70cities blog

Finally, now I've reached the correct side of the Christmas holidays, I can relax a bit. The last few weeks have been intense really took it out of me. The physical manifestations of this have been interesting - big bags under my eyes, not having a haircut for four months (big mistake - I looked scruffy, but not the 'good' scruffy I was half-aiming for - just 'bloody awful' scruffy), etc.

Anyway, the new version of the thing I work on launched and it's all gone very well. Now to rest up for a bit and do very little for a bit, except eat cheese, drink wine and generally expand. Marvellous.

Test.

I want..

1. To not think about work for a few days on the trot
   
2. Much less inadvertent exposure to Russell Brand/Winehouse/Jo Brand/Spice 'Girls'
   
3. Less worry
   
4. Beatles remasters
   
5. To spend less time on buses
   
6. Last.fm to work with my iPod Touch without having to jailbreak the thing
   
7. Spend more time hanging out with M and P
   
8. To see my friends more
   
9. More sleep
   
10. A haircut
    
11. More coffee
    
12. More music
    
13. A decent suit that doesn't make me look like a Suit
    
14. A greater variety of lunch options
    
15. To learn the banjo
    
16. A house
    
17. World peace
    

Kthxbai!

Despite being one third of the way into December, it's only just dawned on me that it's Christmas very soon. In, like, 15 days. All the music channels on telly are rotating their crappy Christmas songs playlists - which, as they've got so much airtime to fill, are at least throwing up some amusingly bad, previously forgotten festive tunes. Paul McCartney and the fucking Frog Chorus, anyone? I saw it yesterday afternoon for the first time in 25 years and remembered exactly why it's never included on cheapo Chrimbo compilation CDs - even in a genre so pant-wettingly mawkish and feeble as christmas singles, it has a level of awfulness that stands proudly alone. Shudder. Next to this, Cliff Richard's seasonal efforts are verging on a punk ethic.

Anyway, Christmas. Shit! I've barely done a thing about it, what with one thing and another. Must knuckle down and get organising. Unfortunately, this week is already stacked full of Christmas parties and a slew of work to finish off. Who in the name of God decided to put our works Xmas party on the night before a big deployment? (Maybe it's the other way around - even so, someone needs a poke in the eye with a sharp stick).

Let's face it, it's just not happening, is it? I still might turn this into a link/video/mp3log though. I do plenty else around the web; I just don't do much of the whole writing thing. Too many people do it better than I.

Of various things of disinterest that've been happening lately, I bought a new iPod the other day. One of those touchy ones in fact, and it's very nice. Twice the space of me old Nano, and video playback - all very nice, but those features pale into comparison compared to the multitouch interface. I'm no feverent Apple fanboy, but my word, it's a thing of beauty to use. Coincidentally, I got a new mobile recently too (a Nokia 6500) with a view to using that as a bit of a mobile video playing doodah - but despite it having the technical chops to do so, the interface is so clunky and awkward that I completely gave up after about ten minutes. Now I can catch up with the new series of the Boosh on the bus home from work. Marvellous. The future's arrived!

However, despite what Steve Jobs and other Californians might think, ubiquitous open wifi is still rather a rarity. Even in my office, where there's dozens of sniffable networks, only one is unencrypted and even then it won't give me an IP address, most likely being MAC address-restricted. And I spend half of my life on buses anyway. So for that, my phone still trumps (and actually has a fairly decent browser to be getting on with).

That's about it, though. Other than that; work, sleep. Lie around. Repeat.