in one piece. Not one email about any problems caused by, or requiring my input over the christmas break. So either I am perfect, or I am surplus to requirements and to be made redundant. I’ll go for option one-ish.
Read Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino
Wow, apparently there is this hour called 7 AM. I had forgotten it existed for a couple of weeks, but it is there, as I found out today when I had to get up for work again. Ouch.
Have had a very good Christmas and New Year. Not too hectic, but plenty enough merriment for me. Got everything I hoped for for Christmas, and then some. Nice little stack of xbox games to keep me busy through the next few months. A secret agent cheeseboard (it has a secret compartment with a set of cheese-cutting implements). And a breadmaker, which although I couldn’t be bothered with the concept before I got one, I now have to admit are absolutely brilliant. Have made a loaf a day since we got ours, something about that fresh bread you cannot beat. Having to get used to cutting non-doorstep size pieces, but hey, practice makes perfect.
My main resolution that I haven’t covered previously would have to be “Make more soup”. The Christmas dinner joint of lamb made, if I say so myself, one fucking awesome soup for Boxing Day. Combining that with fresh-made bread cannot be a bad thing.
On the gaming front, as I said, have a lot to be getting on with, but the absolute highlight has been Jade Empire, which is an RPG-style game with a great Chinese style to it, real-time combat, and a great deep story behind it. Very engrossing. Reminds me a lot of Shemue on the Dreamcast, which is handy, as I had forgotten that you could get Shemue II on the Xbox. Something I intend to pick up cheap on ebay once I’ve worked through my games stack a bit. Have also been enjoying Project Gotham Racing 2 still, top-notch racing game that in all honesty makes Gran Tourismo 4 seem a little flat, and Links 2004, cracking golf game with a great Xbox live implementation. Very nice to play late at night with mates for a mellow session that doesn’t impact too hard on the brain, nor the wrists for that matter.
3.75 by my latest reckoning before I get to run away for Christmas. I’ve suspect we are going to be sort of busy, despite my best efforts to hide away for a week or so. Ah well. Will still try to use some of my time fruitfully, going to order myself at gunpoint to do a bit of writing. Try for an hour a day. Something like that anyways. Got this sitcom idea I want to do some work on, have some groundwork done, need to expand that more, try and get some of a first episode written and fleshed out. Have quite a bit of it in my head, need to get it down on paper and make it more complete.
Just testing this out, looks like a handy extension for users of blogger to me. Like the idea of blogging directly from pages I am on.
was getting on the same bus I normally do into work today, only to find it utterly empty. Everyone else is on holiday already except me. Not fair 🙁
Lazy weekend, apart from getting up early on Saturday to finish my christmas shopping. It is all done. Finito. Good 🙂
I have been promising myself for ages I would get this place looking slightly different, and here it is. I like it, but what do you think? Let me know if you have an opinion.
Christmas is all but sorted now, just mrsfb to sort out, and I am well on the way with that. This time last week I had barely done anything, so I get to feel slightly smug for a little bit. At least as long as it takes for Amazon to announce they have fucked up my order anyway.
Spent yesterday on an XML course, which was dull but somewhat worthy. Know I am going to end up writing a fair old bit of it. Ra ra.
Can’t explain it, but am just feeling a little more focused and positive this week. Seem to be getting my shit together, getting something approaching organised. It is a nice feeling. Ultra-busy at work, but just getting my head down and getting on with stuff. Got the christmas tree up (might take a pic of that tonight), starting to get pressies sorted, and roughly know what we are up to over Christmas. Good.
In other news, may have a trendy new 3g phone soon (free upgrade, not shelling out money, which is ideal). Don’t know how much I will get to use the video stuff, but it does have a decent camera, so hopefully this will let me get a few more pics into here. There is a mobile blogger service in the states, which would allow me to post pics and text directly, but they haven’t released it yet over here, which is barking, as we use mobiles and they don’t really understand them in the states. Not to the same extent as we europeans, where they have pervaded into daily life much more. There are many reasons for this, not least the difficulty in providing full coverage across a country the size of the states. We’re just into it much more, text in particular, but even video has taken off a lot quicker here.
Well sod it, I am thinking about these anyway. What I think I will do this year as well, is actually promise myself I will come back in a years time, and review them. And see how I did. I think I may have made some last year, let us not talk about those now. Let us look to the future.
Right, I have three simple aims for next year that are simple and achieveable. Two of them are holidays. Mrsfb and I would like two holidays, one a weekend break somewhere nice, one a bigger holiday, a week-ten days somewhere interesting, possibly Barcelona. So I want to save up for those. The other is to get us a television. We rent one at the moment, and I’d rather that money was going towards other things. So buy something at least as good as we rent, nothing too flash, and sort it out. I might do this first, as I have christmas and birthdays to go through soon, and any presents given in the form of money can go towards that.
Okay, one more, which is just generally to spend a little less time wasting time online, and to write and learn a little more. And that is it for what I am going to cast-iron guarentee I am going to do.
I would like to try and smoke a bit less, drink a bit less, and exercise a bit more. And will try. But the above are my absolute aims
Feels like a long heavy weekend, even though it wasn’t at all for me. Hid out and left the rest of the world to it all. Put the christmas tree up, decked the hall etc. Also learnt what happens to christmas decorations when you vacuum to close to them.
Big news of the weekend was that there was a massive explosion at a fuel depot in Hemel Hempstead. Probably within about 10 miles or so of my parents. I gave them a call pretty much as soon as I found out, just to check they were okay. To explain, they reckon this was the biggest explosion in peacetime Europe, the blast was heard for 100 miles around, and the smoke and fumes were massive, and were blowing right over them. Anyway, their response was “we didn’t even hear it, we were still pissed from Dad’s christmas do”. Parents, there 🙂
I must start Christmas shopping. I’m normally slightly more organised than this. But I’m not, so I must face the music, and get myself into town tonight for the joy that is late-night shopping.
Meh, I don’t know what it is, I just haven’t got the Christmas spirit yet this year. I think I will when I’m off work for Christmas, but right now I’m doing work, and I just don’t feel it yet.