"In Which Jon Tries To Rectify His Atrocious Slacking..." Part #2

Writing

For a start, there’s that ‘writing’ thing that I, as a writer, do. My first trilogy is now planned out: the first novel is pretty much finished, the second is well underway, and I wrote a couple of scenes for the third one the other day as they were banging about in my brain and distracting me from important stuff, so that is going well. Novel 1, “Chains of Memory” (working title) will be complete by the end of January, so I can then get it printed and sent off to a shortlist (really very short actually) of agencies in the hope one can get me signed up for a three-book detail with a major publishing house like Orbit. I’m expecting “Chains of Time”, the second novel, to take me up until the end of summer, possibly the end of the year (depending on things in the next section) to write, and then “Chains of War” will round out the trilogy within the next eighteen months or so.

Obviously this is writing time. People actually seeing them on the shelves may take many months, even years to pan out, depending on how lucky I am with publishers. Kids fiction is the big thing at the moment, and this is definitely not written for kids in the same way that Harry Potter or Twilight is. Regardless of how long they may take to see the light of day, I am very much enjoying writing them, even despite the sleepless nights having several complicated plots and subplots tangled round in your brain can cause.

Games

The STEAM sale over Christmas was a disaster for me. I was doing so SO well with paring down my Games-To-Play list to something manageable, and then all of these good games were made cheap and I couldn’t resist. D’oh!

I recently finished the excellent “Darksiders” which I really enjoyed for its mix of God of War fighting and Zelda-esque dungeon exploration and collecting (as well as its visually distinct art style and storyline), and finally — a good two years after everyone I know finished it — I completed the main storyline of “Mass Effect”. Just in time, in fact, for the end of January when “Mass Effect 2” is released. “Darksiders” took me about 35 hours to complete 100%. “Mass Effect” took me maybe 12-15 hours, but that was with skipping 80% of the sidequests. As much as I like sidequests in games, I really just wanted to see how the main story played out in “Mass Effect”, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed.

Also on my list of games that I already own and need to complete are:

• Modern Warfare 2 (Which I bought hoping I’d like it more than the first one. Wrong.)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (In the STEAM sale, so no rush to play/complete this one. Looks interesting though.)
• Jade Empire (Also £3 in the STEAM sale. Not got time for this at the moment.)
• Dragon Age: Origins (More on this below)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (Finished in storymode. Want to 100% this though.)
• Dead Space (Great ideas, but atrocious PC port. Sad. Might get the PS3 version cheap.)
• Trine (Awesome ‘hop in and play’ puzzle game when I have little time.)
• Uncharted (I got this to work my way up to Uncharted 2. Sadly I suck at it.)
• Zelda: Spirit Tracks (almost done with this now.)
  

That’s quite a few games, some of which I’m barely into. Dragon Age is the prime example. I was really psyched for this when it was announced, and I got the deluxe edition with all the bonus content. Thing is, Spence has been playing it, and after 40+ hours he’s only 45% of the way through the game. Now admittedly he DOES have a thing for sidequests (It’s unhealthy, UNHEALTHY I SAY!) but still... So that number looming over my head and, and I hate to admit this, the unsexy female character models have kind of put me off getting into this one. It’s really a shame, but in some ways I’d forgotten the reasons I never actually completed Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn — it’s just too effing long for a completionist like me to play in a reasonable amount of time.

And, as well as this, there are OTHER GAMES on the horizon. Oh, and Bayonetta, which is so screwed up crazy I just have to get it after already renting it for a week, just so I can see how the ‘plot’ pans out.

These include:

• Mass Effect 2 (The continuing adventures of Cassiel Shephard... more alien sex?!) Jan 29th.
• Dante’s Inferno (Sure it’s basically God of War, but I like GoW. It’s why I have a ps3). Feb 5th.
• Bioshock 2 (As I loved the first one. Not desperate to play this at release though.) Feb 9th.
• Final Fantasy XIII (Oh my god, my life, it will disappear...) March 9th.
• God of War 3 (It’s like God of War but...oh, wait...) March 19th.
  

Now you’ll notice something about a couple of those games: namely “ME2” and “FFXIII” — they’re both likely to be fucking long! (See my point above in the Books bit about why I might not finish reading them all by the end of March.) I’ve been looking forwards to “FFXIII” for over two years now, so I’ll definitely be getting it on the day of release and then locking myself away for a week or two to make some headway into the game before emerging to do some actual work. I wasn’t hugely excited for “ME2”, but having now just realised what all the fuss was about with the first one (yeah, I’m a tad slow) it is now high on my list of things to look forwards to.

Art

And finally, I’ve renewed last year’s Resolution to ensure I paint at least one piece of art per month. January’s is actually already done, but I haven’t updated my gallery with it yet. I’m considering changing the gallery format slightly for 2010. We’ll see.

Release the Kraken!

There are also some films I want to watch this year. That’s my excuse for getting a release the kraken reference into this blog anyways.

Next time I’ll possibly talk about tits and fucking, since Spence wants me to. Also, this may help people forget just how geeky this blog has been.

BAI! =^.^=

"In Which Jon Tries To Rectify His Atrocious Slacking..." Part #1

It has come to my attention that I have been utterly rubbish at updating my blog. There are several reasons for this, chief amongst them being that I am lazy. Really, really lazy.

And, also, not a huge amount has gone on since October 17th, when I last blogged.

Well okay, stuff has happened, but it was all school/work-related, and let’s be honest, it would be pretty unprofessional of me to blog too much about working in a school. Child-protection and all that jazz.

So instead I shall start 2010’s blogging by going through things that are important to me: namely books, music, games and art.

Reading

Back when I was doing my Masters in Creative Writing, I often commented that I didn’t read anywhere near enough. Looking at my bedside table now, I have a pile of books that will go some way to rectifying this for 2010.

I’ve got through a couple of the shorter works already, but currently the list of Books To Read stands at:

• Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Read, in anticipation of the upcoming film release.)
• Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters (Read, because I like sequels.)
• Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse (Because I got a boxed set of the first 3. Bite me.)
• The Stone of Tears (Sequel to Wizard’s First Rule, which I enjoyed greatly.)
• Blood of the Fold (Third in the Sword of Truth series.)
• The Left Hand of God (Which was half price and looked interesting.)
• Extraordinary Engines (A steampunk anthology.)
• The Difference Engine (One of the defining steampunk novels.)
• Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance (Book of the game. Sometimes these are good.)
• Wormwood (Second hand, 20p buy. Fantasy alternate history.)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Because I’m not a fan of the original.)
• The Ghost King (Which I got before Christmas but haven’t touched yet.)
  

And those are the ones just on my table or at hand. I’m 2/3 of the way through “The Titan’s Curse”, which I am enjoying greatly. Yeah I know that the Percy Jackson books are really for young adults rather than almost-29 year olds, but I’ve always been a Greek mythology buff, and I have a thing about urban fantasy fiction (since, y’know, I write it!) even if it is supposedly for ‘kids’. I’m a big fucking kid and proud of it, alreet?

I actually started “The Stone of Tears” before Christmas but, like pretty much all of Terry Goodkind’s books it seems, it’s about 900 pages long, and I need to invest some serious time in it, which — because I like to read books in one or two sittings — I don’t currently have. I’ll get there. Already it is shaping up to be an interesting follow-up to “Wizard’s First Rule”.

These should last me a good while: probably till the end of February and into March if I decide to read the two Goodkind books back to back as I suspect I might. Saying that, however, there are OTHER THINGS that may ensure this stack of books last even longer.

And those are... In the next part!

In the words of CLAPTRAP, "Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

It’s Over Nine Thousa---oh. Hundred. Nine hundred.

So, the latest school term has begun and my week has been busy busy busy for several reasons.

Firstly there is all the kerfuffle surrounding new timetables and the like. (Also, am impressed that Word’s spell checker recognises ‘kerfuffle’ as a real word...) This week I managed to do the work of about three people through no real fault of anyone in the department’s: that’s just what has had to be done in order to get ourselves off the ground. Now we finally seem to have a fourth member of staff in the department, things will hopefully get a bit easier. Tuesday was especially horrendous given the second item on this list and the fact that I did a full day’s teaching. 5x 1hr lessons with all new classes and one bad lot amongst them could certainly have been worse, but yeah...

The second thing kinda informs number 1 and subsequent items. Several weeks ago I had a flu-like thing that left me really badly roughed up. Horrendous cough coupled with sore throat, runny nose, headaches, and constant tiredness thanks to lack of sleep due to coughing, which took a good two weeks to clear. Unfortunately I passed it on to Dad and, this last week, he managed to pass it back to me. After a seven week holiday in which I did zero shouting of any kind, being back at work has taxed my immune system somewhat and by 4pm on Tuesday I could do little more than croak. I spent Wednesday and today feeling clogged up and coughing and sneezing on a regular basis, making me feel horridly filthy and unwell, but at least it has eased off somewhat by the constant imbibing of water. My throat is still swollen, but I can at least talk now, and I just hope this holds up for tomorrow.

The third thing was the most financially ruinous. While I get paid tomorrow for the two days I did last week, a grand total of probably slightly under £200 after tax/admin fees, I have managed to spend £926 in the last 7 days. This is a lot, even for me, but in many ways it needed to be paid. Several bits on my PC were making noises that I’m certain they shouldn’t have been making, and the machine was starting to stutter and crash more. Having had a good listen in to the case I gathered it was the CPU itself that was starting to go, and if I was gonna have to replace the processor, chances are I’d have to replace the motherboard as well. Rather than wait for the thing to melt, potentially destroying data in the process, I decided to go the preventative route.

Browsing scan.co.uk I managed to snag myself a couple of deals on components, beefing my system up from an AMD 64 X2 5600 processor and 4gig RAM on a 3-year old MSI motherboard with a GeForce 8800GTX to the following:—

Intel i7 quad-core Nephalem processor at 2.6ghz
Gigabyte EX58-Extreme Motherboard
XFX GTX285 graphics card (with free copy of Assassin’s Creed and Batman: Arkham Asylum)
6GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 RAM

The new bits arrived yesterday at around 8am, waking me up from a fitful sleep. In fact, I’d probably only managed a couple of uncomfortable hours, but the thought of tinkering with technology spurred me on.

By 10:30am I’d got the case stripped out, the new motherboard, processor, heatsinks, graphics card et al installed, and I came to connect the final PSU-to-Motherboard connector and discovered that instead of a 4-pin connector, the motherboard needed an 8-pin.

Well shit.

Phoned up our local techstore and enquired about this new-fangled 8-pin whatsit. Apparently the higher end motherboards from the last 8-12 months have them instead of the old 4-pins.

“Do I just need an adaptor?” I foolishly ask.

“No Sir!” they reply. “It actually takes twice the juice as before.”

“So I need a new power supply?”

“Yeah. But we don’t carry the higher end ones in stock.”

Sigh. So in the end I had to phone round all the local stores to get one, and even then the earliest they could get it to me was today. Fortunately it was delivered early today so everything was, thankfully, up and running by about 1pm.

So add 1x Coolermaster M700 700watt modulated PSU to the above list.

In the end I’m very happy with the machine, which is running faster than ever; I’m just a bit miffed that I ended up paying so much for it because I didn’t wanna wait 3-5 working days — no computer over the weekend would have made for a very sad Jon, especially as I doubt going out on the town like this would be a very smart idea. Don’t want to give anyone what I’ve got (apart from the kids at school, but most of them deserve the pain! ¬_¬)

While I may be out of pocket for the next few weeks, I’m happy with my financial security; I’m also happy with my re-mastered PC, as well as for some of my friends who have had positive changes to their relationship statuses over the last couple of days.

Me next, I beg of thee! :-/

~Jon

September

I recall writing a blog about September last year, though I also vaguely recall I split it into three and it was halfway through October before I finished the segments. This year is different.

September has always filled me with ambivalence, a swirling mix of emotions both positive and negative that tend to leave me a bit spaced out until I get into the swing of things.

Work
This year will be the first year since I had my breakdown that I’ve been working in a school at the start of the academic year. A part of me — the part that values any kind of financial security — is pleased by this. Summer has been a slippery slope of expense, with various bits and pieces I rely on threatening to fail (looking at you, PC) or actually failing entirely (yes, you, Graphire4: though we had a good run, didn’t we!) As well as technical stuff, I spent too much money on alcohol. Sure I don’t really care that I’m spending money on the drink — I’m not in danger of becoming an alcoholic in any way — but my motivation for spending so much time in Chicago’s has been perhaps a bit skewed and, ultimately, foolish. Time will no doubt tell on that one.

Financially, then, things are on the up. 2 days departmental training and organisation this week, followed by 3 days per week until Christmas, and possibly after depending on the state of play at Pensnett in the coming weeks/months.

The downside to this, of course, is the work itself. Already I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get something as simple as a timetable and half-term-plan sorted out. The upheavals at the school are noticeable. There is a miasma of disbelief and an undercurrent of anger at what the establishment is enduring in these last few months of its existence. Shakeups to the established systems of the school are, in my lowly opinion, unwise. But perhaps that is what separates the Senior Management from the lowly grunt on the front lines. Maybe their vision for what the school can be in its final year will be a triumphant swan song. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that splitting a GCSE class between three teachers and trying to get a coherent curriculum going is fundamentally idiotic, and difficult to even try and put into practise. Yet that is what much of today was spent doing. Trying to work the hodgepodge timetable to not disadvantage the students’ learning.

I do go on.

Television
As with last year, part of why September excites me is the new lineup of television. I’m not going to go into a big list like I did last year, but two shows I’ll certainly be checking out this autumn are Supernatural and Castle, both of which premiere within the next couple of weeks. The latter, especially, I find very inspiring as a writer, and hope that the stories will continue to fuel my own imagination and creative process over the next few months.

Writings
Speaking of my creative process, I recently received feedback from a couple of proofreaders of the almost final draft of novel #1, with its finalised title of “Chains of Memory” (assuming a publisher doesn’t change it). I’d say its 99% done now. I’m tightening up a last few scenes and then knuckling down to get it sent off to agencies. Publishing is a fairly arduous and lengthy process, so even if somebody snaps it up, it’s likely to be 12-18 months before it gets spotted on the shop floor. Expect excited blogs/twitter/facebook updates should the unimaginable happen however!

While I’ve been polishing that one with my finest literary chamois, I’ve also been hard at work on the sequel, “Chains of Time”. The second novel is a real change of pace, as well as setting (and time period, as the title might suggest). So far I’m thoroughly enjoying having the creative output, though I admit the going has been slow due to distractions over the summer and the lack of an actual deadline for me: yet another reason why I should try and get a three-book deal signed. Publisher pressure is a great motivator, so I’m told.

Distractions
As I mentioned during the holidays, I’m prone to hoarding games. I tend to start playing them in a burst of vigour and then peter out after a few hours. I play games for stories, not the exciting and dynamic whatever systems that games these days try and show off. Artificially lengthened games where the story pace is slow and there is, for example, a lot of wandering down darkened corridors, annoy the hell out of me. A game that is 8-10 hours long is just perfect for my attention span, and while it may seem outlandish to pay £35 or whatever for a game that long, I put it into perspective that I spend more than that on alcohol on a night out, and at least I can sell or trade the game in after I’ve finished with it.

During the course of the holiday I went back and finished Half Life 2. I bought HL2 way back when it first came out, and got bored of it about a third of the way through. Since friends very kindly purchased me a copy of the Orange Box via Steam, I decided that I would definitely have to finish not only HL2, but its episodic successors, creatively titled Episodes One and Two. And I’m glad I did. As the games are now pretty old, my slowly dying PC didn’t struggle running them at maxed settings, and the atmosphere they evoked, and the stories they told (while a bit linear) were definitely more in tune with my more mature gaming sensibilities these days. I also finished a couple of other games, made some headway into others, couldn’t for the life of me get Crysis to run for more than a couple of minutes without crashing, and tried out Return to Such&Such MMO offers: Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning all threw freebie time at me, though I admit it took me longer to download the clients and install than I actually ended up playing the games. Nevermind.

I think that is enough on games.

Looking Forwards
As you will know if you tend to read my blogs with any regularity (there’s what, maybe 3 of you?), I’ve been trying very hard since my breakdown and back injury to stay positive and look forwards to a brighter future. This has obviously been fairly difficult recently due to the economic crisis, but I feel I am making some progress into getting life back on track.

Ideally I would like to move out into a place of my own sometime within the next couple of years. As much as I love the free rent of living at my parents’ house, with both brother and sister having now moved out, I feel a bit like the odd one out these days. This is, in many ways, a ludicrous feeling to have since I spent eight years in Lancaster and the North West, but nevertheless I shall be twenty nine years of age in January and I simply don’t like the idea that come thirty I may still be here and alone.

Obviously I don’t mean alone in the sense of people surrounding me. I run into people all the time, it being the very nature of my job, and me being an inherently social person (despite the time I spent chained to the PC or my netbook). But I am committed to the idea (and, I would hesitate to add, probable fact) that if I wish to move out, I have to find one of two kinds of people to interact with.

Either I need to find a small group of friends willing to rent a place together. Or I need to blunder about blindly in the hopes of finding a girlfriend, an endeavour that I continue to be awful at.

I’m still not particularly sure what the problem is in this regard. A lack of confidence and self-esteem may be part of the problem, but recently I’ve been finding it easier to talk and flirt my way into at least friendships with women whom I would consider quite attractive. I suppose my main failing is a complete inability to tell if women are interested in me in that way. I’ve always kind of fallen into relationships, without any real kind of dating process, so I’ve never really asked women out, or chatted them up at bars, or whatever the accepted social norm is (if there even is one).

I’m not exactly a bad example of the gender, either. I’m smart, I’m savvy, I have a certain kind of dry wit that perhaps has limited appeal, and I’m not altogether unattractive, though a couple of trips per week to the gym might help improve self esteem in that department.

I think maybe I get entangled in the “What ifs”. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. The “If I ask her out, what if she’s not interested. Will we still be friends? Will she etc etc” quandary.

My notion of relationships is a bit of a slow burner, I suppose. Taking time. Romance. None of the cheap, quick sex and its over that many of the men I see out and about on the weekend are so obviously after. I’m sure I can’t be too unusual, the this regard, but again, an inability to read if people like me as a friend or as something more is a huge mental and emotional hurdle to try and overcome.

It’d be so much easier if people just told me, but then there may be issues of a similar kind from their point of view, and I am nothing if not cursed with huge amounts of intellectual and emotional empathy for other people (thanks for that legacy, Mom).

I meant for this to be a fairly positive diatribe. Don’t think I quite managed that did I? The message to take away from this, should you care, is that I am getting better with all this. Even so far as to ask somebody out, though nothing has come of it yet. This at least shows an improvement in my confidence. Some would say a huge improvement considering me and my crippled emotions.

(Speaking of which, there has been no improvement in my recovery of so many lost memories from before my breakdown. I find sometimes that fragments of times and events that I don’t consciously remember seep into my dreams, but they always leave me somewhat disturbed upon waking, as you might expect.)

Fin
I think that that will do for me splurging thoughts, feelings and beliefs onto the page for now. I always have a tendency to feel embarrassed about what I write after I’ve posted these irregular monologues, (it’s one of the reasons I don’t spell check/grammar check/read through them) but I am not so easily embarrassed these days it seems, though I sincerely hope people don’t think ill of me for voicing my thoughts and opinions in this way.

We all need our outlets, after all, and when I cannot use analogies in my novel writing, this is the purest option left open to me.

~Jon

British Summer Time

The very words, 'British Summer Time' conjure up a varity of images, depending on who you are and where you live. For most of us brits, BST is a time where we constantly have to debate whether to take a brollie with us, as it just might rain, even if there isn't a cloud in the sky. As well as the mercurial weather, it is a time for camping, beer gardens, sitting outside on the patio and gazing at the sky, and being assaulted by greenfly and wasps.

Last year's summer is a haze. Not a heat haze, a literal, drug-induced haze. By this time last year I was on full-time tramadol. It's no wonder I can't remember squat about what I did, who I saw, or where I went...if indeed I went anywhere.

This year is different. No drugs except alcohol this year. Having just done a half term of teaching, and having a full term lined up come September, this summer holiday was, nominally, a time for writing; in theory I was going to get as much of novel #2 written as I could during this six weeks as once the teaching starts, its ever so difficult to put (virtual) pen to paper.

Unfortunately, the words aren't flowing very well. I feel bottle-necked, distracted, and it is buggin' me.

One of the key distractions is this pile of games. As well as writing, summertime is oft the time where I try and finish as many of the games I've got laying around as I possibly can. Since I've had a month off WoW, I figured I was onto a winner this summer. Of course, that was before I decided Final Fantasy 12 was one of the games I really should complete - especially as FF13 is due sometime next year. I failed to take into account just how much time FF games eat up though.

Anyway, my list of unfinished or unplayed games stands at:

1) Final Fantasy 12 (36hrs in now)
2) Final Fantasy 4 DS (still haven't quite finished it)
3) Prototype
4) Devil May Cry 4
5) Half Life 2 + Expansions
6) Conan (on the XBOB360 - almost at the end, and have been for 6 months+ >_<)
7) Tomb Raider (the latest one)
8) The Last Remnant
9) Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (GCN)
10) Dawn of War
11) Blood Bowl PC (still need to finish the single-player campaign)

As well as these, I've also had quick bashes on Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and Lord of the Rings Online, all 3 of which have decided to give me free trials or week of free "re-evaluation" time. LotRo has been the most fun of the three, and its very very pretty as always, but none of the three really hold a candle to WoW, which is kinda a shame.

So anyways, really long list of games that need finishing. Might have to put FF12 on hold for a bit, as it really does eat up the time. Very enjoyable though. Not sure why fans of the series hate 12 so much. I like the characters, and the plot seems to be developing well enough - and story is mostly all I play games for after all.

As well as games, I've also been painting a bit. Got a couple of pieces on the go, which is kinda unusual. Haven't worked on them in a few days (see above comment about FF12) but they should both be done by the end of August. Still keeping up with my new year's resolution, which is nice. Hopefully I'll last the whole year.

Three weeks left of the summer hols. I know my parents are going on holiday next weekend, and I too am taking a couple of days off to head up to Macclesfield to see Rick and Tom, but thats mostly as far as I can stretch money-wise this year.

Really am going to try and stick some sample novel chapters up in the next week or so, let people have a read and see what they think of my style and stuff (as well as point out any glaring mistakes I've made :P)

This blog sounded much more organised in my head...

A Word About Fisticuffs

As many of you are aware, as a writer and artist I feel it is my duty - expanding my creative reference base - to watch human beings and to see how they do things; how they behave.

As a supply teacher I often see children at their best and worst, lighting up a room with sharp insight or witty repartee; or lighting up a cigarette in the room and then trying to weasle out of it by telling me they can't smell smoke when their hand is on fire. (True story. Had it happen. Wish I'd got pictures.)

I can understand people fighting over many many things: religion, race, territory, the hot redhead at the bar, etc etc. These are all pretty primal, human urges.

I'm not much into violence, though as several of the LARPers noted during my experimental stint in LURPS at uni, I swing a pretty mean latex-and-foam-rubber-coated blade. I'm a thinker, a talker. I'm sure I'm supposed to add "a lover" to that, but I can't think where that reference has popped into my head from. Of course, even I have been prone to such primal savagery: after my breakdown I was very much into smacking inanimate objects with my fists in order to make myself feel better.

In Chicago's this evening there was a fight. It was quite a big one actually. I missed what started it, but it was the kind of fight where two people argue, one pushes the other, the other stumbles into someone who turns round and joins in, pushing back, and it just escalates from there.

I didn't get involved, but sadly I was stood very close. Close enough, in fact, to get an elbow in the small of my back as somebody flew my way. Unsurprisingly this hurt like hell. Not just because I'd been elbowed, hard, but of course as Sod's Law would have it, they managed to catch me right at the place where my back is screwed up.

I spent the rest of the evening probably looking very sullen and angry and irritated, which is how I always look when I'm trying to disguise the fact my back hurts like hell. Even now, sitting down 3 hours or so later, its still twinging away and it pisses me off.

What the hell was so important that two people felt the need to fight over in a bar on a saturday night out? A spilt drink? Accidentally treading on someone's foot? What ludicrously petty thing could possibly have sparked such a fracas? Whatever happened to just going out and relaxing and unwinding, listening to some music, having a dance?

I mean sure, I can sit on my high horse and tell people that they should probably drink less and have more fun, especially in light of seeing how drink can be pretty destructive to people you care about, but I need to drink less myself so I'm probably a big hypocrit either way.

Tangental blog much?!

So yes, fighting. I don't like it. I've had a year 7 kid try and beat me up - did I write a blog about that one a while back? Might have done! - and that was laughable. I've seen kids of all ages try and beat each other up for fun! And I've seen grown men of thirty or so hitting each other in the face in a bar for something like knocking someone's drink over.

I mean yeah, having someone spill Stella down your shirt is annoying as hell - especially if, like me, the smell of the stuff makes you wanna stick lit matches up your nostrils - but is that really any reason to give someone a black eye?! Whatever happened to a gentlemanly "Sorry mate, lemme buy you a drink to make up for it?"

Or am I just living in my own little fantasy world?

Errr.... ignore the part of me that's, y'know, a fantasy writer, when thinking about answering that question...

On Romance and Comedy

All of my friends are quick to point out that my taste in films, music, and television is questionable at best. I'm not really sure why we differ so much in this regard actually. But as a general rule of thumb, both Spence and Andy can both accurately state within 10 minutes of watching a new show whether it will be a Burrage Show or not. To the best of my knowledge, they've never been wrong.

Sometimes I try to get them both to watch the latest programme that I think is great, but I think they've become so skeptical of my taste that they simply smile and nod and don't give things a chance, which in my opinion is a shame, but for their sakes is probably a way of retaining sanity. Obviously I'm biased so I couldn't say.

I'm a very romantic person. Words used to describe me by female friends include "sweet", "cute", "silly", and "romantic". Yes, that last one is a bit of a giveaway. One of my friends said I came very close to sounding like "the perfect man". Obviously she's on drugs or belongs in a mental institute. ;)

But it's true, to a certain extent. I was brought up on old-world values, immersed in a world of chivalric nights from the tales of King Arthur, and the off-kilter chivalry of Robin Hood, as well as classic stories from around the globe. I've always had this sense of propriety in me. I open doors for people, I stand on the outside of the pavement so that ladies and older folk don't have to risk getting soaked by passing cars. If the pavement isn't wide enough for two-way traffic, I stop and let people through first or, if they beckon me on, I always say thank you. Simple, basic manners I guess, but you'd be amazed at how many people don't take the time anymore for such simple courtesies.

Naturally I have a psychological weakness for films and television shows dealing with the interaction of men and women. I've not exactly had a lot of relationships, and I often feel a bit awkward until I get to know someone much better than perhaps they need to know me. I'm a man of various tastes, and some of them are - perhaps - a little surprising. And I love watching well-rounded characters on the big or small screens who are involved in some kind of romantic daliances.

This is why I love Chuck, my current favourite TV show which I may or may not already have written a blog on... (did I mention I have a bloody awful memory, and I'm too lazy to check >_>) It's especially true to my life in a way as I think of myself as very much the Chuck Bartowski type guy. I'm good with computers, I'm nerdy, I'm sarcastic, I have fairly high ideals but often find myself stuck in a rut for one reason or another. And obviously I hope that at some point a super-hot Agent Walker-type is going to sweep into my life for whatever reason, and that - in the words of Mr Bartowski - I am going to have to win her over again and again (and again!)

That's just my idea of romance, I guess. Not just sitting back and letting yourself go no you've found someone, but constantly trying to keep things fun and alive and exciting. It could be something to do with low self-esteem I dunno, but part of me really digs the idea that yeah, I should have to work for a decent relationship, and make sure I do everything right.

Of course, Chuck is a romantic comedy action espionage adventure show. With an emphasis on the comedy a huge amount of the time. I truly believe that I have a decent sense of humour. Sure it may be a little sarcastic and prone to innuendo at times, but I at least think it can be sophisticated most of the time. I find a lot of things funny, and if I don't, I won't force a laugh just to appease someone (sorry, I'm a bastard like that ><) People who make me laugh include Alan Davies, Billy Connelly, and Jack Dee. Peter Kay sometimes (but not often) gets a chuckle from me. Every now and again, Russel Brand gets likewise, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch anything either of them do. I've got a dry, straight man kind of humour about me. I like dry wit, deadpan stuff. Clever jokes. Things you have to think about. Arguably I'm a thinking man. (Yeah I know, lol!)

I think Shakespeare is funny. "What the fuck?!" I hear many of you cry! And yes, based on how it's taught in schools and stuff, I can fully understand why people don't like the Bard's plays (and I still can't stand most of the History plays, sorry Bill!) But there's a lot of funny stuff in Shakespeare if you can understand it.

Some of my favourite films of the last few years have been adapted from Shakespeare. The scenes with the Nurse in Luhrman's Romen + Juliet are funny in both the original and modern versions. Likewise 10 Things I Hate About You is a rather excellent and witty retelling of the classic Taming of the Shrew. And yes, both of them are romances, bringing me 'cleverly' full circle.

My inspiration for this post was the film No Reservations starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhart. It's not a brilliant film. The plot is formulaic, with no real surprises, twists or turns apart from the one death near the start which I must admit I hadn't expected. From there on everything unfolds exactly as I knew it would from that moment on. And yet I'd still speak highly of the film for a couple of reasons.

Firstly the casting is excellent. I get really really sick of films where they've cast big names stars simply because they're big name stars. If you're gonna have romance in a film, it has to be believable. It has to have chemistry. Say what you like about Mr and Mrs Smith, but when you look at Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in that film you know exactly why they're together in real life. Eckhart and Zeta Jones have chemistry in spades, and the whole film really revolves around the aloof, proud female chef and the dorky, opera-loving male chef.

Secondly, there were some very touching moments in the film. Obviously I'm a big sap prone to crying at emotional things as I'm sure I've mentioned before, but I do like it when a film billed as a romantic comedy has the guts to throw some tragedy in there too. It worked for R+J after all.

I'd give it 4/5 stars just for having the casting, the tragedy, and some pretty damned funny scenes.

Romance and comedy. Two of my favourite, essential elements of life!

Health Update: My Mate Gym

I'm getting a tad tired of sleepless nights and sleepy days. I'm not sure what's up with me at the moment. My sleeping pattern isn't technically out of whack, but I've been spending too many nights tossing and turning and feeling sick rather than getting any proper sleep. I don't know if it is a side effect of the medical cocktail I'm taking, but it's fracking annoying.

This last week I started going to the gym on my physio's recommendations. The purpose of these visits is twofold really:

1) to exercise the core muscle in my back to improve its strength and thus my overall balance and stability. With a stonger core muscle, I should be back to my normal "on-my-feet-all-day" self in no time.

2) to improve my overall fitness level. It's no secret I'm not a huge fan of how I look. I've always had a bit of a weight problem, but that has been steadily declining since I started uni (apart from a blip during the six months I was off having a breakdown). I'm still slightly overweight, but I'm not hugely bothered about that. I'm worried about my actual fitness level. There was a time when I used to play badminton every week - that stopped when I buggered my ankle up in a night club. (Don't ask!) While I still played after that, it took a very long time for my ankle to heal up - yes I should probably have gone to see someone about it: benefits of hindsight I know. Obviously with a knackered back, running around, twisting and swinging a racket on a badminton court is unlikely to do me a great deal of good currently, but I desperately miss playing badminton (it being the only sport I was ever really good at) and would love to get back to it as part of a healthier lifestyle to balance out all the crap that my sweet tooth demands I eat.

The gym at the local leisure centre is a temprary one: they're in the process of refurbishing the real gym. But it's good enough for my needs. I had a 30 minute induction session with a personal trainer, who worked up a pretty simple regime for me based on the kind of machines I was going to be able to use. Obviously anything involving lifting was going to be right out. It ended up with a simple rotation of treadmill > reclining exercise bike > normal exercise bike. 10 mins on each, and build up in pace as I progress. Easy stuff. I was fine for all 3 machines, memorised how to use them, and was ready to start properly this last Monday.

Monday I got to the gym at around 1:30pm as recommended (it's quiet in the afternoons) and started off with the treadmill. 4.8km/hr speed on a slight incline. Not gruelling by any means, especially as I'd already spent 10 minutes or so walking at a fairly brisk pace to get to the centre through the pretty damned chilly weather. Unfortunately, cold weather + bad back muscle = not good. But I was fine for the treadmill anyways.

Next was the reclining bike. I'd been fine at this on the induction. The seat was relatively comfortable and supported my back well. But my back hadn't been hurting already on that induction day, and sitting down on that reclining bike was agony for the five minutes I gruelled out on it. Not sure I got any benefit at all out of that, and in fact I probably did myself more harm than good. "No pain, no gain" only goes so far in my book.

Finally the upright bike. By the time I got to this I was in a fair amount of pain. My knees were hurting, as were the back of and inner thighs, where the nerves connect from the back down the legs. This has been a problem throughout the last few months. If my back is really bad, my legs start to go weird with it. Not a fun thing at all! I managed about 4 minutes on that bike before I called it and left the gym. No point pushing myself any further than that. Not a hugely successful or beneficial workout, but as I walked round town to cooldown,

I didn't feel too bad. Popping a couple of tramadol obviously helped too.

But the next two days were absolute hell. I haven't felt that bad in months. I couldn't bend at all. Every single twist or slightest movement sent needles stabbing into my nerves. It took me 15 minutes to get my fecking socks on because every time I tried to bend to reach the end of my annoyingly long legs, my back said "Nah, fuck you!"

My regime of Monday/Wednesday/Friday fell apart in the very first week. Tuesday was hell.

Wednesday was less so, but I could still barely walk. No pain, no gain, I kept repeating to myself. I knew something like this would happen, after all. Just didn't expect it to be so severe.

Thursday I was finally feeling better. I got up late though. Crawled out of bed after a crappy night's sleep at about 1:30pm. Couldn't even be arsed showering. Just pulled on my gym stuff, stuck on a hat, and made my way into town. This time I changed some stuff.

Firstly I took a couple of tramadol BEFORE I started the exercises. I don't actually know if this was a particularly good idea, but in retrospect it seems to have at least helped.

Secondly I swapped the two bikes round. The one with the back support, which I had assumed would be easier for me to handle (and was dead wrong about ><) I left till last, while the upright got stuck in the middle of the workout.

I stuck with the treadmill at the start, this time working at it for a full 15mins at the slightly faster 5km/hr. Still not gonna win any medals, and its certainly not an impressive statistic, but for me, it's a start.

The tramadol helped. I didn't manage the two bikes any better than before - they were still pretty painful - but I made it out of the gym feeling relatively good. I expected Friday to be a nightmare though.

Surprisingly, the last three days haven't been too bad. Yeah I've been feeling really sick, my appetite is a bit botched, and I'm still suffering some of the nastier side effects of the tramadol, but I at least feel like I'm DOING something.

Hopefully I'll be able to swing the Mon/Weds/Fri thing properly this coming week. Fingers crossed.

~J

September Part #1

I realise I’m behind on blogs, but in keeping with the spirit of my new year’s resolution I’m going to write 3 and backdate them to the appropriate date. This is blog #1 of 3.

This blog is about September, the month thereof. This particular month means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but to a good percentage of the British populace this means Back to School.

Back to School is a fairly important part of the British calendar. Stationary stores and clothing stores tend to have special sales on; and teachers, children and parents alike prepare for the end of the summer holiday and the start of the new term. Some teachers look forwards to it (especially the supply teachers who don’t get paid over the summer holidays), others do not. A lot of parents look forwards to having their children out of their hair for most of the daytime. And even some kids look forwards to it because it means they can see their friends more, and their parents are out of *their* hair. Works both ways that. Instead everyone gets to be a headache for the teacher. Sigh.

September also sees the degradation of the already piss-poor British weather. Yes it rains most of the summer, but at least it’s usually warmish rain. September things get chilly fast, rain turns cold, and if you’re unfortunately enough to have a job outside like my Father does, then the Weather Gods play an important role in daily life and must be appeased with ritual sacrifices and offerings of beer. Or maybe that’s just an excuse to go to the pub on an evening...?!

But neither of these things are particularly relevant to my actual topic for this blog, for today I wish to state my love of September for one thing and one thing only. While I will never say “god bless America” in any kind of unsarcastic tone, I will state “god bless the US television season”.
Yes, September sees the start of the latest season of all the US TV shows. After a summer of reruns and quirky programming (some of which is actually quite good), the US networks bring the big hitters out to draw in maximum ratings/viewers for the winter months.

Now, I’ve often stated that I don’t really watch TV. This is, or at least was, true to a point. Most of my TV watching while I was in Lancaster consisted of series I bought on DVD well after their air date in Britain, let alone the US. But as the internet has evolved, and I’ve begun sweeping my creative nets far and wide for sources of inspiration, I’ve gradually come to realise that I *do* watch television. I just don’t watch British television (apart from Doctor Who and other oddities). That means no soaps, no sports channels, no quiz shows (though I occasionally watch something that another family member is watching).

There was a time when I would catch maybe one or two American TV shows per week, but *now* times have changed. This season I’ve had to make a frackin’ *LIST* of what is on on what night.

So here’s a rundown of my televisual week.

Sunday (Yes, the week starts on Sunday. Don’t argue with me, I’m a teacher.)

Only one programme (so far) worth watching on a Sunday, and that is True Blood starring Anna Paquin and some other people I’ve never heard of. It’s about vampires and a psychic girl set in the Louisiana (I think) swamps. It’s a late night, post-watershed show. There’s a lot of blood, a lot of swearing, and considerably more nudity and sex than I would ever have expected. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s an awesome show, but it’s intriguing to see where they’re going with it, and the chemistry between the male and female leads is very good. I shall keep on watching.

Monday

Monday is the heavy-hitter of a season of heavy hitters.

Firstly season 3 of Heroes is on. Season 2 was a step backwards from the awesomeness of season 1. It was a bit slow-paced, and it was cut short by the writer’s strike and not really allowed to reach any kind of decent conclusion. Hopefully season 3 (Villains) will change all this. Having seen the first couple of episodes, I have to say they seem to be on the right track, even if the actual formula isn’t all that different from previous seasons.

Secondly we have Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Yes, I hate the name too, just like everyone else, but I have to admit I was expecting the first season to bomb and yet was pleasantly surprised. The acting was strong, the special effects were very good for a small screen venture, the tension was there, and while there wasn’t as much gunfire and action as the Arnie movies – no surprise really, that wouldn’t exactly translate well to small screen – there was nevertheless the Terminator feel about it. Again s1 was cut short due to the writer’s strike, but it certainly ended on a cool cliffhanger, and s2 started up seconds after s1 concluded so there was no continuity jump or suspension of disbelief needed...if you can even use the term suspension of disbelief in a TV show about robots from the future being sent back in time to terminate the future leader of the resistance.

Thirdly, and probably the biggest draw of any programme of the week for me, is Chuck, now into its second season. It’s a romantic comedy espionage action drama series that pretty much defies any real convention. The premise is simple enough. Supernerd Chuck Bartowski has an entire supercomputer worth of government secrets downloaded into his brain, and now when he sees someone or something with possible shady background, he tends to get flashes, images of stuff in his brain. In a sense, he IS the computer now, and while he can’t control these flashes, they are important enough that he be kept around and alive. Thus he leads a dual life – computer repairman at the Buy More, a walmart style affair, and super spy analyst person type (at which he isn’t great, unsurprisingly). He’s looked after by two real spies, Casey (played by the ever awesome Adam Baldwin) and Sarah (played by the ever hawt Yvonne Strahowski – who the writers try and get into her underwear as often as possible. It works. Trust me.)

s1 ended with the revelation that the new Intersect computer was almost finished, and that Casey has orders to terminate Chuck when it goes online and he is no longer needed. S2 begins with Chuck finding out about the new Intersect, and how the last few months have changed him as a person, and what he’s going to do to move his life forwards. Of course, nothing is ever easy in TV world is it...

Look for the second part of this blog to conclude my rundown of Television goodness for the new season. ^_^

Yes I know this is cheating. It’s my blog. Sue me.

THE MRI EXPERIENCE

Magnetic resonance imaging is a medical imaging technique used to visualise the structure and function of the body (paraphrased from Wiki! Let it do the work, so You don’t have to!)

Due to me having a k-nackered back, and the physio and Orthopaedic specialist not being 100% sure of what’s actually wrong with it, I got to have my first ever MRI last week. I wasn’t looking forwards to it.

I’ve seen MRIs done on TV before, most noticeably on HOUSE MD., my favourite medical drama. They’re basically a big magnetic tube that they slide you into on a table, make you hold still for fifteen minutes or so, and then tell you all sorts of wonderful things about your internal makeup.

However, you know what they say about TV? That everything looks a little bigger?

The MRI machine was not big. After I kitted up in my incredibly flattering surgical gown, I walked into the room and did some basic maths. I’m quite wide-shouldered, and obviously pretty tall. The MRI machine didn’t look like I would fit in fully either way. I was right. I had to be shunted up halfway through the procedure, and I spent the entire 15 or so minutes I was in there with my shoulders compressed slightly together ‘cos I wouldn’t have fit in otherwise! Yay for modern medicine.

Now I don’t know how many people know this, but as well as being afraid of heights, spiders, and having vertigo and hayfever, I’m also claustrophobic. Not VERY claustrophobic, but enough. Only in REALLY cramped spaces, when I imagine most people would get a little edgy. I have real issues with sleeping bags (I know I know, laugh all you like ><) and have to leave the zips undone so I can stretch. I got very little sleep the night before the MRI, because it’s a big enclosed tube, like a big plastic and metal sleeping bag. But, I told myself, it can’t be TOO bad. They look big enough on TV.

But as I’ve already mentioned, they’re smaller in real life. The top of the tube was about four inches from my nose. I felt like I was in a coffin, and if it wasn’t for the cool breeze drifting over me, I’ve had probably had some kind of panic attack and completely freaked out. In fact, I almost did  It was utterly terrifying. I hated every moment of being in there, but I made sure I barely moved, because I knew that if I did I’d have to go through the whole process again.

As well as being afraid, I was also in a lot of pain. Some days my back is almost okay. Other days its hideously painful. The MRI day it was fine, until they got me laid on the table. They propped my legs up on a cushion about 4 inches thick, and this — unhelpfully — left almost all of the weight on exactly the spot on my back that hurts. I was in UTTER agony for the first ten minutes, until my body started freaking out from everything and went almost completely numb.

Now, when my back spasms in pain, I twitch. Twitching isn’t good for MRIs. So I had to fight that, as well as my claustrophobia.

Add all this up and I think you have a pretty good impression of my MRI experience. I hope, I PRAY, that *something* shows up after this, because I would gladly never go through that whole thing again!!!!

Even if I DID look pretty good in the surgical gown...:P

Data Disaster

I had this blog all planned. It was going to be a happy, shining blog, reminiscing about the evolution of television from the mid-90s. This would have perhaps shown my age, and how I’ve dated as badly as a mobile phone in a music video, but I wouldn’t have cared. Mid-90s TV formed the foundation of who I am today!

But alas this is not to be, as other stuff happened before I got to write it. Let me explain.

I’m sure any of you that use computers as much as I do run out of space eventually. Hard disks can only store so much data, and they start to slow down — or “chug” — the closer to capacity they come. Now while TV show release dates ARE changing so that the UK is getting new series closer to their US releases, I still prefer to watch the shows I like straight away. So I download them. I also tend to watch them when they finally do air on British TV. I also tend to buy the box sets (the collector’s 5-series DVD set of Andromeda is sat right behind me, for example. Yes, I plan on watching it in a marathon of poor special FX and Kevin Sorbo-ness.) This is my thinly veiled defence against “zomg he is pirate! Yarrr!” or something.

Some of these TV shows I like to store to watch again and again until the DVDs are released. Things like the Dresden Files pilot episode, which — at approx 2 hours long — was very cool, but not out on DVD and only available in the US on Sci-Fi. I watch it now and again to remind myself what it is about the series (and the books) that I love so much. But it’s over 1gig worth of file. These all add up. So I store all this kind of stuff on an external HD to save myself from a chugging computer fate.

All was going fine with this plan, but now DISASTER has struck.

I have a very simple, 250gig external HD, which I’ve used to back up pretty much everything from the last 7 years or so. In fact, when my sister was moving out, and I was having the big overhaul/tidyup, I actually went through many of my old backup CDs and tried to consolidate the data I have onto the external HD. And now, via an application of Sod’s Law, the external HD has decided to screw up. Connecting it in Windows makes explorer hang. Trying to access anything on it makes explorer hang. Interacting with it in any way (except one, more on this in a moment)...you guessed it... makes explorer hang.

There is 232 gig worth of data on this drive. Granted more than a bit of it is TV programmes that I haven’t deleted yet (I’ve got the DVDs now). Some of it is Anime. Some of it is Doctor Who. I think some of it may have been the Sarah Connor Chronicles actually. Either way, a huge chunk of it is TV and I would in no way miss any of this stuff – well, apart from House S4, but that’s out on DVD this month so that’s fine.

What I will miss, if I can’t retrieve it, is photos, work, silly things that — retrospectively — I should have backed up elsewhere instead. I never even thought about it. That annoying “What if the external HD fucks up?” question. I certainly didn’t expect to have any problems with it only 6 months after I bought it, but considering my run of luck with external storage devices, I should have known better. The sad fact is that, while I have plenty of copies of a lot of the older stuff knocking around on CD — I didn’t throw ALL of them away in the clear out — there’s a lot of stuff that I simply don’t have backed up elsewhere. This IS my backup device, after all. It was a purchase designed to ensure I didn’t have to spend hours backing stuff up onto DVD.

But now it seems I may pay for that error of judgement with the loss of a considerable number of irreplaceable items. This makes me a very sad panda.

This is not to say all hope is lost, however. I currently have a programme scanning every single sector of the drive in the hopes of retrieving as much of my data as possible. I started this scan at 6:05am on 9th August 2008, and at 2:22pm on the 10th August 2008 as I write this very sentence, the scan is 39% done. It’s a slow one, and I live in fear of a powercut, or the cable to fall out, or something that will cause me to have to start the whole process all over again.

I’ve pondered if it’s worth it. How much of the crap on that drive do I ever actually look at?! But that isn’t the point, really, is it. Because I know that as soon as I give up on attempting to retrieve this data, then I’ll need some of it. This, really, is the problem with the digital era. Nothing exists “for real” until you make it real. Photos are a collection of pixels until you print them out.

A big chunk of the backed up stuff — probably 5% or so — is PSD files. My artwork, in the many stages of work-in-progress. I save all of those just in case I want to go back and change things, or steal elements for another painting, or use portions of them for something in web design. There’s several gigs worth of these, as PSD files are pretty damned hefty, that I don’t have backed up elsewhere. I COULD have burned them to DVD, but I didn’t. I relied on one device.

Never again! It seems I will have to add even further to the clutter that is my workspace by adding a second external backup drive to the mix. A smaller, more robust one, for critical backups of stuff. I may also need to add a third HD into my PC itself. All to ensure that, if I have critical data, if I do manage to recover the stuff that is important to me from this buggered HD, then I’ll have multiple copies of it just in case another Data Disaster happens again.

Let this be a lesson to me, and to you too!

August 2008

Ladies and Gents, loyal readers, August is upon us already! To say this year is going fast is an understatement. I put the speed down to me measuring time as intervals between appointments with various NHS-related people trying to "fix" my back.

So what have I been up to recently? Well, a variety of things really.

1) I've had some fits of guilt and nostalgia and have taken it upon myself to try and get in touch with friends from years gone by, see how everyone is, and get up-to-date contact info for everyone on the off chance that they want me to visit. Some of these people I haven't heard from since I left college 10 years ago, so its really good to know that some of them are doing well, and I must confess to taking a guilty pleasure in knowing that some of them are as undecided about their futures at 27 as I am.

2) I've been reading books. Mainly re-reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books, in completely the wrong order. I've also been dipping into the world of Graphic Novels, working my way the the Watchmen in preparation for the movie release, as well as catching up on Slaíne.

3) I've been continuing to work on a particular painting. I've kinda got into a bit of a rut with it. Turns out it was a bit TOO ambitious for my current skills (and attention span), but it IS progressing slowly.

4) I've also done some writing, albeit not a lot. I'm currently working on a big fight scene towards the end of the novel and, unfortunately, its not going well. I'm finding it difficult to visualise the scene. I blame this on the painkillers which I'm currently taking too many of to block out the big spikes of pain that are happening (fortunately) infrequently.

5) I've been playing too much FFXI. As you might have gathered if you actually check my main site, a lot of the blogs/updates recently have been FFXI-related and thus not written about on this here Life Blog. Toddle over to the FFXI blog for updates on that.

That's about it for now. Not the most exciting of updates, but I did feel I was bending my new year's resolution a bit by counting the FFXI blogs as part of my "one blog per week" thing. Updates to this blog, and my website, will continue. Have a gander at the updated art gallery if nothing else. Some newish pieces in there from this year that most people haven't seen. ^_^

~Jon

July Already?!

What the...?!

Seriously, how is it July already? What happened to June? Where did it go?!

July is always a patchy month for me, as it tends to mark the end of the academic year. When I was a student, it was the time that I had to say goodbye to my social life and return home. Now that I'm a "teacher" it's the time that I have to say goodbye to any regular work, as towards the end of term there's very little supply work available. So I need to tighten my belt and look ahead to the summer months and consider my options.

That being said, there's a lot to look forwards to in these last couple of weeks of the year, and the summer holidays in general. None of these things are actually academic though.

Firstly, the new iPhone 3G is released in a couple of weeks. At £100 on a £35/month tariff, it's not cheap since I only got the last iPhone in March, but with its promise of much faster internet speeds - which is mostly what I use my iPhone for anyways - I don't see the point in not upgrading. Thus I have set some pennies aside for it.

Secondly, season 4 of Doctor Who is coming to a close this Saturday evening. The series has had some patchy moments - as any Doctor Who season does really - but the penultimate episode was rather over the top and a little bit surprising/shocking. There are gonna be a lot of people sat down on Saturday night to see what becomes of the 10th Doctor's regeneration sequence that started at last week's cliffhanger - I know I'm certainly intrigued by what they're going to do.

Thirdly, I am still planning on going somewhere over the summer months. It has been ten years since I actually went on a proper holiday somewhere and I figure it is about time I got a dramatic change of scenery. This will depend on finances, obviously, but again I have a few pennies set aside for it.

Finally there are a few movies out at the cinema that I want to watch. Some of them may not be very good, but I want to watch them anyway. These include: The Dark Knight, Hancock, Wanted, The Mummy III, and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. This probably tells you a lot about my cinematic "taste", but I care not.

The summer months. A time for BBQs, beer in the garden, friends getting together inside and outside, hoping for the best weather. Let's hope this summer is a good one.

(As I'm sat writing this it's raining heavily outside....)

~Jon