So un-pc

I'm having computer issues... which is a tad strange as I don't actually own one right now. I can't decide if I need a desktop machine for it's extra grunt (and hence gaming options) or a laptop for it's portability (and because owning one makes me feel all business-like). I saw an advert today for possibly the the gruntiest machine you would be able to lay your hands on without going to Alienware, and I'm so itching to just shell out the spondoolies (thanks to Adrian for that adjective). Problem is I have yet to resolve the Desktop V Laptop question. Plus there's the possibility of a new job in the near future, which may dictate both whether I end up actually having to buy my own machine, as well as what kind of machine I need.

So you see where this leaves me? I have to sit tight and wait for all this crap to blow over, by which time the advertised offer will have ended... and I will end up shelling out way to much extra cash for the same machine.

Buggery.

Aside: I was slagged off badly (BEHIND my back) by some complete twunt from head office today. He came in to work and was unhappy with something that was COMPLETELY out of my control. So he has a go at me about it! Which makes sense, doesn't it? So I just stared at him blankly and replied that I would take it up with my boss. He then called my boss and tried to blame it all on him, while my boss in turn blamed it on head office and the said twunt. The resolution: Twunts way of wriggling out of it is to tell my boss that I'm crap and don't know the first thing about my job! So ok... some SERIOUS offence was taken there! I happen to be fucking good at my job, even if I do dislike it most of the time. Twunt on the other hand is a knob head, which everyone agrees on, and his nickname is 'Gloria'... because he's a whinging old hag (yes, I know my mom has the same name). At least my boss told him he was a knobcheese for slagging me off. But... Arg!!!... this whole thing had be so wound up today. I may just bar twunt from coming into the hotel... because I can.

#U@K1NG IDIOT!

Limp Act more like

In my humble opinion, and this is MY opinion, Perez were better. Far better. Saron Gas were better. Amersham were better. Hell, even Lithium all those years ago were better than Limp Bizkit were last night.

When you go to watch a rock act of Limp Bizkit proportion it's understandable to expect to be suitably awed. Not neccessarily by the venue and the lights, what I'm talking about is the act itself. The band. I went last night expecting the band to be broadcasting vibe and energy, and putting on a show worthy of their recognition as one of the top rock acts of our [my] time. Instead they sucked the big hairy one, and I for one will not be making the effort to go see them again.

Their opening act, which was supposed to be The Revolution Smile but ended up being The Tarrantino's, was shit (super shit) and they were, for all intents and purposes, boo'ed of stage.... except that they didn't leave the stage, choosing to stay up there and endure the abuse and flying pints of beer. They deserved it. The very idea of 'The Tarantino's' is shit and deserves to have pints thown at it.

Limp Bizkit were mildly better in that at least they played their own music, but that's all they did really. There was zero stage presence from Fred and the boys, with the guitarists seemingly confined to either end of the stage, and under strict instructions to do NO more than head-bang a bit. The DJ (is it still Lethal??) didn't get any solo time. Fred looked completely ambivalent the entire evening, and only managed a smile when some kid was allowed on stage with him.

So yeah, they played their music, it was a tight gig, I stood not 5 meters from Red Cap himself, and I've now moshed at a LB concert... but I would rather have stayed at home and listened to a CD. The only concert I think I've been to where I was less impressed was Max Normal at the Jam in Cape Town. They started about 2 hours late, and after 2 songs I couldn't be bothered anymore and went home...

I did it all for the...

...Bizkit baby, the Bizkit.

Oh yeah! After much waiting THE date has finally rolled around and in a few more hours Lauren, H, Chris, and myself will be kicking it with the Bizkit at the Carling Brixton Academy. It's my first sort of 'big' rock consert so naturally I'm pretty amped. I want to see if these epically renowned rock bands are really all they're cracked up to be. That is, what kind of live performance can they put on without post-production and layers of multi tracking. Will Fred Durst actually be larger than life. Will Limp Bizkit be that much better than Saron Gas were before they became Seether. Even better... can Fred and the boys better Perez's cover of Mamma Mia (56k stream)?

Ok. Just kidding. But it was a good single!

Soooo uninspired right now

Yeah. So my ice-cream is so not bringing all the boys to the yard... at least Nat is keeping the side up with some suitably intelligent and interesting posts. My complete lack of drive to write anything is completely attributable to the state of my life at the moment. Since getting back from holiday I've kind of just fallen straight back into the working-6-days-a-week-and-weekends-and-nights-therefore-I-have-no-social-life rut. All work and no play makes the blue side of this blog a complete bore. Hell... sometimes I bore myself.

News is my life at the moment: The new job application went in early last week and I still haven't heard back from them. Ok, so it's probably because the closing date for applications is the 4th of April and they're waiting to get them all in before processing them. Anyway, I'm going to chase it up on Monday just to see what's happening on that front.

I've also come to the conclusion (based on my experience of public transport in London) that I am the only sober person in this city on a Friday and Saturday night. Everyone who gets on the bus has that dazed, drank-too-much-beer/vodka look in their eye's. If you don't get what I mean just head over to your local dairy farm and take a close look at the first cow you see. Look into it's eye's. You see that. That's what I mean.

I also got serenaded tonight by some blonde hanging out a car window (see the above paragraph). In her words: "We luuurve you... we think you're spe'eecial... ... ... ...are you waiting for the number 5?" I just smiled. It's hard not to in that kind of situation.

Anyways. Need to invest some time in my PS2 - I bought some games today. One was a replacement for a previously nicked game - Burnout 2 - because the fun factor is stupendous and it's the type of game you can sit around playing with your mates over a crate of beer. Also Red Faction 2... just because I finished the first one and this one was selling pre-owned for £7. Fucking give away really.

Well I never...

You leave old links out of your new redesign and think that people stop using them. Apparently not. Almost 700 entries. Ok then. No need for a forum script then!

And Geoffrey... this is so NOT your guestbook. I will CAPSLOCK YOU MUTHERFUCKA!

Uncovered or not. You decide.

Is this the real Belle?

I'd write more, but I'm tired and in the middle of a mail to Nat. But like I said to her, "A prostitute with a flair for English and Linguistics? Why not?"

Formula 1

Just spent the last half hour reading the latest F1 magazine. It has an excellent interview with Montoya (my boy for at least the next 17 races). And I quote: "Ralph and I don't talk. We must have said three words to each other last season. 'Hi. Bye.' That's it. Ralph's not exactly the type of guy you spend such a good evening with that you come home and call your friends and say, ' Hey, guess what... I've just been out to dinner with Ralph!' No. No way"

Well, it made me laugh at least.

Someone also suggested that the new Williams line up for 2005 should be Jacqes Villeneuve and Mika Hakkinen! Good idea. Personally I reckon JV and DC are the better bet.

Happy Paddy's Day...

... all ye leprechauns out there.

I have to go to workin a few hours and all I can see in front of me is a bitch load of Guinness... and Jamesons, which I think is on some kind of promotion. I wouldn't know though, I only manage the place.

My bosses have also informed me that they're handing in their resignation effective from the 30th of April. Apparently they've bought a business in the States (shame, they like it there, personally I'm not sure I could handle all the americans) which looks after British owned holiday homes. Good luck to them I say. I don't know where that leaves me really... just hopefully not on relief management as my drive and passion for this job has waned to an almost imperceptible level and I don't think I can handle carrying the work load of 3 people this time around.

Good news is that I should be getting some details on another work opportunity this afternoon from an aquaintance. It's a multinational company hiring recruits. He works for the company. Nice benefits. Have to compete against about 900 applicants for 19 positions. I am assured though, that 850 of them are complete banana's and are disregarded before they even smell an interview. Like wheat and chaff. Wonder what I'll be?

I'm a tourist

Sometimes having a friend stay with you for a couple of weeks on holiday is a good thing. It's a great motivator to get out and see all the things your city has to offer. I spent most of yesterday wandering around with Janine being all London-expert like... of course little did she know I was winging it completely after spending the last 3 months doing little else but work and sleep, hence knowldge of London is scarcely more than it was when I first moved here. Here's an example: we wanted to catch a 'flight' on the London Eye in the late afternoon. The tubes from Southfields weren't running. I was like, no problem, we can catch a bus to Capham Junction and get a train to Waterloo (thinking that from Waterloo we could get a tube to the Eye). Ummm... yeah... aparently the London Eye is RIGHT next to Waterloo station. Ok. Didn't know that.

Then we went wondering down some road and next thing there's a sign... 'Buckingham Palace'... which I so completed pretended to know was there, even though it was as much a supise to me as her. Shortly after that (and some time spent ogling at the Queens guards) we were chatting about going to Harrods when I spotted a building address... 27 Knightbridge... ok, so how did we get to Knightsbridge I'm wondering? Of course that wasn't what I said, what I said was, "So, do you want to do Harrods now then? It's actually just around the corner."

I reckon she's well impressed with my London know-how... which in all fairness doesn't actually exist. At least having her here got me out and about and doing some of the things I really should have done a long time ago.

The only shit part of the day was boarding the Eye. I switched my camera on only to find that the battery was completely out of juice. No problem, I knew it was running low, but I also knew that I had a spare (which I assumed was charged) in the bag. Apparently the last time my battery ran out I also assumed the spare was charged because this time around the spare was completely dry. So there I was 130-odd meters (or feet, I can't remember) above London, in a glass capsule, with a digital camera and 2 useless batteries. It was a valuable lesson (and it's been an adage of mine for ages now): "Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups!"

Belle de Jour

Was having lunch the other day in a pub when I overheard a conversation about the famous lady, of all things. Seems one of the two women at the other table actually knew her (or at least was pretending to) and was explaining how she had been hounded by the press for a while to disclose the writers real name and/or address. How surreal...

Had to laugh at her latest post too. "4. I am not Toby Young." After recently finishing Toby's book 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People' I reckon that creating a fictitious London call girl and writing her diary is exactly the type of thing he would do. Of course I still think she exists though. To do otherwise would be to shatter the conviction that makes the site so interesting to read.

Kevin Carter

I'm completely emerged in such a great book right now. The Bang Bang Club, while sounding like a R18 offering from Adult World, in fact chronicles the work of 4 of the most prolific photojournalists South Africa has ever produced, as they they captured the violence and unrest in township SA through the nineties. Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva, Ken Oosterbroek, and Kevin Carter where the men responsible for showing the world the atrocities that were happening. You could argue that their success was at least partially due to the enviroment that they worked in, and that township warfare lent itself to award winning photo's. What you can't deny though, is that these men put their lives on the line (quite literally: Ken Oosterbroek was shot and killed by a stray Peacekeeper's bullet; Kevin Carter comitted suicide a few weeks later) to record the often bloody transition as South Africa moved from a oppressive white-led Apartheid government, to a fledgling democracy.

So while I may have lived through that period of my country's history, my recollection is that of an 11 year old, rather sheltered, white boy growing up in Cape Town. This book is opening my eye's to so many things that I just wasn't aware of at the time. Things I didn't even have an inkling were happening. In the past I've always steered away from these kind of books, thinking of them as too 'heavy', and too political for my liking. I don't know if it's the book that I find interesting, or if it's some form of maturation on my side, but I would recommend this read to anyone.

Actually, the last few weeks (while I 've been on holiday) have seen an enormous increase in my reading frequency. It's waned a bit over the years since I finished high school, but following on some great books it's right back up there.

In three weeks I managed to get through (in order):

James Follet - Trojan: A pretty generic novel, but a good read. It was lying around the flat... so I read it.

Mil Millington - Things My Girlfriend and I have Argued About: I saw this at Exclusive Books while looking for something else and I just had to buy it. I'd read the rather cultish website on and off previously so I really couldn't ignore it. It's one of the most hilarious and yet strangely human books I've had the pleasure to read in a long time. Nothing written before has ever made me snort and laugh out loud quite as much and I absolutely recommend it to anyone with a sense of humour.

Yann Martel - Life of Pi: Definitely as good as everyone says it is. And after bonding with the main characters (a young boy and a Bengal tiger stuck in a raft together) throughout the book, the twist in the end is brilliant... although you're left guessing and (if you're anything like me) more tempted to hang on to the illogical conclusion you thought you were going to get, than accept the rational explanation you're offered.

Toby Young - How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: I needed something to read. It tickled my fancy. I bought it. Nothing too special, but an interesting insight into glamour journalism in the States. Quite funny. It also spawned a new genre in writing... 'loser-lit'.

Dean Koontz - Odd Thomas: This one came recommended by Chris after he listened to the audio book. And now I also recommend it. It's just a novel... no deeper meanings, no philosophical musing... but it's brilliantly evocative and hugely entertaining. Go read it.

Not too bad for 3 weeks I reckon.

PS. Apologies for the typo's, there must be millions, but I'm smashing this post out before going to work... and I'm working to a tight deadline. I may go back and correct them tonight.

PS. Ok. I think I've managed to find and correct most of the mistakes in the original publish. But please, don't feel the need to point out any existant ones.

London Called

So I'm back again. Partly glad. Partly sad.

It seems I've been missed like mad at work, and so much stuff has collapsed since I left 3 weeks ago. Draw your own conclusions, but it's always nice to go back to work somewhere where people value what you do... even if you don't much like your current career track (but I'm not about to launch into that one again just yet). Of course there's always a flip side, and in this case it's that I won't see my folks again for another year, and that I've had to say good-bye to Natalie, yet again, and give up everything it is to be around her. I seem to have been locked into this kind of masochistic, yet strangely superlative, roller coaster relationship with Nat since my undergraduate days. Its roots lie in the respective spaces we occupy: currently London, England (me) vs. Grahamstown, South Africa (her). At best the difference between our locations has been 400kms, which was when I staying in Cape Town, South Africa in 2002. Hence we’ve spent most of our time apart from each other, and yet when we do manage to organise the precious week or so together we both know that it’s conclusion will lie in yet another catastrophic, heart wrenching separation. The only way I get through this is by focussing on the finish line… that period when we will both occupy the same space indefinitely.

It's safe to say I think, that I fell in love with Nat at first site in Gossip's all those years ago. And while that may sound wonderfully romantic, yet doomed to failure, you also have to understand that prior to actually meeting her I probably knew her better than anyone else, thanks mainly to a couple of month’s worth of intense e-mail bonding. Yes, I know… so geek worthy. Still, it meant that I knew her intimately before I actually met her, and then when she actually measured up to my outrageous expectations, well, I guess something had to come of it.

To date no one else has ever managed to get as close to, or mean as much to me, as she is/does. We've both toyed with other relationships, which have ended badly, and yet somehow we're still here. Still 'together' as it were (I'm am definitely not going into details on this one).

I don’t really know why I’m mentioning all this now (although I know Nat let go with a pretty personal account a couple of days ago too). We’ve both discussed this joint site and come to the conclusion that we should keep posts about ‘us’ to a minimum. If we did decide to post regularly about our relationship this site would just spiral downward into a mess of sniffly nosed, “life’s so unfair and I’m depressed” articles. None of us want that so we censor certain aspects. However, since I’ve just come back from seeing Nat for the first time in a year, and with the prospect of yet another year apart stretching out in front, I feel compelled to say something for fear of otherwise losing my rather tenuous grip on sanity.

But I’ve said it now. It’s out there. It’s also 02:15.

Night night.

Noombies

As shallow as it is, I'd just like to mention that, for some unknown reason, a rather attractive barmaid falshed her breasts at me (and Warren and Vaughan) on Friday night at Springbok in Cape Town. I have no idea why, but Warren has the photo.

Sadly my Cape Town holiday is also winding up. Tomorrow is my last full day before I fly back [home] to London. It's been great in that it's been everything I wanted it to be. I've spent most of my time with my folks, and invested the rest of it in my relationship with Natalie. I'll probably write more about that at a later date though.