Roundabout chicken

Today's driving lesson was interesting, I've got all the actions down pretty comfortably and was happily holding a conversation and not particularly having think about what I was doing as I swung it around the roundabouts, but I seem to have got a tiny bit too comfortable with the route I'm driving. As I've driven around the business park so much I've got very used to gliding around with very little other traffic, so I've had a couple of times where I've come up to a roundabout a touch too fast and thought SHITOTHERCARSI'VEGOTTASTOP! I've never had to slam on the breaks or anything, but there have been a couple of times where I would've liked to have started breaking a second or two earlier for a smoother stop.
On one roundabout specifically I came up to it at exactly the same speed and distance as a Lotus Elise at the next entrance to my right, I spent so long thinking 'is he gonna stop...?' that I ended up driving straight out onto the roundabout, while he didn't stop he did luckily slow enough to fall in behind me. At first I thought 'Yeah bitch, roundabout chicken with an Elise and I won!' before realizing that you have to give right of way to cars on your right, so I actually just totally cut him up, my bad. But you know, live and learn, definitely learn as two roundabouts later I came up to a roundabout expecting to drive straight across before seeing a massive lorry pulling onto it from my right again, and if I'd done the same thing as with the Elise I probably would've got very intimate with that lorry's grill.
In all it was a good run, I had great practice and really entrenched my skillz, and the slight hiccups gave me good cause to stand back and maintain my focus.

The rally on Dave was interesting, the entire show was an introduction to the teams and drivers, so it didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know and kept it a mystery with how they're going to run the coverage with Monte Carlo next week. The second rate Dave presenter left a lot to be desired, especially after the top notch Sky Sports talent, and if I can expect the same level of quality from the rest of their coverage I think I will be definitely looking to torrents as my main rally provider.
One interesting development it did reveal is that all teams will be using a uniform tyre type provided by Pirelli, meaning no more driver choices making and breaking positions, keeping everyone on the same level. The removal of the anti-puncture system from all tyres is however especially shocking, meaning that what would've been a slight setback before can now knock drivers out of the runnings completely.
It has got me rather excited for the new rally season, less than a week now until the first stages of the 2008 World Rally Championship, and just over eleven months until I'm there watching it first hand at the side of a dirt road in the mountains of Wales, I can't wait for any of it.

Eri and Fio

Friday started with a bit of an adventure, I texted Tosh (guy I work with) to see if we were working as the skies looked rather foreboding, he texted back that we were so I was up and out the door in a few minutes. As I left it started to rain quite heavily, so I set my phone to vibrate as I probably wouldn't be able to hear it with my headphones on and I knew that he'd text again if the plans changed. I walked all the way to the other side of town through the driving rain to their place, and when I was about two minutes from their front door I went to check my phone for the time, as I always do. That's when I found the two text messages, one from my brother and one from Tosh, telling me that we weren't working.
Even though I had to simply turn around on the spot and walk all the way home through the rain I was in extremely high spirits and couldn't help but grin to myself occasionally, I was going to see Nicola later and had got up early leaving an entire day free to do what I want, I just had a feeling it was going to be a brilliant day. In hindsight it doesn't really look good that I'm that exhilarated by getting a day off work, but I had lulz tiems playing Gears with Bertie before we joined Andrew and Sam on CoD, I then spent a relaxing evening with Nicola making it an all round great day.

Yesterday was slammin' at Andrew's place. Me, Lofty and Sam all took around our 360s and various monitors for some Call of Duty action, which was a laugh with a trip into town for pizza and a visit to the wife at work at midday.
I showed Andrew the demo for Metal Slug 3 while I was at his place, he was impressed enough to buy it straight off and when I got home I bought 500 points and did the same. I then sat up for quite a while playing through the entire game, I've never been any good at Run And Gun games, but I absolutely love the style and can't wait to play it co-op. I've also been looking for a game I can jump into and mindlessly blast away on when I'm bored, so a definite victory all round.

I finished reading Syrup last night and can happily say it was an absolutely excellent book, I don't think I quite enjoyed it as much as Jennifer Government, but it was fantastic Max Barry all the way through none the less. I'll be ordering his third novel Company soon enough, but not before I've read Lolita and The Wasp Factory, the first of which I will be ordering immedately.

Random fact: Of the sixty blog posts of '07, their accumulative total comes to twenty nine thousand eight hundred and forty one words.

God bless the Allied States of America

And god bless pirates. Not the seaborne kind mind you, I hate them second only to clowns. I mean the internetters kind, as if I didn't have enough reasons to love them already, they just decide to go ahead and leak the first three episodes of Jericho, booyah!
I watched the first and it was such a return to what I knew and loved that I just had to watch the other two the same day. Unfortunately this does mean that I will have to wait not only the month before they are aired on TV in the States, but the three weeks beyond that to the fourth episode, but I regret nothing, it was totally worth it.
I think Lost is due to start any day now, so that should keep me going quite happily. Not that I don't have remarkable patience anyway.

Window cleaning wasn't so bad today, I didn't have to contend with the rain at all and it was a perfectly comfortable temperature all throughout the day. Although I am still seriously concerned with my speed, I just don't know if this is a job I'll ever suit.
Cleaning the windows of the rich was an experience though, many of them had more glass in the windows of a single room than all the windows on my entire house combined, and some of them were double glazed, which can cost ten grand just for that luxury. One old richfag came out into the garden with his richfag friend and joked about it being like a conference with so many people around, like any of us peasants could relate to that scorcher of a joke. He then started talking about how his wife went to the top floor of the building she works in for the first time today, and his friend commented on how he usually only ever sees the floors he works on, that's certainly a nice thought for me, about how his wife is exploring the novelties of her high-rise while I drag myself back to my hovel and prop up my sheets of corrugated tin to shelter from the rain every night.

I did find out one absolutely blinding piece of news on the way to work though, courtesy of an advert on the bus shelter at the bottom of the large bridge heading into town to be precise, it turns out Dave will be covering the WRC for an hour from 6pm this Sunday and every following Sunday!
As awesome as that is, I'm not quite sure how that will work, I think it sounds like an hour to cover the three days of a stage which they will repeat every Sunday until the next one. So even though I might actually stick with my sources it is still good that it's getting coverage people can tune into, people like Andrew who will hopefully get into it and come along to the '08 Wales stage of the WRC.

Got home to some epic gaming today, Bertie has sorted out his Live shenanigans and is tearing it up online, we hit the Call of Duty and Gears for a while and are planning on getting the clan together for some larger scale CoD at 2300 hours tonight.
Yeah man, it's gonna be like totally radical, dude.

Cold feet from cold hands

I saved the galaxy on Mass Effect last night, much of the ending was truly epic and at one point I even found myself grinning broadly as I held my fist in front of me and manly tears welled in my eyes, certainly very reminiscent of Gurren Lagann.
I have already created the second character for my next run through, who will set out as a biotic using renegade. My first character was a soldier and almost entirely paragon, even though I dealt with each situation as I thought best, which just goes to show how nice a guy I am.

Even though there were intermittent light showers today I started my next job as a window cleaner, which is surprisingly far more difficult than one would assume, not aided by the fact my brother decided to tell the guys I was a gay Jew before I started.
The people are cool enough, I would be working with my brother for much of it and the pay is more than generous once you settle into the job. But I don't know if I will be sticking with it for very long though, even though I never had any intention of doing it for particularly long I don't know if I can even cope with it that much, clambering around in bushes and getting intimate with cold wet cloths all day long was not particularly enjoyable, not to mention that my meticulousness slows me down to an absurd degree. As much as it does make the warm confines of the warehouse a fond memory, it is however good money and short hours, so it's not so bad when I think of how it is bringing my Silvia closer to becoming a reality.
I fear some of my recollection of the experience might be a bit rose tinted, as I did get home from work with Nicola and could collapse on my bed with her, which was intensely relaxing and the perfect way to wind down. I won't be doing that every day though, so I'll see how I go when all I have to welcome me home is my cat and thirty two thousand cubic feet of stale air.

Running on empty

My week of fun and frivolity comes to an end on a bit of a downer, despite the weekend having a pretty good outline.
Yesterday I hit town with Paul to buy his Xbox 360, indoctrinating him into the collective, with the rest of the day focusing on plenty of killer Forza, Call of Duty and Halo multiplayer. It's always a great laugh with the lads and is now only missing Bertie, who while recently having bought a 360 Elite has not got online, capital waste.
Today had a pretty decent driving lesson, I'm getting rather slick with my driving and will be looking to take on new more heavily congested areas soon. While my driving still is of course not perfect I definitely feel as if I am progressing well, motivating me to look at booking my theory exam as soon as possible, especially as I hear the wait can take up to two months.
While that's all well and good and I can't help but feel a bit bummed out as I haven't got to see Nicola properly for a while, even though I've had the week off, she's had an influx of work and coursework keeping her plenty busy. Plan is to see her tomorrow though, finally, I just hope this job with my brother goes ok and I get back in time.

Does duty end

I ended up managing to convince the extended family to go to Wagamama on Tuesday night, even after much initial skepticism from my mother regarding the quality of the restaurant, she actually compared it to McDonald's at one point. I showed her up for that once we were there and received constant praise from my aunt for my taste. It was quite different from the branch in Leicester Square I usually go to, in that the London branch is one floor down giving it a very enclosed and cosey atmosphere, whereas the St. Albans branch is walled on two sides by ceiling to floor windows.
I actually unknowingly sat down next to Lacey Turner when I got there, who I immediately dismissed as a random slightly chavvy girl, only after she left was it pointed out that she was the young actress that plays Stacey from Eastenders.

I finished reading the epic Only In Death the night after that, it had a simply fantastic ending that explained everything more conclusively and satisfactorily than I could have ever possibly imagined.
I started reading Syrup last night, and what a book it is. Max Barry strikes again, strikes with the fist of an angry god, and if things continue the way they are I will undoubtedly be buying Company -his third novel- in short notice.

I went to Andrew's place last night to watch A Scanner Darkly. I'd been quite interested in seeing this film after having read another of Philip K. Dick's novels, Neuromancer, of which the sequel to is still sitting on my bookshelf ready to read. The overall story was alright, while it held a definite direction and leaves me without any massive criticisms, it also didn't particularly thrill me.
The style was interesting, as the film was rotoscoped reminding me very much of Waking Life, a rather impressive film that Haku linked me to a few months ago. While it is pretty to look at and certainly a break from the norm, it feels as if confuses things slightly, making the film harder to follow and unnecessarily difficult.
Enjoyable enough in the end, recommendable to anyone that is either a particular fan of rotoscoping or simply finds the plot intriguing.

Shoubu!

I was set to start some new work with my brother this week, but because a few coworkers were off with this bug that's been going around and the locations they're working at this week, it was decided that it would be better if I started next week. So that leaves me with a free week to waste, hurray.

4chan liked me to a website with quite a few games available for direct download, I wasn't too bothered with any of them until I saw the absolutely awesome Big Bang Beat. I got straight on downloading it and sat back to happily play some CoD4 with Neil as the phatpipe worked its magic, the unfortunate and incredibly annoying thing is that my wired 360 controller is once again failing to register on the XBCD driver I downloaded for it. Long ago when it first did this I went through absolute hell to get it working, it's such heartbreak that the game I've been wanting to play for so long is fully installed on my machine, yet I simply cannot play it.

One thing that makes up for it is the package I received from my uncle this morning, his mail-delayed Wintersday present is the fourth volume of the Genshiken manga, quite the result.

Fan mail

Thursday night was rather epic as I sat in my bed reading Only In Death, the eleventh novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series. The fourteenth chapter specifically was absolutely brilliant, and easily managed to reduced me to tears. I do often find a tear or two in my eye when watching or reading a particularly dramatic scene of sufficient quality, yet saddening events that affect me in real life seem to leave nothing but a depressing emotional void. But this chapter in particular brought many tears streaming down my face, manly tears I might add. I used this as motivation to finally send an email to Dan Abnett, something I have been meaning to do for years, just to tell him how much I love the books and how much of an inspiration he has been to me. I sat down the next day and began composing my email, which in the end came to 707 words, and then today I received my reply. It was only a single line of three very short sentences, but I'm just glad he read my email and was appreciative of what I had to say.
This is the second author I have written to, the first being Max Barry after having read Jennifer Government, and when I have finished Only In Death I plan to read Syrup, another of his novels of which I am highly anticipating. I think more people should write to authors whose work they have enjoyed, it is always nice to hear your work is appreciated, and if you convey it in a mature and sincere manner I'm sure it would be better than most of the "Oh my god your book is the best book in the whole entire world ever I want your babies marry me!" that many authors will no doubt receive.

I was planning on going to see the film Sweeney Todd with Nicola tomorrow, as the trailers looked pretty damn good. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and even Sacha Baron Cohen make a up pretty fantastic leading cast. All the trailers lauded its release this Christmas, and I had read some comments on it floating around the internet, unfortunately they were all from Amerifags, and us Britfags have to wait until the end of the month to view the film.
At that point I considered going to St. Albans, a town not far away that is home to the closest Wagamama restaurant, which is a very successful chain of exquisite Japanese restaurants, and I always make sure to dine in the Leicester Square branch every time I go into London. Yet the lack of train lines to St. Albans quickly dashed that prospect, although I will make absolutely sure that will be our destination the first time I go for a drive with Nicola after securing my driving licence.
So our plans for tomorrow are to stay at home and watch Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, as she amazingly hasn't seen it! Needless to say I very much look forward to rectifying this atrocity.

I've still got the jones for roads. I bought the latest issue of Redline and ordered volume 7 of Initial D today, in between bouts of Forza 2, and tomorrow I'll be going for an early driving lesson. I can say I certainly haven't had as many driving lessons as I would've liked, the Christmas period was supposed to get quite a few in as my Dad was off work, but over the last three weeks I have only had one. Still, time flies and I'm sure I'll be drifting around semi-abandoned industrial estates in my Silvia before you know it.

I also ordered the fourth volume of the Gunslinger Girl manga today. Last time I checked I had the third and final volume, but 4chan illuminated me to the existence of nine volumes, six of which have been translated by ADV. I remember back when I hadn't really watched any anime or read any manga my brother (who originally introduced me to the style with the groundbreaking Akira) downloaded some of the anime, although it was subbed in Italian I could still enjoy the awesome intro, featuring some pretty sweet music from The Delgados. The anime's alright, but the manga'll only really do for me.

In other revelations Jericho has finally had a second series officially confirmed! I love Jericho with a burning passion and absolutely can't wait for it to pick up from the positively bed wettingly kick ass end to the first series.
It's one of those American series along the same lines of Lost, Prison Break, Heroes and Dexter, but even with an unknown cast and very stringent budget it still manages to set itself apart as something really special. It's a tragic shame that because of this lacking budget it is sorely overlooked by marauding masses that would maim and blind their own mother just to touch a piece of toilet paper used by Matthew Fox. Sorry, I just love Jericho, it has solidly added itself to the list of things to look forward to in 2008. I think I actually had a tiny little orgasm when I watched the preview video on the website for the first time, because it was something I really had to watch again.
I did however hear many months ago that the second series was initially only getting about eight episodes to 'see how it goes' in the ratings, which you can read as having eight episodes to give it an ending and shut up all the internutters that have been petitioning for the series' return, I can only hope that the outstanding efforts of the fans will be completely rewarding. But either way, confirmed is confirmed and I can be happy that I will be seeing more.

Non-rapid eye movement

Mass Effect became my life for Tuesday and Wednesday, I got up between 1 and 2pm and went to bed at about 4am, during the hours of consciousness I would do little other than play ME and eat. Thankfully due to my new desk setup I could use the computer at the same time, this probably even aided my immersion as I didn't have to choose one or the other. In a week of owning the game I have already clocked up over 25 hours of game time, and that is along with completing Call of Duty 4 on the third of four difficulty settings, doing family stuff and seeing my girlfriend.
Its hold on me was only broken with my return to work at the warehouse today, which also crashed into my sleeping pattern like Halley's Comet. I made sure I was going to get to bed early as I always do for work, so when the chronograph reached 2100 hours I started to finish what I was doing on Mass Effect, naturally it was midnight before that task was completed, I then continued reading the fantastic Only In Death until half past 1. I then laid in bed awake until 4:30, at which point I finally fell asleep, giving me a grand total of three hours sleep. Fortunately the warehouse has only seemed to physically exhaust me, and I remain as mentally alert as a police officer in Brixton. It seems I have been too lax on my Ninja training regime as my legs ache dearly, and I am not particularly looking forward to straining them again tomorrow. Although it was nice to see everyone at the warehouse again, the merry band of characters that they are. And I was the only temp back today, with some of the full timers on holiday too, so it was very quiet and felt like working a weekend.
Either way tomorrow will be my last day for the foreseeable future, and possibly permanently, as next week I start working with my brother.

Pills from Ruth

It's the the year 2008, kids! And what a year it could be, I've got a good feeling about the year of the rat, a gut feeling, a whisper from my ghost, a blessing from the Emperor.
Hopefully I'll be driving before too long and that alone will open up a whole new world of adventures for me, all of which will ideally be adequately funded by a stable job. With wheels and money I will be a very content young man, and that's hardly setting my goals too high. 12 months ago my new year's resolution was to not die, and I did pretty well at that so I think this year I could kick it up a notch.
So far my overall plans are thus; get a driving licence, get a stable job, don't lose Nicola. This will be the first year of my life (or my life that I care to recall) where I haven't had to worry about homework or tests, not that I ever did really, so I shouldn't find it too hard to dedicate myself to those three goals. Maybe at the turn of 2009 I will even be able to review my successes or failures in those tasks right here at the Commissariat, or maybe I'll be getting frostbite in Siberia after being conscripted into the coalition forces waging a costly ground war against the east in World War 3, ahh the possibilities.

More recently I went to see I Am Legend at the cinema, very good film, although I desperately wish I had read the book first, but now the film has ruined it for me forever. Not to say that it is anything as trivial as knowing the plot, like with Battle Royale when I read a book after having seen the film I just find myself trying to remember each bit from the film the whole way through, which is not at all enjoyable.
The film was cool, anyway. Will Smith put on a damn good show, regardless of it being the same character he always plays. And the directing, while not being anything spectacular, was faultless.
One of the main things I enjoyed about the film was how you could clearly see that it had been adapted from a novel, successfully, as opposed to Northern Lights which is an entirely different ballgame. It felt utterly devoid of all the same bullshit straight-out-of-film-school directing techniques you get laden with from all other 'blockbuster hits' and the film didn't pander to the audience with specific stereotypical scenes, despite being heavily modified from what I know of the original plot to provide a happier ending.
Good film, if you don't care for reading I would recommend watching it.