EveryDaze Comics

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

Last night I finished reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by Stieg Larsson, which concludes his Millennium Trilogy (the other volumes being The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire). The book takes off directly from the end of the second one, and contines a compex and involving conspiracy thriller. I really enjoyed the whole series and I thought that the second and third books were a lot better than the first, which was still good. They do have to be read in sequence though. I'd like to see the Swedish movie versions of the series that were out last year. Also there is an English-language version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo coming out at the end of this year. Stieg Larsson died in November 2004 shortly after delivering the manuscripts of the three books to his publisher, however an unfinished manuscript for a further book is apparently still on his computer so it wouldn't surprise me if someone tried to completel it at some point. The book is reviewed over at Permanently Weird.

It was the start of another week at work and pretty much it was the same as usual. In the afternoon I had a meeting with the team leader about how I've been getting on with the training period and I was told I was actually doing very well so that was good. I alwasy get really nervous about these meeting things because I always expect to be told that I'm screwing up.

I had an idea for a comic book, actually about three comic books. One a kind of cyberpunk thing, another a kind of horror thing and the third something about someone wandering around a strange city looking for something they lost. They probably won't happen though.

Yesterday my parents were telling me to try on-line dating again, but to be honest I'm totally out of the whole dating thing and kind of see it as a bit of a waste of time. Maybe if I emigrate I'll get into the whole dating thing again, but not until then. I got fed up of it awhile ago and I just think that there are other things to do. Would I like a girlfriend? Of course I would, ideally, but I would also like to be a superhero living in a mansion in Beverley Hills, and one is about as likely to happen as the other.

An Electric Ant

Last night was really quiet. I finished reading Human Is?: A Philip K. Dick Reader by Philip K. Dick. The final three stories I read in it were "An Electric Ant" in which a man is shocked to discover he is in fact a robot and, when he discovers that his reality is artificially generated, decides to experiment with his own perception of reality. That was followed by "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts" in which the USA's first time travellers arrive in the future a few days after they supposedly died returning to their own time. The final story was "The Pre-persons" in which children up to the age of 12 can be legally executed.

I was also watching a few epsiodes of Blake's 7 on DVD. Blake's 7 was a British science-fiction TV show which ran for 52 episodes over four seasons from 1977 to 1980. It was kind of a blend of Star Trek and Star Wars and concerned a rag-tag group of bickering revolutionaries and criminals who travel around space in a derelict alien spacecraft fighting against the totalitarian Galactic Federation. These days the show is often made fun of due to the often really bad (by modern standards) special effects and production values. However, the show was usually well-written and clever. It was also a lot grittier and bleaker than most science-fiction shows with a strong vein of dark humour.

Today I went out and got some postcards to send to a friend and I also got a CD called Dirty House Blues by Lightnin' Hopkins and a book called The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. on my way home I stopped off in a bar and had a couple of drinks and read my book.

It's been a good weekend mostly, but it has been marred by the fact that I've been feeling really kind of depressed recently about the fact that I really am a complete loser (mainly the facts that I am kind of stupid, I'm ugly, I've never really had a girlfriend and I have never achieved anything). It does happen fairly frequently.

Busy Work Day

Last night was really quiet again, and I spent most of the time reading my books and watching TV.

Today was another dull day at work, but it was really busy, due to all the problems yesterday. It was actually kind of chaotic. Everywhere was absolutely freezing outside and all the pavements were iced up, so you had to be really careful where you were walking. On ym way home I stopped off and bout some milk, sugar and the latest issue of Empire magazine which was doing it's 2010 preview issue this month.

I sometimes wonder whether I'll ever get a girlfriend this year. Actually I do think it's highly unlikely, and I have pretty much given up on it. To be honest from what I've seen from other people and the experiences that I've personally had of dating in the past I think I'm probably better off out of it. If I get to Canada then I might try again, but I probably won't. In general, I suppose I always get nervous about going for the stuff I want because, knowing me, I'd screw it up in some way or something would go horribly wrong and I'd end up more miserable than I was before.

Sorry about that last paragraph, it's not particularly cheerful.

Vampire City

Last night I got to 44,094 words in the NaNoWriMo novel, Vampire City. I am on target to make the total of 50,000 words by Saturday. After I had finished I watched the latest episode of True Blood and the fourth episode of The Singing Detective on DVD. I haven't had much to write about on here recently because pretty much all I've been doing for the last couple of weeks is write, watch TV and go to work.

It was another very quiet and fairly uneventful day at work. I am looking forward to the weekend.

I do find it a lot easier to write about what I really think and feel about things when I'm writing fiction, because I tend to censor myself a lot on here, often without even realising I'm doing it. I do think it would be good to be a more open and stuff on-line, so people could get to know me a little better should they want to, but it's not really something that comes naturally to me.

Old-Style Video Games

I watched an interesting documentary on TV last night called My Life in Verse, which featured comedian Robert Webb (one half of the Mitchell and Webb comedy duo and one of the stars of Peep Show) discussing the importance of poetry in his life, with particular emphasis on the work of TS Eliot. It was very interesting and surprisingly emotional at times. I also saw a really fun web movie called Fairy Tale Police which starred Rachael Leigh Cook as one of a pair of human cops ina kind of bizarre fairy-tale world. It was really quite funny and Rachael Leigh Cook is always worth watching.

Today I went out and bought a video game called Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection. It's a compilation of over forty games that were originally released for the Sega Mega Drive console (the Sega Genesis in the US) between about 1989 and 1995. The games are obviously very dated by now, but they're still fun and playable. I really remember when those consoles were out and there was a huge rivalry between Nintendo and Sega. It was actually quite a big thing at the time. I remember my brother, who had a Super Nintendo (we were a Nintendo family back then, we had the Super Nintendo and my brother and I each had a Gameboy console and we were into Super Mario and all that), once drawing a picture of Nintendo's mascot Mario barbecueing Sega's mascot Sonic the Hedgehog, which he would show to his friends who had Segas. Playing those kind of games again really brings me back to the early 1990s. It's really too easy to sentimentalise and get nostalgic for the past particularly because in hindsight you do tend to remember it as being a lot more fun than it actually was. I remember actually at work yesterday I was chatting with my friend Chris, who is a couple of years younger than me, about old games consoles and how they are different to those ones there today and I said "do you realise we are now on the wrong side of a generation gap?" and he was like, "oh, God, yeah we are."

I'm thirty years old now, and I always get depressed about my age. It's like I often think about dating, that if I did start doing it, it just wouldn't really be fun any more (mind you, none of my dating experiences so far could ever in any way be described as fun, more like total nightmares) because I'm probably too old to actually enjoy it. Also, there is so much other stuff that I want to do, like being successful and so on, and life is really short.

Hawk

Last night I was updating my iPod with some music and plays and stuff.

On my way into work I stopped off and renewed my bus pass for another four weeks. It was a really quiet day in the office. In order to solve the problem of pigeons around the building they're using a trained hawk to scare the birds off, so that always creates a real stir whenever the hawk is around.

On the way home I stopped off to vote in the European elections.

I was thinking that it's been a couple of years since I last had any kind of date. I have pretty much given up on it now. I suppose the advantage of not having a romantic life means that I have more time and money for other things. For one thing there's not enough plastic surgery in the world to make me look good! LOL! Seriously though, I think if it ever really was going to happen it would have happened by now. Maybe in the extremely unlikely event of me ever becoming successful, I might have a chance. Then again I've never had any good experiences in my romantic life. So I've pretty much shut the book on it now.

Back to Normal

It's been really quiet for the past couple of days. I didn't go out at all yesterday, and just stayed in on the internet and watching TV. I ended up dropping off on my couch while watching Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (which I think is a pretty funny show). I did manage to write the first poem that I've written in a couple of years.

I had been planning on going out to see Watchmen today, but I didn't get out in time and instead went out to renew my bus pass for another month and look at DVDs. I didn't buy anything though. I don't much like going to the shops unless I am actually going to buy something, but I couldn't really decide and eventually just went back home. On my way back I got some beer as a kind of treat for the evening. However, they didn't have any bags in the shop, and I dropped several of the bottles while I was trying to put the key in my door, but nothing was broken though, and I managed to collect them all.

I'm definitely going to try and make it up to see Watchmen tomorrow. I really want to see that film because I really liked the original graphic novel.

While I was away in Amsterdam I did come to the conclusion that I am probably my own worst enemy in many respects due to my supreme lack of self-confidence and total lack of faith in myself and my own talents, abilities and intelligence (if any).

I also had some really great ideas while I was hanging out in my favourite coffeeshop over there and can't remember a single one of them now.

Team Meeting

It was another quiet evening of writing and watching TV. At the moment I am up to 22,774 words of my NaNoWriMo novel, so that isn't too bad. I wonder what I'll do with it if I finish it. Probably end up losing it somewhere.

It was another average day at work. There was a team meeting this morning, which consisted mainly of us watching a video of the company statistics, they mentioned the possible accomodation move (for the record, the office accomodation move has been on the cards for the past ten years, and they have recently decided that they are going to expand into new premises, but no-one know where, or who is going and who is staying) however, they have apparently got a short-list of places, but didn't want to tell anyone where they were, for fear of prejudicing the lease. This provoked a storm of questions in the office and our team leader, who isn't really involved in the decision making for the higher up managers, was pretty much interrogated by about four people at the same time. I'd pretty much stopped listening to the rumours about the accomodation because they are pretty much unstoppable, and besides people can moan until they're blue in the face and it's not going to change anything. That took about forty-five minutes. I just spent most of the time thinking about other things.

On my way home I bought a sausage supper on my way home, which was quite nice.

It's strange to think that in a little over a month I'll be 30. It's a pretty depressing thought in a way actually, I never did half of the stuff I had actually planned on doing by this time, and time is probably starting to run out.

Red Dwarf

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watching an episode of Red Dwarf, which was pretty funny. Red Dwarf is a British science-fiction sit-com that was quite popular throughout the 1990s. I'd seen it several times before, but it was still pretty entertaining. It was an episode from the sixth season in which the unpleasant Rimmer (Chris Barrie) leaves the rest of the crew trapped on a desintegrating spaceship with a killer robot by running off in the only remaining escape pod. However, he pays the price when he winds up stranded on a remote uninhabited planet, which Rimmer populates with clones of himself who proceed to torment him.

It was another quiet day at work today. I stopped off on my way in to buy the latest copy of Radio Times, which I bought on the way in because I needed some change for the vending machines. I had a phone call from my friend Joe this afternoon asking me if I wanted to go out with him and his brother, Sean, tomorrow evening. Apparently it's the birthday of someone Joe used to work with at a pizza restaurant, where Joe worked part-time a few months ago, and Sean and myself have been invited to tag along. Except for Joe and his brother I don't know anyone who is going, but I am definitely into the idea of going along. I've barely been out much at all the past few months. Going out at night has always been something I've been extremely nervous about, but a couple of years ago I started hanging out with people more and going out, but since I was mugged last November I was really put off going out. Also after a great deal of unpleasantness about six months ago, I really pretty much stopped going out at all. I am extremely nervous because I am seriously out of the habit of socialising, and hanging out. However, I shall attempt it again and hopefully there won't be any drama and I'll get home in one piece.

I had been planning to get some takeout fish and chips for my dinner this evening, but I decided to save my money for tomorrow, and just had a microwave lasagne when I got home.

Summer of Sam

Last night I was watching the film Summer of Sam, a 1999 film directed by Spike Lee, and set in New York City during the summer of 1977. As the city swelters under a record-breaking heatwave, the streets are being stalked by the serial killer known as "Son of Sam". The film focuses on a small Italian-American neighbourhood, in particular the popular hairdresser Vincent (played by John Leguizamo), who enjoys disco-dancing and constantly cheats on his wife (Mira Sorvino), and his friend Ritchie (Adrien Brody), a punk who loves The Who, wears his hair in spikes and sports a fake British accent. Ritchie's outlandish appearance and unconventional lifestyle soon cause tension in the tight-knit neighbourhood community. As the heatwave increases, the crime rate in the city rises and the "Son of Sam" killings continue, causing increased paranoia and tension. It's a very stylishly made film, using a variety of cinematic techniques. Spike Lee has a small role in the film as a TV reporter. I remember very clearly seeing it when it first came out at the cinema.

It was another fairly quiet day at work, as it usually is. On the way into work I happened to see my friend Joe going in the opposite direction. I hadn't seen him around or heard from him for a week or so, but he said it was just because he was very busy, which is fair enough. It'll be fun having a couple of days off at the end of the week. I don't really know what I'll be doing though. I was listening to my iPod at work this afternoon. I was listening to the Juno soundtrack again, which is really great, but I have to remember to get the iPod updated sometime. I keep meaning to but I always forget.

I got home at around quarter to six and made myself a microwaved lasagne for my dinner, with a glass of apple juice. It was quite nice, if not particularly exciting. I ate while watching an episode of The Simpsons.

I've been listening to the original radio series of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy on tape over the past few nights before getting to sleep. It's still really funny, and has aged really well, better than many other comedies. I was actually worried that the tapes wouldn't work, because I hadn't listened to them in years, but so far they work fine.

It's funny but I remember about a year ago when I used to go out drinking quite a lot, and because of various things I don't do it any more, or I do occasionally but not nearly as much as I used to. I actually don't really miss it. Most of the time I actually think I'm better off just staying at home, reading my books and watching TV. Besides, there are various things I'm probably better concentrating on, like my writing and other stuff, also I am still planning on emigrating at some point. I need to work out some kind of plan, especially because I've been feeling slightly down about my thirtieth birthday approaching, in many ways, like there was a stage I wanted to be at in my life by then, and I'm not there yet, and I am worried that soon it might turn out to be too late. maybe one thing I should try to do is relax more, have more fun and not get so stressed out about things.

Some Random Thoughts

Today at work there was an e-mail going around that there was to be another Union meeting tomorrow morning about the pay issue, despite the fact that this year's pay deal has already gone through. The thing is that we're not getting any time credited to attend the meeting, which would mean anyone attending would lose an about an hour at least. I'm not going to go along. I don't want to lose the time. Also, to be honest, I'm getting kind of sick of the thing. They've been doing exactly the same things for the past four years, and never really make any progress. Also everyone is getting absolutely sick of the whole thing, especially after having two strikes inside of one month.

Aside from that it was a fairly quiet day. I was listening to my iPod in the afternoon again and eating extra-strong mints. I like them actually. They are quite refreshing.

The original version of The Omen was on TV last night, but I didn't watch it. I've got it on DVD and I've seen it loads of times before anyway. I was reading an entertaining essay by Harlan Ellison a couple of weeks ago, heavily criticising the level of violence in horror movies of the late '70s and early '80s and The Omen was cited as the main example of gratuitous violence especially one particular scene (which I won't mention in case anyone hasn't seen it).

In our office there are some people who talk endlessly about pretty much anything that comes into their minds, even to complete strangers, or people who have absolutely no interest in what they are talking about. It was sound weird, but I really kind of envy people that can do that. I find it extremely to speak to people one on one, because I get extremely shy and kind of clam up, however I am very good at speaking in public. I just find it really difficult having a conversation, and I often wish I was better at it.

I've been trying to experiment recently in opening up more in this journal and writing more about thoughts, feelings and opinions and so on.

Distorted DVDs

Last night I was watching my new Peep Show DVDs, but halfway through the fifth season DVD the picture was completely wrecked by distortion, which I was really annoyed about.

Later on last night I was watching a 1971 "Hammer Horror" film called Countess Dracula, directed by Peter Sasdy. In seventeenth century Hungary, an elderly countess (played by Ingrid Pitt) discovers that bathing in the blood of young women can temporarily restore her youth and beauty. She ends up becoming a serial killer, murdering countless victims so she can romance a young soldier, by pretending to be her own daughter (who she arranges to have kidnapped by bandits). The film was loosely based on the legends surrounding real life Countess Elizabeth Bathory (the so-called "Blood Countess") who was one of the inspirations for the story of Dracula. Like most of the Hammer Studios films it was very lavishly designed, if on a low-budget. It was quite fun.

I was up quite sharp this morning because, before going to my parent's house (as usual for a Sunday), I went along to the Cameo Cinema with my mum to see a preview of a French film called I've Loved You So Long, directed by Philippe Claudel. The film stars Kristen Scott Thomas as a woman who is released after fifteen years in prison for murder, and moves in with her younger sister and her family, as she tries to start a new life. It's very well-made, if not hugely original, and is very well-acted.

I stopped off afterwards and exchanged the Peep Show DVDs, before heading back to my parent's house. Sunday lunch was chicken, peas, potatoes and white wine sauce, followed by rhubarb and gooseberry crumble. The new issue of Fortean Times (the Journal of Strange Phenomena) had arrived during the week, and it was pretty entertaining. It was warm and dry enough to sit outside, which made a nice change.

When I got home I checked the Peep Show DVDs, and this time there was distortion on the fourth season disc! Luckily it seemed to only be effecting the main menus rather than the episodes, but I won't know until I've checked them all the way through. I was really, really annoyed! It's not the first time I've had to replace Peep Show DVDs, I don't know if there is a problem with the company that manufactures them or something.

One thing I noticed while transcribing my old paper journals onto the computer, is how little things have changed since 1999. If you substitute "college" for "work" it's pretty much exactly the same. Things never really seem to change that much. I suppose they can, but it's very difficult. I've got about thirty-seven volumes of diaries and journals that I've been keeping for about nineteen years. There is probably something very odd about my need to document every aspect of my pointless, dull life.

Ordinary Wednesday

My alarm clock woke me up at my usual time of half past six, and I really did not want to get up, so I ended up falling back asleep and getting up at quarter to eight. I was annoyed at myself because I had wanted to get into work much earlier, than I enventually did (I got in at twenty past nine).It was a very slow day at work, as it usually is. I got out at around twenty past five, so I didn't manage to build up any flexitime, but then I didn't lose any either.

It's interesting that, from where I am sitting, I can see into the back area of the pub next door to the office so it can actually provide a lot of temptation when I'm stuck in working and I can see my friend Joe out at the pub, especially on Friday afternoons.

I'd decided that, before my thirtieth birthday in December, I was going to divide my life as it is now into categories and under each category write down what I am satisfied with and what I am dissatisfied and see if I can note down how to change things and see if I can use ot as a kind of "action plan" thing.

Face From the Past

The unexpected took a hand today at work. I had a text message from Jackie, who is the ex-girlfriend of my friend Joe. I used to be pretty good friends with Jackie until the unpleasantness of a few months ago. For those who missed it this is the situation in a nutshell:

I used to be very good friends with a woman named Michele. I actually had a really big crush on her. She had a boyfriend, and wasn't really intersted in me. Although we were good friends. However I had another friend, Alan, who also had a thing for Michele and became pretty good friends with her at a time when she wasn't talking to me, due to the fact that she had 'added' a defunct profile of mine on the Bebo site, which I had created months before I had ever met her, and had just forgot to delete. Anyway, I wasn't going out for a few months after I was mugged, and Alan kept telling me not to call Michele for months afterwards. Anyway, it turned out that someone had sent Michele's boyfriend's brother an e-mail saying that Michele and Alan were having some kind of affair, but it was sent by someone using a fake e-mail account in my name. In the end, although I had absolutely nothing to do with it, I haven't spoken to Michele since then, and Alan and I glare at each other every time we meet at work. I was left with a lifetime worth of bitterness and hatred of the human race. The way I see it, I have my friends on the interent and otherwise people just destroy you.

I had a couple of drinks with Jackie and a kind of catch-up. I hadn't seen her since January.

The Wackness

After work today I went up to the Cineworld cinema to meet my Mum. The film we saw was The Wackness, directed by Jonathan Levine. The film is set in New York City over the summer of 1994 and tells the story of High School graduate Luke Shapiro (played by Josh Peck) who is enjoying, more or less (mostly less), his last summer before heading off for college. He spends most of his time wandering around the city selling marijuana from a battered old ice-cream cart, which not only allows him to make money, but also to get away from his constantly bickering arents and their increasingly perilous financial situation. His only friend is his psychiatrist Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), an ageing ex-hippy, who allows Luke to pay for his sessions with bags of weed. However, even this precarious friendship is threatened by Luke's infatuation with Squires' step-daughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby). It was a fun movie. It was one of those kind of typically quirky indie rites of passage films about people trying to find connection with people and find some kind of place in the world. Of course, for some people that takes a lot longer than others. I was fifteen in 1994, it still doesn't feel like that long ago. You always hear about the things that people have done by the time they reach such-and-such an age, half of which I've never done and I'm almost thirty already, which is a fact that has been bothering me throughout the past year, which I know probably sounds odd, but I really do feel like life is slipping away, which I know is a topic that I keep coming back to again and again so it probably gets pretty dull, but whatever. I think part of the reason why I like those kinds of movies about people trying to find connection and find some kind of place in the world is because I can really relate to it, like I said earlier, it takes some people a very long time to find themselves, as it were, if they ever do. Also I was a real late starter anyway, which I suppose is what comes of spending most of your teenage years and early twenties watching videos, which I have pretty much gone back to doing now.

I was watching a TV show called Room 101, a comedy chat show in which various celebrities talk about stuff that they hate in the hope of persuading the host to "banish" the items into Room 101 (named after the room which contains the "worst thing in the world" in George Orwell's novel 1984) and the guy was trying to get rid of silent comedy films, which was illustarted with a clip of Charlie Chaplin. I do find silent comedy films funny quite often, but they do seem to be easier to admire rather than really like these days. Of course tastes change really quickly, especially in comedy.

Suspiria

Last night I was watching the film Suspiria, a 1977 horror film directed by Dario Argento. The story, such as it is, revolves around a young American dance student (played by Jessica Harper) who goes to study ballet at a prestigious German dance academy. However on the night she arrives, two students are brutally murdered. As the new student settles in, she notices the mysterious disappearances of a number of other students as well as a range of bizarre happenings, which leads her to investigate the academy and it's dark history of witchcraft and the occult. There is not much story really, and what there is doesn't really make a lot of sense, instead the film is all about it's uniquely surreal and nightmarish atmosphere, utilizing bizarre camera angles and lighting the scenes in garish, vivid primary colours (especially reds, blues and greens), and ear-splitting music from rock band the Goblins (with contributions from Argento himself). The film also features some of Argento's most famous of his trademark gruesome set-pieces. It is probably the best of the Argento films.

I was off work today. Technically there is a strike on today, but I had already taken the time off on annual leave and so I still get paid! I went into Princes Street to meet my mum, who had vouchers for a free breakfast at a French restaurant called Cafe Rouge. It was a continental breakfast which meant a couple of differnet kinds of croissant and some crusty bread, After that we walked along to the Edinburgh Book Festival, where I bought the book Non-Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk. It's a collection of short non-fiction stories, essays and interviews from the weird and wonderful world of Chuck. Then we went to see the author Alan Sillitoe (author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner). It was a really good talk, and very enjoyable.

After that we went along to the National Portrait Gallery to see an exhibition of celebrity portrait photographs from Vanity Fair magazine. Some of them were really good. After the exhibiton we went to a stand-up comedy show by comedian Andy Zaltzman which was really funny. Then we went along and had a prawn sandwich and coffee.

It's weird though but I noticed, and not for the first time, how much less worried mum is about stuff than I am. I worry about: being mugged, money, being murdered, getting beaten up, work, death, failure, my lack of success with women, being humiliated, being laughed at, my shyness, my weird voice, my ugliness, my awkwardness and my stupidity. This is all completely seriously how I think. I even worry that I worry too much. Seriously. A lot of the time I get too nervous to go places or do stuff. Mum doesn't worry about stuff, she even strikes up conversations and make jokes with complete strangers. I said to her, I wish I had her confidence. Sorry that a previously quite cheerful post degenrated into angsty nonsense about the inner workings of my mind, such as it is.

Training Course

It was another quiet night last night. I spent a lot of the time watching repeats of comedy shows. I had another day of the training course today. I managed to leave for the day at half past two in the afternoon so that was good. However, it was raining pretty hard so I just went straight on home. The course has been quite good actually. My job involves recording up legal documents and when I started there (back in May 2003) I was at the very end of the process (sending out the finished documents), currently I've been working at the beginning of the process (recording all the information) and this training course is for like the middle of the process (creating the official records to be sent out). It's quite interestng seeing how it all ties together.

It would actually be really nice to go out, especially with the Festival going on at the moment, but it's been so wet that it's just been better to go home. It's just that when you leave work early it just seems a pity to waste it. The course is on for another week though, so hopefully it will brighten up at some point. It's actually hard to believe that it's already August. The year seems to have passed really quickly.

Quiet Day

Last night was pretty quiet. Today was my third day on the training course at work. As a result I managed to leave work at about five to three. On my way home I went and had a couple of drinks at a bar, which I had always kind of meant to try but never really got round to, despite it being only a couple of blocks from my home.

It was interesting watching The X-Files movie yesterday. I can remember it when it first started. I used to watch ot all the time and I can remember when it became a really big thing in around 1995, because that was a really important time in my life (it was the year I left high school - which I hated - and started college - which I liked). It's hard to believe it was as long ago as that. Something which has really been bugging me for the past few years is the feeling that I'm running out of time. I'm going to be thirty in December which (as my friend Alice said) is my "scary age". I mean Orson Welles was twenty-five when he made Citizen Kane, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain were younger than me when they died. The thing is that when there are things that I want to do, I'm so convinced of my own failure that I don't actually go for them, and I hate myself for feeling that way, which does not help my self-esteem, so it beomes like a circle. Also due to my lack of self-confidence and shyness, not to mention my ugliness and weird voice (in my head I sound like Malcolm McDowell, in reality I sound like someone gargling soup) I have no luck with women, which makes me feel more bitter and depressed. Also I am kind of an idiot (I have done more than a few dumb things in my time).

Actually the whole of that previous paragraph is kind of stupid, I just can't think of anything to post about.

Surprise Movie

I was up at half past seven this morning and had my breakfast of porridge and coffee. I got into work at about half past nine. The seemingly endless pay dispute is hotting up again so there was a lot of talk about that, as well as who is likely to die in the season finale of Doctor Who and whether anyone hadn't heard of the Bee-Gees.

I left work at around half past five and headed up to the Cineworld cinema to see the Surprise Movie at the Film Festival. I was there about forty minutes early so I had time for a bottle of beer before the show. The Surprise Movie was a preview of a comedy film called The Rocker, directed by Paul Cattaneo. The movie opens in 1986 with the drummer in a heavy-metal band being fired just before the band make it famous. Twenty years later, the drummer (played by Rainn Wilson) is working a load of dull, ordinary jobs, while the band have gone on to become huge worldwide superstars. The drummer is still so bitter about this that he freaks out anytime he is reminded of them, which, on the day that the band release their latest album, causes him to lose his job and get thrown out by his girlfriend. So he winds up living with his sister and her family, where he discovers that his teenage nephew is in a band who, reluctantly, allow him to join them as a drummer. The movies also features Christina Applegate and Jeff Garlin (from Curb Your Enthusiasm), and a cameo from Pete Best, who was fired from The Beatles. I enjoyed it a lot. There's not much really original in it, but I thought it was very funny.

Before the film started while people were still coming into the cinema I noticed they were playing the song "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer, which I have on my iPod, and I had actually been listening to at work. It's a song that I really like a lot because it reminds me of a) Rachael Leigh Cook (it was like the theme for her film She's All That) and b) the Summer of 1999, when the song was really big, and I was still at college (I really miss those days a lot because I miss that feeling like my whole life was ahead of me, and during that Summer I was getting interested in different things like writing poetry and so on also we went to New York City on holiday which was great fun).

On my way home I was going to get some take-out but the place was shutting up. I'm going to watch an Imagine... documentary about the author Haruki Murakami.