Diary of an up and coming sociopath

After a day of what I like to term “relaxation” (though it might better be described as abject laziness), on Sunday I managed to crawl out of bed at what some weirdoes would call a “reasonable” time and drive down to Brighton with Nikki to meet up with Paul and Relly for the first time since, like, July last year. Given the infrequent times we’re all actually free to get together for a social call , I fully expect Relly to be pregnant with her second child the next time I see her. We wandered around Brghton and I got a taste of what shopping for your first child is like. Let’s just say I’ll give it a few more years before thinking about that one in any serious manner.

We went for Breakfast/Lunch (Damn! If only there were some word that described a combination of the two…) at the “Ha Ha! Bar” which as you might expect, was a clown-themed eatery. Or rather you could be fogiven for thinking that because the Waitress managed to deliver Nikki and Paul’s food to the wrong table and then we had to wait for them to be cooked again. I was fully expecting the final bill to be delivered through the medium of a custard pie to the face. They did give Nikki 50% off her food, though, so I’ll not rail against them too much. Though, having said that, while the chips were great my chicken burger contained far less chicken than I was expecting. I was expecting a grilled slab, rather than the peeled mcnuggets I received. It concerns me to eat at a place where the food is trendier than I am. (me: “What the hell’s pancetta?” Nikki:”Ham”)

In Waterstones, I looked for Book 2 of Sin City because I’ve got 1, 3 4 and 5 but no joy. I tried to find Family Guy season 3 in Fopp but it seems all remaining copies have dropped off the planet, which is disappointing. Hopefully I’ll buy it off the interweb soon, but I’m still working through my Genshiken Vol. 3 and Sin City: Extended Cut DVDs which finally landed on Friday, the latter with a version of “The Big Fat Kill” (or was it The Hard Goodbye? I forget. The Marv one, anyway) even smaller than the previously shrunk version.

Today I finally threw in the towel and went to Argos to purchase a heater. It’s fair to say that the weather is ridiculously cold and if I can liberate some electricity into warming up the room, I’m all for it. It also blows out cold air for those times when I’ve been heating myself up too much. Wasn’t especially convenient to bring back on the Tube, but it was worth it in the end. Now I just have to consider buying an air conditioner in the summer.

Yesterday after work, we had the Q4 team “event” (even though we’re now 2/3 through Q1…” which was, god help me, bowling. It wasn’t bad, I didn’t do as horribly as I could’ve, but by christ 2 hours of bowling goes really tediously slowly. It probably didn’t help that we were at the tacky hollywood bowl near Canada Water (but then, what bowling lane /doesn’t/ seem tacky?) but for someone who once vowed never to go bowling again, well, let’s just say I’ve had less excruciating evenings.

One of my main hates of bowling is the fact that I’m incredibly crap at it. I don’t mean crap in the “i’m crap at pool” or “I’m crap at Quake deathmatch” sense, we’re talking the “Crap at football” or “crap at rugby” sense. The kind of crap that makes it very hard to enjoy playing the game because you’re constantly having to deal with the rampant shiteness of you. Unfortunately, unlike all those other sports, there’s no way of avoiding the ball for the majority of the game. The futility of playing a sport you’ve got no hope of winning is probably a large reason why I can’t find it in myself to enjoy it, I admit, but there’s a second reason that relates to my youth. Allow me to spin the yarn.

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful development between Whitnash and Warwick that saw a new retail part built, in a sim city 2000-style “zoned for commerce” block. The kind you’ll find on the outskirts of just about any residential area - a few fast food places, supermarkets, large warehouses, perhaps a cinema, and christ help us all, quite often a bowling alley. This bowling lane (Superbowl, it was called at the time) was just like any other. It had a dodgy in-store fast food joint, a small selection of overpriced arcade games, a selection of gaudy colours and a bar. For a short while it was the focus of a whole wave of social activity in a way that only a bowling alley can be in a town with only one, single-screen, cinema. Much like all fads, the novelty fast wore off, and as it did so did the seat covers, the shoe soles, and the carpet in the foyer. The once proud and mighty bowling alley became filthy and weathered. Some time around this point I realised it was no longer the kind of place I’d want to willingly spend my free time. (I can accurately place this date as some time in the year (of our lord) 2000.)

Now, I associate the act of bowling with all sorts of horrible things, like carpets with chewing gum matted in, and crappy worn out shoes that have laces grey with stained-in dirt. Like any sport/game, Bowling turns people into obsessive nutcases with no sense of perspective. The particular quirk of bowling is that you will be told several times by anyone you’re with why your technique needs to be altered, and how you should alter it. Any non-professional giving advice on how to bowl has clearly never seen themselves doing it, because there’s not a single way for a casual player to avoid the appearance of having some kind of seizure when attempting to bowl. Bowling also has the very odd quirk of being the only sport where, around 11:00 at night on a Tuesday, they will switch off all the lights, replace 3 pins with ones that glow in the dark, activate some strobe lighting and get a resident DJ in to play techno at 4000 decibels. Frankly if they did this with football, I might actually watch a game.

As a note of historical influence, Superbowl was the place where I played the “Dragon’s Lair” arcade game. I remember it cost me 50p, I watched the intro three times, then the game was over. If anyone out there has played Dragon’s Lair in the arcades, you’ll no doubt relate.

In summation, “I haven’t felt this invigorated since my last, er, boweling”

Description                                                     Qty    Price
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I finally caved to the livejournal crowd and got myself a crossposting plugin, primarily because livejournal’s handling of RSS feeds is shockingly bad. If you’re reading this on livejournal, You can safely friend channelzero and remove the james_hunt feed because I’m not even going to try with that anymore. I’ll leave it there in case anyone’s using it still, but let the record show I am disillusioned by that particular technology.

It’s not all disappointment though. Today during a particularly whimsical episode of Quantum Leap Nikki and I investigate a little and discovered that the BPS doesn’t object to me calling myself a Parapsychologist, because you don’t need accreditation to be one. So, hell, I’ve decided to become one. If you notice any parapsychological phenomena around, let me know. As a child I read so much about Alien Abductions and crop circles that I become convinced they’d target me because I was on the verge of learning too much, as if re-reading Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World over and over again would lead me to revelations no-one else had yet experienced. Dangerous revelations. My point is, I’m qualified. You can call me Mulder, and Nikki’s my Scully. I don’t want a Krycek or T-1000 or any of the other characters though, so if you were hoping to get in on the scam, you are, as we say in the parapsychology business, SOL.

I had a McDonalds at lunch because I was quite hungry, then instantly regretted it. Ian and I also went to Argos to get him new headphones and tried to figure out what it is about the Argos model of product distribution that has left it unchanged in living memory. He reserved the stuff online before we set foot near a store but it still involved copious standing around while numbers were read out in an utterly arbitrary order - “239,” it went. “242. “243. 240. 236. 241.” Whatever strange forces govern Argos, they’re clearly beyond human comprehension.

This morning, in Cambridge Circus, a giant inflatable foot hovered above the entrance to the theatre. It had fish-hook style tethers in the sole and unintentionally looked very very painful. At lunchtime, they took it away.

Due to the sheer prolificness of the guy, we went to another Ford gig in Camden today. It’s fair to say it wasn’t the greatest gig he’s done, and probably a large part of that was because it was, in his words, in the “bizarre” afternoon timeslot. He looked hungover, and despite having gone for an excellent roast dinner with Nikki beforehand, I was still feeling the effects of spending 3 hours the previous night giving Josh and Ian an utter pasting at Dead or Alive 3 on the X-Box.

The gig was at the Barfly again, but in the smaller room, which was packed solid and uncomfortably hot, such that it was very hard to concentrate on anything other than the fact that it was almost time to go out into the blissful rain as the set drew to a close. Also it was very hard to see anything because the stage, such that it was, wasn’t remotely raised. The setlist was pretty standard fare with a couple of new ones thrown in to keep it interesting. Duke Special supported, and he and Ford played a few songs together as well. He was one of the rarest things, though, a support act that can keep me interested. There’ve been a surprising amount of those recently, it seems, I wonder if I’ve mellowed in my old age.

Besides all that I’ve been at work with absolutely zero worth talking about. Ian had the week off due to flu-sickness so I just explored the bookshops and stuff at lunchtime. I did find a copy of Local in Foyles, which makes me wonder just who is ordering the comics there, because they have truly exceptional taste. I may have mentioned that before.

Just now, Josh and I watched the South Bank Show because it was about Manga and Anime. It’s the kind of program that’s worth watching just because it’s good to see mainstream acknowledgement of an artform that we’re actually interested in, and that treats it in a respectful manner. it was still laced with clips of Akira and Ghost in the Shell, but it did at least explore the breadth of material outside the usual sci-fi/cyberpunk bounds that most programs on this stuff find it hard to reach beyond. Then we watched part of “Faith & Music” in which Lionel Richie unsuccessfully attempted to put across the case for his own existence. He’s not fooling anyone.

After two days off everything seems to be going really fast, probably because I’ve got so much to wade through and rapidly approaching deadlines, with my brain trying to trick me all the while into thinking that it’s Tuesday not Wednesday. We found out today that Nikki can use the google talk client at work, and obviously I’ve got the GAIM linux client which supports it, so we’re finally able to IM each other at work, in betwixt actually doing our jobs, which is cool.

Then as if by some fortune, we got onto the same train home which is like the first time it’s happened ever. Of course, it was so crowded I didn’t see her until she texted me at Acton to tell me, but at least I got to walk home with her. Once I saw her get onto the same bus as me and I decided to see how long until she noticed, and we’d gone all the way from the station and gotten back OFF the bus before she turned around to see me, so the odds really work against you even when the transport is shared.

Yesterday we met up deliberately and went and bought fish & chips for dinner. It’s fucking extortionate to buy Fish & Chips in London. In Oxford, our designated chipshop “Posh Fish” (I hate the name. So much.) gave us more chips than we could realistically eat for the same price as my local in Whitnash, the “Heathcote Fish Bar” which was awarded best chip shop in the country three years running or something. So paying twice as much for very little food of dubious quality means we don’t actually bother that much. The woman did give us a little extra chips free, though, so it’s not all bad around here. It just concerns me that the going price for a piece of cod is £4.

Tomorrow, some of you will be aware, is new comics day. Brain Wood’s third comic in as many, er, bi-months is released. I will undoubtedly be reporting back. I want you all to go and buy a copy. If possible, pay extra to get the 1/15 split Brian Wood variant cover, because it’ll make me feel better about my horrible willingness to do so, should the chance arrive. It’s sick to find myself in the position of wanting to buy a variant like that, but I just know I won’t be able to refuse if the chance comes up. And hey, I am getting my massive February bonus soon. I can justify it. I don’t have to like it though.

Oh yeah, I also finally paid for Genshiken Vol 3. DVD and Sin City: Extended because they came into stock and shipped from Amazon. I’d actually forgotten I ordered them, so it was an unpleasant surprise to see $80 disappear from my account. Then it was pleasant to discover I was going to get this stuff I’d forgotten about. Then it was unpleasant to see the shipping was listed as “9 to 36″ days. That’s be the Amazon “Donkeyback” shipping option at work. How is a donkey expected to swim the Atlantic, especially when he’s only got 34 days to go.

*Shut up. The time for good post titles has long passed. I almost duplicated one the other day, I just discovered. It may be time to start a new paradigm in post naming, if only I could figure one out..

Nikki and I had Seb and Rachel over for a few hours on Sunday, for what loosely passes as socialising in this post-university world we live in. Sadly this sort of thing happens way too little, but occasionally it’s hard to set time aside for us to see our friends when sometimes we barely get to see each other. The plan is to go see Paul and Relly in a couple of weeks, and I can’t even remember the last time we did that. Far too long ago, anyway.

 Today was the last day of the long weekend Nikki and I had off work together. I used to favour getting Fridays off work so that the week ended early, but I’m coming to wonder if having a Monday off isn’t far more sensible. I’ve done nothing today, but unlike the Sunday lethargy that sets in, Monday has been far more charged. Maybe it’s just looking out the window and seeing an empty street, and knowing everyone but you is back at the grind. Maybe it’s just that the shadow of God weighs on a Sunday. Who can say?  I mean, Fridays at work tend to be a bit of a doss anyway, so I might revise my habits in future.

One thing I did do this weekend was finish off Trauma Center, after being driven nearly insane by the harder missions. It’s a decent little game but I finished it in around a week of playing, which includes a day lost to a corrupted save mode. What it really needs is an “unecessary surgery” sandbox mode where you can do more complex things like organ transplants just for the hell of it. After a brief flirtation with “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney” (verdict: Looks fun, but tediously slow interface. Worth picking up when DS emulation gets decent and it can be run at double speed.) I made the switch to the comparatively simple japanese arcade game “Puyo Pop Fever” in order that my life might further resemble Genshiken, since the game features within an episode quite prominently.

Another event that needs to be footnoted is my second haircut in 6 years. Here’s the first and Sunday was the second. To be honest, it’s about the same length as in that photo at the moment. Nikki hacked off a bit more than I was thinking (again) but I’m happy with the results, since now it’s an even length and I don’t get it caught on stuff when I’m lying in bed. I doubt it’ll be another three years until the next one, the plan is to try and keep it tidy as it grows this time. Seb and Rachel assured me it didn’t look stupid, anyway, and I trust their relatively objective opinion. Even if my crappy trainers did get mocked.

well, it’s fair to say I gave up on the 2-day thingy pretty fast. I’ll try harder this time.

Nikki and I had Friday off work (and have Monday to come) because neither of us has had any time off since Christmas. It’s not a huge amount of time but stretched out over the weekend it feels like far more than it reasonably should. It’s Saturday night and I’m only halfway through the total time off! It’s great.

I’ve been playing Trauma Center a lot recently but the charm’s wearing off. I want to complete it but the difficulty is ramping up to the point where it’s almost not worth the effort. I may have to jack it in soon and find a new game to play (I’m eying up Phoenix Wright as a similar attempt at non-standard gaming) but in the meantime it’s been fun. It’s also given me a headache and a pain in my stylus arm, which I suspect is proof I overdid it today. Though it could be related to a party-popper exploding incident that would’ve left a lesser man crippled. Suspicious, don’t you think, that Nikki couldn’t get it to pop and passed it to me to do for her, only to have the resultant pop nearly take my hand off? It takes more than that to shuffle me off the coil though. I was jitterbugging that very night.

I also feel like noting that Josh and I have basically given up on Hyperdrive. We gave it longer than most people but by god, the humour is thin on the ground. The problem is that just when I’m thinking sitcoms are dead and Hyperdrive is the best UK TV can offer, the IT Crowd comes along and blows it out of the water by being far funnier. It has a kind of black books feel to it, but it must be acknowledged that it seems more down to the accent than the fact it’s Graham Lineham.

I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s worth blogging about today. I’m trying to hold myself to a 2-day schedule because these days it feels hard to make the time. I remember when I was a student I had a lot of wit and insight to share each evening, but since getting a full-time job it seems like there’s way more compulsion just to go to sleep once I’ve had dinner.

That’s not to say there’s not plenty going on upstairs, it’s just that more often than not, when I have my insanely important thoughts I’m not at a PC, and when I am I’ve forgotten what was so important about them. The other day I managed to quite effortlessly convince myself, Josh and Damian (well, myself at least) that the fact they had altered the packaging to Chocolate Fingers was a crime against humanity that’s destined to lead to its destruction. I won’t repeat the diatribe here, but let it be noted that it’s 2 days later and we’re practically on the brink of an Middle-East Vs. West world war. Chocolate fingers have not yet been proven as the cause, but I’m sure the truth will come out.

Still, as much as I dislike blogging about blogging (what’s the point?!) I’d really like it if I could get a new phone with a decent camera in it. I have this serious problem where I don’t spend nearly enough to justify a contract, but if I just get a handset I’ll be paying way too much to replace something I’ve already got, so I’m kind of glad that my current hand-me-down handset is finally dying on me (I can only hear calls if they’re on speakerphone and the space button’s stopped working properly.) This means when I get my bonus at the end of the month, I’m going to close my eyes and fork out the cash for some form of new phone whether contract or payg, and it’ll have all sorts of extra shite that I don’t need and won’t use. Though, if I could add pictures and videos to the blog (remember, there was a point to this paragraph) then I’d be really enthused. Through someone else’s eyes, the mundane becomes…unmundane. At least I hope for your [the readers’] sake it does otherwise there’ll be some incredibly boring pictures and videos showing up.

There, I guess that wasn’t so bad. Sometimes in order to find something to write about, you just have to start doing it. Though, in the case of Dickens, maybe you also have to be penniless and destitute and craving money. He was all of those things, right?

One of the great things about being a geek and having a job is that you’re loaded with money to buy shite. Utter, utter, shamelessly useless shite, the likes of which normal society shuns and mocks. Like these nifty Genshiken gashapon:

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned Genshiken before. And these figures, in fact. You may have noticed that I’ve been going on about them constantly for a good week at least. That’s because Genshiken is simply the best anime I’ve ever watched. Hell, it’s one of the best TV shows I’ve ever watched. These figures (plus a 4 more, and two randomly packed variants) cost me £40 and it seems like an absolute steal. I love them as if they were my tiny plastic offspring. If anyone wants to debate the value, cultural or entertainment, or these here figures, I’ll be glad to subject you to the entire anime which will teach you the importance of such things. These are so great I even had to move my Transformers out of the way to display them, do you get the picture?

Some people have football, some people have cars, some people have scrapbooking, or cross stitch, or god knows what else. I have these. That’s why I’m a geek and the rest of you are normal.

In other news, I’ve been playing “Trauma Center” on the DS. By god, that’s an addictive game. Earlier I accidently sliced someone up with a scalpel because I selected that instead of the stitches icon. How I laughed about it, when I lacerated the patient 9 times on top of an existing wound instead of closing it up. Ah well. Can’t win ‘em all.