I’m sure this will come as a surprise to all of no-one, but the time has come to zap this blog with the Hiat-o-Tron.

I find no joy in reading blog posts about other people’s banal lives. As so little of interest has happened¹ in my life of late (well, that can’t be encapsulated in 140 characters or less), I wouldn’t want to subject my 18 readers to the same fate just to maintain the illusion of activity.

In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Twitter (or via this RSS feed, if you don’t use Twitter. You luddite).

¹Showdown, RPS Thinkosium, Thought Bubble & BAF: Game about cover it I think. And even then, I only actually wrote about two of them.

My Plan for Happiness;

Phase 1: Meet girl
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit

Just a shame I’m failing miserably at Phase 1.

One night last week, Sarann said to me “life is boring if you don’t fancy anyone”, and by golly she’s right. I’ve always measured my, ahem, droughts purely on how long I’ve been single (Coming up to 11 months, fact fans). But now I realise there’s more to it than that.

After previous relationships I’ve quickly found someone to at least have a crush on, if not more besides. It’s so much more comforting to imagine what might be, as opposed to dwell on what once was. University was a veritable hot-pot of distractions, but now, well, there’s nothing. Working as a Code Monkey, you can imagine how many females there aren’t in my office (there are maybe 5 in the entire building). Outside of works it’s just as much a sorry state. I could count the new friends¹ I’ve made in the past year on one hand. A hand, I might add, that is devoid of digits².

With no-one to even so much as daydream about, my mind can’t help but dwell. Even more, I miss the thrill of meeting someone new, having someone to at least make an effort for (even if you don’t stand a chance in hell), to actually get excited about seeing.

So what do I do? Sarann continues to talk of cookery classes, which is a sound idea, and frankly I don’t see any other apparent options. Well, except some form of match making service.
…
I jest, of course. It’s not that bad. Yet. Still, if anyone³ feels like setting me up on a, hnnrgh, blind date, be my guest.

¹ Friend, in this instance, being someone who I see/speak to on a regular basis outside of work and in real life.
² Though Rie suggested that, yes, I have made a friend in the form of Matthew. I’m not entirely convinved that helps. But still, being (fake) Uncle Si does bring a smile to my face.
³ Except you, Chris.

An ad for EIDOS spotted in the latest issue of EDGE. The text behind the note says Thief 4, obv, but if further proof is needed;

“Hall of Fame” – Gamespy
“Greatest Games of All Time” and “Ten Best Heroes in Gaming” – Gamespot

All will be revealed on the 11th of May. Don’t mess this up, EIDOS.

The rules:

• Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
• Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
• Post them here for everyone to guess.
• Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
• NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.

1. I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I’d rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH! The Thing (Steve)
2. If anything happens to her, anything at all, I swear to you, I will get very choked up. Honestly, there could be tears. Serenity (Sponge)
3. Aw, crap.
4. How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit? Aliens (Steve)
5. Dodge this. The Matrix (Sponge)
6. Greetings, programs. Tron (Rob)
7. Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This… is my boomstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart’s top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That’s right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It’s got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that? Army of Darkness (Steve)
8. Y’know, this was supposed to be my weekend off, but noooo. You got me out here draggin’ your heavy ass through the burnin’ desert with your dreadlocks stickin’ out the back of my parachute. You gotta come down here with an attitude, actin’ all big and bad… Independence Day (Sponge)
9. Well, to each his own. I chose my path, you chose the way of the hero. And they found you amusing for a while, the people of this city. But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying. In spite of everything you’ve done for them, eventually they will hate you. Why bother? Spider-Man (Pattom, whoever you are . Honestly, was surprised by how many people mistook this for one of the new Batman films.)
10. Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown. Ghostbusters (Steve)
11. You’ve got red on you. Shaun of the Dead (Sponge)
12. This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this. I am not your Queen. 300 (Sponge)
13. Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not bicker and argue over who killed who. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Steve)
14. Oh, no, I always forget to wear deodorant and dance with my boss in a room full of people I work with in a dress with no back. Iron Man (Sponge)
15. [Finally, a throw-away one] KANEDAAAAAAAA! Akira (Rob. Technically, Dan got it first, but he DIDN’T READ THE RULES.)

Anyone who’s spoken to me recently has probably heard me say “that’s on my list” or “god, that’s why I hate being a student”. So, in an effort to avoid revision stress, I decided to compile said list. They’re in no real order. Except No. 1, I hate exams.

1. Exams. ‘nuff said, really.

   Aye, this was never really in question was it?
   

2. Not having a real place of my own. Student housing is always temporary. The prospect of having more than one room is totally alien to me. Every time I go to Ikea, I pine for the day I can pay a proper visit (as opposed to just going to buy a pillow or a posh lamp) and actually buy stuff. Oh, and a cat. I want a cat. I miss Minnie so much, even to this day.

   Ikea is the bane of my existence, And I LOVE it. And while this flat isn’t really *mine*, it is so much better than ruddy student halls. Being able to have guests round and not be entertaining them in my bedroom is a particular joy.

3. Student culture. Nothing but drugs, booze and late night partying. Never really been my thing. I’m aware these things still exist in the real world, but not quite at the same frequency. I imagine spending three years in halls has left me especially bitter about this.

   “Student culture” has been replaced somewhat by white-collar trappings. Trips to the pub tend to be quiet, civilised affairs. Normally because we’re all so gorram exhausted.
   

4. Inconsistency with respect to workload over the year. For someone with my work ethic (i.e. mounting deadlines are the only motivation), a year of Uni looks something like this:
   • 3 months of summer holiday, doing bugger all.
   • 11 weeks of lectures, comprised of 2 weeks of “argh deadlines” work levels and 9 weeks of “dum de dum no deadlines” work levels.
   • 4 weeks of holiday, stressing about upcoming exams (but not revising until the last week).
   • 2 weeks of exams, full of lots and lots of work.
   • Repeat ii-iv.

   My work ethic would be much better suited to a steady stream of work. Plus, it’d make the time off more worthwhile.

   I still have some problems with motivation at work; I’m fine if I’ve got something definite to do, but finding work for myself is a skill I’ve yet to really embrace.

5. Constant assessment, in one form or another from year 6 onwards. So that’s what, 12 years of assessment. Which is, you know, fun.

   The concept of “assessment” at work is such a wholly different beast to the uni mindset. Not down to how much I can remember, just what I can actually produce in a real-world setting.
   
   

6. Learning. Or rather, being taught. I’ve come to understand that these are two very different things. For every good module there are 5 bad ones. And don’t get me started on the state of a final year computing degree at Leeds, module wise.

   I probably learnt more about “Software Development” in my first month at EMIS than in all the SE modules I took throughout uni. As for the final year, well… I honestly can’t remember a darn thing about Knowledge Management, User-Adaptive Systems or Natural Language Processing. Not that I’ve ever had need to, either. Preparing me for the real-world my ass.
   

7. Exams. I really can’t overstate this enough.

   See 1.
   

8. Friends. I know what I’m like. If I don’t see someone on a regular occasion, I drift apart, even if I have them on MSN or Facebook. Which is tragic, really.

   I’ve actually managed to stay surprisingly well in touch with my friends from uni. Lately I’ve been seeing people most weekends and occasionally during the week. I guess it helps that Chris et al live nearby, and Dan is actively leaving the house for social activities these days. Yet to make any new out-of-work friends, but then, where would I have?
   

9. Constant moving. Having to relocate around 6 times a year gets tiring. Especially for someone like me who likes being settled.

   Ahh, being settled. I’ve already blogged about this recently, so I wont say much else here.
   

10. Not having a real Christmas holiday. I may be an atheist, but I still like to spend time with my family over the Christmas holidays. And not being able to relax 100% during this time for the last 6 years wasn’t fun.

    Christmas just gone was the best holiday I’ve had in around 8 years. No joke

So, roll on May 31st, really.

Mmmm, pancakes. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that it was Shrove Tuesday today until I got a text mid-afternoon from Michelle inviting me round this evening for some battery goodness with her and Sarann. Of course, the pancakes themselves lasted ohh, about 10 minutes, but were followed up by a good three hours of chatting.

We spoke of many things (cabbages and kings? No.), social lives, housing matters, relationships, the usual gubbins. I even got to do a little venting, which was actually rather useful, for once. In the past, I’ve vented to Dan and Rob, and their usual responses have been either a “lol” or a “:/”. Which is fair enough, we Men (hah!) aren’t much use when it comes to talking about “feelings” and “emotions”. Here, however, I got some of that fabled female insight in to the whole matter. Perhaps, they suggested, I’ll never get the closure I seek. Or even if I did, it wouldn’t actually help. I should just take what little I got at the time and leave it at that. I can’t live my life stuck in the past. The solution to all this, apparently, is attending an evening cookery class. You kn-

Wait, what?

Well, they presented a convincing argument. Cooking is something I’m not great at (anything beyond throwing stuff in a frying pan has me flummoxed), it’d be something new to do and, most importantly of all, I might meet someone else and actually move on with my life.

That last ones the biggy, really. Hard to move on if there’s nothing to move on to.

Of course, it’s not something I’d ever do on my own, but Michelle and Sarann both seem pretty keen on the idea, so we’ll see I guess.

Still, it was a pleasant night, and certainly made a change to the usual pub meetings. One thing I will say, however; not enough tea was involved. And by not enough, I mean none whatsoever. Honestly, people, this is Britain. We have a reputation to maintain!

It’s the strangest compulsion. I get in from work and all I want to do is crack open a bottle of Coke. I’m not thirsty. If I was, well, I’d much rather be drinking Dr Pepper. Yet that simple action of lifting a Cold One out of the fridge and the resulting satisfaction gleaned from prying off the bottlecap is almost intoxicating. Clearly, that (alco) pop-culture is starting to have an effect, perhaps my brain is trying to tell me something?

I’ve been getting a lot of these specific spam comments recently. I wonder if the intertubes are trying to tell me something.

It occurred to me that I have never really publicised that I use Twitter. I mean, there are plenty of references to it in my various web presences (for example, the box just to your right), but I haven’t explicitly mentioned it. I guess, when I started using it, it was just some little thing on the side. An experiment to supplement this place, if you will. Not to mention it wasn’t cool.

Now however, well, everyone is talking about it; countless mentions on the radio and TV, articles in various tabloids proclaiming it as being pointless (pot, kettle etc) & an invasion of all manner of A to Z list celebs, cult figures, marketing types, presidents and more besides.

I tend to use it an awful lot than this place now, too. Often I’ll have thoughts that I could stretch out to a full entry, but there’s little point when I can plainly post it on my Twitter. I also use it a lot during work when I find/think of something that I would spam MSN/Steam with were I BLOODY ABLE.  Ahem. And unlike Facebook status’ , there’s none of that third person perspective nonsense.

I can be found, funnily enough, here. Until, that is, I get bored and find a new Web 2.0 frontier to brave.

On the surface, it wasn’t the most thrilling of days off. I did some ironing, some hoovering, finally went to the car wash and did the weekly shop (via Subway for lunch with Dan, which was grand. Something I wish we could do more often, if it weren’t for the whole working 10 miles apart). I generally just pottered around the flat, doing the kinds of things I would be doing at the weekend, if I wasn’t so pressed for time (or rather, exhausted). I also discovered just why my flat is so bloody awful at keeping the heat. All the trickle vents on my windows were open. And had been open all of winter. Piffle, nads and darnit indeed. Still, we’re not out of the thick of yet, so closing them should at least make things more bearable for the next couple of months.

The great knock on is that this is now a four-day week, and the next weekend will come even sooner. However, that will then leave me with a week till my project is due, but I don’t think anyone really believes that is going to happen. As for next weekend, well, I’ve no plans yet. Though, if the past few weekends are anything to go by, I shant be stuck for things to do!

As mentioned yesterday, I really do feel much better now, almost as though last week hadn’t even happened. Though this does raise the concern of just how easily my defenses can be shattered, but I guess that’s not likely to happen again for another few months yet, eh? Sometime around April, I wager.