Scrum
I've been eating like a pig lately. I'm blaming the dark and cold for switching my body into "fat-accumulation" mode in a bid to prevent me from freezing to death as I huddle with my tribe in a cave until the sun-god can be appeased. You may choose to blame the fact that I'm a greedy bastard who can't stop shoving chocolate biscuits in his face for two minutes, as is your right. (Damn you, mini-mint-Viscounts! Damn you to hell!)
For sake of conscience-salving as much as any real attempt to take the pounds off, I'm planning on visiting the gym on my way home tonight, for the first time in a couple of weeks. I much prefer going at weekends, since it's normally packed by about 6 o'clock on a weekday, but needs must. Particularly since we're off to Texas in the not-too-distant future, a trip which always leaves us a bit heavier. Not, I hasten to add, because of stereotype of the obese burger-munching American is accurate and in some way contagious, but because it's our annual opportunity to have some decent Mexican food, and we never waste it, the spectre of the fluorescent-green guacamole served at most British Mexican restaurants hanging over our heads the whole time.
We still win the curry war though.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
+/-
I am beginning to suspect that I've fallen into a fortnightly cycle. Since my last post I had a second attack of the doldrums but today the sun has come back out, both literally and metaphorically. It's been a horrid couple of weeks for weather; the rain has hammered down almost incessantly, but at lunchtime today I saw my first blue sky in what seems like ages.
I am looking forward to Christmas, though more for the "going away" part than anything else, since we're spending it with R's family this year. There's a lot of stuff needing done between now and then, however. Most of it dull necessity, but we're going to the Xmas All Tomorrow's Parties this year as well, which should be fun but feels a bit like a chore right now.
I have pre-ordered Guitar Hero 2, and have been limbering up with the original in preparation for my return to the battlefield of ROCK! Primus! Rush! Spinal Tap! Can't wait! Almost pre-ordered a Wii at the same time, but I think we're going to wait until the New Year before scratching that itch. Can't be arsed with the hysteria surrounding console launches, and won't have much time to play with the thing until after Christmas anyway. I must admit, that I'm also increasingly tempted by the XBox360. Not so much for the "big" titles, which seem to be following the pattern of it's predecessor in being targetted solely at 14-year-old boys who only want to play racers and gory FPS's, but I love the idea of Live Arcade and the way that online multiplayer and rankings seem to be reinvigorating the idea of "social gaming". The ability to stream video from any Windows PC is also a draw, though I'd prefer if it had wi-fi built in (and maybe a firmware update to the wireless Wii could trump the XBox in this regard, since the latter is locked down to wmv/avi files only, I believe.) Perhaps when the price comes down a bit I'll see if I can't pick one up.
I'm still convinced, though, that the DS is the best console in the world ever, and only recently has my grip on it (or its grip on me) loosened. I've even managed to spend some time away from my Animal Crossing village! I must confess that I was a little disappointed that upon my return nobody mentioned that they hadn't seen me in two weeks. Pah. I now have the largest possible house in the game, so my primary motivation to keep playing has evaporated, but there's still bug-offs to win and a museum to fill. I wonder what the Wii version will be like, and whether it will allow you to transfer your character from the DS?
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Boring Cyclical Crises
I should have had plenty to blog about recently. It hasn't been the most remarkable time, but I've at least been fairly busy. I don't know if it was a consequence of the clocks changing, or just the arrival of long, dark, wintery nights, but much of the last couple of weeks has been spent in a deep unshakable fug of horrid depression of the kind that saps all motivation or will to do anything more complex than making a cup of tea, and even that you'll probably fuck it up because you're a useless, disgusting turd of a man who should just do everyone a favour and throw himself under a bus. Certainly not a state of mind conducive to blogging. I'm quite aware of my brain's tides and know that it's simply a matter of sitting it out and waiting for the upswing, but normally it only takes a day or two. Two weeks of feeling totally fucking useless is really no fun.
Anyway, I'm now feeling much more together. If I was a "proper" manic-depressive I'd probably be running around annoying the tits off of everyone with my boundless energy and self-confidence. As it is, I just feel somewhat capable, and that's absolutely fine. At least the washing-up gets done.
The turning point came on Monday night, when I managed to sit down and record some music for the first time in months. For this, I must reluctantly thank the little bastards who set fire to a dustbin and the neighbouring NTL junction box just along the road at the weekend. Losing the television and phone didn't affect me much, but pissing about on the internet is one of my worst procrastinatory habits. Being disconnected for a couple of nights meant that my good intentions when sitting down at the computer weren't frittered away by reading forums or endless "just one more" refreshes of the Toothpaste For Dinner Livejournal Image Generator page, and I actually got something done. Albeit something unspectacular, which I later realised was partly, subconsciously, plagiarising a Mogwai tune. Something from an early album, I think, but I can't remember exactly what. I might have a bit of a trawl later on to try and figure it out, and decide whether it's worth changing or just leaving as is. The line between reference and ripoff is a fine one, and I'm not entirely sure how similar the two tunes are.
Our cable services have now been restored. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but if the experience has taught me anything other than how easily distracted I am (and I already knew that, really), it's that all the stuff I've read about NTL's customer service being shockingly bad has been right on the money. They have support agents for tv, broadband and telephone, who will put you through the "Unplug your modem/telephone/tv receiver and plug it back in. Did that fix it?" script every time you call, but getting them to register a larger, more general problem like being completely cut off from all services is like pulling teeth. The best I could get is a promise that they'd send an engineer out sometime on Wednesday afternoon. I wasn't particularly happy with this, since the problem clearly wasn't within the flat, but at least it would move the problem along. Eventually, they called on Tuesday afternoon (three days after getting disconnected) to say "Oh yeah, we've just noticed that the whole of your postcode is out, so we'll look into that and you can cancel the engineer."
I just kept the day off, though, since we also had a plumber coming round, but that's a whole other moan to be had, and spent most of it pottering around doing wee jobs around the house and making cups of tea for my sickly missus, who is still trying to shake off the cold that's been bothering her for the last couple of weeks.
Anyway, with luck I can take advantage of being in credit at the seratonin bank and channel it into some more creative endeavours, or at least get a couple of CD reviews done for Diskant. I've got three on the review pile, all from Fat Cat. They are (with accompanying first impression based on a single listen each):
Mum - The Peel Session (Wonderful.)
Songs of Green Pheasant - Aerial Days (Very good, but not remarkably different from the last one.)
Amandine - Waiting For The Light To Find Us (A bit "meh", but might be a grower.)