What next?

So, the meeting people weekend has come and gone. Was it worth the months of hassle and stress for some? I hope so! I certainly had a great time meeting new people and catching up with previous acquaintances. Other people are also making approving noises, so congratulations will have to be paid to USHW, the organiser. As I have said before, at these things, there are usually some complete tossers in the mix, but this time around everyone that I spoke to was really nice. As is usual though, I didn't get around all the people I'd have liked with at least three people deserving of more time which I was unable to give. I'd like to think that we'll all meet up again at some point, though.

I finally met USHW, too. There was bed sharing, but no fluid swapping. All moral codes remain intact, which was never in any doubt, really. She's a lot quieter and a lot more timid then I was expecting, despite repeated warnings from her that that was the case.

Now what? I've sort of been focussed on this one event, so now that's over what?

I am meant to be heading to Birmingham in September, so there is that to look forward to, but it seems an awful waste of a summer to be looking passed that to the early Autumn. Probably best to put on the old thinking cap.

Booze!

This weekend is meeting up with people weekend. That means that I should, hopefully, get to meet USHW. A while ago, it looked like this was going to be a disaster... I'd booked the hotel and my travel and was looking forward to this, but apart from USHW and myself, only fucktards had actually said they were showing up. Now, with only a few days left, the fucktards have cried off and decent, interesting people are going to show up. Even R has said she might actually attend, which would be great.

only a little effort is required

If I have one major pet peeve (and I have many, many peeves), it's people keeping in contact with me. I'm not talking about those shitty emails that we all get from our mates telling us that if we join this mailing list then GAP, Microsoft, Apple et al. will provide us with loads of lovely free goodies. Will they fuck!

My close friends know my postal address; they know any one of my many email address, my MSN name, ICQ number, Skype username, YAHOO messenger account etc.

How come that very few of them actually uses them (those that I don't see regularly, that is)? It's not that they don't know that I value personal contact. I have been more than vocal in my desire that my friends stay in contact more. It's not as if they don't see the consequences of not doing so as I've distanced myself from people who simply don't make the effort.

An ex-girlfriend of mine, FA2, repeatedly complains that I am no longer in contact with her, despite the fact that out of all my friends, she's the one who probably knows best that not staying in contact is guaranteed to piss me off. "I haven't heard from you in ages!" was an email I once received from her (her first in months), despite the fact I'd been emailing, on average, every fortnight when she was out of the country.

As I've said before, I was in the States recently and met a lovely girl, V. We seemed to hit it off really well, and by the time it was time for me to return home we had, I thought, the beginnings of a friendship. What have I heard since then? Fuck all. I've sent "proper" mail, SMS messages and if I could make out her handwriting, I'd send an email too.

Out of them all, only MA2 and QC2 actually send stuff out of the blue asking how I am. It's not a lot – just a few lines in an email, but it means something to me and more often than not, ends up in arranging to visit them or meeting up for a drink.

I don't understand why more people don't make the effort.

Never, ever volunteer.

What a weekend. Not that I did anything terribly exciting at all, but I'm still ready to go to bed and I'm completely exhausted. For the past few weeks, I've been trying to fix a relative's PC. It's been a struggle since day one, to be honest. First of all, trying to find the actual error which was causing the PC to reset itself about 90% of the way into booting up took ages and turned out to be faulty RAM (or at least incorrectly seated RAM). That took about 10 days. So off it trundled to relative HQ, only to be returned immediately. "It's still broken" cried the bastards.

Was it fuck! So I fiddled with it a bit more – updated the BIOS, fragmented the hard drive and generally made sure it was running as well as it could (and that's not to say it's great – P3 450Mhz. 256MB Ram and Windows XP are not a good combo).

I sent it back to them in the best health it's been in since they bought it. But, oh no, that's not fucking good enough, is it? "The modem doesn't work!" they moaned "Reinstall Windows for us... and we want new anti-virus software, too!"

Can't these people just reinstall the fucking drivers?

Now... that was all two weeks ago. It's taken me two fucking weeks to reinstall Windows XP. I have no idea why the PC didn't like it (there were about half a dozen different reasons I could find why, but can't narrow it down any more than that). Ordinarily, it's a 2 hour job at the most, but two fucking weeks? Give me a break!

So, I was sitting at my PC today, staring at some lovelies when I got an SMS message from my cousin asking after the PC. This is the same family who told me that they'd give me space to look at it, no pressure, and I'd call them when it's done. Fuckers.

Call it Murphy's Law or whatever, but I decided to give it one last go because they're family. Doesn't fucking Windows fucking install? Gaaaaaaaa! OK, so I'm a bit pleased (because a week ago I wasn't going to let this wanker beat me) and so off I go to install the bare minimum of software (you know the score – anti-virus, adobe acrobat, a graphics package and some home office software) only to find that Windows doesn't actually want anything to be installed onto it.

It was at that point that I gave up, sent an SMS to my cousin pronouncing the PC to be dead. It is an ex-PC. No, it's not fucking sleeping, it's dead. Here's something for free - if they're looking a new PC built, they can fuck off and look elsewhere...

Previous post.

I've read it and re-read it and I still can't figure out what I was trying to say...

Just sit back, close your eyes and tell me everything... You have one hour.

I have a lot of female friends. Is there a reason for this? Perhaps. I've no idea though. However, I seem to just click easier with females than males (though don't get me wrong – my oldest friends are guys I've known for nearly 30 years now). That's hardly a big thing either. Where everything does seem to fall down is that, in a few cases (too many), I will end up feeling things for my female chums that are not at all sensible.

Not all of them, mind. Don't get me wrong, I haven't fallen for every single female that I've ever met. My friend AM is possibly one of the closest friends that I have, and she's never short of giving me a verbal kicking (especially on the subject of female companionship). Not once did I ever regard her as anything other than a friend, though. I do have another few friends who have become friends because I was attracted to them and ended up not doing anything about it until it was too late (QC1 and QC2 being prime examples). Actually, maybe not QC1 as I did kiss her and ask her out for drinks and she turned me down.

I thought that I'd outgrown all that until about 18 months ago I went to visit my friend, E. Suffice to say, upon my return home and after nearly five years of friendship, I was having less than platonic thoughts.

That was an easy decision to make, though. I valued her friendship a lot and it was too important to me to throw down the toilet by trying to take our relationship to places that it probably wouldn't have gone anyway.

Saying that, last year wasn't bad – out of five attempts (yes, bite me, my social life last year sucked ass), four ended up with some sort of result. The fifth (and last) was while was out of the UK where a young lady, V, took my fancy. Even now, I've no idea how I didn't even get close to *ahem* closing the deal. She was obviously interested, and we got along brilliantly.

Re-reading this post, I've come to the conclusion that I don't understand women. And I don't understand myself, either.

What to post?

Sometimes I feel like posting. Like now, for example. But can I figure out how to put my thoughts into words and make it understandable? Can I fuck!

This one might need a bit of pondering first.

woohoo

Christ, I'm tired. It's approaching clocking off time, but today has been excellent, professionally. For the past few weeks, we've been under the cosh a bit regarding getting our project completed on time (mainly due to atrocious communications from our clients), but with the help of another guy, we have managed to simplify the most complex looking (and thus time consuming) task down into four easily checkable points which means that everything should be on target for handing over in two and a half weeks time.

Groove on.

Ages ago, I downloaded a bootleg of U2's last date on their Zooropa tour of 1993 in Dublin from bittorrent. I was there. The bootleg quality is fantastic and I have been listening to it all day long.

Interesting side point about that night… At the start of "Bad", Bono says "Michael Jackson, guilty before you've been given a chance. We don't think you're bad".

And 11 years on, I wonder if Bono still thinks that?

Note to self...

Don't try and create blog entries at work then post the half finished article on the way out the door because you're late for din dins.

Countdown.

As we edge ever closer to the weekend of the various people meeting up (13 days and counting…), it's looking more and more like USHW will be unable to attend. That's my point of view – in these circumstances, I tend not to "say die" as it were until it's an impossibility, though I suspect that USHW may well have already made her decision. Her journey from January 'til now has been mentally and emotionally draining and I probably would have jumped off a bridge aaaages ago under the same stress.

That's disappointing in many ways. I'd love to meet her and that's primarily what I'm looking forward to if she can make it, but we're due to be sharing a room (and a bed), and to be honest, I was kinda looking forward to that, too. Get your minds out of the gutter! There won't be any sex (at least not between USHW and myself) but it is pleasant to share a bed with a female, even a platonic friend. That's not to say that if another young filly were to offer that I'd say "no". I'm a single bloke as much in need of a fuck as the next one. I did, at one point, have a totty list, but most of the people on the list were unrealistic for various reasons and the others won't be showing.

Ah well… Looks like it's more porn for me then.

Professional life.

I work with a guy whom I will call Stig. There's a reason for this. He behaves like caveman. His personal hygiene is atrocious; he has no concept of a balanced diet (he eats like a six year old i.e. all junk) and he's a paranoid drunk (plus, it only takes him about 4 beers to get wasted). He has no inter-personal skills and other people are continually bailing him out of trouble, plus he never seems to do any work – he's forever playing games or surfing Asian dating sites (we believe he's secretly planning on moving to Japan). Our boss is fully aware of this, but that doesn't make Stig any less of a wanker.

What the fuck?

Sometimes, you come across a website that simply has to be a joke. You spend loads of time laughing at it, at it's cleverness, it's biting satire and then it hits you...

It's not a joke.

http://www.christianshirts.net/index.php

Type.

What's your type?

I like to think that mine's brunettes, but in all honesty, I've fucked all types of girls - blondes, brunettes, redheads, thin, athletic, sturdy, tall, medium, short etc.

My friend, F, likes nerds for reasons known only to herself.

I can go into lots more detail, but suffice to say that Jessica Alba (there's a picture of her around here somewhere) pretty much resembles my ideal woman. I think I've been lucky, too. Two ex-lovers (what a crap phrase that is) of mine have had those characteristics, too. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that I've shagged two Jess Alba lookalikes - far from it! But they were both brunette, dark eyes and curvy in the right places without being too big or too thin.

So why this post? Ummm... dunno, really. I don't suppose anyone knows a single Jess Alba-alike in her early to mid thirties?

No more Microsoft bollocks.

Fixed the sizes of the pics, so there shouldn't be an display issues any more.

Hopefully.

Microsoft Bollocks.

I've just noticed that if you're viewing this in Internet Explorer, then the extra side bar on the right hand side is out of position.

You really should use a better browser like Opera or Firefox, you know!

(Yes, I am aware it's my fault for not resizing the Jessica/Catherine pictures correctly, but that still doesn't mean you should be using IE.)

The good ol' U S of A.

I spent some time in the States recently. Looking at those maps on Google and Microsoft made me think about what I was missing from there.

It's mainly food related, though.

Fast food:
Chipotle
Taco Bell
Wendy's

Starbucks (yes, I know we have that in the UK, but I liked the American prices)

A decent steak

American cocktails

Things I don't miss at all:

American beer. It is vile.
Homeland security.

Maps galore! (None relevant to me, but still fun).

Today, I have mostly been playing around with:

http://maps.google.com/

and

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/default.aspx

Tremendous fun!

Uh oh!

I get the feeling that when USHW finds this, and reads this post, then I shall be in for a verbal kicking.

Not looking good.

As I've said before, I'm meant to be meeting up with a group of people in a few weeks time. Numbers are fairly fuzzy at the moment, but a rough guess suggests anywhere up to around twenty people could show up.

I've done meets like this before, but where this one is different in that there's not much motivation for me to show up apart from one thing, and that's the chance to meet USHW. Until now, we've only spoken via IM and email. There are other people who will be in attendance that I'd like to see again, but I also like to meet new people, and the "quality" (for want of a better word) of new people at this meet is lacking.

The problem is that USHW has problems of her own, and it's looking increasingly likely as if she won't be able to make it to this gathering, despite the fact she's put a lot of work into organising it. It would be a shame if she didn't get to the meeting as I believe she really needs to spend some time on her own away from the stresses that she's currently facing (and would make her frustrations at the organising worthwhile). A few days spent on the lash would be an ideal tonic - at least, that's what I think.

We can only see what happens, I suppose. I'm not feeling particularly positive right now though.

Blogger templates.

If anyone who knows anything about Blogger templates happens to pass by this li'l ol' blog and would like to tell me how to increase the width of the title bar above and this main content pane, I'd be very appreciative. Thanks.

What if...

Sometimes, pub conversations can be fun. 

Last night, whilst out with FP, the conversation turned to "What if...". Not in a sentimental kind of way, but more along the lines of "Christ, it would be so easy to be in a completely different place by now" kind of way. 

Like "What if I'd passed my A-levels the first time and gone to university at 18 instead of 27?" or "What if I hadn't spoken to that girl who I ended up dating for a couple of years?" or "What would have happened if I hadn't fucked that girl from work?" 

Three situations that did happen and would probably have had various degrees of influence on my life from those points onwards... 

The university thing was probably the one thing that could have had the biggest influence on my life, given that the industry (I.T.) was buoyant when I was 18 and was on a downward spiral with the dot com bubble burst when I was halfway through my degree (ten years later). Not only would my starting salary have been higher, but chances are I wouldn't have stayed local looking for a job, either. 

The girl thing is self-explanatory, really. During those few years, I pretty much stayed in the state that I was in when I met her - all thoughts that I'd had of travelling, looking for a promotion/better job etc. all kinda fell by the wayside. 

Not as big an influence as the university thing, but could have been fairly major. Sleeping with the girl from work was relatively minor in terms of influence - a short term series of fucks that I think she was trying to build into a relationship and that I was happy leaving as a series of fucks. So, perhaps obviously, we're no longer in regular contact. I haven't seen her in a few years, but we're at least still on speaking terms when we do bump into each other in the street. 

I think I watched "Back to the Future" too much when I was younger.

Confession.

I'm meant to be meeting up with USHW (amongst others) in a few weeks, if she can make it, that is. I've told her one fib in the time we've been speaking to each other through our mutual interests. I could easily just 'fess up at any time, but this is one I where quite fancy seeing the look on her face when I do tell.

The thought of it makes me giggle.

Microsoft MSN Messenger.

I use MSN Messenger a lot - I know a lot of people across the UK (and further afield) and it's a brilliant way of keeping in contact (though Skype also comes close for VoIP handiness).

But why oh why do fucktards insist on ignoring my status messages?

Setting myself as "Away" or "Busy" isn't done for the good of my health, you know!

Grrr...

More pondering.

A question that was raised from talking to USHW months and months ago (and also relates to a previous experience):

"Shagging married people: who is ultimately responsible for what happens? The married person, seeing as are the person in the relationship? Are they ultimately responsible or does the external party also have some sort of moral obligation to behave themselves, too?"

As a single male, I have to say that I have slept with a married woman, once. She did all the chasing, and I was in the mood, so I went along with it without a thought. The next day, I got thinking though. From a personal point of view, I had no issues with it. We both had a good time (at least I know one of us did, and I hope the other did, too), but I've no idea if there was fallout from what happened. Did MW go home and confess all? Did she say nothing? Herein lies the question.

It might happen again. I'm not going to chase anyone who's married (or even those in long term relationships), but that's not to say if someone in one of these were to offer that I'd say "no". I might, of course. Ideally, I'd need to have some sort of idea about whether there'd be fallout as a consequence. If so, then you wouldn't see me for dust. That'd still ring true if I wasn't going to be involved. If there was no fallout on the cards though, then who knows? It's the fallout that's the key here, I think.

Of course, in an entirely hypocritical twist, I wouldn't want my other half to go off shagging around.

Goal setting.

It's been my experience that I am a lot more active and forward thinking if I list the stuff I have (or want) to do. A few years ago when I was living away from the UK, for about a month I listed everything I need to do that day, and I really was achieving more. I sorta just lost track of it though when I moved back to the UK.

So, in a vague attempt to start this good habit off again, here's another list:

• Join that local gym that I've been planning to for a while (and use it).
• Be more careful with my diet (currently it's "eat what you like").
• Try and save some money.
• Start looking long term for permanent housing solutions - investigate mortgages and house prices.
  
• Ummm...

I think that's enough for now. I might update this as and when I accomplish these goals and need to think of other stuff to add to it.

Titles. Fucking titles.

I fucking hate titles. Everything about them sucks huge amounts of ass. I've been on the interweb for a shitload of years now - since mid-1997. Since then I've used mainly two user names (none of which will be referred to here). But when I do decided to create something new, like this, for example, I run out of ideas even before I've begun.

The blog title, for those of you who are interested, is a line from an episode of the excellent Futurama spoken by Bender. it's not as if it's some profound statement that cunningly reflects my personality.

I'm not sure where this is going to go, really. If you eventually want to blame someone, then hunt out USHW for hinting/nagging etc. for me to set up my own blog. (I did have another one, but it sank before it got off the ground because I stupidly give the URL to a friend, despite my intention of keeping it private and being able to use it to clear my head from time to time.)

For USHW: I'm not going to promise that I post in this regularly or that I will bare my soul. It should stand a better chance than my last one though, so it might contain something of note at some point.