52% intelligent. 9% modest. More monkey than bear.

Monday, March 29, 2004

Suddenly I feel like the most useless bloody blogger in the world. Been meaning to start one for ages. Start one. Have technical problems. Get them sorted. Post about once a bloody fortnight. Useless.

Anyway.

What have I been up to? weeeelllllll.

(1) Definitely being outsourced to the big blue which is nice (I think - subject to Ts & Cs, natch).

(2) Went to go and watch School of Rock (starring Jack Black) whilst g'f was in Chicago. It was okay, but I went straight home and watched High Fidelity instead - a much better film. Also an excellent book, which I must re-read at some point soon.

(3) Went to the Nottingham Bookcrossing meet. This was organised by the amazing Rachel and the lovely Steve. About 20-odd people and several hundred books turned up to the Wetherspoons on market square. I entered the pub with g'f (now all registered up as Frisquette) and was immediately daunted by the number of people and the lack of seats around the table. I'm a bit shy in circumstances like this, so I'm afraid I probably didn't make as much conversation as I might have. Hmmm. Still I had an excellent little chat with Kangaroo (we talked music) and I have ended up making her a CD with a few tracks we talked about.... "Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground, "Run" by Snow Patrol (them again), a bit of Scott Walker, a little bit of Idlewild - stuff like that. The plan is to send it to her, but whilst I wait for her to send me her address, this is sitting in my car to enliven the otherwise rather tedious (if short) journey to work....

books picked up at the meet:
"Turning 30" by Mike Gayle (given to me by Lucycat - the little charmer!)
"The Way Through the Woods" by Colin Dexter (I think I've read it, but I love the Morse books)
"The Tesseract" by Alex Garland (well, to see if it's any better than "The Beach")
"The Bonfire of the Vanities" by Tom Wolfe (never seen the film, but this is meant to be good, I think)
"The Groan" by Mervyn Peake (the first of the Gormenghast books)
"The Charterhouse of Parma" by Stendahl (looked interesting, in a penguin classic kind of way)

um. That will probably do for now:

READING
Leviathan by Paul Auster (still - this is a small book and is very good. I'm making a concerted effort now!)

LISTENING
er - the CD I made for Kangaroo

WATCHING
"Black Books" - series 2. Genius. Love the piano episode and the one where they go on holiday.

Also just discovered Belle de Jour - the Bridget Jones style blog of a call girl. She's apparently landed a massive publishing deal, and it's not hard to see why. It's also not hard to see why there are those who think the whole thing is a fake, designed to do exactly that.

Anyway. Toodle pip till next time. I've got an auster to finish.....

Monday, March 15, 2004

Ok. So for whatever reason this has now started to work, so I'd better start writing some stuff.

Hm. What's happened? Well, I turned 30 the other day. Apart from that?

READING
Leviathan by Paul Auster (courtesy of bookcrosser Lucycat)
The Bride Stipped Bare by anonymous (courtesy of bookcrosser Netstation - must be an early midlife crisis)

LISTENING
Songs for PolarBears - Snow Patrol
Highly Evolved - The Vines
The Decline of British Sea Power - British Sea Power

LATEST THING
Sennheiser PXC250 noise reduction headphones (courtesy of my lovely girlfriend as a birthday pressie!)

ANNOYED BY
The Bookcrossing Chit-chat forums - a wretched hive of scum and villany... you must watch your step

Ooh. And it's been months now, but I'm still loving my Ipod

Righto. That'll have to do for now. I have some seriously dull documentation to read on Radio Frequency Stock Management Applications. Hmm. Nice.

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Well, this is my first ever entry.

Not quite sure what plans I have for this blogspot, but I guess we'll find that out as we go along. I've sort of been thinking about this for ages, and now I'm taking the plunge. Here we go then.

Thoughts for the day:

(1) Oh shit - I forgot to buy 30th Birthday presents for 2 of my friends who are up for a shared 30th bash this weekend
(2) Thank you Amazon!

G'f is away today. It's sort of hard to settle without her. Haven't been able to concentrate on the TV (University Challenge, Nevermind the Buzzcocks) or on my book (The Amulet of Samarkand - Jonathan Stroud). When I'm finished here I think I'll wash up, do some ironing (oh how domestic) and then try the book again.

Hm. I'm sure it will get more interesting than this.

Oh - and why are the bookcrossing.com forums proving so addictive? Damn them!