Congratulations

Congratulations go to my missus who has just been offered a new job. Best news of all is that after a six month trial period she’ll be earning more than me. Now where did I put that draft resignation letter…

Add comment September 30th, 2003

Yet more dreams

I came up with a cracker of a joke this morning. I was very proud of myself…

Have you heard that Gareth Gates is going to re-market himself as a rap star? He’s going to call himself ememem.

Anyway, now that the tumbleweeds have been chased out of the room, I can report on my latest weird dream nonsense. I really must get a firm matress and a soft pillow - it’s the perfect combination for disrupted sleeping, a stiff neck and most importantly - remembered dreams.

This time the dream was a bit like the matrix in that I was running about in a long black coat and doing cool stuff in bullet time. I can’t remember what the cool stuff was but I had the power to slow time and so did lots of others who were all trying to perfect their skills and become the ultimate cool dude or something.

To pass as the ultimate cool dude you had to run right to the top of a very tall, disused roller-coaster. The problem was that the top of the roller-coaster was vertically steep and made of teflon. This made it very hard to cling on to, and slowing time was of no help.

At the top of the roller-coaster was Uma Thurman in a short skirt dressed very colourfully in pinks and oranges. If you reached her then you knew you had made it.

The next part of the dream was in an underground bunker where people who had made it go. I can’t remember how I got to the top of the roller-coaster, but I did do it. I’m disappointed that I can’t remember that part because it really was a very short skirt and I’m sure she had leather boots on too.

Anyway, in the bunker I was shown around. They were making a lot of strange gadgets like prosthetic limbs that did sinister things. I remember feeling like there was a big choice to be made. Do I stay in the bunker and help these guys who I felt like were the baddies, or do I leave and stay a good guy? Then I woke up.

Add comment September 30th, 2003

He seemed to say

Sometimes a picture seems to say something. This one seems to be saying…

Add comment September 29th, 2003

Last train

Friday night was a works night out to celebrate the 40th birthday of a colleague. It was also my first night out as a non-city-dweller since I left my parents house all those years ago.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt the pain of once again relying on the last train home. Leaving before midnight was a depressing experience. We have a plan though - the missus is going to get a job that pays lots of cash and then we’ll be able to afford the taxi boundary charges. It’s foolproof.

I went up to the new house on Sunday under the flimsy pretext of needing to measure the garden for a fence. We don’t actually get the keys until Friday. As it turned out the existing fence was fine, but it did give me the opportunity to peer into the shed and get excited about the prospect of filling it with tools with which to make things out of wood.

Curiously, the appeal of this, and the words ‘I could get into gardening’ coming out of my wife’s mouth didn’t worry me. I did worry that it wasn’t worrying me though. Maybe we’re too old for late-nights out in Glasgow. Shit, now I am worried.

Add comment September 29th, 2003

Need to know

It’s strange where conversations wander to on a Friday afternoon pub lunch. Today’s main topic: What do you do with your hands when you’re getting a blow job? It’s an important question, and frankly we need to know the answer.

Add comment September 26th, 2003

Weirder dreams

I never usually remember my dreams. I sometimes go through phases of crazed dreaming though and I think that I must be enjoying such a phase at the moment. Not quite as extreme as Alex but they are at least extremely odd.

Last night’s was one such oddity. It was in the form of a documentary, nostalgically looking back at a long-running comedy gameshow. I forget what the gameshow was called, but the dream featured the first episode of the show in its entirety, which was hosted by the cast of Monty Python.

Graham Chapman was lying face-up on a wooden block in front of a castle. It looked like a scene from the Holy Grail. Someone had a bucket of mud and a ladel and was roughly splattering ladels of the stuff into his mouth as the rest of the pythons looked on with shamed, sad, helpless faces.

He had to swallow the mud and shout out a two-word insult. I think the point of the game was to be as inventive as possible in your insults without repeating yourself. It went something like…

(splat), (gulp)
Graham: Incontinent bastard!
(splat), (gulp)
Graham: Malformed dumpling!
(splat), (gulp)
Graham: Useless dog!

This lasted for the duration of the show. It then cut to the current version of the show, which was still based on insults but was in a sleek black and purple studio, presented by Sarah Cox.

In this version of the show, one contestant had to write insults onto little purple jelly-beans and throw them at another contestant, who had to dodge the beans. It was during an interview with Sarah Cox about the show that she revealed that she had her own secret stash of insult beans that no-one must know about.

Suddenly, the presenter of the documentary spied the little pile of beans in the corner of the studio and ran to get them before Sarah could stop him. The beans had insults on them intended for one of Sarah’s ex-lovers. It was when the presenter started hurling the insult beans at Sarah that I woke up.

Add comment September 26th, 2003

Italian Job

Cut to Hollywood, where a young scriptwriter is eagerly pitching his first film idea.

Writer: It’s a film about a heist, except one of the team does a runner with the gold. The rest of the film is all about them trying to steal it back. It’ll be a big car chase through LA, it’ll be ace!

Boss-dude: Hmmm. Doesn’t sound particularly original. Can’t really see this one packing them in, to be honest.

Boss-dude#2: Yeah, there’s nothing there that hasn’t been done a million times since the Italian Job in 1969.

Writer: But.. but.. it’ll be ace!

Boss-dude: Pity we couldn’t just call it the Italian Job. Then people might go to see it. (Chuckles)

Boss-dude#2: (Devious thinking face) Hey, wait a second - why don’t we do that? People will think it’s a remake and go to see it just to compare it to the original!

Boss-dude: But the story’s only slightly similar.

Boss-dude#2: So what? We call the main character Charlie Croker, put in some minis and work in something about a traffic jam. It’ll be ace! In fact, it’ll probably work in our favour if we claim to have a totally different story, despite also claiming it’s a remake.

Boss-dude: Wow, maybe mini would give us a load of money too! We could shoot it like a commercial. But who would star in this? Remakes aren’t exactly good for an actor’s career. We’d be lucky to get that bloke off the kit-kat advert who talks about salmon.

Boss-dude#2: Mark Walberg and Donald Sutherland - they’re always up for a remake.

All: Wow, this’ll be ace!

Well that’s what I thought about it anyway. Overheard coming out of the cinema was a pair of friends commenting to each other, “Well that was very average, but it had to be watched. Just to compare it to the original, y’know?”

I’d call them mugs, but that would make me a hypocrite.

Also overheard going into the cinema, “Excuse me, will there be a break half-way through the film?” said a middle aged woman who obviously hadn’t been to the movies in quite some time. She’ll be devastated when she finds out the cartoon is missing too.

If you’re thinking about going to see the Italian Job, go see Cypher instead. It’s disjointed, but beautifully stylised and ambitious. Like a Philip K Dick-based film without the Philip K Dick.

Add comment September 25th, 2003

Gun Tactyx

I’ve been awffy geeky lately. Recently I discovered the joys of Source Forge and its CVS repository treasure trove of lovely open source applications. It’s put me in the frame of mind to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and that is wrap up my message board into some kind of installable package and release it to the world. I am of course stumped by the most important point of all - what should I call it?

First idea was ‘flow’, because it’s short and snappy. It also sounds a bit cheesy.

Unfortunately I’ve also been stumped by the second obstacle - giving up time writing code for Gun Tactyx (via Alex)

It’s a programming game, where you have to supply the AI code for a robot army, who have to destroy another robot army. The enemy army could have AI code supplied by your mate in some kind of geek programming super-war.

My team, the ‘ninjas’ have a complex algorithm incorporating wall-avoidance, chief robot guarding, pathfinding, grouping and spacial awareness. They are smart enough to call for help when injured and will run back to base when threatened. In fact, they are so intelligent that they realise what danger they are in and the whole thing amounts to a bunch of robots hiding in a corner, waiting to be executed by the opposition.

At least they don’t shoot each other any more while they do it. Fine-tuning is required.

Add comment September 24th, 2003

Weird dreams

For some reason, sleeping in a different bed causes me to have strange dreams. Normally in my own bed I never remember my dreams. Perhaps it’s because the pillows keep falling off the end of my current bed and waking me up at 5:30 busting for a piss and wheezing at the feather duvet. Actually, I’m certain that’s the reason.

Whatever - this mornings dream was weird and disturbingly lucid.

The world’s tallest building had just been completed and the press were invited to the opening. The building was unusual in that it curved as it reached skyward, and the top was taken from the front of an old jumbo jet.

The dream had the viewpoint of looking down on the building, onto the nose of the plane. It transpired that two TV journalists were inside a specially added pod on an arm which was added to the building so that the press could get a good angle. It really was very very tall - proper vertigo stuff.

I remember feeling disturbed that there was a kite being flown above the building, presumably by someone standing on top of the pod. The kite was in the form of a big yellow aeroplane wing, and it was very windy. They were probably up there struggling not to be blown away.

The TV broadcast was on, but the journalists hadn’t realised and their words were being transmitted without their knowledge. They were confiding in each other about being absolutely shit-scared of being in the pod, of the vertigo, and of the shoddy, cheap construction of both the pod and the top part of the building.

It was when the aeroplane part of the building began to break away and start its long fall to earth that I woke up.

Add comment September 24th, 2003

Property Magnate

So far moving house has been going according to plan, and I am the proud owner of a one-bedroom flat in Glasgow and a two-bedroom semi in Neilston. The bitter irony is that the moving in date for the house is such that me and the missus are homeless until we get our hands on those keys.

Unfortunately this means a month of staying at my granny-in-law’s in East Kilbride, the town of my childhood. Patience is wearing thin, but only 10 nights to go.

Meanwhile in the flat, which has been rented out, the curtains have been changed in the bedroom. I’m not a stalker or anything - I have to drive past the flat on the way in to work, which lets me notice these things. I know I can’t really complain - it’s not my home any more - but dammit those were my curtains. They’d better not have moved the little sticky fishes on the bathroom wall though, or eviction notices will be posted.

Add comment September 23rd, 2003