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I'm going to try to move away from it because it's hacking me off something chronic. Watch this space.

I'm all for weird, off the wall music. Just left of mainstream, you know? Things like the eels or Belle & Sebastian. Not right out there with the indie garage band chasers, but certainly not your run of the mill top 40 junk or even regular rock stuff... just a little bit unusual.

I've started getting into The White Stripes lately. I like the whole lo-fi, stripped down sound; the intensity and the proximity of the music. It's very raw, live on a record. It's offbeat and unusual and passionate... It's quite exciting.

Yet, I have to say that The Nurse, track 2 on their second-to-latest album, Get Behind Me Satan, is about the most self-indulgent masturbatory bit of rubbish I've ever heard on an album, and I speak as someone who enjoyed both Kid A and Amnesiac by Radiohead, pretty much in their entirety. What possessed them to put this track on their album is beyond me... There's a marimba, but it's clearly only there because Jack had bought a marimba and wanted to try it out, and there's a guitar, but it's so out of time, probably because Jack is trying to put down his marimba-bashers in time to get to the frets, and the drums are hideously off-kilter, but not in a clever, syncopated way or a wacky 7/8 time signature way, but in a quite-simply-hopelessly-out-of-time fashion.

It's offensive that a band would put such a crummy track on an album. I'm sure that the muso's will pick over how clever and unconventional it is, and how revolutionary this sort of thing is. It's not, it's just rubbish. It's like that dude who recorded an entire album of silence, or the track that was nothing but someone breathing, or the 9 minute track of guitar feedback that the Grateful dead once recorded, as I was today informed by a 50-something Beefheart/Zappa loving colleague at work.

It’s just pretentious. It’s the modern art of the music world.

Here endeth the rant.

My webhosting got broken, but then it got fixed. As such, some comments are missing, facebook will list a couple of things twice (as I copied my recent posts from the notes there) and... that's about that.

Pestiferous computers.

Everyone on Big Brother appears to be a vapid retard.
That is all.

I’m often quite uncomfortable talking to Christians. So I wasn’t terribly happy to find myself sandwiched between a few of them at a wedding reception I was at on Saturday. They sat there talking across me about their passion for the lost, and all the things God was doing in their lives… And I sat there wishing that I could be anywhere but there, or at the very least that I could have considerably more wine inside me. Eventually the food was served, and the conversation shifted to topics that I was more suited to - viagra jokes for example. Nice.

I ate well, and had a few more drinks, and the dancing began. I had a few dances with a few pretty ladies, and in between dances I ranted at a girl that I presumptuously refer to as my best friend even though I’ve made little to no effort to keep in touch with her of late. I moaned and complained about life, and all the problems I’m facing, and how I don’t understand what’s really going on. She said that Alison and I should pray about it, and rely on God for guidance and support. Christians, huh? So predictable.

I’ve not made any concerted effort to read the Bible since I moved house in August. I’ve not prayed in a much longer time than that. I’ve given up on believing that my faith has any perceptible impact on my life. I’ve gone on going to church out of habit, kept saying the right things to stay in the Christian conversations, and just got on with my life in the meantime. I’ve been content to believe that I’ll get to heaven in the end, if only on the technicality that I believe in God and believe that Jesus came to save us, even if that means nothing for me in my daily life. God will be obliged to let me in, because I’ve just barely fulfilled the requirements. And while Jesus may indeed have said “In my Father’s house are many rooms” I’ve come to accept that I’ll end up in the garden shed. Heaven, but only just.

So, after a few more dances at the reception, it was getting towards time for the beautiful, happy couple to leave. I got a lift back to the station from my friend’s boyfriend’s twin brother’s fiancee, with everyone in between. A 20 minute car journey with 4 enthusiastic Christians. Thankfully, we talked about sport and Dirty Dancing. Hardly my two specialist subjects, but certainly more comfortable topics than might have come up.

I headed back to my friend’s flat where I was staying the night. We chatted, ate a pizza and played on his flatmate’s Nintendo Wii. We didn’t get to sleep till gone two.

The next morning, as we were having breakfast, the aforementioned flatmate asked what we had been up to the night before. We told him that I had been to a wedding. “Oh,” he said, “any nice bridesmaids there?”. Had my brain worked quicker, I would have replied with “Yes, but not as nice as there were when I got married.” Sadly I didn’t come up with that witty riposte until about 12 hours later. My friend bailed me out, telling him that I was in fact married with a child. “God almighty” came the reply.

A few hours later, as I sat on the train back up North, I thought to myself - “God almighty indeed.” He is largely responsible for my getting married to Alison, convincing us that it was the right thing to do. He then followed up with the whole unexpected baby debacle (pronounced deh-backal, as per John Cusack in High Fidelity) and the associated drama of finding a new house and a new job in a new part of the country. Thanks God.

No, really, thanks God. Thanks for ensuring that my life isn’t boring. For keeping me on my toes. For giving me things to live for. For giving me a wife and daughter to look after and love. For putting me in the right job, providing me with a great house, and a supportive church to go to.

I realise now that while I’ve been struggling on, battling through life, God has been there, in the background, helping me out. I’ve left him out of my plans, and tried to do things in my own strength, abandoning him, giving up on prayer and the Bible, but God has stayed with me, helping me along even though I was doing my best to ignore him. He helped me to get a degree and a wife in practically the same breath. He has helped and is still helping Alison through our first few years of marriage. He has brought beautiful baby Beth to us, safe and healthy, and more amazing every day. He saw to it that I would get the right job, even though my first interview was such a disaster that after it finished I called Alison to say that “It was a disaster. It will be an act of God if I get that job.” I didn’t mean it at the time - it was an off the cuff remark, but I was right. I didn’t deserve that job in any way based on that interview, and I can’t believe that anything I said or did got me through to the next round.

A couple of hours later, my train arrived at Wigan station, and I met Alison and Beth and we went home. We put Beth to bed and had the evening together. Before bed, I said to Alison that we should pray together. She was surprised to say the least. That’s really not the sort of thing I say. So we prayed and went to sleep. This evening we read our Bible’s and then prayed. Tomorrow we will do the same. And perhaps if I make the effort with God, He will come closer, and speak to me again.

I’ve spent too long trying to be too passive in my faith. I’ve believed that it can be just a habit, that I can be a Christian without having to do anything about it. I’ve expected God to keep speaking to me, while ignoring his instructions to sort bits of my life out. I’ve thought I could get by without praying, or reading the Bible, or making any effort to follow God’s plans. I was, to say the least, wrong. So it’s time to pull my finger out, and do all the things I should have been doing all this time. Praying, reading the Bible, talking about my faith… It begins now.

I’m not fixed yet, but I’m surer than I’ve been in a long time that I’ll get there.

So... I've not written anything in ages... I've not really been using the web much of late, at least not in any way that requires any creative input. Blog and facebook have gone out of the window really. Let's try writing something and see if anyone comments, besides the usual clamouring crowd of spambots. No, sorry, no one wants your realty porn, whatever that may be. Anyway...

Work is pretty busy and interesting, which is good. I appear to have settled in rather well to being an accountant, which is something I swore I'd never do. It's not boring, honest. Training is going well, and the trips to London are looking like they'll get to be more fun come the summer. Frisbee in the park = good thing. That being said, sauna on the tube = bad thing... I think walking will be abundantly more tempting.

Beth is doing well. She seems to be permanently teething which makes for much wailing and gnashing of the relevant teeth. Apart from that she's getting the hang of lots of other stuff. Here's a quick list of newfound skills:

• Saying "Dada" and "Mama" to us.


• Standing up and cruising along stuff.


• Pointing at stuff she wants.


• Dropping stuff off her high chair. This is funnier for her than for us.


• Putting things in our hands and laughing when we say thank you to her.


• Starting to get the hang of her shape sorter.


• Recognising the house when we come home from somewhere.


• Crawling everywhere.

So, that's all good.

Things might be clearing up a bit God-wise, but I'm not sure. I'm sure the comparison between rich men (or more pertinently, those who put their faith in money) getting into heaven and camels getting through eyes of needles could just as well be applied to those with scientific knowledge... Not that science is a bad thing, or it can't co-exist with religion (which I'm sure it can) but it does make things a bit challenging when people use science to try to dismiss God. Still, I'll struggle on, through stubbornness if nothing else.

Music... I bought Elephant by The White Stripes the other day. A bit older, but pretty good so far. Quite an impressive variety of sound from what is mainly just two people. It achieves a raw, rough sound without resorting to mountains of producing it to make it sound that way. I'll have to give it a few more listens, but I think I'll be getting some more of their stuff.

Films... I want to see Spiderman 3. We're going to visit my parents in a few weeks, so we'll probably take advantage of being able to leave Beth one evening and go out to see it. I also want to see Pirates Of The Caribbean 3, but I might end up going to see that when I'm down in London without Alison. After the huge disappointment of the second one, I'm not exactly hoping for much, but I'd still like to see what happens. Maybe they will salvage things. I hope so. I'm also looking forward to Die Hard 4, though I'm sure it'll be little more than Bruce Willis blowing stuff up and coming up with one liners. Nothing wrong with that once in a while.

Right. I'll try to post something more constructive here sometime soon.

What marvellous technological leaps and bounds we make! What a brave new world we live in, that I can sit on the toilet and beat some Japanese guy at Tetris on my DS over some magical wireless Internet thing!

I've not written for a while... so here's a quick catch up.

Easter was good, pretty busy mind you. We went to Ali's mum's on Saturday and went to a friend's wedding in the afternoon which was pretty cool. Beth wore a very pretty dress and was very well behaved which was nice. In the evening we ate takeaway food from Tesco and watched Casino Royale with some wine, which was also nice. Great film that one. We stuck around for most of Sunday too, then headed back in the evening. My family on Monday - big get together for my sister's 21st... kinda weird little Libby being 21... I was married a year after that. How weird is that? Makes me feel old!

Tuesday and Wednesday off work for putting together IKEA furniture. We now have a huge cabinet in our front room... So big we can't even half fill it with all the stuff that's supposed to go in it.

Thursday and Friday... work.

We went to Formby yesterday for a walk and a picnic and a bit of a sit on the beach. The weather was surprising, such that I was utterly ill attired in my jeans... Still, I can't have been the only one surprised by the weather, as there were plenty of scallies leaping around the dunes in just their boxer shorts, which is truly a sight that should not be seen. Still, ill clad youths aside it was a nice day.

And today... church and another crisis of faith for me. Joy. My faith feels much too rational, and mechanistic, and not... faithy enough. I don't feel it. I don't believe in God because I've ever really experienced him, but just because it makes sense for God to exist, and for all that follows from there. It never seems to get from my head to my heart, as they say. I don't feel like I've been saved from anything, and I can't talk of any big change in my life as a result of God, so I can't really "sell" this to anyone, so evangelism is just completely out of the question.

Anyway. I'm not sure this is the right place for my ongoing faith disaster, so I'll draw this to a close.

In other news, Welcome To The Black Parade by emo whiners My Chemical Romance is a better song than it really should be. Or perhaps I just can't resist crap punk every once in a while.

I wonder if anyone responsible for getting The Sugababes and Girls Aloud to cover Walk This Way by Aerosmith for Comic Relief actually has any idea what the song is about.

Perhaps that's the comic bit, I don't know.

Ooh, look, another Weird Al Youtube linky... tres amusant if you're a computer geek like me.

I've just built a new computer. Dear goodness, it was a faff. I now have two very nice shiny PCs, one of which will hopefully soon be taking up it's station as my media center PC, sitting in pride of place in my living room to record TV shows, play DVDs and music, and generally be useful. I hope. The other is my general use and gaming rig, which proved to be quite an arse to get working for various reasons. Just about justifiable as I now have a pretty fast computer that should play just about any game that comes out this year (Bioshock... oooh!) and last a bit longer besides.

That being said, I think I'm tiring of PC gaming, not least because of the enormous hassle that building computers can be. It was all well and good when I was footloose and fancy free, with few commitments, and a reasonable chunk of disposable income. I could spend money on hardware, build my own computers, and it was actually quite fun to puzzle over why part X wouldn't work with part Y, and figure out a way to get everything working and have a wicked PC to play my games on. These days, I'm rather busier, and I'd rather spend my copious free time after work doing other things, not least the rather pressing issue of maintaining a family. I don't really have time to worry about why I can't get any VGA output from the PCI Express slot, or why that wireless card will work but the other won't, and just how much of this hardware will work in Linux anyway?

No... I don't really have time for this anymore. These days I want to sit down at a computer, read my e-mails, surf the net, then turn it off and play Mario on my DS. I suddenly understand the appeal of consoles... They. Just. Work. You put your game in, turn it on, play, then turn it off. No faffing about building your console from scratch, upgrading it every year, troubleshooting, fiddling with Windows trying to figure out what the hell it's playing it, or any of that hassle.

So, I think this might just be my last serious hardware upgrade. Next time I get a decent chunk of change, I think I'll be spending it on a Nintendo Wii, rather than putting myself through all this hassle again.

In other news, for those of you who care little for computers, here's an opinion of mine: American Idiot by Green Day is one of the greatest albums ever recorded.

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.

I have given up buying and selling on ebay (click the link - it's funnay) for lent. Fairly easy so far, sure to get harder in a couple of days now that I've got my spending money for the month.

Alison has given up caffeine, which means no coffee or chocolate. I'm not sure I could do that, especially as I'm sleeping terribly at the moment, and need all the help I can get at the moment.

I've also given up drinking, for the second time in my life. Not one of those "Oh, I'm never drinking again" things that happen when you're brutally hungover, though I was brutally hungover when I decided to quit. I got hideously drunk last time I was in London, lost an hour or so of the evening (how did I get back to my hotel?), was sick, and woke up feeling ill as anything. So, I've given up again. This might be permanent. We'll see. I've kinda just got fed up of drinking... I don't think it makes me any funnier, and I get all loud and sweary and rude... It doesn't really help much. So, that's off the agenda for now. I'm not averse to going out for drinks with anyone who cares to go out sometime, but I'll be on the J2O's.

In other news...

I led worship at our cell group the other night. It's the first time I've done it in forever. I've not even played my guitar since we moved house and that was 6 months ago. It was good to do it again. I'd not forgotten how to play, so that was a good start! It was weird doing it again after so long, but it kinda felt right, like it's something I'm maybe meant to do. It felt... comfortable, in a way, and familiar, and I wasn't nervous about singing in front of a room of people or about how I was playing. It was like it was me and God, and the other people were a bit peripheral, sort of, though obviously they're pretty integral to it being actual worship leading. It was good, because I've been feeling really distant from God for I don't know how long, and like I'm not doing anything for him, and that while I believe, it doesn't really mean anything for how I live. It's hardly a huge step towards sorting stuff out, but it was good to at least feel like I was in the same room as God, doing something for him.

So, I'd quite like to do that again. Partly because it made me feel close to God, and partly because I'd like to actually be doing something for him again.

Right. That's enough for now. Catch you later.

Platoon was on TV the other night. I watched it while trying to fix my computer, which decided to take a nosedive last week. I'm not sure which was the bloodier battle, to be honest. I didn't succeed with fixing the PC, so I'm now forced to pick up some new bits and bobs. Curses. On the plus side, the film was damn good, if you like war films, which I rather do.

I've not written for a while, largely due to the aforementioned PC death. I've got a post planned which should provide significant amusement, but again it is contingent on getting my home PC up and running again, so for now you'll have to make do with a generic news type update. News follows:

• I'm not dead, in spite of two weeks of not blogging


• Beth can now pull herself up into a standing position. If you leave her sat next to the sofa, she'll stand up and lean on it. She did it like three times in the bath yesterday. She's also got about a million teeth (or maybe it's closer to six) which is pretty cool.


• Work is OK. It's pretty busy, and pretty crazy at times. I feel out of my depth quite a lot, and I'm often having to learn stuff on the fly with no real clue what I'm doing. I usually get the hang of it OK though, so that's a mercy.


• I played through Zelda: Link's Awakening again the other week. For a game that's about 15 years old, it's awesome. I'm also trying to play A Link To The Past on my DS, and failing to see what all the fuss is about, even though it's supposed to the best Zelda game ever in the world, bar none. It's too hard and it makes no sense. Or perhaps I suck at it. Hmm.


• I'm selling a whole bunch of junk on ebay. Someone buy it. Go on. Please.


• I still suck at Fantasy Football, but not as much as the 5 people below me in the league. Unlucky.


• Life On Mars is back on the TV, and this is a good thing because it is awesome. Now, if I could just muster one computer in this house that works, I could set up my magical TV recording box and record it, on account of how I will be out at Bible study this week. Bible study good. Missing Life On Mars not so good.

That's about all I can think of right now. I haven't bought anything exciting lately, so I can't witter on about music or films or whatever. The most exciting thing I've bought lately was a hard disk which caught fire, which is not a good thing. Anything that runs the risk of burning my house down is generally deemed to be crap, so I wasn't too impressed with that. On the whole, 3/10 for surprise value alone. Even The Killers album was better than that.
Right. It's supper time, so I'm off. Bye!