Slow, grinding progress

Which is often the most useful kind. 'Cos it means I'm concentrating on what I'm doing.

Well, as I've said before, there are two times of year I dread at work. One is the end of the financial year, the other is the end of the calendar year. Why the second one is so important, I don't know, but it must be some sort of psychological deadline which everyone suddently sets themselves. Granted, the New Year is a great time to make resolutions, and I always hope the next year will be even better than the one before... BUT, how many people will stick to those resolutions, eh? I know the gym had cleared out a heck of a lot by March, so why bother trying to stick to the end-of-year mentalness??

Ach, I'm being melodramatic. In fairness, there's just a lot of stuff I agreed to do ages ago. But the real pressure is coming from the Rolling ("Russell") Grant which looms, if not large, then loomingly! We're supposed to be churning a few more articles out so that it can go in the hallowed book that is our RG application. Hence, I need to crack on with data analysis (which I actually like, it being The Science and all), but yet somehow do everything else that everyone else "needs" me to do before Christmas. Was it a blunder agreeing to be on the Social Club committee?

Anyway, I'm sitting here waiting for a load of images to be co-aligned in time, but it's taking a while. However, I have now got a rather nice data-gap and GOES monitor running underneath my movies, which I'll probably use a lot in the future. When I thought about it, there was no need for messy looping to get the delays -- just a case of shifting and subtracting the array from itself... Yadda yadda....

I'll get me white coat.

Or maybe not. The 'puter is still cranking away.

In other news LS has cancelled this week's Drunk Wednesday. Which I'm secretly quite relieved about. Got to go to somewhere in Essex (don't think I've ever been to Essex) on Thursday night, to give a talk to amateurs (that's not a condescension, by the way), and it's... sort of.... not really ready at all. Got loads of PPT files off of Dr Green, so I just need to work out what the feck I'm going to say about solar magnetism. I've got a few props to break things up, at least...

Help!

Christmas Flights Booked!

There we are... the mothership, bless her, offered to book my flights for me.

Think she was worried I wasn't coming home for Christmas.

Phonecall was a bit frosty. Hmmmm....

Sunday Petulance

Rubbish

I'm bored, but penniless. I'm also well over the hangover induced by Lord Simon visiting lastnight, replete with bottle of JD. Hence, the answer is to phone people and catch up. Except that my sister's phone goes straight to voicemail, Neilo's on the tear in the Dubai, and Aussie Adrian has fecked off to Oz. Some housemate he turned out to be! ;o)

Why doesn't the world revolve around me? WHY??

Currently weighing up the pros and cons of hitting the hay early. However, I didn't get out of bed til 11:00, so maybe I'll just have to watch Little Britain and Man Stroke Woman (which was a heck of a lot better than I thought it was going to be — think it's the actors -- Nathan Barley and that bloke off of Spaced).

Right, tea-time. Maybe spinach and ricotta will help...

The Old Class

Well, it's a sad day.

Neilo leaves behind Drive, and with it Mr M, Emlyn/Omlyn and Laura.

Recently re-christened "one of the ones who doesn't speak", it feels like he and Mr M have been working together for an age. Still remember when they were doing Early Death™... As well the dubious privelege of sitting in on the odd show or the tail end of an after-show meeting.

So, as a member of the Old Class, he doesn't need my good wishes, but he's getting them anyway.

Best of luck on the next project, Ted. I know you'll make a great success of it. All your colleagues think very highly of you.

The bluffery continues!</CBS>


Eh?



</MG>

R

After a very enjoyable meal out with some really good friends in the old Moloko tonight, I had to head immediately home. �20 was all I had fer the night. I'm really bored of being broke.

Rant ends.

Pest Control

Sometimes it's not that wise having a pesting partner.

LS and I were perusing the interweb lastnight, with the aid of Mr Vodka. Today, I feel rubbish. Generally. Need to sleep once I've dropped the Aussie off for his Big Visit Home...

Off to Heefrow in a few minutes. That'll be lovely. Need coffee also...

Unheard-of for a while...

... but it's an actual late-night blog. Just having a scan around the interweb at this late juncture. All seems quiet, despite the fact that I know people in Hawai'i tonight.

Have they got something better to do than e-mail me??

I doubt it.

Maybe their fingers are broken...

Etc.

Homeblog!

Very exciting... I'm blogging, out of hours, from home!

All thanks to Age's wireless adapter and a hooky wi-fi connection (thanks to the mysterious provider, there!).

Needed a night in and off as much booze as possible, so I'm lying low and surfing a bit.

Wow...

Rate my life

Erm...

My life has been rated:
See what your rating is!
Created by bart666

....Feck. I thought my answers were quite tame, too.

Seriousness Avoidance

Evidently, so much is happening in my life at the moment that I'm avoiding it by talking of such minor things as fish-flavoured chocolate cake.

In brief, I need to update on:

1. The trip to J-land
2. The big J-land possibility (increasingly certain)
3. Neilo's had job news
   
4. Age moves his stuff in today, and is staying at Aggy tonight
5. Eenglish has mooted a drinking night. This scares me. Anyway, he's banned...
   
6. I tidied my room lastnight (well, carried out the first stage of what I think will be a four-stage process)
7. I'm not doing any work today
8. PAL's security shite disabled my shiny new PHP success lastnight (led to some grumpiness)
9. The Cullybackey man is in Hawai'i
10. I've told the Cullybackey man about the J-land thing
11. I still have no mobile contact with the outside world (slowly doing my head in)
12. Think that's it.
    

Fish-cake

I just ate the slice of chocolate cake I bought at lunchtime.

It tasted of fish.

This distresses me.

West Gate to Nanzen-ji

West Gate Nanzen-ji1
Originally uploaded by finassy.

Taken on Thursday morning (J-land time)

Fvcking hell...

Could've been a lot worse

So I'm going to be grateful.

Off to J-land on Sunday, so this could be the last post for about 10 days (or 10 years, if I get marooned à la Lost!). Hoping Kyoto is going to be wicked, although I'm on medication til Thursday, so I'd better get some kick-ass sake that night!

All the hairy!

Good night's sleep = perspective

As ever...

So I now have some measure of what's bad and what isn't. But I have to wait until this afternoon to know how bad the bad is. (Sorry to be so vague, but I should be.)

SO, off to J-land this weekend. Age is driving me out to LHR on Sunday, then I get there on Monday (already a head-fuck). By which time, Neilo will have flown back to LHR from his big Tokyo trip. The rumblings of which were good yesterday. Should send him a note, actually, to see how it's all going...

That is all for now.

Moshi moshi.

In summary... "Fuck".

The nature of this info would be too sensitive to post on the interweb, so I'm not going to. But suffice it to say that it's not good. Could be a million billion times worse, to be fair, but it's not good.

Got told off by a stern lady today. You can imagine how much I enjoyed that...