I keep getting flashbacks to that time and those places, struggling to try and comprehend just what it was and how it changed me.

So far this is the closest I can come, Borrowed from Hunter S. Thompson

"Maybe it meant something, maybe not, in the long run...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memoriescan touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. whatever it meant..."

Current Location: on tenderhooks
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: tangled up in blue

Just found my old siggy from the bronze (in a file titled "Netiquet" for some unknown reason that made it near impossible to find, hidden in the godforsaken western spiral arm of the c drive of a forgotten PC.

My god was I a self important, pretentious dick.

The quotes are still funny, but the "Prose" before and after is cringingly bad.

I unreservedly appologise to subjecting you all to it.

Current Location: Sofa (so good)
Current Mood: embarrassed
Current Music: Sheena is a punk rocker (if the Ipod ever finnishes updating

Being the miserable bastard I am I've not posted anything on here in ages. But as I was reading Shiraz's lJ over her shoulder I saw the Bronze 10 year reunion link....and most surprisingly of all my name in Mrs Beasleys siggy.

WTF???????????????

At best I was an annoying get, and at best comic relief yet I was apparently memorable to someone for some reason.

In many ways I feel bad that I let so many people pass out of my life due to not bothering to stay in contact with them. does that make me a bad person???No it doesnt. Will I regret it later, most likely.

In summary If I dont contact you as often as I should I'm sorry. I still like you now as much as I ever did, If I diddnt you would know, I'm simply really really bad at human interaction. Blame the girls I went to school with, they screwed me up in many many ways that I'm still figuring out, The rest is my parents fault. SO really I'm the victim here, and I need a hug.

Current Location: Underneath the sky
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Up to me (Bob Dylan)

In the year 2007 I resolve to: Become one with my inner sociopath. Get your resolution here.

Current Mood: curious

This is traditionally a time for resolutions, for changing a part of your life for the better.....well I've never been traditional, so instead of giving something up I'm going to try and deepen one of my (many) compulsions.

I love books. Especially used books. The texture, the smell, the weird things you find that were long forgotten bookmarks, love them.

and this is where you come in. I want you to reccomend a book for me to read.

recently I've fallen into a bad pattern of not bothering to find new authors (and by new I mean new to me, not new to the literrary world) so tell me what to read and I will.

Current Location: 2007
Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: Beautiful world : Colin Hill

Last week I got called into my boss' office and warned about accessing forbidden websites from my works PC.

Now this came as a shock as whilst I do waste a lot of my day online I dont go any dubious websites. I asked her for a list of these sites (to try and work out what was going on) and discovered one banned site I'd tried to access, and several links to pics.

Dealing with the links first, I worked out they are all images in peoples sigs from a football chat site I use. None are explicit images, but do feature women in various stages of undress (I believe the websites rule is no nipples) Now why these image links appear on a list of sites I've visited I dont know. I've viewed a webpage that there on, but not visited the host site...nor would I attempt to view www.animatedboobs.com from work..that would be idiotic.

So I'm mildly annoyed at that, but if I cant view that football fansite from work thats no big deal. But my problem is the banned site I tried to visit.

www.cybercandy.com

Looks dodgy doesnt it. Cyber (as we all know) essentially means dodgy, dirty or grubby and candy surely means sex right? Right? erm nope wrong. It's actually a sweet shop based in Brighton that imports sweets (Candy) from the US and around the world. I went on there to check the status of my order for Doublestuff Oreos.

So my dilemma is, do I contact HR and point out that I've not actually tried to view any dodgy sites from work, and that I understand there policy and wont use the football site anymore....or just keep my head down and wait for it to all blow over.

I dont really want to draw attention to myself, but I fear that if I can get a warning for not really doing anything wrong I could do so again and run into disaplinary action.

So what do you think? Help me obi-wan your my only hope.

Current Location: under a cloud
Current Mood: pissed off
Current Music: Kakapoo

Spent almost all of my spare time this week completing the option file for my website.

For those of you who dont know what that means I'll try and explain it.

Konami release a football (soccer) game each year, and the website I run is closely affiliated with them (But far enough removed as to not be legally linkable)we enjoy a very good partnership. They give us inside knowledge and free stuff, and we help boost the numbers of units sold by increasing the reality of the product, Suggesting improvements and playtesting the finnished products.

So what I've spent the last couple of months working on is the games option file. This is held in the consoles memory and essentially tells everything what it is. From Shirt colours to Stadiums.

Now everything is licensable these days, but not every license can be acquired. Electronic Arts signed an exclusive deal with the FA premiership for use of its teams, emblems and logos. This meant that Konami couldnt buy the licenses. And thats where We come in. The teams in teh game are named geographically (North east London, Manchester Blue etc) So me and my team painstaicingly go there and correct everything. It takes a hell of a long time, and the research required is mind blowing. But when it's all done it's a remarkable thing.

Last October we released a file for the PC, PS2 and Xbox consoles. In under a week we had 50,000 downloads, and by the time we were threatened with legal action the number was over 100,000 worldwide.

Oh yeah the legal action.

Now we diddnt charge anything for people to download this file. it was done essentially because WE wanted an accurate game, so we shared it with the general public for free (Unlike the people on Ebay who sell inferiour files for £5-10 and yet dont get hassled by anyone) But when your doing the quality of work we do, you get noticed, and a few console magazines reccomended our file...which meant that someone at the FA got told to look at us. Long story short we no longer include any of the FA's copywritten material in our files.

That took longer than I thought to explain. And it's dull too. AH well, back to my point.

I finnished the file late Wednesday and released it. What I diddnt know was that this year Konami have released a different version of the game in all the european markets, so there are French, Italian, German, Spanish and UK versions, and I have an inbox that looks like the UN.

It's all sorted now (Thank god) and my German / Spanish / Italian is slightly better.

As I said before, we dont charge for this service, but we did stick a paypal link on the explanation posted on the website, saying "If you like this, you can make a donation here" I split the cash between my team and Bought myself a Sony PSP with my share last year.

This year were getting way less, but so far So good.

Current Location: Behind a PC, to the right of a second and under a third
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Lucky 13

In a word, working.

Made some breakthroughs at work about the oxidation process' of Diesel and Biodiesel, sadley theyve left us even more confused then when we started. I'm pretty confident I can crack this project (given the time) but it's more challenging than I initially thought (damn my good looking arrogance)

Outside that I've been inputting data to make the PES 6 option file. Finally got the finnished game today, and not a moment too soon as the official release date is next thursday. Got the file in beta testing now, and my teams already turned up a whole host of errors to correct, so there goes my sunday.

I decided at the outset of all this not to discuss Football on here as it'll bore the pants off people, so suffice to say I watched Spurs play Besiktas on Thursday and was very happy with the performance.

Off to see my parents and sister tomorow back home in Leeds, first real visit back since I moved and it all seems a little weird. I'll report back at a later date.

Current Location: Moonlighting on another PC
Current Mood: curious
Current Music: If you want blood

Last night one of our uplighters blew up in a shower of sparks (ok theres some dramatic license there...it went phhhhhhheeeeetttttt and sparked a bit) long story short it's kaputski. So I made the trek to the local Argos and we know have a pair of chrome and glass dimmable uplighters which were on sale. The living rooms cosy and the spare room now has a light with a shade (after I destroyed the previous glass shade due to being a clutz.

Slept in this morning and had to dash out of the house to get to work ontime. I made it from bed to desk in 35mins, which I can not reccomend. It seriously messes with your bodyclock, I've been off all day.

Spent an hour this morning organising a cupboard full of fuel addatives into Alphabetical order before working out that storing some of the acids with the bases might not be the greatest idea in the world (read highly vigourous exothermic reactions....or boom to the layperson) took another hour to sort it out safely. Still at least my boss was happy I was taking an interest in stuff that I dont need to do.

Friday night, and it's time to start the drinking before getting up B&E for the farmers market tomorow.

Current Location: out of earshot
Current Mood: quixotic
Current Music: In the morning

Watched the second ep of "Friday night lights" yesterday, it's a really interesting show thats pulling me in, but i'm FASCINATED by just how integrated God is to the entire population of the town.

It's a totally alien concept to me that everyone is not only a believer, but will stop and pray at almost any oppertunity. Is this reality??? If so I'm even more woried about America.

Studio 60 on the sunset strip is the standout show for me so far this year. I also love "The Class" which has a lot of potential IMO.

Current Location: Under my laptop
Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Shiraz the musical (Work in progress)