Diary of an up and coming sociopath

It’s been a pretty busy week. Target week at work, of course, which means a totally psychotic amount of work as everyone tries to pile the last three months of work into a week without the management finding out. It’s kind of like a coursework deadline, only the motivating factor is money, and for most people that doesn’t really work in the short term.

On Monday we (Me, Ian, Sam and Josh) went to see Richard Herring record the final two episodes of this series of his Radi 2 show “That was then, this is now” at Bush hall. I used to love Lee and Herring back in the day, and I still consider TMWRNJ to be one of the most genius programs ever shown on breakfast television. I’ve read Herring’s blog on and off for a good couple of years now, but I’ve never managed to go see him live. I have to admit, part of me didn’t think he’d be as good without the Lee and Herring double act, and I wasn’t about to go see him do stand up because, honestly, I just thought it’d be a bit sad. I’m glad to say that I was totally and utterly wrong. Cappsy gave us the tickets this time, but if next time I have to pay to see Richard Herring, I’d be glad to lay down the notes. He’s as funny as he ever was, and probably more so. I’ve even got a script to prove it, which I snagged at the recording.

For anyone wondering, Show 5 seemed stronger than Show 6, and the hardest I laughed was actually at a song the band did about sitting on public transport next to society’s bottom rung (though it’s actually even harsher than that.) I thought it was in pretty bad taste, which is why I loved it. The hook line off the song was “He was a man with learning difficulties” which should tell you all you need to know. I’d have previously considered this type of humout a little taboo, but then today on Extras Ricky Gervais seemed to be having a good old laugh about the social faux pax of insulting the, er, genetically impaired.

On Tuesday I watched the first episode of Six Degrees, JJ Abrams’ new show, with Nikki. Initial suspicions are that it’s not particularly engaging, though we’ll see soon enough. It looks to me like it’s going to be a season-long version of the film Closer.When Nikki had gone to bed, Josh and I turned our attentions to more serious matters and watched the first episode of Heroes, which is utterly excellent. It’s got shades of all the best stuff from the genre, and some surprisingly original takes on otherwise familiar concepts. That’s my tip for best new TV series this year, anyway. I like how the geekiest guy seems to be the most powerful, and how the cheerleader girl has a power not usually associated with her archetype. There are a few twists along the line to keep you guessing, anyway. Looking forward to the next one.

On Wednesday, I ended months, it not years of anticipation by finally seeing Clerks 2, once again in Shepherd’s Bush. Did it live up to the hype? Well, mostly. It’s not the best Askewniverse film by miles. I can’t say for certain where it fits because all of the films are brilliant for different reasons, but it’s certainly not at the top. The DVD release in November will allow me to decide the true greatness of the film once I’ve re-watched it a couple of times.It can get a bit schmaltzy at times, more so than any of the others, and the characters tend to stand around announcing their feelings rather than acting them far more than even any other Kevin Smith movie. It’s nowhere near as grounded as the original (hell, it’s only slightly less grounded than JASBSB) and that’s probably the one thing that prevents it being better than Clerks, Mallrats and Amy.

After we got home, we downloaded and played the Sonic demo. I won’t spoil the anticipation by telling you just how terrible it was - we’ll be reviewing it on NTS in short order.

Oh yeah, today I bought like 14 comics and spent almost £45 including the stuff I got for Josh. It’s all because comics in previous weeks have been subject to delays until this week, meaning Im’ just spending now what I saved last week, but god damn, that’s a lot of stuff to buy…

I have recently solved the problem of how to watch stuff on TV by buying myself a 10 metre S-Video/3.5mm audio jack -> SCART cable that allows me to use the TV as a monitor. Sure, it’s in the wrong room so I have to kind of take a stab in the dark about whether I’ve made it fullscreen or not, but it’s not too much of a chore and has made things much easier. I did just discover that Tesco have this very inexpensive streaming media device for £30 which I’d probably have tried instead if I’d known that you could get ones that cheap, but if this works that’ll do for now.

Yesterday Nikki went back to Leam to see her sister before she went to Uni, so I had myself a meandering sort of day where I first stayed in bed listening to Adam and Joe, then went to Tescos, unpacked the last of our stuff, and Josh and I reorganised our consoles and DVDs and various TV inputs, so that we’ve now got, neatly placed, a NES, a SNES, a Gamecube, an X-Box 360, a DVD player and my PC all plugged into the TV and ready to roll. It’s enough to make you weep with joy. Josh later went up to his Aunt’s so rather than sit around bored I had Ian over and we shouted insults at the TV for a bit (seriously. We watched Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The Question was “Which phrase is associated with Sailors? A) Hi-ho, B) Hey Presto, C) Heave-ho or D) Hi-Fi. It was bad enough that the guy was dumb enough to use an Ask the Audience lifeline, but it was truly horrible that 13% or so thought it was A, suggesting that they can’t tell the difference between the 7 Dwarves and Sailors. Ugh.)

We were just looking for a film to watch when Josh got back, so we decided to stick to an old plan of ours to re-watch the Matrix sequels. I maintain that Reloaded is just a bunch of horrible, over-extended set pieces which end when the people involved simply leave. It’s not particularly entertaining to watch a bunch of invincible foes beat on each other when there’s no chance for resolution. I think I’m in the minority in preferring Revolutions, but I hope that’ll change when we get around to rewatching it.

Earlier in the week (Wednesday, if you must know) we had Seb and Cappsy over because they were experiencing a lack of services in life, including both Internet and hot water, stuffed them full of food and then hung them on meat hooks in the basement. I think. Some of that might be confused with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake Josh and I just watched, though I’m almost certain at least one of us had their limbs sawn off.Up until now I’d have said that a remake of TCM was probably one of the worst ideas for a horror film ever, but during an advert break we realised why they were showing it now. A Texas Chainsaw Massacre PREQUEL abounds. Christ help us. 

Today Nikki arrived back home to discover that our phone line, which was knackered for a period of time last week, appeared to be knackered once more. We later discovered when I turned on my PC to get Nikki’s laptop working with the wireless router, than it’s just the voice calls that’ve gone south, and surprisingly the DSL is working fine, which comes as something of a relief to me. I managed to catch up on most of the stuff I missed after being away from the ‘net, and discovered that the Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad appear to have sneaked out a few releases, which stitches up some of the free time for the next few days.

It’s kind of useful that we can download TV to watch because after buying a Digibox, I got it home only to discover Argos managed to give me a totally different version to the one I requested, fobbing me off with one we specifically avoided buying in Tescos for £5 cheaper. AND they told me I’d need to buy a SCART cable seperately, which I did, only to discover this different version came packed with one. Cunts. We took the whole kaboodle back and got the money returned.

However, I feel I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve been gone weeks, so there must be a whole bunch of stuff to document in meticulous and intensely interesting fashion. However, I can’t remember it, so you’re spared. Suffice to say it probably involved building furniture and moving boxes. A week ago on Sunday (or possibly Monday. I forget.) we cleaned the shit out of the old house to prepare it for handing back to the guys, and we just about managed it in, ooh, about 10 solid hours of work. The next few days we were wrangling with BT over the phone line, and back to work (which as I may have mentioned, came as something of a relief) and then settled into a routine of watching dodgy TV and waiting for the internet to get activated and return the world to our fingertips.

We did watch a few quite interesting things, actually, like the thing yesterday about people and their RealDolls (individuals who fall in love with overpriced, inanimate sex-aids) and another thing about a boy who had memories of a past life called “The boy who lived before” which unfortunately was all a bit anticlimatic. I can’t help but feel they needed another few months of following the case to try and figure out a more satisfying resolution than “Well, some of this is true but some isn’t and it’s not really clear what’s going on.”

On Saturday Seb had his somewhat belated housewarming (accurate term, that place becomes an oven with 6 people in, let alone the 15-20 that were there on Saturday) which was one of those “We all need livejournal username” parties. There were plenty of familiar faces, I met Celentari who I’d previously spoken with over e-mail, and after all was done drop_and_roll came and stayed over at ours. Cappsy went to bed quite early on, claiming he could recognise the impending passing-out of himself, unlike Symes who managed to soldier on until he did pass out, at which point he was subjected to face-drawing antics that were only mostly cleared up when a bunch of us went up to Forbidden Planet later the next day. I got myself some comic boxes there and began the great reorganisation that comes with having more space for comic boxes. After that I came home, had dinner, then Nikki and I went up to hang out at Seb’s for an hour or so watching Alan Partridge and trying not to alienate others while discussing A Scanner Darkly, before everyone was ready to go home. Anyway, since it was Seb’s party you might as well check out his version of events over this way.

I’m sure there’s plenty more I could go on about but even now I’m approaching the limits of acceptable trivia. I’ve got a bunch of pictures of the new place and I’ll post an online guided tour tomorrow, but if you’re excessively interested you can always look at Nikki’s Flickr profile, I guess. Try to restrain your enthusiasm though.

Internet connection should be installed on the 19th. 4 more days. 4 more days.

Thank christ I bought that TV.

The last few days we’ve been shunting all of our stuff around to the new place. It seems like ages since we got the keys, when in fact it’s little under 2 weeks. By Monday, we should be totally finshed and ready to go back to work, which frankly at this point is sounding like something of a blessing. The hardest part was always going to be moving the furniture, especially the stuff like bookcases, without dismantling any of it. To this end, we decided to rent a van, and save money on the delivery of our new stuff too (an unfurnished flat means that Ikea visits are plentiful, and Ikea’s delivery service is gougingly expensive.

I got to do all the driving, and after a brief (long) false start where I forgot my glasses, we rented a van and I had to figure out how I was going to drive something twice the size of the largest thing I’d previously been at the helm of. I managed to figure it out in a few minutes and then Nikki, Josh and I faced a nerve-bending ride to Ikea, which isn’t the easiest of journeys at the best of times (though I imagine I’ll appreciate doing it in a car from now on…) We filled up with petrol (the van, that is, rather than ourselves) though even this was fraught with confusino when we realised that we didn’t know where the fuel cap was, and we couldn’t locate it ourselves. Eventually, we discovered an unmarked panel on the passenger side that was accessible only when the passenger door was open. Whatever. We went the rest of the way to Ikea and I then had to try and park the damn thing, which was quite probably the hardest part of an already difficult journey.

Luckily, we got all the stuff we were after (2 bedside tables, 2 sofas, small coffee table and large coffee table) and loaded them into the van. Taking them to our new place went incredibly smoothly for us, though Ian, Sam and Lorna were left waiting at the bus stop for almost 2 hours, which I’m sure made them wish they had taken up the offer to ride in the back with the boxes. We put together our beds, the sofas, the tables and one bedside table, and then transported food and bookcases, had dinner while watching one of those horrible talking heads shows on my new giant TV, and then came back here ready for tomorrow’s repeat performance of furnature-lugging, since there’s still plenty here to move. Next time we’re going to need an actual removal van, I suspect.

I also got my wireless network card in the post, and three dvds from Rob. Lucky they all arrived in time, really, since this should really be our last night here is all goes to plan, and then we’ve got about 3 days until the lease runs out. No internet installed at the new place yet (and, god help us, phone line issues…) but it shouldn’t be too much longer until it’s done. A house doesn’t feel like home until the Internet’s there, let me tell you. Technically the Internet at this house should be gone by now, but it’s still going so it’s hard to complain. Every second is borrowed time, though. If I seem hard to contact over the next few days, it’s because I am (though, work has the ‘net obviously, so I’m not going to be totally gone…)

You have booked to attend TENACIOUS D at Apollo Hammersmith, London on 
MONDAY 18/12/2006 at 19.30

You have ordered the following tickets

Reference (deleted) - 5 STANDING at £ 31.00
Plus a Transaction fee of £  4.80

Just while we’ve still got an Internet connection I can use at this house, I wanted to get this thought down.

There’s a new free London paper, a metro-alike called “thelondonpaper” - they’ve got all these weird agents handing copies out on street corners around 5:30. What amused me though, was the first issue’s headline. It was about Steve Irwin dying, and the headline was:

Croc Man Killed by Stingray

It occured to me that if we actually lived in a world where superheroes and villains existed, this would be exactly the kind of headline we’d be seeing. Unfortunately, the rest of the story didn’t really live up to that expectation.

So, I’m 24 these days. Still not much different an outlook though, but then there rarely is.

More importantly, for my birthday, I received:
Monies towards housing-related goods and towards my new TV, details of which will be forthcoming soon.
Cosmic Jam/Bewilderness DVD
Book of quotes
Family Guy S4
Book of Boris Johnson pieces
And probably more besides which I’ve forgotten.

On Sunday, Mum and Terry drove down to help us move the mattress from our current house to our new house, and replace our good mattress here with the worse one that was here when we moved in. It all went smoothly enough. After that we went to the carvery in Windsor where I stuffed myself stupid in the name of birthday celebrations.

Since the weekend, we’ve been gradually packing our stuff up ready to move. We’ve taken a few carloads over to the new place, but there’s still plenty of stuff left to transport. The current idea is that we’ll hire a van on Saturday and Sam will help us move the remaining furnature, and accompany us to Ikea so we can buy sofas and coffee tables. At some point we’ll also be getting our new bed, the currently scheduled delivery date being this Friday. After that, we’ll move in and face the horrible stretch of time where we’ll be potentially internet-less. It’s been ordered, but even so, it could still take weeks. I mean I’ll have it at work, but it’s not remotely the same. Let’s hope there’s some unsecure wireless access available…

So, just for anyone keeping track, we’ll be out of here on the 8th if all goes to plan. The internet at this house is all but ready to be shut down too, which is a slight concern. Might be that we spend a day or two internet-less here as well. This is especially worrying since we’re planning to buy some Tenacious D tickets when they go on sale this week and it’ll be much harder without the Internet available to us. We’ve both got Friday and Monday off for moving, so the chances we’ll be at work to buy tickets are yet further reduced. We’ll probably have to resort to buying tickets over the phones, which I haven’t done in literally years…

On Tuesday, Nikki and I went to see Ye Olde David Ford at the Borderline, which us conveniently right next to where I work. We also went up to TGI’s and spent a voucher to get some cheap food. We got the voucher by filling out a feedback form online, then writing a code on our receipt. Then after the meal, we got another receipt with the same information, so it looks like we’re getting yet more half price meals. Ha. Of course, my steak was surprisingly bloodied for one that was supposed to be medium. I mean, I’m all for a little rawness, but that was verging on the “still twitching” end of the spectrum. Anyway, I’d write about the gig but I did a pompous-sounding and pretentious review of it for Noise to Signal so you might as well just go straight there and read it. Fucking good it was, though.

On Wednesday evening we went up to IKEA to look for furniture for the house. We didn’t get anything just then, but we got a few ideas about what we want and how much it’s going to cost, so that’s pretty useful. IKEA is a complete death-maze, though. It’s like a catalogue ripped its way into the third dimension and has slowly started replacing this world. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever sat on so many sofas. They don’t sell bean bags though. What the hell’s that about?

Yesterday we met Seb, Rachel and Cappsy and went up to Nandos. It’s surprisingly cool to have other people we know in the local area. Earlier in the afternoon we paid our horrendous amounts of money (well, “spent” in the sense that a few hundred was deposit) to get hold of the keys to our new place, so after Nandos we went and had a quick poke around it. It still smells a bit of paint but that aside, it’s all pretty damn good. Tomorrow we’re taking the first carfull of stuff up there. If we can figure out the fangled locks.

It’s also my birthday tomorrow, though I’m not going to let the fact that I’m turning 24 (undeniably mid-20s now) ruin an otherwise normal day. I’ve had a hard time suggesting things that I want to people, to be honest, because these days I can buy stuff I want myself rather than waiting for a birthday to roll around. Ah well. For the record, on my last day of being 23, I had a cold and I spent the day doing the work of 3 men because I was the only travel guy on call at work. I did at least get my comics at lunchtime, though, and that’s enough to make the day worth living. Especially when one is Brian Wood’s final issue of Supermarket.