Another witty title

Sometimes no matter what you do, life just plain sucks.

Insomnia is the reason this time around. :(

Yet another random post

I'll apologise now because I really do have nothing to say here, it's just been ages since I've posted anything so I figure I should say something...

Let me see - oh, I'm broke again, but that's really a positive thing since it's giving me the kick I need to sort myself out (God knows I can't keep on as I am - that way lies angry conversations with my bank manager). However that being said there are some great/inspiring stories out there - like the guy who had something like £138,000 out in unsecured loans and a failing company that owed something like £250,000. If he can sort himself out then my paltry problems are really nothing!

Unfortunately though it looks like I might not be making it to Borneo in 2008. That'll really depend on how much I save now that I've properly quit smoking. Again :) Oh and when I accept that S likes me and I don't have to keep trying to impress her!

I hate cash at this point in time :(

Seriously unconnected ramblings

I know, it's been a while and I've got a lot to cover. So grab a brew, sit back and relax.

Firstly tall ship sailing rules. I mean seriously rules. There is something utterly amazing about hanging over a yard thirty odd feet up with the wind in your hair and nothing between you and the middle of the channel but a rope and a safety harness - and some of the time not even a safety harness! Basically I was having a whale of a time and Dad would have been unable to watch.

I've got to admit spending that much time around that many disabled people was a huge eye opener too. I've been relatively fortunate to have had dealings with a number of disabled people over the years - but they generally all had a mental disability. Watching someone who had difficulty walking navigating a heaving deck to start hauling on a rope and raise a sail was phenomenolly inspiring. I do recommend it to anyone.

Secondly it appears I've finally reached the stage where not only are all my friends getting married they're also starting to procreate. I'm happy for them, but damn. It feels like I missed a couple of steps out of my life somewhere. I better start playing catch up. Just without the whole kid thing obviously. So not ready for one that I can't give back yet...

Which leads me onto point three. As much as I'd like to give you some interesting news about my love life, I really can't. Maybe tomorrow?

Some witty title

Some days for no particular reason it just feels great to be alive.

This is one of those days.

Redux

Ok there is absolutely no way on Earth that I'm going to be able to wait until tomorrow night. I'm sat here clock watching, waiting until I can start reading again! Hell I'd quit right now if I wasn't worried about missing something important and screwing it up! I don't think I have but really what's a few hours wait when freedom is just around the corner?

My God, I'm actually thrumming with excitment! I finally understand what thrumming with excitment means! I've had this big, dopey grin plastered across my face all day and I can't help it! Actually that's not true, it quickly disappears whenever I have a cigarette. How could I ever have actually enjoyed them? One of the ones I had earlier nearly made me throw up!

I really need to calm down and I know it. I've been in this state since last night and if I'm not careful I'm going to give myself a heart attack!

But damn if this doesn't feel better than sex.


Well maybe not quite that good, but pretty damn close!

Quitting smoking 3 - the end of the series

Sometime either tonight or tomorrow night I will actually, definitely, properly quit smoking. It all depends on when I finish the book.

It's going to be bloody marvellous!

Pubcrawl the second

I spent yesterday in the glorious sunshine with a rather nice pint, metallic green fingernails, metallic red toenails, green patches in my hair and beard and one bright pink nipple watching people throw black puddings at yorkshire puddings.

Does life get any better?


Oh and hell hath no fury like two women scorned and then told that they wouldn't dare...

I learnt a rather valuable lesson in life I think, I'm just not sure what it was.

I don't know

I finally asked S out yesterday. Her response was "I don't know". I guess I should feel bad about that, but the more I think about it the better I like her answer. After all I don't really know what's going on between us, something is I'm sure. Maybe it's what I think it is. Maybe not. It's all very confusing.

But I guess all I really wanted to know was if it was something worth pursuing or if I was just going to end up doing something that would make her feel uncomfortable and awkward. I think whatever is there is still young and needs a bit of time to grow and develop. Maybe it will end up being two very confused friends working out where they stand with each other. Maybe it will be something else. I honestly have no idea.

But I look forward to finding out.

And I'm still happy.

Bleached blog

As you've probably noticed I'm playing around with the template again. It appears to be what I do when I'm bored at work...

I've also recently started playing around with my keyboard and I've just moved across to the dvorak layout (see here for the wikipedia article). It's basically a layout based on the frequency of the letters that are used rather than the tradional qwerty keyboard which was designed to stop jams in a typewriter.
I've got to admit I'm quite liking it (although I'll prefer it when I can type as fast as I can think like before) it's quite easy to use and I am slowly picking it up! However learning to type your name from scratch again is a very weird sensation. I mean I don't even really think about what buttons to push anymore! Except if I don't now it comes out as Jam.prb Odc.nn. It's interesting that I can type faster with my eyes closed as well.

Still old dog, new tricks.

The Zoo!

I went to the zoo yesterday with Sam and it was goooood. As usual I got envious of the monkeys, they always have the best cages - full of ropes, logs and fun things to climb on. There were a number of really cute babies kicking around (and a couple of very protective mothers; I've never seen anything move so fast as one mum who shot across the cage and slapped the window to warn us off).

I did discover an interesting thing. Apparently animals like Sam. It seemed like she just had to walk up to a cage and the animals were coming over to see her! Especially the cats for some reason. Typical - there's always competition around!

We'd definitely timed it right as well - about 3 o'clock, which seemed to be feeding time, so all the animals were moving around. My one disappointment was that there was a cage between you and the bats. I'm sure I've been somewhere that didn't bother with the cage and had them flying around in the same room as you. Maybe it was Bristol zoo, or possibly Longleat. I forget.

Dinner afterwards was nice too.

Queensferry

Apologies to Steve, as I'm blatantly nicking his photo, but it's so good I can't not share it :)

It is however rather large, so it might take a while to view it. Anyway, this was the view on the Monday night of the pub crawl in
Queensferry. that's the Forth rail bridge. The light on the right of the photo was a massive gas flame just over the horizon. There was a gas chimney where they were burning off the excess (we think).

The worst thing is this photo is amazing, and it still doesn't do it justice!

Holiday envy

It appears I've been beaten. Two of my friend's have managed to come up with a longer, better, more pointless holiday than the strange pub crawl. To make matters even worse they're doing it for charity. I am not impressed.

Find out more at 39 million steps

Apparently viewing the site makes your life longer, happier and safer from terrorist attacks. It's also healthy and invigorating.

Not so strange pubs

I'm back! Although you probably didn't notice me going...

Anyway, after 8 days, 12 train rides, 2 flights, 68+ pints, 7 whiskys, 25 pubs, 1 whiskey distillery, 1 museum, ridiculous photos and 1 Rosslyn Chapel later I've made it through the first of the strange pubcrawls alive. I'm also going to have a very boring month with only a few highlights (Kat's pre-wedding party, Sam's birthday) in order to save cash (and my liver) for the rest of the month.

For some strange reason I'm rather tired today.

Also, Scotland is completely and totally gorgeous. I always knew it, I just didn't realise how much of it was! If you get the chance to spend a week up there it's highly recommended!

Monday Morning

So apparently you need money to do things. It's rather annoying like that. Thankfully however having parents who can afford to bail you out once in a while is a very good thing :) Still since I'm off to Scotland this week I guess I better start counting the pennies to get through the next month (fortunately this one shouldn't be too expensive) September looks like it'll be the biggie!

So I've stopped smoking again. I had a bit of a relapse on Saturday night at a wedding with a cigar, but then you've got to really don't you? Well, no, obviously, and I think that's a tradition I need to break.

But otherwise I'm still happy. I think this might be a bit of a record really. Haven't felt this good for this long since... I hit puberty I guess.

Wow, that was a lon time ago. Huh.

Huh.

I appear to be happy again. And have been for the last couple of days. It's been a while I've got to admit.




I'm not sure I like it.

Life goes crazy... again...

Sorry for the delay since the last decent post, life seems to have gone a little bit crazy recently.

I spent the weekend getting hot and sweaty with three attractive young ladies (or helping them move house if you prefer), and then helping a friend to not go sailing. Seriously, we moved her boat to the sailing club and everything, she just didn't go sailing. Apparently it was because she has a crazy boat and the wind was too strong, but I reckon she just chickened out. Still we ended up swimming fully clothed in the sea, so it wasn't all bad! If you do get the chance to try that I highly recommend it. It is a lot of fun!

But more importantly all of a sudden I've got holidays coming out of my ears. At the end of this month, I've got a wedding in York. I then come back to work for two days before flying up to visit strange pubs in Scotland for a week. I get back from that, go to the LAN party for the weekend and then I've got three weeks before I go to another wedding (London this time - hey Kat and Pete!) I'll come back from that and then head off to the midlands to visit some more pubs. I'm back for a few days and then work is sending me off on a tall ship for six days, sailing around the country I believe (although I must check that...). The tall ship holiday is fully paid for by work and doesn't take up any of my holiday, so I suddenly like my job! Back for another week and then I've got a wedding in Winchester (not so big a trip, thankfully!) My birthday a week later and then I get October to relax before I go up to York again to be a faceless monk.

And somewhere in there I want to start Capoeira.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but seriously at this rate I'm going to need a holiday to recover...!

Stuck in limbo

Something my Mum pointed out to me yesterday stuck in my mind. She said that during Uni I ran around like a mad thing until I didn't burnout. I possibly came close to it, although not really at all, but I needed sometime to myself to recover.

I think she's right. I did go a little bit mad at Uni, and I was constantly running around like a madman. And it was good. But then I needed some time to not be running around like a madman. To kick back and chillout and, well, recover.

The problem I've got now is in the other direction. I'm chilled out so much I'm practically dead. It's like I've been stuck in Limbo ever since trying to find my way around. I think the problem is that I haven't really got a purpose, and haven't had one in quite a while. Always before an opportunity has landed in my lap and I've jumped on it with both hands. I'm now in the position where I'm actually going to have to find something to do, and I really don't know what it is I want to do. How on earth do people make decisions like that?

There have been some suggestions admittedly - rock climbing was one, although there are no real centres near me that I can easily get to. Tai chi has a certain appeal, as does Capoeira - although I have no idea where either of them is likely to be taught! Maybe I should stick with something much more tradional - like sorting out my finances so that I can get on with my life long term, rather than living moment to moment...

But that would take all the fun out of it wouldn't it?

Technical difficulties

As part of my effort to get to grip with this blog as a whole I've been playing around with the template a bit. Unfortunately not all of my changes have worked - there are a couple of browser issues kicking around that I'm still working on. So if it looks ugly/stupid or like something's gone wrong then that's the reason. I think the only ones left are to do with the header border/background, but let me know if you spot any others - particularly the sidebar running away and hiding!

It's very shy sometimes...

Living the dream

Every so often I think it's important to go back to your roots and relieve a childhood dream. For instance on Sunday a housemate and I went down to Sega Park. We spent half an hour shooting things lots and racing fast cars. Then we went to Burger King and had a burger.

We rounded the afternoon off by going to the cinema and watching a nice pretty action movie with lots of fun effects and explosions but without much of that annoying plot stuff so many modern films go for (or X-men 3: The Last stand as it's also known. I mean really, if ever there was a film that was trying to do too much and failing at all of it...).

Basically it was every 12/13 year olds idea of a perfect birthday party. We were in every sense living the dream. Except that we're a bit older now and the dreams kind of changed. So it's not the dream anymore.

So that made me think, well, why not? After all we constantly work towards these things, why not actually go out and enjoy them while we can. Ok, so it's not as great as it would have been when we were kids, but it's still fun! And if we're always hunting after tomorrow, or fighting for today, then surely we should spend a bit of time appreciating the past as well?

Random Drug Tests in Schools

So apparently the government is trying to make a push for random drug tests in schools. I've got to say I'm not impressed. Yes, the testing requires a parents consent, but really I can't see how this is anything less than an invasion of privacy. Not even that but it's a specific invasion of privacy in a targeted area. I mean this is basically treating children as criminals, it's only three steps from the nanny state. After all I can't think of any of my friends who have random drug tests at work, and it's not something I can ever see happening in the future. But setting up a policy of basically testing all children for drugs is ludicrous!

I'm also interested to know what happens to kids who are found to have taken them. Personally I have an issue with recreational drugs being illegal anyway. I mean they really are victimless crime. Now yes, I do understand it's not just as simple as that, and that they do need to be fully understood or else there are other worse consequences. But that's a matter of education and letting people make they're own choice.

However by enforcing random drug tests in schools you're effectively removing that choice from them, forcing the issue rather than letting people learn from their mistakes. Shouldn't this be an issue of informed and not enforced choice?