Category: old blogging

whilst staying at Gemma’s, I had a very bizarre dream….it went something like this:
I was in the metalwork workshop at my old secondary school. I wasn’t actually there – no corporeal presence – but I could see and hear everything. It had been converted into a science lab. It was a beautiful day – I could see the perfect blue sky through the skylight. The room was populated by a tutor and several students. I became aware of a helicopter in the sky. The thing that struck me most about the helicopter was that it was white – pure, perfect, pristine, brilliant, unblemished white.
The helicopter flew down, and was attempting to land on the roof of the building. But it wasn’t going well, and one of the skids smashed through the skylight, sending glass everywhere. Everyone just stood transfixed – no screaming, no panic. The helicopter toppled over the edge of the roof, the rotor still turning, burning aviation fuel pouring everywhere, billowing black smoke, grey steam and bright orange flame. And yet the helicopter remained perfectly, beautifully, utterly, brilliantly…white and I was transfixed.

Now what the heck does that all mean? Interpretations welcome.

ok, weekend report:
Friday
went out (with some apprehension which was, ultimately, not justified) to the bar and then on to the Nag’s to see Paul F and the band play. Bumped into Jo and there was also the usual crowd there, which was nice. All, as usual, did their level best to keep me cheerful, and overall were pretty successful.
Saturday
stirred really quite early and caught train to London. met up with my cousin Gemma at Victoria and went for coffee in Covent Garden, a mooch around the National Gallery, lunch in Soho, shopping on Regents Street, drinks in Soho, dinner in Blackheath (where Gemma lives), drinks in Blackheath and then crashed at hers. I say “crashed”, as we started drinking at 4ish and by the time we got there we were pretty trollied.
Sunday
stirred quite late (although it was still morning, so I guess that isn’t bad following our exploits the previous day) and zombied our way into town. Went to the British Museum and zombied our way through some of the rooms after having lunch in the new Great Court (which is very impressive). Then we zombied into the restaurant and zombied some tea, followed by zombie-ing round a few more rooms. Got to around 5pm and gave up, both feeling utterly knackered and also worried about getting home easily with impending tube strike.
Thanks Gemma – great weekend. Cheered me up quite a bit, although there was a moment or two when I really wished that a certain someone was there too, even if that certain someone would have *hated* the “old stuff”. The worst moment was at Victoria, waiting for my train back home – god, Victoria can be *so* depressing.
Anyway, got back home and then headed down to W2 for a private party to which I had been sort-of invited. It was good – a few friends, a few beers (livvvveeeerrr!) and a spot of relaxation before crashing into bed around 12.

what a weekend! I think I have undone a month’s worth of dieting in just 72 hours. blurph.
there will be a full update here soon, but I’m a bit busy today. just as well, as being busy stops me thinking, and I’m not especially positive today.

re-design news: I know you are all awaiting the new-look Grayblog/Grayblogzuki with baited breath. Well, I can now report that I have decided on a design style – all I have to do is implement it. This process is likely to take longer than I’d hoped as I’ve got quite a bit on my plate at work, but do watch this space. For those that hadn’t realised, you are currently looking at a stop-gap design which will kick around until the new one appears – yes I know it is only a minor variation on the old Grayblog, but I’m short of time and enthusiasm and energy at the moment – and not just because of work (I think you know that).

Robyn has been picking me up on my incorrect usage of its and it’s. And normally it is me that moans about that. Go here for a definitive set of guidelines on the correct usages.
I think I’ve corrected all the errors, but if you spot any more, let me know. Keeps me busy at least.

I must be more cheerful, I must be more cheerful, I can beat this, I can get through it.
yeh, right.

I was beginning to lighten up, then I heard something which has completely thrown my plans for this evening upside-down and made me feel very very miserable indeed, to the extent of crying. If this was the old Grayblog, I’d tell you all about it, but I’m determined not to get back to that.
Thanks for the cheering-up tips – favourite so far is this. Pity that the cheering up has now been utterly negated.

Really depressed today, so if anyone has any ideas for cheering me up, go right ahead.

Last night I went for a few beers after college with my tutor – not being sucky, you realise, but just having a few jars and putting the world to rights. Conversation revolved around relationships (what else?), college, getting older and music. All very interesting, I must say.
Tonight’s plan – ah, yes, more beer. Splendid.

Just got a spam mail (“LOWEST RATE LOANS EVER!!!!”) which features the following as the email signature:
“Let us continue to suppose that any exponential Folklife coefficient requires considerable systems analysis and trade-off studies to arrive at the greater fight-worthiness concept. Presumably, any associated supporting element delimits the sophisticated hardware. Of course, the product assurance architecture recognizes the importance of other disciplines, while taking into account the overall negative profitability. In respect to specific goals, the earlier discussion of deviance appears to correlate rather closely with problems of phonemic and morphological analysis. From the intercultural viewpoint, most of the methodological work in modern linguistics is holistically compounded, in the context of the requirement that branching is not tolerated within the dominance scope of a complex symbol. Based on my own fieldwork in Guatemala, a large proportion of intercultural communicative coordination adds explicit performance limits to nondistinctness in the sense of distinctive feature theory.”
hmm. Educated spammers?