh? Still, managed to get to the right area roughly on time, and went to an Italian restaurant for dinner - Centonove on Westbourne Park Road.
It is worth noting at this point that in spite of my (apparent) aversion to vinegar, I consumed more than my fair share of bread dipped in some sort of vinegar dressing while we were there. I think that counts as trying a new food, for the purposes of my mighty list, but I'd need to double check that... If that doesn't, then trying Naomi's pumpkin ravioli will probably qualify. Either way, the meal was seriously delicious, and exactly what I needed. And it's always nice to take Naomi out to dinner - she usually makes it so difficult for me ;o)
So from there, to the Tabernacle, whose interior is technically a theatre by design. The majority of the gig was spent sitting on the floor patiently, since it's not really get-up-and-dance music.. We arrived in time to see half the set of the first support act, Foreign Slippers. They were pretty good - she had a nice voice, the songs were well put together, can't really ask for more than that.. Quality support was a theme for the evening really.
Next up were KaiserCartel, who were absolutely excellent. One of their songs ("Okay", I believe) was enough to give me tingles, which is not the most common thing for a song I've never heard by a band I've never heard. For that one, they had Foreign Slippers out on stage, along with Matt/Aqualung, so it was just a big ensemble piece. Worked brilliantly well. For their last song they went entirely acoustic, and walked around the audience singing it, which was ever so slightly kooky, but it worked well enough for what it was trying to do..
And then Aqualung. Holy shit is that man good. If we measure the quality of a gig by the degree to which the performance was faithful to the studio material, while being enhanced by the live environment, then he scores big. Where Erasure failed to modify their music for a live feel, or Joseph Arthur failed to play the songs as they were known to people, Aqualung had no such problems. In terms of quality alone, it was just as good as Elbow - on a personal level, the gig lost a few marks because I was slightly less familiar with the material, but gained a few for being in one of the most intimate venues I've ever been to for a gig. Only Lifehouse really beats that...
Unfortunately, due to my lack of familiarity with the material, I couldn't really say which songs got played.. But he covered a great many, if not all, of the ones that I know, which is more than a couple. I just don't know the names... He certainly played Garden of Love and Pressure Suit, which are two of my absolute favourites (and the former is where Naomi's LJ username is from).. For the most part he was accompanied on the guitar by his brother Ben, with Foreign Slippers and KaiserCartel coming out from time to time to help out on other songs. But for several of the songs, it was just man and (synthesised) piano, and it was excellent :o)
Upon his return for the encore, he explained that he was open to suggestions for songs from the audience, at which point somebody shouted out "Beach Boys", and we were treated to a rather splendid rendition of God Only Knows, first Matt on his own, and gradually joined by all the other artists who'd performed, all picking up various instruments. It's just so good to be in the presence of musicians as opposed to entertainers.
In short, he really knows how to put on an excellent gig, and I'm sure it fits comfortably within my top five. On which note, my (unordered) top five gigs, as rated based on the objective quality, would probably be Lifehouse, Easyworld, Stars, Elbow, Aqualung. Very glad that we went - it exceeded all my expectations :o)
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Monday, June 29th, 2009
unknownj
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17:07
Part 2 - Saturday
I met Jasna at Paddington (eventually), and we headed over to Liverpool Street to grab everyone else. TFD (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) davedowns) came down from Hull for it (we're just that compelling, as a group) and was the first to show up, followed by Carrie (cellardor (though I keep wanting to type stewpotc)). Merel (myarra) joined us next, and then we were just waiting for tma - the man around whom we had planned all the timings in the first place. Should have known better than to think that he'd get there on time - where he lives, trains are pulled by horses...
What then followed was something of a farce.. TMA, in his infinite stinginess, had brought two-for-one vouchers for Pizza Express, and asserted that he knew the location of at least three such outlets in close proximity to the station, and that we were all to follow him. Somewhere around Moorgate, we realised that the man was lying, and had no idea where we were or where we were meant to be going. I blame all of us, really, for following him in the first place. Fortunately, some of us have GPS-enabled phones, so we were able to salvage the trip and find the restaurant without too much bother.
I should mention at this point that we were in the heart of the financial district, where there's nothing much to speak of other than offices and banks and the like. Consequently, it being a Saturday, the streets were dead, barely another soul around.. Likewise the restaurant, where we were the only people there at first (at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon!), which was actually rather lucky, since as a party of six we'd be unlikely to be seated anywhere even remotely busy.
So pizza time, and the three girls (all sitting along one side of the table - just like at school) all ordered their plain old margaritas. The three guys, sitting on the other side of the table, all ordered our pepperoni pizzas. It was almost embarrassing in its predictability... :o)
( And so the day went on... )
All in all though, it was a really good day, I thought.. Good to see TFD again - I haven't seen him since April 2001, it turns out.. And it was good to reminisce with him and TMA about the good old days, Kit (presumed dead), Chas (presumed dead), and the whole Internet-before-LJ thing.. Also good to meet Merel, even if she is kind of nuts :o)
Plus, always good to see Carrie, though I do worry that she's not afraid of me any more - at the lunch table, I'm pretty sure she gave serious thought to harming me.. Must try harder to be menacing.. Still, perhaps there's some merit in actually getting along with people, and that this represents a positive step forward :o)
And of course, it was awesome that Jasna was able to be there, thus making ours the first intercontinental AMA meet-up. Suck on that, USA :oP
We'll have to do it all again sometime.. Maybe next time, we'll come up with something to actually do with ourselves!
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unknownj
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10:28
Part 1 - Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
In the spirit of, y'know, keeping a journal and everything, I guess I should talk a little about the past week, since it's been fairly eventful...
So on Wednesday, Jasna (thewebmistress) came over from Canada (by way of the Netherlands).. This required me to trek into deepest, darkest Essex in order to pick her up from the woefully desolate Harwich International, which is basically a room with a pier attached to it. Correction - two rooms. I'd hate to feel like I was giving an inaccurate portrayal..
Anyhow, so from there we had then head back into London, and get her to her hostel, which is in an old Magistrates Court - rather nice building really.. With hindsight, maybe that's why the place is called "Clink" - that would make sense..
So yeah, it was all rather good - as far as I recall, there were no horribly awkward silences, or anything of that nature, and certainly by the end of the journey she was talking plenty.. Ooh, and we saw where they're building all that crap for the Olympics, which was nice..
So yeah, I headed back to Naomi's house to lie in wait, so to speak, since she didn't know I'd be there.. I greeted her at the door on Thursday morning when she got in from her night shift, which seemed to come across like a nice surprise :o) Then we spent about an hour cuddling in bed before I had to leave for work, and let her get some sleep. With any luck, that'll be her last night shift before we're living in Guildford anyway :o)
Anyway, moving on to Thursday then, I met up with Jasna in the afternoon by my work and went for a wander.. Down to Trafalgar Square, then took the tube up to Regents Park, then hung out there a while, then out to get a bit of lunch, then tube to Embankment, and walked along the South Bank to Tower Bridge. It's probably worth mentioning that while we were in the park, we watched a very friendly squirrel get a little too friendly with the leg of a man who was offering to feed it.. Personally, I could do without rodents climbing up my legs, it doesn't seem like the most fun way to contract disease...
So in any case, the whole day was roughly characterised by walking around a lot and sitting under a lot of trees, which seems to be my default way of spending time in London, and therefore sharing that experience with other people is showing them my London, rather than whatever it is that everyone else does.. We ended the day in Green Park, in constant fear that we were about to get shat on by a particularly poorly placed pigeon. Fun times!
On Friday night I went to Naomi's, where we ordered pizza and watched Twilight. I think I can safely say that it's the most poorly executed adaptation of a book I've ever seen. ( Spoilers )
Anyway, outrage aside, it was a good evening.. Naomi and I were looking after her dog, who'd just come back from hospital with stitches, so we had to keep an eye on her and make sure she was okay... At one point, I just lay down on the floor and she came to lie down with me, it was very sweet - she's a lovely puppy really :o)
We had a good lie-in together on Saturday, before I then headed back into London for our whole AMA Meet-Up thing.
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