God's Journal

11:16am: Just a really quick update:

Learnt to drive and bought a car.
Started the new job, spend the first week reading books on .net 3.5 stuff (WCF, WF, WPF) and it's all pretty interesting and decent, coworkers seem smart.
Got the new Smashing Pumpkins album, and I'm enjoying it, it's not bad, a bit Siamese Dream 2007, but I like that sound.
Got the Prince down to 20% in Karazhan as raid leader.

I think that's really it. I'm currently sitting in bet at El's place in London while she naps, killing time online.

I'm trying to skim read back past everyone I care about, I've been out of touch and sight a little, but I hope you're all well x

1:00pm: Tool
Manchester Apollo
23rd August
On sale now.


Pumpkins announced and sold out a London date at 9.30 this morning and despite refreshing I failed to get tickets /sob.

Hope you're all well xx

3:42pm: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/davidrss/ (lj user "davidrss")

I've been a little out of touch here at the moment, and I'm not sure how in touch I'll be again. I do keep reading but I think I'm going to move things I write from here on in, not really as attached to the "livejournal community" as I used to be.

I do however feel like I need my proverbial soapbox back! So I'll probably be posting over there, until I get bored, and end up here again.

Still reading, I just want to keep my own content in my own hands.

And no you don't have to read it, it'll mostly be rubbish I'd imagine.

I hope everyone who has fallen out of sight is well, and I will drop a post in here every so often, I've just lost the urge to chronical my life.

x

2:13am: Happy new year, by the way ;)

3:58am: Had a good night out.

Found my weakness again. Remembered I'm still human.

All worked out well really, honest to god I've missed self-doubt.

I feel very alive.

4:00pm: Steven, via Mel, has asked me to ask if anyone wants to come out for drinks etc tonight. 9pm ish onwards. Call Ste or Mel (or me I guess :oP ) for details...

9:13am: Gigs..

Soilwork on sunday anyone? £10...

12:18pm: Birthday
Birthday drinks at my place tomorrow night at about 7-8 ish.

There'll likely be takeaway bought at some point, curry, pizza, you get the jist.

Come along.

11:17am: Powergen Prices

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4801237.stm

Powergen rise prices for electricity and gas in line with other major providors.  The figures are outstanding.  And not in the good way.

If ever there was a need for actual subsidy on something useful to an entire population...

10:55am: Odd... Windows Live Writer...

I've just installed Windows Live writer.

When I say "installed".  I put in my lj url.  I put in my username, I put in my password. 

I'm now looking at my own livejournal theme, in an app GUI which I can just type on top of.  For once I'm actually moderately impressed, it's not hard, but it's effortless and apparently supports a number of common weblog (I still refuse to use to the term "blog", so.. new mellenium...) services.

Pretty cool really.

This could well be a test post ;o)

3:32pm: Apple announce, the world applaudes
Apple unveil standard Linux desktop features and somehow get applauded..

wow, you mean like a journaled filesystem, desktop wigets and multiple desktops?!!! Wow, how... ten years ago.

How people are impressed by this same old nonsense is anyones guess.

Christ, even windows has some of their new features already...

Apparently this kind of complaciency is what making a frankly subpar mp3 player does for your ailing company.

1:44am: David Hasselhoff terrifies me.

Talk about self parody...

10:37am: Tool Presale
http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/18003D01CCFD80E3?affiliate=POPE&camefrom=CFC_UKAFF_POPE_POPEX&m3_data=ej01Njl8cD0xMXxhPTIxNjM

Tool @ MEN presale

Just got 3x tickets seated block 102 (imediate stage left) row C seats 24-26.

Might sell them and get standing at a later date if applicable.

£30 a knock :o/

3:13pm: Internets!

3:11pm: Tool are playing Manchester... more info when I have an internet connection...

Wed, 22/11- Dublin, Ireland/ Point
Fri, 24/11- Manchester, U.K./Arena
Sat, 25/11- Glasgow, Scotland/SE+CC
Mon, 27/11- Wembley, U.K./Arena
Tue, 28/11- Wembley, U.K./Arena [option]
Thu, 30/11- Cardiff, U.K./Arena
Fri, 01/12- Nottingham, U.K./Arena

1:22am: With Every Light
Moving outs going slowly, I keep losing motivation to pack. I've moved half my stuff to the new place, but my motivation to remove the remaining stuff (clothes, computer, giant desk and CD stack) is deminished by my knowledge that there isn't internet there and won't be for another week or so.

Sure we managed to just about steal wireless from someone we presume lives next door... but you know.

Looking forward to it, I just don't have enough motivation right now, work sleep cycle. With some quake at lunch and some WoW when I get home. I think I'm lost...

(oh I've been porting.. well.. writing a mockup of, CDisplay for PocketPC, if anyone wants a play at somepoint. It's geared towards smartphones / pda-phones and you'll probably run into memory issues, but it appears to work...)

and this picture just made my evening.


"desolation yes, hesitation no... but for this moment we are free, seeking to buy our release, to young to die, to rich to care, too fucked to swear I was there..."

7:19pm: Windows Future Storage?!
WinFS is dead. Only twenty years or so to get canned eh? Good play...

I find myself oddly not surprised.

Oh well, there goes the one good feature that was once going to be in vista...

1:08pm: Free WOW
Free World of Warcraft 10 day trial anyone?

https://login.blizzard.fileplanet.com/login.aspx?o=login&d=fileplanet&r=http://www.fileplanet.com/blizzard_promotion/wow_raf.htm

Roll up an Alliance char on Khadgar EU, you know you want to...

1:27pm: "Down my load"
So download... the heat was unbearable, the crowd were largely just complete morons, but the music...

Tool were as good as they should have been, fantastic performance, wonderful. Can't wait to see them again tomorrow. (On that note, it looks like we have a spare ticket, if anyone wants it, it's £32.50 face).

Alice In Chains was spooky, they were solid, they all looked so happy to be up there. The "stand in" vocalist was very strange to watch, he was like the vocal ghost of Layne without the stage presence, too much running about and clapping and the like but his vocals were spot on.

And those really were the two bands I went to see ;o)

Other bands... well, Metallica and Guns n' Roses were both fantastic, Metallica basically proved WHY they made "stadium metal" a thing, fireworks, playing the whole of the ALBUM master of puppets start to finish, multiple encorés, all epic stuff. GnR started off AWFULLY, 10 minutes early, full of technical failure, a crowd that was being less than friendly (but I'll touch on the crowd later) and they left the stage 3 times due to technical issues, including the guitarist storming off because someone bottled him. All fun. And then they came back on, and played November Rain. The paused before the epic guitar solo, Axl muttered something or another as though the song was about to end and then they played it. Pretty much in an instant the crowd that was all up for bottling the band off stage apparently was won over and from that point in the show was fantastic. Can't fault the performance of the new band, Axl rolled out one of the old guitarists for a handful of tracks and managed to conjur Sebastian Bach from Skid Row for a track or two whilst he was at it (noteable "My Michelle"). I don't know how they did it but somehow they managed to pull a show back from riot into a stadium of applause. Good going really, and how they did it, I'll never know. Slash was always overrated anyway, Modern day GnR >>> Velvet Revolver.

Special note has to go to Devy for doing a Strapping Young Lad show at 2pm and pretty much winning the audiance over with his stage presence/jokes and a mostly new set which ended on "The New Black", comes off fantastic live. They got a great reaction from the audiance, might finally be Devys meal ticket.

Korn were awful, and really only 1/2 of the band was even there, the bass player and the drummer. + stand in guitarists and stand in vocalists from other bands (though Corey Taylor, notably, did a good job), Amplifier did a decent job at being the first band on with some nice new material which basically seemed to be Amplifier+longer+proggier.

Oh and Wil Smith (as in, The Fresh Prince...) turned up because his wifes woefully bad band (Wicked Wisdom) were playing (twice no less). It was somewhat entertaining, the crowd were leaving so Wil Smith appears on stage and plays the job of a roadie. People stayed just incase we'd get a couple of "Big Willie" hits. We didn't.

Lacuna Coil were mostly dull and uninspired, playing soley material from their last two CDs (the latter of the two which was pretty dull as a CD, let alone live) and neglected their more interesting back catalogue, In Flames were on form, if anything slightly better than when I last saw them. Cradle of Filth had a gimp and an acrobat, and no good songs. And Soilwork didn't turn up.

So yeah, musically, enjoyed it alot. Camping? blows. Festival crowd? obnoxious bastards. Riots after the music ended? Yes, lots of fires, a handful of explosions, I hear somebody may well have set fire to the stage and I heard that there may well have been riot police in one of the campsites. (video footage) Worth the price of admission for the music? Yes.

But jesus it was too hot. I may be a little red.

(and totally couldn't find alunmillard, not for want of trying...)

7:26pm: Tool
Sure it means camping... but Tool tomorrow.... (and SYL, and the Deftones..), and apparently Down are opening up on Saturday.. and Alice In Chains are nicely playing when the England football kicks off, so with any luck people will leave and watch that....

Disjointed fun.

Then Tool again on Tuesday ;o)

12:37pm: Woman Too Fat To Be Cremated
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/5027008.stm

It appauls (and amuses me) that people have the gaul to be "angry" because their overweight mothers can't be dealt with locally.

Are these people actually retarded?

8:45pm: What not to do on eBay..
Man scams someone on eBay, sells faulty laptop, forgets to wipe hard drive.

Apparently this is what sweet revenge looks like....

12:48pm: Oh my. I just head the strangest thing...

http://www.meatloaf.net/downloads/The_Monster_is_Loose.mp3

A leaked Meat Loaf track from Bat Out of Hell 3. It's almost meatloaf-does-nu-metal, I'm not sure if I'm amused or if I like it :oP

Apparently it's written by John 5 and Nikki Six :oP

8:56am: Lordi and the crazy Lithuanians both got through to the finals of Eurovision.

Thank god people still have a sense of humour.

Lordi FTW!

10:50pm: The Kettle
You know, I really don't know if I have anything to say anymore. I'll try a little though, I'm really not sure I have this in me.

I suspect everythings fine with me, I mean, I don't ever really stop to think about it anymore, keep the mind busy and you forget most everything that worried you in the past I suppose. I've been doing alot of work, fast, I guess. Faster than work expect it anyway.

I suppose I've been playing hard too, though really, just doing the same things over and over. Though I don't have much of a problem with that, when I'm tired I'll stop, and right now I'm not tired.

So what have I actually done? Hmm, I've written some software that does (to the outside world, very boring) data transformation. To me a little more interesting but not significantly so, I've been focusing on reusable code and componentisation, which is all well and good but doesn't make for interesting reading. I've written some software to enhance search engine ranking positions of websites through various (legitamate) means, which was a little more interesting, but again, not very much so to anyone but me. I guess if you really want to know about any of this you can ask me.

I had an excellent night out at Jillys, myself and Tom did anyhow. Musically probably the most fun in YEARS and on top of that, Tom won two pairs of download tickets in a free raffle because we were in the first 200 to enter the club. £300s worth of tickets, nice, nice. I must've danced for three hours solid and paid for it in aches and kind. It was the kind of night out that made me feel alive again, just filled with energy.

I've been watching the E3 coverage, I'm quite excited if truth be told. I find Sonys lacklusture attempts to bring a new console into this world as frankly quite laughable, hindered by development issues, the nearly no show of anything that resembles a game and the attempt to cheaply reproduce the "WiiMote"s functionality exceptionally badly. On the otherhand, Nintendo seemed to get the attention they appear to deserve and Microsoft continue to actually surprise by delivering actual games (I was a little concerned after the dull 360 launch). Nintendo really have a nice second market here, there's noway people are going to buy a 360 and a ps3, it'll be one or the other, and when you're a year late to market... on the other hand, buy two consoles? So that'd be a 360/PS3 AND a Wii. Score one for Nintendo. Oh and the Halo3 trailer is pretty nice looking. A little underwhelmed by the Warcraft: Burning Crusade coverage, wow, new race, wow, new dungeons, no real meat on the reports but I'm sure it'll be just as fun / addictive as WoW is still proving to be. I watched the DS Zelda trailers and StarFox trailers and went out and bought a DS in my lunch hour last week, pretty impressed, Mario 64 DS and MarioKart DS are both solid titles, Kart DS (which I picked up today) I suspect of actually being the best MK game they've produced. Good show really.

I'm not reading or drawing as much as I should be and technology is kind of eating my soul, it's just work though, I'm dragged in a bit as the timeframes pull in around me, I think I need a holiday just to reconnect to all the things I actually really care about. Technology drains my creativity which stifles my technical ability. Sods law?

I'm a little apprehensive about the future, I guess I don't like change alot more than I let on, moving out, dealing with distance. I wish I knew what Eleanor was doing as far as work is concerned, though I'm sure she'd love to know even more. I guess it's giving me the feeling of a nomad, I'm not sure which way I'm going to go and it could well eventually be south. I don't like the South so much, in fact, I fucking hate most of the people if truth be told, but you know, I don't much like Northeners either. And really if I'm being honest, location has nothing to do with it, I guess I just don't like people... Sweeping generalisation, I'm just scared of change and how I'm going to cope with it. I was never so good outside of the pack. But I'm big and ugly enough to survive, not so much the runt anymore. This is all a year too early to think about I suspect, but it's just there in the back of my mind.

I guess movements a theme, work wants to move by the end of the year out towards Wigan, I guess I should learn to drive, and I know they need to start paying me more than they are for it to be worth my while, in fact, I know they need to be paying me more for the kind of things I'm going to be dealing with in the near future, more responsibility, more risk. And I fucking hate the business world.

I urge you all, never be a business man or woman. Never go there. All the things you thought.. bloodsucking parasites? Insencere? Manipulative? Empty? They really are all of these things. And it really isn't worth it. I hate the corporate way of behaving, shout at people to get your way, tell them one thing and do another, do one thing and claim you did something else. Idle financial threats, incompitant staff. I wish I could be far away from it most days but instead it routinely effects the work I'm there to do. Buisness folk are all lying scheming and manipulative. I'd like to apologise but I'm not going to. I don't think I could with a clean conscience.

I do like the people I work with immediately though, and for the most part I've totally seperated myself from external communication, if for some reason you're talking to me and you're not based in our office, either you or I have really fucked up and one of us is in trouble. And thus far, it's not been me.

I still read every single word you say, even if I'm a day or two late sometimes, and I do actually still care, however much I lie about it. Still as human as I've ever been, just... preoccupied.

And still a little pretentious.

But hey, last 5 months? I've been working on this...

(click)

I guess I can still do this a little... cathartic...