Garrulous Geek

I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm doing over at Facebook (link includes embarrassing uni photo, courtesy of Izz). I've put off joining a "social networking" site for ages on the basis that I'm too cool for school, hence I have my own blog on my own webspace with my own domain name and everything. Damn, I'm cool.

Anyway. What's cooler than having your own website is actually having people visit it and send you messages and stuff, and people were going on about Facebook, so I figured I'd give it a try. I'll still be blogging here, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this blog will be mirrored there, but I'll also be doing stuff over there that won't make it over here so... uh... you might want to check both.

It's kinda weird getting things set up there, not least with the umpteen friend requests from various people I've known in the past. Kinda makes me feel a bit emo and nostalgic... I miss having friends around. I mean, life is good and all at the moment, but it's kinda weird living in a new town and just having a handful of friends at church who you see briefly every now and again. I guess that's why I've been making the most of my time in London - it's my entire month's socialising crammed into one week. Hopefully I'll have found some new friends by the time my course ends in 2 years or so!

It's time for bed, and staying up any later will only lead to further emo-loneliness-rambling, so I guess it's time for bed.

Oh yeah, I spent my birthday money on two John Wyndham books, the music edition of the Complete Mission Praise (hardback, and heavy enough to kill a walrus), the Indiana Jones trilogy on DVD and New Super Mario Bros for my DS. Nice.

Righty ho... I'm at work, while simultaneously on holiday. I've taken some time off work to come and do some one off work at my dad's church on the computers. It's hard work... the joys of IT...

So, I'm taking a break to do a silly little quiz thing I saw on a friend's blog the other week. The idea is that you select all your music on your generic mp3 player, set it to play randomly, and it spits out songs which may or may not correlate in some way with a selection of events that might take place in a film of your life. Cheesy, huh? The hope is that fate will somehow choose a whole bunch of astutely apt songs. The reality is likely that chance conspires against you and you end up explaining why you have half a dozen Bryan Adams songs in your collection, which of course you understand I don't. Honest.

Anyway! I've managed to wrestle with my 4 year old Creative Jukebox (twice the size of an Ipod! Half as good!) to get it to select all the music I own... here goes...

SOUNDTRACK TO MY LIFE:

Opening Credits: Steps - Tragedy

Clearly my MP3 player hates me.

Waking Up: Across The Great Divide - Semisonic


First Day At School: The Model - Belle & Sebastian

Great song. Irrelevant, mind you.

Falling In Love: Stop, Look, Listen To Your Heart - Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye

Well, at least it's a love song.

Fight Song: Pressure On Julian - Blur

Breaking Up: Porno Creep - Korn

Obviously.

Prom: Its The Sun - Polyphonic Spree

Mental Breakdown: Tightrope (Instrumental) - Electric Light Orchestra


Driving: Be Mine - David Gray

Tooooooo slooooooow for driving.

Flashback: At My Most Beautiful - R.E.M.

Getting back together: Darkside Lightside - Ash

RAWK!! *moshes*

Wedding: On A Plain (Live) - Nirvana

"Love myself better than you". Not very appropriate.

Birth of Child: Praise You - Fatboy Slim

Yeah, that'll do. I think there was a fair measure of praising when that was all done with.

Final Battle: Stop Whispering - Radiohead

Death Scene: Get Back - The Beatles

Funeral Song: Losing Grip - Avril Lavigne

Oh dear.

End Credits: Perfect Day - Lou Reed

The only film soundtrack I've heard this on was Trainspotting, which isn't that encouraging.

So, there you go. At least Bryan Adams didn't show up.

It was my birthday on Sunday. Alison and I had celebrated a bit on Saturday night by having a nice meal (toad in the hole - get in) and watching The Departed on DVD. The film was pretty good. I'm not sure it was Oscar good, but the Academy have passed Scorsese by so many times that I guess they had to give him best director sooner or later.

My actual birthday was less eventful, barring a trip to feed the ducks, marred only by a swan biting Alison and scaring little Beth. The only present I actually received was a nice new watch, all the rest was gifts of money which I'm now deciding how to spend... books, DVDs, CDs, games... so much to choose from! But I digress... Sunday night was spent travelling to London for another week of training, so I actually ended up spending the evening of my birthday in a hotel room on my own. Rubbish.

The week away has gone OK so far. The training has been pretty interesting, and it's good to see people. I went out last night and caught up with some friends from uni, which was fun. They nagged me to get signed up on Facebook, so I'll have to see about that at some point. I'm going out again tomorrow night for a little farewell do for some people who've quit the training course. It is quite fun, but it still pretty much sucks being stuck in a hotel on my own every evening. Boo.

I've just watched some of a TV programme about the infamous size zero, with the lovely Louise Redknapp crash dieting to slim down to that size. Pretty weird having been the typical teenager finding her very attractive, and having in fact seen her in person, every bit as beautiful as in any photograph; then seeing her trying desperately to lose weight and wind up looking utterly terrible for it. The program wasn't as hard hitting as I'd have liked - I find the whole thin women/anorexia/bulimia/dieting quite scary - but it was still pretty interesting. I don't see things changing any time soon though - I expect women will keep trying to be thin and winding up worse looking for it. Rubbish. It's not attractive, and for goodness sake, I think I speak for most men when I say we like having something to get hold of. Anyway.

I got the tube the other day, as you do in London, and there was a busker at Tottenham Court Road who was pretty damn good. Most buskers are fairly forgettable, but this woman was playing the guitar admirably and had a nice voice... she kinda reminded me of some kind of cross betwen Jewel and Lene Marlin or something. She was good enough to stop and listen to and indeed miss my train and have to wait for another one. I bought her CD, though I don't actually have a CD player here so I'll have to wait till I get home for that. She was called Dana Immanuel and she has a Myspace page over here, which I warn you will play the charmingly titled "Motherf*cking whore", so perhaps not one for work, eh? Anyway. That was interesting, and unusually impulsive for me, given that I normally don't buy anything without extensive research to insure I'm getting my money's worth.

So... that's about it for now. It's eleven at night, so I'm going to go to sleep I think. Good night.