One Man's Notes

I’ve been silent a little while, but that’s to be expected when a long weekend with my girlfriend and my garden has kept me from my computers. Tomorrow should provide a little more time fo journaling, so I’ll catch you all then.

Normally, I like Fridays. This Friday in particular should be a good one, because Lorna is returning from a week away in Majorca with her family.

However, instead I have woken up to two pretty depressing pieces of news. The first is that the British National Party, the right wing extremists, have secured a couple of council seats up north. Looks like France no longer has a monopoly on that lurch to the right that Le Penrepresents.

Oh, and just down the road from where I live, a bunch of fans of Millwall Football Club went on a rampage last night, injuring dozens of police officers. I thought we’d got that sort of behavior out of our systems five years ago.

Oh, for those of you wondering what my experiences of the May Day protests were like, I hope to have that up in an entry later in the day.

We’ve had trouble in Australia and Germany already. I’m heading into the West End now. Wish me luck.

If I was a rich, famous and successful author I could blow deadlines out of the water in a spectacular display of special effects and then wait for the publishing house to send round a nubile young editorial assistant to ensure that I stayed focused on getting the work in.

Sadly, I’m not, so I’m going to bed at 1.30am after working all evening to get a short story finished.

Roll on the future.

Of late, I’ve been doing something with increasing frequency. No, it’s nothing immoral or furtively sexual. In a way, it’s more not doing something. Let me explain. I’ve been walking into music shops such as HMV with the express intention of walking out with a particular CD. Four or five times, I’ve walked out without the CD. It’s not for lack of stock in the store, or lack of cash in my hand. No, the lack of purchase has come down to a few little words: WILL NOT PLAY ON PC/MAC.

Now, let’s be clear here. I’m a writer. I make my living by creating easily copied material. Thus, I am deeply opposed to piracy and did not use Napster and its ilk. However, because I’m a writer, I do the majority of my music listening when sat at a computer. Indeed, my purchase of an iPod has meant that I buy more music. With more opportunities to listen to music (the train, the gym, the car, the garden…) my desire for it increases. Thus, MP3 is good for sales, at least in my case.

I know I’m not alone in this. many students, for example, don’t buy both a computer and stereo, they just use speakers with their PC and listen to music that way.

This is a dumb, dumb move on the record industry’s part. It’s not going to stop file sharing. Pirates will always look upon copy protection and they’ll beat it within hours of release. All it will do is piss off non-techie users like myself, who wants to pay good money for music they like, but is being prevented from doing so.

Last lost sale: Episode II soundtrack in the supermarket, one hours ago.

For the first time in my life I feel strongly enough about certain political issues that I intend to write to my MP. The reasons? Well, there are certain issues about the NHS that I have discovered through a friend that appall me. I can’t really discuss them without betraying confidences, but a lot of public money is being spent that should be going into private pockets the way it is. The other concerns state benefits. In the last two years I’ve come face to face with the reality of dole scroungers, and I really feel that this issue needs to be addressed and addressed soon.

To my delight, I’ve discovered that my MP has a website, which will make tracking down her contact details much simpler..

London is developing a tradition of May Day Riots. Anti-capitalism protesters take to the streets in great numbers and generally cause a certain amount of trouble. Admittedly, there’s some debate as to whose fault it was last year - the police have taken some heavy stick for their behavior last year. Co-incidentally enough, heavy stick is exactly what they were giving the protesters.

Anyway, seeing as my office is right in the heart of the West End where all the trouble is likely to be, my employers have kindly said we can all leave at 3.30pm tomorrow. Colour me concerned…

Well, the cold is easing. Looks like staying in out of the rain and writing all weekend was the right call. I might be healthy in time to go back to work.

Disturbing thought of the day. I was looking at the Attack of the Clone freebies that fell out of every paper this weekend, and was wondering why I didn’t really fancy Natalie Portman, even though she is very, very cute. Then it struck me - she’s nearly10 years younger than me. She just feels too young. (I know that will be a strange concept for you zamiel, but it does happen to the rest of us.

Wow. I never thought I’d reach an age where girls in their early 20s seemed too young. That will, of course, change when I hit 50. All I’ll be interested in then is girls in their late teens and early 20s…

Well, after experiments with cold drugs and anti-hestimines, I’m fairly sure I’m suffering from a mix of hayfever and a cold. So much for everything I was gonna get done this weekend.

Bah. Humbug.

If only Lorna was here to bust the self-pity out of me. She’s good at that.

Hurrah!

Finally got all the Instant Messaging protocols up and running in Fire. All the accounts in my user info page should be up and running.

I’m feeling odd this morning. Have I got a really bad attack of hayfever, or am I suffering from a cold? It’s so hard to tell sometimes. No matter, though, I’m still going to be a complete wuss about it. I have decided to spend the day feeling very sorry for myself and whining at anyone who comes within earshot. Yes, that should sort it out nicely.

I find myself waiting for a fax. I haven’t done this for two years or so now. Haven’t they heard of e-mail? Waiting for e-mail is much better.

It involves less walking, for a start.

Incidentally, I’m right in the middle of a multiple deadline crisis pile-up. This might explain my sudden return to the LiveJournal.

What the hell should I be doing with this journal? That question has been bouncing around my head for a couple of weeks now. There were some good reasons for starting it initially. In particular, I thought it would be a good way of keeping Mum up to date with my life while I was away. Communication with her became all the more important after Dad dies. However, I haven’t been away as much in the last three month as I was at the tail end of last year, so that reason has declined in importance.

Keeping people informed about my life is another reason. Frankly, most of the people who read my journal have some contact with my on a daily basis online. Now, if I could hook a few more of my offline friends into the LJ habit, than maybe that reason would have more force. Until then, it too matters little.

So, are my little rambles about inconsequential events really of interest to anyone? Would I be better writing small essays on my thoughts about current events? Should I share my thoughts on philosophy, writing, gardening and modern technology? Would those entries just turn into long essays which would get lost behind LJ Cuts?

What do you think?

Make what you will of that. Proper entry to follow shortly.

Test Results

Take this test here.

1. My coffee addiction made itself manifest today. I felt absolutely terrible until about 11.30am, when I had my first cup of coffee. After that. I became a human. Only two cups per day for the rest of the week, and then only one cup each day next week. I shall be buying some herbal teas this lunchtime.

2. I dreamt about an ex-girlfriend becoming a vampire the other night. The strange thing is that this was an ex-girlfriend from about 9 years ago, whom I've barely thought about for 3 or 4 years. Strange and slightly disturbing but ultimately meaningless, I suspect

3. While I didn't get done all the spring cleaning I wanted to get done over the weekend, I've done enough that I'm happy to show Lorna the flat again tonight, when she gets back to London. Flat cleaning is much like painting the Forth Rail Bridge - you never finish.

Remember those party pics from last week I promised?

Well, you can find them here!

As you will note from the previous post, I had the wrong time zone setting on my iMac. This should be better now.

Day three of the Easter break has not started well. I missed church this morning, not through oversleeping, but through forgetting about the hour change. I was just getting ready to lave the flat and head for the car, when I happened to glance at the clock on the video, which auto-sets itself. 12pm, not 11am. Ooops.

Ah, well. At least we’re officially in British Summer Time (Greenwich Mean Time + 1 hour) now. Light evenings!

Hey, I’ve used the first of my LiveJournal invites. So, welcome semichrist. I don’t know him personally, but he’s been pulling together the very useful Pen & Paper site, which I linked to the other day.So, let’s all give him a big LiveJournal welcome and hang eagerly on his every word.

Or, errrr, not.

Up to you, really.

Well, the media is beginning to return to normal. Only one TV station is still showing Queen Mother material, but radio’s still patchy.

One thing made me laugh, though. The MPs are getting their holiday cut short. Serves ‘em, right.

Well, the Queen Mother is dead.

All the radio stations I’ve tried are playing mournful music, or continuous discussions of her life and the impact of her death. Obviously, this is meant to be a significant moment in our national consciousness. I’m not sure if that’s the case yet. I’m not sure if it’s even affected me, and I’ve been listening to the coverage for the last two hours while I continue with the spring cleaning.

Adam’s RPG credits