In the nick of time! Yesterday I:
- Walked in, which I don’t do nearly as much as I should. It’s amazing how good I was with walking at our old place, and yet the place we’re currently in, though it’s only really another 10 minutes up the road, just seems a whole lot further out. I think it’s a combination of a few things, mainly the unattractive nature of the route (Essex Road...mmm...), the availability of buses along the route (which I didn’t have before), and the fact that the journey time is now that much closer to an hour. But I should get back into the swing of it. I had twigged that by adding less than 5 minutes to the journey time, I could head down a parallel road which took me onto the canal, then rejoining my old walking route. I was enjoying the journey, listening to audio books as I went, but at some point just got out of the habit, which I’m having difficulty re-establishing. It’s a hard knock life, eh?
- Worked. It was Nat’s first day back, so that was nice. Had a meeting with Josh about what’s coming up in the year and what we need to prioritise. Then just got stuck into libraries, which I’m seriously behind with at the moment.
- Met Dana for lunch. She’s looking proper preggers now!
- Worked late, until just after 8. I don’t want to get into the habit of it, but I’ve just got this hump of work to get past and it’s so much nicer working on this kind of thing when the store is empty.
- Got home, had lovely dinner and then talked money a little bit with wifey. We’re looking seriously into house buying now (got ourselves provisional mortgage approval and everything), but first we really need to take our finances in hand. We’re both quite wasteful in our spending, which is something we need to sort out.
- I faffed about a bit, then suddenly it was bedtime! But not before I quickly caught up on Facebook chat (which is awful) with Lisa, who I hadn’t spoken to in ages, and Claudia, who was on very briefly but seems to be settling in slowly but surely to her new LA digs.
- Went to sleep!
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Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Things I Did Yesterday 25/08/09
Crikey! Two days in a row? Well, as it happens, yesterday I:
- Didn’t get up until about 9-ish. I did some internet doodling, then got ready and headed down to Angel to do some writing before I met Doug for lunch.
- Went to Euphorium, a new branch of which recently opened on Islington Green. Nice little chain of cafe’s, with great food and good coffee. Unfortunately their espresso machine was out of commission, so the latter evaded me. Was a slightly weird time sitting in there, as I seemed to be surrounded by people working on various aspects of the business, from a guy sitting over the back from me talking with a bank man about financing an expansion, to the woman sat at a nearby table doing accounts, to the store manager (who had just arrived) talking with various people about restructuring the staff hierarchy, ordering, who has access to the safe and the broken coffee machine. I think I was about the only actual customer in the shop.
- Had a good little writing session, outlining my plans (again), making commitments to regular writing times (again), deciding to get started on the daily blog updates (again) and fleshing out a few ideas I’ve got kicking around (again). Now, it may seem like I’m just repeating myself, but every day is a fresh start and all that. Also, I figure if I keep doing it long enough, something has to stick.
- Met the Fuller-man and had a nice catch-up over a burger, then walked home, grabbing stuff for dinner on the way.
- Did a spot of cleaning, then played some Rock Band 2. Completed a gig in Stockholm that convinced the label to buy us a plane. Let me tell you: Myron Danger, guitarist for Cranial Gunge, totally rules. Ahh, Cranial Gunge. Rodger...you out there?
- Got started on Mass Effect, just getting to the point of landing on the planet’s surface. I like the look of it so far, though. Seems right up my street. Now it may seem that I’m wasting my time playing games here, but actually I hardly ever play on the Xbox and have been wanting to have a weekend where I really put some time into it for ages. So, y’know, now I have.
- Alex got home and settled in for soap night. We had dinner and then I cleared out. Watched episodes 2-4 of Band of Brothers which were great. I was a bit bleh about the first episode, and it does suffer from the US-centric view of the war (there are more Brits playing Americans in the cast than there are Brits playing Brits), but I’m slowly getting drawn into it. Plus, the action (sorry – the harrowing realities of war) is great. Plenty of nice little touches that you don’t often see, too: American Germans fighting with the Nazis; paratroopers losing their equipment during drops; clothes left at the laundrette by troops that have been killed. It’s certainly good enough to keep me watching.
- Oh, went to sleep.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Things I Did Yesterday 24/08/09
Only just shy of a month since last time! Yesterday I:
- Got up at around 8-ish. Faffed about on the internet for a while, just catching up a bit. I’ve fallen ridiculously behind on my RSS feeds lately, just because we’ve been away or out so much that they’ve been building up and I’ve not been able to catch up. This has actually motivated me to cut down on the amount that I’m reading, culling out sites I never seem to find time to read, or that double up excessively with other sites have. Certainly, I’m not going to shed any tears for less time spent in front of the internet. I’m trying to clear things out a little, streamline where my time is going. Mind you, this is hardly a new obsession for me.
- Cleaned the kitchen. May not seem noteworthy, but it was a pretty major job given we hadn’t been home for a number of evenings this week.
- Alex had stayed over at Ben & Michelle’s the night before (I had piked out early, my hangover from Matt’s wedding finally running me to ground). She’d apparently been up until about 5am, so there was no sign of her coming home by midday. I decided to head for a movie.
- Went and saw Inglourious Basterds. I understand it’s been dividing critical opinion and I understand why, but for my part I found it a joy to watch. It’s curiously put together, a mish-mash of styles and odd techniques (for example, one (and only one) character’s back story is preceeded by his own garish blaxploitation-styled logo popping up over a freeze-frame) but it all hangs together. Even the use of Bowie’s Cat People theme song works in a way that it just shouldn’t. The film consists of five chapters, all connected, but each with a different feel, from the brilliant spaghetti western opening chapter to the tense cellar bar espionage riff. The performances are nearly all great, with the only exception being Mike Myers’ bizarre cameo as a British commanding officer. All in all, it’s a film that will stick in the head; certainly my favourite Tarantino since Jackie Brown.
- Came home and played some Rock Band 2, scoring well in Stockholm. Next up: the 744 gig. Time to get my own plane, baby!
- Dithered about a bit before playing some Fallout 3, which I hadn’t touched in ages. Every time I play that game I realise I had completely forgotten how much I enjoy it. The setting is so addictive, even though I’ve now gotten to a level of power where very little is challenging, unless I stumble into a proper nest of bad guys. I guess I could turn the difficulty up...
- Alex arrived home! We had some dinner (mmm...steak’n’chips!), had a little catch up then did our own thing for a bit. She crashed out at around 10, so I went back to Fallout.
- Finished Fallout at around 1am. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. The ending is quite sudden and doesn’t really satisfy at all. Well, it’s all about the journey I guess. Anyway, I’m going to have to go back to an earlier save at some point and continue to explore the world, which still has a lot of blank territory on the map. But first, I’ve got a massive bloody backlog of games to get through, let alone the ones out there I want to buy. So I’ll take this opportunity to play through some other games before coming back to Fallout later. I played through this time as a good guy, but I think maybe I’ll start again as a bastard.
