Wowzers

Well, it's been a helluva time since I last posted. If anyone wants to talk, it'd be most welcome...and obviously a blog isn't the best medium for a conversation. Drop me lines, people, and we should get in touch. I won't promise updates in case none happen :D

Freezing bloody cold

Well, it isn't any more, but winter is upon us, huh?

December. Not exactly my favourite time of the year for a number of reasons, but there are events aplenty going on at the moment, so I thought that I'd write a little blog post to air out my little corner of the internet and exercise some mental muscles. I've not written anything of any length in a good long while, and it would do me good to get back into the habit.

Part of the reason I'm on blogger rather than my usual haunts is that WoW:Cataclysm was released today, or perhaps unlocked is a better description. Ordinarily I'd be right in there lapping up some new content, but I guess that since my PC graphics card threw a wobbly at the weekend, and that there are upwards of 5 million people across Europe trying to log in via the same server right now, I'd give it a miss. It's going to be pretty hideous for the next few weeks, and I'm not so totally addicted or dedicated (yet) to have to log in immediately.

Britain has had an inordinate amount of snow this past week, though now almost all of it has gone. At least in the south-east. It were pretty hideous last Weds, I can tell you; having gone down to Brighton the night before, I was greeted by snowy roads the following morning. Or slushy at least. Needs must, so I hopped onto the bike and started making my slow way to work. Not a pleasant journey, with a nice load of wheel spin whilst trying to crawl up a shallow hill, and then even more pant-shitting events as my engine completely shut down in the centre lane of a 3-lane dual carriageway. Eeeks. Luckily I pulled over without collecting anybody (or actually touching my brakes, somehow) and rang in distress for the breakdown people. And luckily we got up to a garage and I'm now in a long queue to get looked at. Suspicion is that owing to improperly treated fluids the carburettors iced up and stopped working, but we will have to see. I'm also replacing my chain and sprockets for the second time in a calendar year, not cheap. But I'd rather not have a dodgy bike.

All of this put together means that my advanced test date has been indefinitely postponed. It was due for Friday 3rd, a day which I actually spent indoors since there was a foot of snow outside and I didn't feel like going out. So keep your fingers crossed for a healthy, throaty bike machine and clement weather, bloggardes. I'm not nervous about riding in rain, or even cold, but the snow has put the shits up me, and I can do without the extra worry.

In other news, I'm distinctly more chubby. I way precisely the same as ever, but it's redistributed from the obvious places to the obvious places, and I feel lardy. But chilly always means more food please, so we might worry about it come April time.

Righto, bath ready. More tomorrow, but I fear my life is a little bit dull at the moment!

November

Welcome to November!

I'm having a bit of a shite time of it at the moment; after a nice weekend break away with P, I seem to have caught something hideous in my eye. Along with that, my eczema has had a huge flare-up on one hand, the like of which has not been seen in many years. This is worrying. The eczema is painfully awful, though I can cope with it, but the eye thing has me rather crapping myself.

I know the state of my vision is nothing so awful - I can still see, still function, though reading is much, much less of a pleasure than in used to be, even with my stylish specs (that I've managed to lose, gawd knows how). I find it tiring to focus on text, which is a bugger if you do enjoy reading. I've taken to relying heavily on my non-herpetic eye which, though no longer perfect, at least doesnt have the ghosting effect of my right eye and I can read text at a ggod rate. If I get scarring on that other retina, it's going to really knock my ability to read on the head, and that's freaky-scary. I know it won't be me going blind, but it will seriously curtail what I can see, and there's not a hope of any kind of non-invasive correction....which basically means my eyesight will be shot until they'd agree to operate once I turn 60-odd. And we're not talking laser surgery, it'd be the full-on hack-open-your-eyeball job. Not pleasant to consider.

In other news, I now have a date for my advanced riding test: 3rd Dec. I'm totally not ready for it at the moment, though there are about 3.5weeks in the meantime to try and sort things out. I'll have to spend some evenings reading up, and get in as much backroad riding as is possible to prep me for it. I've not really been for a long spin since it started getting nippy and darker in the morning - so in the coming weeks I'll have to force myself to get up earlier, leave earlier, and go the back roads. Because I'm certainly not riding them at night, scary.

Had a first play event with new theatre group in Horsham, they're plagued like most groups with lack of ticket sales and not helped by the local council with regards advertising, or the local facillities regards charges for hire. It's a real shame, but it's almost like many local theatre groups are battling the same issues - not being able to breakeven, meaning no money to operate. Unfortunately the costs are a lot higher than they used to be, audiences are no longer there with the recession, and that which is exciting for a group to stage in not exciting for a public to watch (outside of London). This, and also the aging demographic of theatre groups. It's a shame that younger people don't seem to want to take part - or if they do, it's in a musical-framed capacity. I kinda understand that, hopefully it is something that will change though. Good theatre is possible without music. The best theatre moments often lack it entirely. I won't go as far as to agree with Marceau, though.

Enough for now, my fingers are getting a bit sore. At least I have only to listen to things in the morning - training course to attend, no thought required :D

Wake up in the morning, wanting some breakfast....

Cue Vitalite. Actually, I don't think they make that any more, do they? In those round, flat tubs? The world of margarine is very different than in used to be.....

Off to work in a minute to welcome the new guy, and I'm in cubby mode. I think I've basically given up on the full-on headshaving for the time being, it's been a couple of months now and I'm only missing the fresh feeling, rather than the look. I quite like furry Jon-ster, though P thinks I look like a tramp.

Theatre tonight - better learn some lines, hadn't I?

I was going to make a post more recently!

...and how many times have we heard that? :D Seriously though, I had some photos and everything, but I think this story will work just as well by description, and hell, it's good exercise for my brain and fingers to get it down in print.

P and I went out for chinese the other night. Nowt posh, just essentially take-away but without taking-it-away, but in bigger portions and some things slightly more obscure. And the same place serves dim sum on a weekend, just like the place in Southampton I used to frequent did. Even down to the deep-fried prawns served, bizarrely, with the quintessentially asian ingredient of salad cream (strangely tasty in this context). Anyhow, meal over, regulation fortune cookie and hot towel dispensed, nice nice. I crack mine for the fortune 'you will receive a gift you have always wanted'. So far, so typically trite.

P cracked his to obtain the fortune 'British Telecom has made a mistake, you will get a rebate'.

Errrm, whut? This is a remarkably precise prediction for an art form usually mired in indecipherables and inexactitiudes. That a cookie not only knows you have telephone provided by BT, it knows they've buggered up your bill and that the cheque is in the post. Not that this is unlikely - I have many gripes over my BT service at the moment but nothing is likely to change - but still, surpisingly to the point. I did take a picture just to make sure it was real and not a hallucination, but as yet do not have the technology to transfer them (read: my camera battery is flat and I don't have an SD card reader).

It is a pleasant day today, not much happening; big mug of coffee, crumpets and sausage rolls. Shall have to stop with the pastry soon though :-(

I shall love him and cosset him, and call him Brian

There follows a picture of my coffee french press. Oh how are the mighty fallen! Not only do I now make coffee like I live in the 1980s, but I've let it become covered with the lovely green residue of mould. Coffee grounds are noted as being good for compost; clearly they are attractive to microorganisms who have decided to come and live with me. I'm a skank, no two ways about it :D




I've been having a little electrical trouble with my bike recently, something lurking deep within the myriad dirty cables under the seat has decided it doesnt want to play any more and is shorting out the dashboard. So though my engine will start and the bike will run, mechanically fine (though I'm paranoid about all the knocking I 'sense'), I have neither brake lights, nor indicators, nor indeed a working rev counter. My speedo stays dead at 0 mph even though, woah, I'm clearly nipping along the dual carriageway at a fair lick. Honest, officer, the dial said I wasn't breaking the limit.

Work is shaping up fun and interesting, especially now I'm on a new area of project as the first dedicated guy on the job, even more so now there are new people around joining in on it. Always better to be the 'old hand' rather than the young buck, I guess. And somehow in the last 6 months to a year I've randomly managed have 'the knowledge' in my field. Or at least, I don't give a crap if I make mistakes anymore :D

I've also recently found out that I have quite a high level of cholesterol in my blood. Now, despite the fact that this should come as no shock to anyone who has lived with me, or indeed has ever eaten food prepared by me, it was still a little bit disconcerting. Jon-ster is therefore moving away from the delicious red meats he loves so much and is even going to be sacrificing a quantity of cheese-nibbling. Luckily I can pretend pork is white meat, the fattiest of the lot! Clearly in a case of wanting immediately whatever one is denied, I've been thinking about slow-roast belly pork and large pieces of crackling. In fact, sometimes I've though about pork dishes entirely in terms of the sensuous fat which leeches out and soaks sumptuously into my big pile of kraut. I'm hungry again.

Butyraldehyde

Yuck. And I do mean yuck.

In a frivolous attempt to get back to the writing style and tone of several years ago, I'm going to try and not blog about how crap my life is and yada yada, because all it achieves is making me depressive. And this is not a good thing, huh? Let's try and be upbeat and happy and count our blessings for a change.

P's got a new memory foam matresss thing. You know the ones that reshape to your body as you lie on them? Yep, well, it retains heat like nothing else. I'm sure this will be fab in winter when there's less heat about, but at the moment it's very warm despite being a bit shitty weather outside.

Hopefully I'll be starting in a new play, week after next. Have to do the almost nudity thing, again, so the second time I'll be getting my kit off in public. People will start to get the wrong idea. Actually, they probably wont, but there you are. It's quite fun, in fact. Strangely liberating, as they say (not that I'm likely to leap into a lifestyle of naturism anytime soon), especially since it 'isn't me' who's getting naked, no, not anally retentive, wound-up Jon-ster - rather the character, so it's all fine :D