Garrulous Geek

Thursday night is shopping night. A trip to Tesco for food and whatnot. It is also often DVD renting night, assuming there is something we fancy seeing and we have a bit of cash.

Last night we got Napoleon Dynamite out. I'd heard a bit about it when it was released, and that it was quite popular in a kind of underground, cult sort of way. We didn't get around to seeing it at the time, so we figured it'd be worth a shot now.

I have to say it was one of the weirdest films I have ever seen. It's about a loser guy at school in Idaho. He's got a Mexican friend who's running for class president, a weirdo dad who's got a girlfriend on the Internet, a crazy Uncle making money any way he can, and a girl who kinda fits in there somewhere. And... um... that's about it.

It has to be said that not an awful lot happens. No one dies, the world doesn't get saved, robots don't take over... next to nothing. It made me think a bit of Lost In Translation in that whole nothing happens but hey - that's real life for you sort of way. So on the one hand things are quite normal, but on the other hand everything and everyone around him is a bit weird.

The whole weird thing worked well for me - I found it very funny. The characters are quirky and peculiar and the circumstances and happenings are very amusing, but in a normal sort of way, as opposed to Hollywood's usual teen comedy with hilarious consequences! kind of way. The dialogue was very funny, but in a kind of offbeat way - it was all fairly obscure and out there. So... yeah. I thought it was hilarious. I haven't laughed so much in a long time. It was also quite an endearing film, and the characters had a lot of humanity to them. I think most people could find someone in there to relate to, as I think it's fair to say we've all felt like a loser or a fish out of water, or been surrounded by weirdos or whatever.

Anyway. It's probably not for everyone, but I think it's worth a shot if you like kinda kooky films.

Look at what I'm wearing people. You think anyone wants a roundhouse kick to the face when I'm wearing these bad boys? Forget about it!

Genius.

Last night we had a minor panic when we found a whole bunch of ants eating a bit of flour that had been spilled in the kitchen. I didn't know ants ate flour, but there you go. Alison got out the trusty Dyson and set to work. I don't think many of them survived. Anyway, we thought that was it for the time being...

BUT NO!

Alison left some chicken breasts defrosting in a bowl on the work surface over night. We went into the kitchen for breakfast this morning to find that the ants had trooped up the side of the unit, onto the top and into the bowl and were munching on our chicken! How rude! Needless to say, the vacuum cleaner came out again and they got their comeuppance. The chicken had to go in the bin. Damn.

The upshot of all this is... what the hell kind of weird ants have we got living under our house? Ants are meant to eat jam and honey and crawl into half empty glasses of orange juice and drown. They like sweet things! They crawl into the sugar bowl and lug off granules to feed to the evil queen. Since when do they eat flour and chicken? Are they on some crazy diet? Stupid ants.

Anyway. Alison is going to get some ant killer powder stuff.

Bye for now.

I am in the process of getting hooked on Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe. It's a horribly addictive old game in which you have to transport stuff around a map using trains and lorries and whatnot. You have to get coal to the power station, iron to the steel mill and so on. Sounds simple? Yes, it is pretty much. I figure a lot of people would find it quite boring too, but I'm getting well stuck in to it.

It's kinda funny, because many years ago I was going out with a girl whose dad was hooked on Transport Tycoon, and used to get yelled at by her mum because he was always playing it. Now I'm playing it and Alison is having to vye for my attention and drag me away from my computer. History repeating and whatnot.

Oh yeah, for the record I had a pretty good, relaxing weeked after my nasty week, so that was nice.

Good grief, I want this week to end.

Work has been long and difficult.

We can't get a mortgage because we don't have enough money.

London Energy are the most inept company I have ever dealt with. I will rant about this when I can be bothered.

I got overdrawn by mistake and now owe the bank £30.

I need a weekend.

In other news, happy birthday for tomorrow to Mikey H. If you're reading this Mike, have a great day tomorrow, and here's a link to a page that made me think of you.

Channel 4 had a Top 100 Albums show on last night. It was quite interesting. You can take a look at the programme details here, which also has links to the original nominations and - more importantly - the results. As you might gather, the poll was done by drawing up a shortlist of 125 nominated albums, and then getting the public to vote for their favourite albums from the selection. While probably easier than letting everyone vote for any old thing, it does obviously limit what can be voted for, so perhaps it's a bit flawed. You also have to question the sanity of the people doing the original nominating, when The Libertines make it into the top 125. They're not really my thing, so maybe the album is great and I just don't know it, but I still find it slightly dubious that they would get in at number 50, putting it above Margin Gaye, Dusty Springfield, Public Enemy... I could go on, but all I'd be doing is listing most of the bottom half of the results page.

This of course leads into the other problem with these kind of polls - the more recent stuff will invariably do disproportionately well. There are certainly many more young people voting in these polls who've never even heard of Nick Drake or Jeff Buckley, who will thus end up voting up Oasis, or even Blur for that matter. Even then, the older generation may be less likely to vote for some of the stuff they grew up with, when the newer stuff is fresher in their minds. The top 20, for example, has two Oasis albums, a Blur album, Parachutes by Coldplay (!) and even Alanis Morisette's not-actually-her-debut-even-though-everyone-thinks-it-is Jagged Little Pill one place above Led Zepellin IV. Hmm.

Now, about 7 years ago Q Magazine ran a top 100 albums chart, allowing the readers to vote for anything ever. The number 1 on that chart, was OK Computer, by Radiohead. At the time, I thought that this was a case of the fresh things getting to the top of the heap. Yes, OK Computer is a great album, no doubt. It's experimental and different and emotional and it takes you to all manner of weird musical places. Is it the best album ever? Well, I don't know. Channel 4 viewers clearly think so, as it came top of their little rundown. This time it's a bit more interesting, as it's getting on for 8 years since OK Computer was released. That's not quite so fresh anymore, is it?

I don't know if it is the best album. I certainly like it a lot, but at the same time I appreciate that it's not exactly accessible and certainly not for everyone. I guess I'll have to wait another 30 years and see if it's still topping charts.

Anyone want a network switch? How about some extra RAM? I'm selling some stuff on ebay to get some cash for future PC upgrades.

In other buying/selling news, does anyone want to buy any Vicodin? I have no idea what the damn stuff is, but some comment spamming moron seems to think you might want to buy some. Various prescription drug names have now been added to the list of words that result in comments getting held in line for moderation.

Bye.

PS Buy my stuff!

I made it home safe last night, which was good. The next-door-but-one-neighbour's cat was pottering about outside on the street, so as soon as I opened our front door it leapt into our house and wandered into the lounge where Alison was watching "The greatest 80's TV moments" on Channel 5. Quality telly.

The cat stayed with us for the next two hours. It was purring like crazy. We fed it some turkey breast ham stuff which it liked, and then it lay around on my lap and tried to fall asleep. It clawed me a bit when I made the mistake of moving - heaven forbird - and it had another go at me when Alison cleaned it's eye, which was looking a bit grubby. We had to tell it off for trying to pull the speakers off the windowsill and looking at the shelves like it wanted to climb then, but besides that it was all good.

I think we'll have to get a pet cat when we get a house of our own.

Right. I'm back on the Wirral again. I've had the afternoon off work so I could come and see the dentist to have my teeth polished, my X-rays from last time checked, and the weird blue thing in my palate looked at. My teeth have been polished, my X-rays show I need a feeling, and the dentist wants to refer me to an oral surgeon about the blue thing in my palate as it might be a cyst. Well, 1 out of 3 ain't bad. Hmm. More on the filling on the 1st of June, and more on the cyst as and when we get in touch with a surgeon who can X-ray my palate.

So, I've just had supper with my mum and I'm about to head back to Leicester. Another 120 miles of driving. I think my mp3 player is about to run out of batteries too, so I can't listen to my ELO albums. Curses. I got Discovery (disturbingly, the Amazon page shows I am in the company of people who buy Olivia Newton-John records... hmm) at the weekend and I'm in the process of assimilating it. It's good, but it'll probably take a bit of time. Mind you, Out Of The Blue took me a while, and I now consider it one of the best albums I've ever heard, so there you go.

Alison and I watched Vanilla Sky at the weekend. It was OK. I guess in the realm of "it was all a dream" (if you've not seen it, I've just spoilt it, but come on... you're a bit late, huh?) type films it does a fairly good job of things - it certainly goes all out in making the dream dramatic and what have you. It just feels a bit shallow after all you've watched, to find out that that's what was going on.

I finished Half Life 2 as well. It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm now looking forward to upgrading some of my PC hardware so I can enjoy it in it's full glory with some nice high detail settings. This, of course, requires money. Time to get saving.

Right. Time to drive back to Leicester. See you soon.

Alison got the job! She is going to start a GTP teacher training course at Beauchamp School in Septempter. It's like a years on the job training which ends up with her qualifying as a teacher. She's going to be teaching secondary school and A-Level biology. Excellent!

In other news, I finished a book the other day. It was a big anthology of Isaac Asimov stories, called "The Complete Robot". I'd link to it at Amazon, only I can't find it there. It must be some weird edition of it or something. Anyway. It was 682 pages of small print that made up about 30 short stories about robots, surprisingly enough. I'd been inspired to read it, after seeing I, Robot for the second time and reading quotes like this about it, and wondering what the original stories were like.

The book was a long read... It took me two renewals from the library to finish it. It was good though. It was an interesting read, and it was - admittedly - much more in depth than the aforementioned film. The stories in the book played much more with the 3 rules, whereas the film kinda copped out and just abused them. The film was similar to a couple of the stories, but the originals were a bit more subtle. The film also took some artistic license, like Susan Calvin (the smartarse lady in the film) being young enough to provide some kind of vague sexual chemistry for Will Smith, as opposed to being about 60 in the books. Hmm.

It was worth reading, though I guess I might not persuade too many of you, as I am something of a sci fi geek.

Speaking of which... I played some more Half Life 2 last night. (For those few of you who have played it, I'm up to the city levels, towards the end, after Alyx and I teleported back to the lab.) I'm leading a little squad of guys round the city, who help me in the firefights we get into, which is kind of cool. I'm mostly fighting regular soldiers at the moment, but I keep seeing these bigass monsters called striders which look like they'll be a problem when I get round to fighting them. I'm also really getting the hang of the gravity gun now. The city levels have these little crazy mines called hoppers which jump in the air when you get near them and then explode when they hit the ground. The trick is to catch them in the air when they spring up, then throw them. It's kinda neat to walk up to a mine, have it spring up in the air, catch it with the gravity gun, then launch it at some explosive barrels next to the little encampment of Civil Protection officers and watch them all go flying.

Physics rocks. Oh yes.

Alison got a call yesterday to say that she has an interview for a teacher training course tomorrow. She has to have several interviews with various people, observe lessons, and teach some 15 year olds for 15 minutes. Scary stuff, especially when she only has two days to prepare for it.

She spent all of yesterday evening preparing her 15 minutes of teaching. It's about food chains and food webs, which I just about remember for my GCSE biology days.

And while Ali fiddled away with Powerpoint and Clipart and all the rest of it, I was hard at work... playing Half Life 2 . This is the game... this is the big one... this is the one that tempted me back to computer gaming after my 6 month hiatus last summer - I quit to concentrate on my uni finals and get married. The game hasn't let me down either. It looks and sounds great, the levels are brilliantly designed, the enemies are scary, and the physics are delicious icing. There's something quite unique about pulling a radiator off a wall with your gravity gun and throwing it at a zombie... quite a rare and delectable experience in the world of computer gaming.

I need to get back to work now. Bye.

The Stereophonics were number one the other week, with Dakota. I think it's a great single to be honest, and certainly a lot better than much anything off their last album. I like the vocals, I like the guitar, I like the change of pace in the chorus... Good stuff.

I heard the new Oasis single this morning on the radio. It's called Lyla or something. It sounds kinda like some of their old stuff. It's got a very retro sound to it, but doesn't everything these days... It's not very interesting though. It's pretty much in the same league as their early stuff, but it's not very inventive. It's the same stuff with a few different effects on the guitars - just different production. Hmm.

Liam Gallagher's voice is even more whiny and irritating than ever.

Maybe it'll grow on me... I doubt it though.

In other news, the new Athlete single is great. It's called Half Light, and it reminds me a lot of doing the whole long distance relationship thing with Alison while I was at uni. Lyrics as follows:

The sun got stuck, as it's making it's way back down, 

We find ourselves, in a familiar part of town 



And all that I've seen means nothing to me without you 



So when I see you next we'll make the most of it, 

Tell the sun to start moving again, 

The taste of your kiss I still got on my lips, 

And ill take you there with me 



My head crashed down, and conditioned myself to sleep, 

The great night out, that will continue to the end of the week 



And all that I've seen means nothing to me without you 



So when I see you next we'll make the most of it, 

Tell the sun to start moving again, 

The taste of your kiss I still got on my lips, 

And ill take you there with me 



It's you and me connected to a satellite 

It's you and me love through a machine 

It's you and me connected to a satellite 

It's you and me love through a machine 



So when I see you next we'll make the most of it, 

Tell the sun to start moving again, 

The taste of your kiss I still got on my lips, 

And I'll take you there with me

OK, so it's the not quite the weekend and it is after easter, but never mind. While we're at it, if anyone can tell me what song that line is from without Googling for it I'll be impressed.

Anyway.

Alison and I have indeed been away for a few days. We've come to visit my parents on the Wirral. I originally organised the visit, because I was due a dentist appointment. as any Brits reading will know, it's a nightmare finding an NHS dentist, so I'm clinging on to the place I have with the dentists where I used to live, near my parents.

So yesterday I went to the dentist, who found nothing wrong, but took some X-rays and booked me in to give my teeth a quick clean, then poked my palate for a bit and said there was some blue discolouration which could be the start of a cyst. Great. So I'm coming back in 10 days (that's another 240 mile round trip for a dentist appointment... joy) so she can poke at it again and sandblast my teeth or whatever it is they do. After that I went and fixed a computer at my dad's church, then went and got about the best haircut I've had in ages.

Alison and I had a walk in the afternoon, which basically involved a bit of a wander round Heswall looking at all the random new houses that people are building in various places. In the evening we went to the Black Horse and saw just about everyone I've ever known in my life. Well, maybe a bit of an exaggeration. Still, there were a lot of people. I saw Jayne O' Leary and Ian Hughes which was quite a blast from the past; along with all my mates from my era at YF; an ex of mine came along too; and there were also a whole bunch of younger dudes and my sisters friends. It was well crazy seeing everyone. After that we made the usual late night journey to McDonald's. I'm not a huge fan of theirs - and certainly not after seeing Super Size Me which I heartily recommend - but we went along anyway. I had one of their mad little fruity yoghurt things with fruit in. I swear they used to be bigger, but never mind.

Today we've not done so much. Alison and I spent a fair wedge of time retracing last night's steps looking for a necklace my parents gave her at our wedding, which must have got lost along the way. It's not showed up yet, so we're pinning our hopes on it being in a friends car, which irritatingly had to go in for a service today. Curses. We had a lazy afternoon, and Alison has spent the evening chatting to a girl we met at Soul Survivor a couple of years back.

We're heading back tomorrow at some point, so we have the weekend to get adjusted before going back to work.

So... that's a bit of a summary of life lately.

It's been good to be home and see everyone again. Alison and I are a bit lonely down in Leicester, as we don't really know anyone of our age. Alison has a couple of friends at work, but I'm only just getting to know people at my job. All the people at church are either middle aged or in our youth group which isn't exactly ideal when you want someone to go do a pub quiz with... Hmm. Anyway. The point is it's been nice to come home and have a laugh with a bunch of people our age, and go out to the pub and whatnot. It's also been good to see my family. I like talking to my dad about politics and that, and I kinda miss it when I'm away. Talking on the phone isn't always the same as having a chat over breakfast. Hmm.

We're heading back tomorrow with a whole shedload more stuff than we came with. My parents are moving house soon, as my dad is becoming a curate at the church where he works which includes getting to live in the manse they have, so they want to clear out as much of my stuff as possible being as I no longer even live here. I'm going back with my last quitar, some more books, a few more clothes and a whole bunch of other stuff. I don't know where we're going to put it as our house is rammed as it is. Crazy days.

Right. This is long and rambly, and I need to take our friend Kirsty home and then get to bed ready for our drive home tomorrow.

Later.