Thursday, July 31
And now, for your viewing entertainment...
A picture of Fyrrra, the dancing wookiee, in her new Sage's Hood. Nice. ;)
But she is not dancing. How sad.
The meeting went well, I think. I'm going to have a lot of work to do. I need my dissertation supervisor to stop being on holiday. Honestly, I need his help! *sigh*
Bah,
Mark is using my words against me!
Ali picked up on this apparent inconsistency, too.
When I said I wouldn't quote lyrics, I meant I didn't like people who said things like, "I feel excruciatingly happy, just like that song... blah blah blah...". I didn't mean I wouldn't work lyrics out if people searched for them!
That is providing a service. ;)
I have to get ready for my archaeology meeting. I don't want to go... But
Ali pointed out that it'd be worse if I didn't, because then I'd be in trouble, and... probably best if I go. Ah well. I'm sure it'll work out okay...
In other news, I had a bit of a headache last night so I thought I'd lounge in front of the TV instead of squinting at a monitor. There didn't seem to be much on, except, well,
Fame Academy. I hadn't meant to get sucked in this early on. Maybe I'm not sucked in quite yet. Who knows? We'll see.
But the three people I liked the most got into the Academy. Excellent.
Peter was hilarious - he did a cover of the Monkee's
Last Train to Clarksville. Oh, it made me laugh... He's completely insane! Honestly,
completely insane.
Look at me, blogging instead of getting ready for that meeting.
Drat...
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (TV): fame academy (bbc 1) / READING: attack of the clones (graphic novel)
Tuesday, July 29
Someone searched for the lyrics to "Four Minute Warning" by Mark Owen, and since
James often works these things out (and since I like the song because it kind of tells a story), I've decided to oblige. ;)
I reckon it's right, pretty much!
Four minutes left to go, is this the end, then?
Message on your stereo, four minute warning.
Everybody wants to know, what should we do, then?
A few short stories, a four minute warning.
Sasha stands in his yellow cafe,
The heart of the city is here, so he tells me,
Sitting on his red leather sofa, he's rolling another,
Man, I'll see you when I see you.
Polly is set to be the next big thing,
In her high heeled boots, and her two inch earrings,
Heart of glass, Blondie, sings in her ear,
You're a rock queen honey and we all hear you! (Come on!)
Three minutes left to go, is this the end, then?
Message on your stereo, four minute warning.
Everybody wants to know, what should we do, then?
A few short stories, a four minute warning.
Lucy had a hard time with love,
But love recently chose the right time for Lucy,
Loving when you know it's the final time,
She now holds time in her own mind.
Yeah, Jimmy's is the local for Michael,
A Guinness in one hand, in the other a fable, able,
I once asked are you a lonely man?
His reply was non-commital, 'I am what I am, man!"
Two minutes left to go, is this the end, then?
Message on your stereo, four minute warning.
Everybody wants to know, what should we do, then?
A few short stories, a four minute warning.
Cry, laugh, fear, love, peace, panic,
These are your four minutes.
I'm counting it down,
Four minutes of sound,
It's always a rush when you're around.
The final story is one of me,
Who with four minutes left has used up three,
I think of you, I think of me,
Then I think of nothing, it's the end you see, yeah!
One minute left to go, is this the end, then?
Message on your stereo, four minute warning.
Everybody wants to know, what should we do, then?
A few short stories, a four minute warning.
What would you do, yeah?
With a four minute warning, a four minute warning...
I'm fading away, I'm fading away, if anybody wants to know...
Hmm... haven't done much lately. I've pretty much finished a spreadsheet that breaks down all the Alchester pottery into contexts and fabric types (a 'context' is what each layer in a trench's fill is called). It has taken
hours, but I'm getting there. I have to meet the man in charge of the project on Thursday (he's coming to Leicester to see me), so I'll have to go into
uni tomorrow and make sure I can get to the plans we'll need. And make sure the materials lab is accessible. Not that this is interesting. I'm just rambling.
Apart from that I've... I dunno, talked to
Ali and Harriet, watched a bit of TV, probably listened to some CD's and MP3's... oh, I cooked a casserole yesterday. A beef one. I even made dumplings. Yummy. (Well, I like my food. Hehe.)
Hmmmm... I finally watched
The Terminator. I was told I had to watch
Terminator and
Terminator 2 before we went to see
T3, so... I'm halfway there. Some people might wonder how I managed to get this old without watching these films, but hey. I thought it was quite good. Maybe I like it less because everyone always hypes it so much. I don't know. But the time travel thing worked quite well. I liked the ironic aspect.
I mean (highlight to read),
if the Terminator hadn't come back, and therefore Kyle, John Connor would never
have been born, and Sarah wouldn't have learned the im
portance of educating John for the fighting ahead... s
o the machines actually brought about their own downfall.
That's about it, then. I feel strangely tired. I keep waking up at 5 or 6 in the morning and sleeping
appallingly well until about 8 with weird (sometimes horrible) dreams. I might feel less tired if I just got up at 5 or 6, but... I can't do it. That's way too early to get up, right? *sigh*
Think happy thoughts. ;)
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (TV): firefly (scifi); neighbours (bbc 1) / LISTENING: innocent man (billy joel); triple j (aussie radio) / READING: tales of the jedi (graphic novel)
Sunday, July 27
Oh, the beans were from his parents, does that make the previous blog entry slightly less weird?!?
Here I am again. I've almost finished MP3'ing my singles. I have, hmm, five more to go. I've done 299 MP3's so far. *sigh*
Haven't done much today. I went to church this morning, and I asked about the possibility of playing the bass guitar in the worship band. They seemed very keen to let me play, and didn't ask me to audition. Apparently I was the first ever person to provide a reference..! But I'm going to be a 'floating musician', since the rotas are done in advance (bit too organised for me) and since bass players are rare at the moment whoever wants me can use me. It could mean I end up playing every week. Not that that'd be a bad thing, necessarily.
Not bad from
my point of view, anyway. Maybe bad for the people subjected to my playing. ;)
Apart from that I worked on a birthday party invitation, which I'll print off as soon as I get my hands on my new ink cartridges. And I've MP3'ed a lot of stuff. Hmm...
I did have a terrible shock when someone knocked on my door (which was odd, because
Ali doesn't usually knock) and it turned out to be
Rob. He and Emma had come round to deliver some broad beans. Some of which I cooked for dinner. Hmmm, green vegetabley goodness. ;)
So that's about it, really. :)
LOL, now I have Christian dating ads in my google header. Hehe...
I have been mostly.... LISTENING: trashed (skin); cornflake girl (tori amos); the laws have changed (the new pornographers); pretender got my heart (alisha's attic)
Saturday, July 26
Oh, and if anyone has my Stereophonics album
Just Enough Education To Perform, and Wheatus's self titled album, can I have them back? And any other CD's I haven't noticed are missing yet. They could be in John's room, I suppose, or else the car stereo thieves took them... *sniff*
Bit of a long shot, I know... ;)
Just downloaded The New Pornographers song that
James is so keen on. He's showing as much good taste as always. ;)
Okay, well, I'm going to be less introspective today. :)
As
Rob mentioned, on Wednesday he went to install some PC's for work and I accompanied him. Let's face it, I'm a student, work avoidance is my middle name! So I spent two hours stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 with him, and it was the nicest two hours stuck in a traffic jam I've ever had. The time
not stuck in traffic jams was also good, mind you..!
We went to Dartford first, which is a trip of (at a guess) 120 miles or so. Then we went to South Woodham Ferrers, which is a
really spooky place. The shopping part all looks quite new (late 80's or 90's, I suppose). It all seems to have been built at once, in a slightly villagey fashion, with paved areas, little pedestrian streets and matching architecture. A lot of it seemed to be empty, though, and what made it even weirder was the lack of people. Yeah, there were enough people to help with the "this is the town centre" illusion, but it wasn't convincing. And where were the big shops? I'd have thought there was more to the town centre, but there weren't
signs to any other shopping areas. It was eerie. I was glad to get out of there...
After he'd finished there we went to visit my parents, which was interesting. I think they were trying not to be
too weird, although at one point my Mum gave
Rob a Duplo train to play with. Ah well.
So that was Wednesday.
Thursday I didn't get much work done, but I did a lot of housework. I won't bore you with the details.
Friday I did
lots of work! I did pottery related spreadsheets from 10am to 3.30pm, then I walked to Safeway. This turned into a two mile round trip in fairly heavy rain. I was a bit drippy by the end of it. But I needed Safeway bargains, like coffee, and minced beef. They know what they're doing with those leaflets, don't they? Hehe. And I needed some suntan lotion, to make an effort to combat the scorching nature of the sun. And tomatoey sauce for the lasagne I was planning. I always make the white sauce part, but I can't be bothered with the tomatoey sauce part. I don't like tomatoes. They are evil.
So... Friday evening
Rob came round and ate half the aforementioned lasagne (I made another one for
Ali, because she asked nicely), and we talked a lot, and (scarily) my grandparents phoned up. I don't know what they made of the news that I'd found a "young man". They were probably so shocked that it wasn't
Mark that they couldn't figure out what to say! It'll be interesting to see how all that turns out... I wrote them a letter containing more details this morning, so...
Today, then, well,
Rob took me to the Forest of Dean. Unfortunately it rained a lot. But I still enjoyed it. People who know me well may have noticed that I tend to like being driven around in cars listening to good music, so
Rob could probably drive me anywhere and I'd enjoy it. Plus there's the obvious added thing of
Rob's company. I wouldn't enjoy being driven around by just
anyone. ;)
That's pretty much it, then.
Oh, the only other thing I've done is reorganise my CD collection. While we were in Southend I picked up all my other CD's. Now they're (supposedly) all in one place. I didn't think I had quite so many. As it turns out I have about 297 CD's (some are double albums, so there are actually more discs than that...). That's approximately 151 albums, 15 compilations, 2 of a friend's bands, 5 CD-R's, 34 soundtrack albums and 77 singles. Oh, and 13 albums I don't want any more.
In 1997, when I went to
uni, I'm sure I only had about 15. Which is weird, because I've had a CD player since 1993. I was the first person I know to have one. If you know what I mean. Everyone used to be impressed by my CD player. Hard to imagine people being impressed by a CD player now, isn't it? The first CD's I had were (I think) the
Jungle Book soundtrack,
Now Dance 1993, and I think Mr Sting's
Fields of Gold was an early one too. And
Shine 5. Buying CD's is a fairly recent thing, although I suppose having the money to buy them (or feeling able to justify the spending, anyway) is also a fairly recent thing. It's my one major vice, probably. I like my CD's.
Anyway, some of the CD's I never listen to (because I'm horrified at the amount of CD's I have and I need more money to, er, fund my CD buying habit) are now on
eBay. This is a weird bunch of CD's, and my item descriptions ranged from to the point so a bit peculiar, but hey. Hopefully I'll make a ton of money. Woo-hoo!
Right, that really is it.
Bye!
I have been mostly.... READING: tales of the jedi (graphic novel) / LISTENING: gotta get through this (daniel bedingfield); hatful of rain (del amitri) / WATCHING: neighbours (bbc 1); top of the pops (bbc 1)
Thursday, July 24
Ah... when
Rob said about breaking geekiness records he meant that we
held hands while installing Office 2000. Oh the terrible geeky shame... ;)
Hmmm...
Lately I keep looking at my life and thinking, "What am I doing? I have no control over my life at all!", and then I think, "But I never had control... it's just that things seem more complicated now." And besides, who
does have control over their life? I've been all introspective about things like this before, thinking about how things haven't worked out how I wanted them to (such as job interviews after getting my degree) but the eventual result always seems to be better than I could ever have imagined.
I know I go on about this, but I'm so thankful that I didn't get offered all those jobs I applied for after my degree. The pay wasn't great but I loved working at
WHSmith, I loved the people I worked with, I loved stock replenishing, tidying, displays, dealing with reps, sorting out the book order computer... I even enjoyed interacting with most of the customers!
See, that's the thing, I can't see where anything's going. But God can... yeah, back to Him again. :)
I think my problem at the moment is that I have this horrible fear that the stuff I know isn't enough. It's hard to explain. Up until now I've, well, I suppose I've gotten through life by being as nice to people as I can. Part of me wonders whether this niceness is just a superficial thing. It's okay being nice to people in small doses, but what if I get thrown into situations that I have no experience with?
I've led a sheltered life, really. I was brought up in a Christian home, I was bullied at school (who wasn't) but I kept out of trouble and developed a geeky streak a mile wide. My closest friends did the same things as me, so I never had to get involved with their uncomfortable problems. I didn't do all the stuff normal teenagers did, so I never had to deal with drunk friends or two-timing boyfriends, fights or other unpleasantness. How far would my niceness extend? I ache inside when I think about this... I have no idea.
It's not that I'd suddenly stop being 'nice', but I reckon I'd panic. I wouldn't know what to do.
Maybe it's easy to be nice when your life is so full of nice things. Apart from my old
work friends and my
uni friends (who are all nice anyway) I don't really mix with non-Christians. Apart from on the internet. And my internet friends are all nice too.
Sounds like I'm complaining about having nice friends, or something... I'm not. I'm intensely grateful that I'm this fortunate.
I dunno where this is going.
I'm so glad that I'm in so many great people's lives. I feel privileged. I love hearing what you're all up to. When you're sad I wish there were things I could do to help. Sometimes I feel a bit useless, as if it wouldn't really matter whether I was here or not, but I'm glad I've been given the opportunity to know you all.
Writing this has brought a tear to my eye. Now I feel a bit daft. But... I suppose I just wanted to make sure you all know how much you mean to me. Whether I know you in real life, or via the internet, or whatever... you're all an integral part of my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm happy, though. Don't worry about me.
I think all I can do is go with the flow and see where I end up. I wouldn't be here (wherever here is, and it's certainly not a bad place!) without
Ali, and she's not going anywhere. And now I have
Rob and he makes me happy, and I don't want to think about it too much. I just know I like it. I like him, I mean... Why do I have to work out what anything means? I just want to soak everything up. Reminds me of a song I've been listening to a lot lately... Athlete's song
Beautiful. I won't quote the lyrics because people who quote lyrics annoy me. ;)
I'd better stop before I bore you all to death. Plus thinking about all this is threatening to make me burst into tears. Again. Honestly, I don't cry! Except for every single time I watch
Batteries Not Included. And I hardly think those little alien robot guys compare with real life events. That film is an inexplicable exception to my not cryingness.
I'm rambling, aren't I? And not even in an interesting manner.
I meant to write about yesterday's exciting trip, but this is already pretty long. And I could probably do the day more justice if I wasn't in such a peculiar mood. :)
I'll see you later, then.
Bye!
I have been mostly.... READING: bedside lovers [and other goats] (joe bennett)
Tuesday, July 22
Oh wow... this blog is the third site when you do
this search at google!
Here I am again. For once no-one I know is online... not even the people that I have
no idea who they are, who lurk on my messenger lists. No-one's here. Eerie...
Let me see... I think the thing
Rob and I did that was quite geeky (to which he refers in his blog) was install Office 2000. Good news that I have it, in many ways, although now I have no excuse not to do work. And believe me, I have been doing work... I have little spreadsheety things stuck up all over the shelf type arrangement in front of my computer. I did hit a slight snag when it became apparent that there wasn't any black ink left in the printer. It isn't
telling me that, although it says it's very low, but it prints blank sheets of paper. Hehe... So I've been printing things in blue and green and various other interesting colours.
I did remember to order some more cartridges today, though. Nice.
And the meal
Ali cooked on Monday was
very strange. I don't think it agreed with me, really. I'm still alive, I suppose, but... yes. Hmm.
Sometimes I think I ought to write a quick "who the people are that I refer to on this blog" thing, since it gets a bit complicated. I mean, I interact with several of them in real life, which makes things even more confusing.
The trip tomorrow should be interesting. On the one hand I'm looking forward to spending a day in
Rob's company, but on the other hand we're going so close to home that I couldn't really refuse my Mum when she said we should stop in. I'm not ashamed of
Rob (far from it) but I don't want to burden him with meeting my parents if he doesn't want to. And he's too nice to protest about it. And if he's met
my parents then I feel like I ought to meet his... my Mum points out that I have met his parents before, but I don't really remember much about it, and the circumstances were somewhat different. I think I may have met them both briefly when Emma (
Rob's sister and my friend) and I graduated.
I'm rambling, aren't I? This is what happens when there's no-one online to distract me.
Who am I kidding? I ramble anyway. *sigh*
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): neighbours (bbc 1); firefly (scifi) / LISTENING: white flag (dido); a minha menina (the bees) / READING: about a boy (nick hornby); angel graphic novels / PLAYING: star wars galaxies
Sunday, July 20
BTW, kept meaning to point out this
particularly bizarre SETI@Home profile...
Maybe some of you want to know what I've been up to recently... hmm. I've spent quite a bit of time with
Rob. We went walking again yesterday and I, er, got quite sunburnt. I know, I ought to have learned my lesson about the whole 'sun hating me' thing, but... The sunburn was a fair price to pay for the actual walking experience. :)
Church was odd this morning, still don't really know what happened exactly, except that I ended up crying a
lot (and I never cry usually) and it was... awesome? Hmm... very difficult to put into words.
This afternoon I watched the British GP with Mark. It was
very exciting. There was an incredible amount of overtaking, and other excitement, including
this strange man walking along Hanger Straight towards oncoming formula one cars. He was either mad or suicidal or both. I'm extremely glad he didn't get hit - it would have been bad for him, sure, but whoever hit him would have been seriously hurt too. Could have been a disaster...
That's about it really.
I feel strangely... hmm... maybe a bit sad, but... serene. That's the word...
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): british grand prix (itv) / LISTENING: beautiful (athlete); el salvador (athlete) / READING: harry potter and the order of the phoenix (j k rowling); jango fett (graphic novel) / PLAYING: star wars galaxies
Saturday, July 19
Was just updating my
Amazon Wishlist, which I've never told anyone about really. I figured that since it was less than a month until my birthday maybe I
should tell people about it. I kind of narrowed it down to things I'd really like, and... well, there it is. Of course, Amazon Wishlists aren't particularly useful if people don't buy from Amazon, and who's going to buy books from them when they charge an arm and a leg for postage? Ah well.
What a nice day it is today. :)
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): neighbours (bbc 1) / LISTENING: beautiful (athlete); el salvador (athlete); send your love (mr sting) / READING: harry potter and the order of the phoenix (j k rowling) / PLAYING: star wars galaxies
Thursday, July 17
Mr Sting Alert!
Just got hold of an MP3 of
Mr Sting's new single, "Send Your Love". Has some cool north african type trumpet type stuff going on. Apparently his new album's being released on the 22nd September (in the UK, anyway).
/Mr Sting Alert!
Figured I ought to catch up on internet things before heading off to
uni. At the moment it's cooler, but it was a bit cooler in the morning yesterday and it ended up being really hot and humid again. There was even a mini storm. Not that it helped cool things down much. Oh well.
Things I did yesterday... well, I felt fairly rubbishy all day. I reckon I'm much improved today, though. Which is good. When I looked in the mirror Tuesday evening I had managed to get sunburnt, so it must have been the sun's fault for whatever it was. If you know what I mean. ;)
Anyway, yesterday I was saved from having to walk into
uni to work by Harriet's computer. We were storing it for her, because she doesn't have a house at the moment, so we set it up in the dining room. And it had excel on it. Hooray! It took me about 4 hours to take all the third year project spreadsheets (Roman pottery analysis from the Roman Fort at Alchester) and mash them into one huge uber spreadsheet. I hope it's okay. I'm still going to have to get hold of excel to do the rest of the dissertation... hmm.
I had to get it done for the meeting this morning, you see. Short notice. Hmm.
After managing to get spreadsheet blindness, I had a bit of a rest, read a bit more Harry Potter. By the time 4pm arrived I couldn't resist
Star Wars Galaxies any longer. So I booted up the other PC. :)
Star Wars Galaxies is oddly compelling. Instead of doing what a lot of other people seem to be doing (repetitive tasks to build up their experience), I've decided to just wander around living a pleasant wookie existence and gaining XP in whatever's useful. Whenever I need some cash, Fyrrra the dancing wookie heads off to the cantina and does some strangely seductive dancing. Hehe.
Apart from that I've been doing some surveying, to get resources, and then making random things. I quite like making clothes and giving them stupid names in the hopes that people are more likely to buy them. I made some stripy trousers and named them "Zebra Pants" (American... bleugh), I reckon they'll sell well. Hmm. I try and give stuff away to people who are nice to me, too. I met a wookie who'd tipped me the other day and gave him some arm wraps. I like being nice to people. Someone wanted some food the other day so I gave him a whole lot. I don't really need the money, I'm pretty self sufficient, and the dancing brings in the credits. You just have to play to the crowd. :D
This is more fun than it sounds, honest!
The other thing I've been doing is medic training. This came in quite useful when I was running back from Mos Eisley (where
Rob had taken me) and was attacked by someone. I think it was one of Jabba's evil minions. I was incapacitated twice. I managed to avoid the third incapacitation (which results in death, I think) by making stimpaks and pumping myself full of drugs, but for a while I thought I was a goner. Anyway, by healing random strangers I've built up enough XP to learn more medical things, too.
Dancing's fun, but being an artisan and medic is useful.
Anyway... enough about that. ;)
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): neighbours (bbc 1) / LISTENING: best of (u2) / READING: harry potter and the order of the phoenix (j k rowling); autumnal (angel graphic novel) / PLAYING: star wars galaxies
Tuesday, July 15
Okay, I'm blogging. I feel pretty rough though. I knew there was a reason I avoided direct sunlight whenever possible. Ah well.
The most notable event of yesterday was going round
Rob's in the evening. Admittedly I didn't do much else yesterday, apart from almost fall asleep reading third year archaeology ceramics projects, but going round his house was fun. I really do love spending time with that guy. ;)
Today I went into town with
Ali, because her car had to have its service and MOT. Bad news on that front meant that we were resigned to walking home. Bought a few things first - two top things which are a bit clingy so I'll have to get up the courage to wear them, a few Star Wars graphic novels that were
really cheap and a small bag from the Army Surplus place. And a few other supplies. Then we walked home.
By this time it was around midday. There weren't really any shadows. It was very hot. We walked via the
uni so I could talk to my dissertation supervisor. I have to do the uber spreadsheet by Thursday... I don't think I have all the data, so I'll just have to use what I have, and I don't actually have excel, so... I'll either be going into
uni tomorrow or the computer being stored in the house might have excel. I hope it does.
Anyway, like I said, it was very hot. By the time we'd walked the two and a half miles or whatever from the
uni to home I was feeling a bit strange. I sat down but was sort of blanking out (Harriet and
Ali were nattering), so I went upstairs and thought I'd lie down for a bit. When I did that, I discovered that I couldn't move. You know the definition of flu - the one where if you saw a £50 note lying on the ground you wouldn't feel able to walk over to it and pick it up? I felt like that. I fell asleep for a while, and I felt a bit better when I woke up. Still feel very lethargic and fuzzy inside though.
Stupid me, I should have worn a hat... Oh well.
Hmm... so now I'm sitting here having stolen the fan from
Ali's room, feeling a bit more with it. Not a lot, but a bit, which is good.
And that's about all I have to say.
Bit subdued today, eh?
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): neighbours (bbc 1) / LISTENING: growing on me & I believe in a thing called love (the darkness) / READING: harry potter and the order of the phoenix (j k rowling) / PLAYING: star wars galaxies
Monday, July 14
Oh, talking of weird searches, as
Ali was, someone came here looking for
"sean bean" and "extremely good". All I have to say is yes, he is. ;)
Wow, I was the 9001st visitor to my weblog. Woo-hoo!
I will probably blog properly at some point, when I can stop being a dancing wookie for 5 minutes. Mwahahaha. ;)
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): neighbours (bbc 1) / LISTENING: growing on me & I believe in a thing called love (the darkness) / PLAYING: star wars galaxies
Sunday, July 13
I think I've found the Yoda clip that
James was talking about. It's
here. I haven't finished downloading it yet though. I can put it on a CD or something for you if you like,
Mark, since it's 22MB and you have such a slow connection. :p
BTW, I don't think I mentioned that I put a new photo on my 'about me' page, did I?
Ali took it at Harriet's Hen Day. Click on the link at the top of the blog, if you dare. ;)
Saturday, July 12
Figured I ought to blog.
Ali told me off for not having blogged, but since we live in the same house you'd have thought she'd be happy with me actually talking to her. ;)
I'm kind of lying on my side on the bed with the keyboard in front of me, which makes typing quite difficult. There may be typos ahead...
So.. what have I done since Wednesday? Thursday I... hmm, I did uni work until about 3.30 or something and then I played
Star Wars Galaxies for a couple of hours. This time I managed to get quite a bit done - I joined up with a group of musicians and dancers in the main Bestine Cantina. I gained many dancing experience points, and they trained me for free. Hooray! It was good, although the computer kept throwing me out. It was being a bit peculiar.
Friday I think I talked to
Ali most of the morning, in a sort of work avoidance way. Although I can't really say that talking to
Ali is ever a waste of time. Heh... When she'd gone to work I read through one of the archaeology reports, but I couldn't really concentrate on it. In the end I gave up, which is bad because I have lots to do, but I really need the spreadsheets that my supervisor hasn't sent me, so... That's my excuse anyway.
So, unsurprisingly, I played
Star Wars Galaxies again instead. This time I tried to do a mission, delivering a toy, but I couldn't get it to work. So I went back to the cantina and danced some more. And
Ali and I went round
Rob and Emma's house for dinner. Which was nice.
That brings us onto today, I suppose. This morning I had a bath, chatted to
Daisy for a bit, did some washing, and, er, played
Star Wars Galaxies again. I've probably played it for about 7 hours now. It just seems like more when I write about it on here. Honest. ;) Anyway, I joined forces with a master marksman who was learning to play the slitherhorn, and we gained musician experience points together. There weren't any other musicians in there - it was very quiet - so we did quite a bit of practising.
I was kind of trying to take my mind off of
Rob's impending arrival. He came to pick me up at lunchtime, you see, and we had lunch in Burger King. And then we went to a wood and became pretty thoroughly lost for a couple of hours. Hehe... It was a lovely day, and I think I feel less scared now. Which can only be a good thing. :)
After the walk
Rob came back here, and we chatted, and he tried to fix the PC so that it didn't keep doing peculiar things. Time will tell whether it worked, but I'm pretty sure he knows what he's doing. ;)
Hmm, I don't really know what to say about
Rob, so I think I won't say anything.
Except maybe :D
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): neighbours (bbc 1) / LISTENING: four minute warning (mark owen); maybe tomorrow (stereophonics); god put a smile on your face (coldplay) / PLAYING: star wars galaxies
Wednesday, July 9
Last night
Rob came round,
Ali cooked food, and then
Rob installed Windows XP onto the
other PC (not Brian) and I watched. Probably the most fun anyone's ever had installing Windows XP. ;)
In other news, I went into
uni today. Took back the last of the mineral identification books (glad to see the back of them), saw if I had any post, pestered the people in the computer centre about Excel. I kind of need it for my dissertation. Unfortunately, unlike all the other software (the GIS stuff etc.), it's not licensed so that they can give it out to students. Drat! I can get Office for XP with a discount, though, so I might do that. Although it could arrive a bit late. Depends whether their 28 days is a really conservative estimate.
And then I went to see my dissertation supervisor. He was busy (he always is), but he talked to me about it all for a while. And he made the office staff sort out copies of all the third year students' ceramics projects. I'm collating the information, you see, and comparing it with other things. Which is what I need the spreadsheets for. See, it all makes sense. :)
It's kind of fun having the copies, they have the marking sheets with all the comments and, erm, marks on them. I was pleased to see that no-one had as high a mark as I had for
my third year ceramics project. Mwahahaha. But that was oddly high. And the comments were really enthusiastic. Made me think I was destined to collate pottery data forever. Hee...
That was what I did this afternoon, then, went through them all. And I made a mini spreadsheet with Works. Definitely not as good as Excel. :(
Oh, and by that time it was about 4pm, so I had a quick go with
Star Wars Galaxies. I wandered around aimlessly, chatted to a big wookie guy (who laughed at me - in a nice way - when I acted really confused) who directed me to the cantina, and I did a bit of dancing and tried playing the slitherhorn. I'm a novice entertainer, which is probably not a good idea... I can't really figure out how to advance my career. Oh well. I'm a wookie, you see. A lady wookie called Fyrrra, because I don't have imagination and all my online names are based around Fiery Fred. :)
Hmm... that's about it. It's very hot here.
Too hot.
I'm going now. Bye!
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): neighbours (bbc 1) / LISTENING: rhythm bandits (junior senior); four minute warning (mark owen); maybe tomorrow (stereophonics)
Hey, that did it, it works now.
*does the dance of joy*
Why isn't my blog working properly on this PC? It loads properly on Brian. It looks okay in the 'view blog' window. *confused*
Tuesday, July 8
Weeelll... I've given up trying to get back to sleep and decided to blog. I suppose normal people get up voluntarily at 7am, but I've always tried to avoid it. When I worked at
WHSmith I didn't have to get up until 9.10am... lazy sort of job, eh?
Anyway, the reason my sleep is so messed up is
Rob. I thought I'd better blog about all this after all my strangely cryptic blog entries, although I'm not really sure what to say. Plus
Daisy posted a slightly odd thing, which made me a bit sad, because I don't want my happiness to make anyone I know so well sad. Let's face it, if this can happen to me then there's hope for every geek stuck on their PC all day..!
Yes, that's right, I have irrational smiling disease. And it's all
Rob's fault. :D
I've probably mentioned Emma on here before - she was one of my best friends (her and
Ali) when I did my original archaeology degree. Well,
Rob is her brother. I met him in passing a few times. He was at
Ali's birthday gathering in December, tagging along with Emma and her boyfriend. But he was quiet, and sort of a big glowering slightly gothic person. ;)
I know he reads this, which makes writing this even more challenging! Heehee...
I can't remember exactly how things happened. We e-mailed each other a bit, trying to get Emma sorted out enough to meet up with us (that's me and
Ali, obviously). Although we've always had good 'meeting up' intentions we've been pretty hopeless at it. The first e-mail I have from him is 16th March. Then, to make discussing meeting up better, we started sending messages via MSN. Since 29th May we've exchanged about 90,000 words via MSN (although that includes our names, so clearly
that makes a lot of difference!).
Anyway, hopefully these measurements of our communication levels demonstrate one important thing: he's a geek too. Like me, he spends far too much time in his room on his PC. So what were the chances of us ending up where we are now, wherever that is? It's got to be a million to one (but it might just work), in the probably innaccurately quoted words of Terry Pratchett.
We haven't met up that much 'in real life', although we've been to Emma's a few times (where he lives), he's been here with Emma, we went to see
Bulletproof Monk as a gang too, and he came with the horde when we saw
Raiders of the Lost Ark, and he was round playing games with us on Saturday (as
Mark mentioned). Plus he's lent me his spare PC (to play
Star Wars Galaxies on (Brian can't cut it), which he's also lending me a copy of, and things keep not working properly. Which gives him reason to call round in a technical capacity. Anyone would think that was planned. :)
Without the internet we wouldn't be here, wherever here is. He even made his proposition via MSN. Which was probably a good thing for both of us, because I don't know
what I would have done if he'd asked me in person. I still can't believe he asked at all! If you're not a geek you won't understand this, but hey. I'm nearly 24 and this has never happened before. I keep being really paranoid that when he comes round tonight (to install XP on Leon - the 'other' PC, I hope Brian's not too jealous) I'll be even shyer than usual. I'm completely terrified of what the future might hold, but I look forward to every text he sends me, every e-mail... when I log onto MSN and he's listed as being idle I feel sad... and there's the irrational smiling thing.
Sad, isn't it? :D
Maybe he'll blog about things, too, but I often think writing everything on here is a bit weird. I mean, I wasn't planning on telling that many people about my... he's not really a young man, heehee... :p Not yet, anyway. Not yet to the telling part, not the young man part. I'm not waiting for a chance to test my 'youth ray' on him or anything. I mean, I think the people I want to know all know. And anyone who reads this. So geeks get to know first. It's kind of appropriate. :)
I had enough trouble with my grandparents as it was! ;)
Monday, July 7
:D
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): neighbours (bbc 1); firefly (scifi) / LISTENING: rhythm bandits (junior senior); four minute warning (mark owen)
Sunday, July 6
Current location: Leicester
Current song on loop: Maybe Tomorrow (Stereophonics)
Current mood: confused but happy :D
And that's all I have to say, really.
I have been mostly.... WATCHING (tv): french grand prix / LISTENING: maybe tomorrow (stereophonics)
Friday, July 4
Wow, John's computer's getting a connection speed of 52.0 Kbps!
Thursday, July 3
Hmm, I didn't wear the hat, and Tim lost. How guilty do
I feel?
(Not very, actually, because I'm so evil. Mwahahaha.)
I'm being distracted by several things. Pleasantly distracted, mind you. First of all I'm trying to talk to two people via instant messenger. Secondly I plugged my brother's PC speakers into my laptop, and I'm playing music rather louder than I would usually. I find it hard to concentrate on writing things when there's noise. I can't work with music playing.
Oooh, the Monkees.
I clearly don't shuffle my MP3's enough. Many musical surprises lurk within the backup drive partition. ;)
I've been very busy. Yesterday I spent the evening meeting up with various friends - I had a coffee with two people from my
WHSmith days, and then met some church friends (and John's best mate, who coincidentally looks a bit like Tim Henman) at Pizza Hut. Three large pizzas later, we went off to the cinema to see
2 Fast 2 Furious. If my brother had to describe that film in two words it'd be "far fetched". But it was fun, in a non-involving way. Nice paint jobs on the cars, etc. :)
Hmm... today I went with my Mum to the optician's, and helped her choose the frames for her new glasses. We looked in a few shops - went back to my fave cheap clothes shop (Primark), which doesn't have a branch in Leicester, and picked up
The Coral's album for £6.99 in Woolworth's sale. That wasn't bad.
I
did manage to fit a bit of video watching in this afternoon (I brought quite a few things home to watch). Anyway...
That tent leaks. DRAT!
I have been mostly.... READING: harry potter and the goblet of fire (jk rowling) / WATCHING (video): patlabor / WATCHING (cinema): 2 fast 2 furious
Wednesday, July 2
49.2 Kbps, that's not half bad!
My Mum's made me wear my brother John's Speedway hat - a padded jester's hat with bells on it. She said it'd help
Tim. But rain just stopped play.
My family is completely mad. :D
Tuesday, July 1
Here I am, back in Southend... a place that's strangely familiar and yet not entirely where I feel I should be. I mean... it's home, I've spent probably 15 or 16 years in this house, on and off (I think we moved here when I was 7), and yet... since 1997 I've spent four years living in Leicester, too. So I'm no longer completely sure where "home" is. Is it Leicester? Is it Southend? My family's here, my friends are in Leicester... I dunno, it's probably not worth wasting too many brain cells over...
Anyway, I suppose you want to know what I've been up to. This is my week off, after all. A week of not much work, apart from the reading that my dissertation supervisor kindly gave me. ;)
Yesterday I went to the
Donington Motor Museum, with my Dad (who'd come to collect me), and
Mark. If you like
F1 and you've never been there, you should definitely go! To walk into a room
full of beautiful McLarens, or Williams (what
is the plural of that?), or sleek 60's racers... there's an enormous sense of history, mixed with the unmistakable smell of oil. All those names from the past - James Hunt, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost... the cars they loved, the cars that behaved like dogs, the cars they
drove their hearts out in. I know not everyone gets it, but to me
F1 is the perfect union of man and machine, ultra fit athlete and cutting edge technology. To me it's a
lot more than cars driving round in a circle...
Today I didn't do much. Having said that, I've spent a lot of time with my Mum, which makes being here worthwhile. Even if I sat here doing nothing but did that nothing with my family, it'd be worth it. If you know what I mean. We went to the car boot sale that's held every Tuesday at the
Southend United football ground, then we went to Aldi, then we came home and had coffee, and a little while later had lunch. In the afternoon we went to Matalan, Poundstretchers and Lidl. Then we went to see my Nan and Grandad.
My Nan and Grandad didn't ask me how
Mark was. It dawns on me that perhaps the Mark thing doesn't mean that much. Today Grandad asked me if 'my friend' was hurt over the weekend. Whenever he asks me about 'my friend' I have to think really hard. Then I realise he means
David Coulthard. David span off in Sunday's Grand Prix, you see. It amuses me that he always calls D.C. 'my friend', especially considering that when D.C. actually
did phone me up I wasn't in. (All Waitrose's fault, but hey, they gave me money...)
After that Mum and I came back home and put up the 'two person' tent that we bought at Poundstretchers. Mum 'treated' me to it since I'll probably need a tent for that 'secret' dig in September. We figured if we left it outside it'd probably get rained on and we could see if it was really waterproof (it only cost £10, which seems a bit cheap for a decent tent!). But it's kind of made it stop raining. It rained something like 12mm of rain this morning. Madness!
Hmm... what else have we done... can't think of anything. My brother John made me sit in his car so I could hear his sub (he only recently put all of his sound system into the 306). He played Craig David and Mr Sting's collaboration as a special treat. ;)
Watched a bit of TV, ate dinner, talked, had a bath,
Dad showed me all the new Pop Pop Boats he's acquired, and now I'm here.
That
has to be enough detail about my day, right?
So... no broadband for the week. Or midband. Whatever. But I am getting a respectable 45.2kbps from the ol' modem.
Nice.
I have been mostly.... READING: harry potter and the goblet of fire (jk rowling)
