Thursday, May 20, 2004

Oh me of little faith. I got it. Starting Monday. Hurrah!!

Might go for a couple of cheeky ales tonight then :)

Spoke to my agent this morning about this job I interviewed for yesterday. She said she was putting in a call to find out what the situation was and would be getting back to me. Nothing so far 3 hours later and that is a very bad sign.

How long can any one person look at the phone without it ringing? Not that I’m desperate or anything. And the fucking bank wrote to tell me they’re reducing my overdraft. Thanks guys. Wait until someone is down and really needs the money and then whip it away. Fuckers. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to lob a petrol bomb into their head offices. Especially as they like to position themselves as the caring understanding bank that won’t fuck you. Bastard Abbey. The Landlord is after me too. And he’s kind of tricky to avoid as he works in the office underneath my flat.

He’s a tosser too. And frankly a bit dodgy.

On a positive note I went to Covent Garden last night to see Il Trovatore – the one where the wrong baby gets thrown on the fire. Really enjoyed it as ever – loads of stirring tunes and some genuine stand out moments, but if you ask me Act IV does go on a bit – all a bit to ‘woe is me’ laments and not enough shrieking. Still really good though.

I’m so depressed I’m watching the cricket and enjoying it.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Q. What percentage of pop-up ads are offering pop-up removal software - about 30% by my estiamates. Bastards

Anyway I've been up to all my usual shenanigans since last post - no real change, nothing to report. Same old same old. Actually went round to dinner at Dr Heartbreak's on Saturday - very nice meal depsite him managing to totally balls up his sword fish paella which was particuarly amusing as OOD was there, who of course Dr H has a major thing for as well. Of course. It's seemingly illegal for me to fancy anyone without one of my idiot friends developing some sort of sordid obsession for them and totally cocking it up. Was actually a very entertaining evening, despite feeling a tad peaky to start with. Also watched the end of Eurosong. Actually I love the Eurovision Song Contest, but as we hadn't organized the proper celebrations this year there was only minimal interest.

So what did we think of the plucky Ukranian victors? Put it this way - my friend's cleaner is from The Ukraine and even she said it was shit. I liked the fur bikinis tho . . .

I didn't really see any of the other entrants but apparently it was actually about the best entry, so God only knows wtf the quality of the rest was. Can't have been as wank as Jamie Cullum anyway. Or as the Guardian described him . . . this talentless maggot boy.

Sunday saw Pan at Stev and Von A's for lunch, and I'm afraid it turned into one of those days. Stev cooked a fantastic lunch, we sat outside under his table umbrealla and engaged in polite chit chat about childcare and weddings. Fast forward a few hours and between the 6 of us we had entirely filled a full sized recycling trug with empties. And I'm not talking about beer bottles here either. Nice work.

Yesterday went for a walk along the Thames from Strand on the Green to Hammersmith. I'd never realised that loop of the river was so countrified. I mean it's in zone 2 ffs and there's nothing but grass, sports clubs, boat houses, cow parsley and women with blonde hair driving 4x4s. Still - very pleasant for a change, tho to be honest I found being in the middle of London and unable to see anything except vegetation, and it being completely quite rather eerie. Unsettling. Was actually quite glad to wander back onto the river path proper.

Had an interview this morning. Seemed to go fine but I'm not counting any chickens. Hopefully I've learnt my lesson about unrealistic expectations.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Saw Teej on Friday night and we didn’t get horrendously pissed. Well to put it in context I was already drunk when I arrived at 7.15 and we then drank steadily till (bit of a guess this) 3.30am by which time we had descended to the ‘You’re the most wonderful person I know’ stage but no lower! Imagine that. No vomiting, mewling, head injuries, police, ambulances or inappropriate declerations of undying love. We must be getting old.

Saturday saw me in one of those freaky restaurants where everyone including all the staff is about 150 years old apart from you and your inebriated chums. Somehow the conversation always seems to end up being about anal sex or CCJs or something equally delicious. The meal was actually pretty damn good despite the continual fear that my neighbour was going to drop down dead next to me and thankfully the conv didn’t get too unsalubrious as a certain Object Of Desire was sitting opposite me, thought I could probably have done without Dr Heartbreak grilling her as to her exact age for 10 minutes. The OOD is actually a pretty hopeless case – in fact one who already blew me off. But as anyone who suffers from the same psychological diseases as myself knows Rejection Only Fuels Desire.

Unfortunately there are few things so repellant to an OOD as unrequested and unwanted adoration. So I am ignoring John Lennon and playing it cool. To the extent of making up entirely ficticious ‘other women’ to ‘throw her off the scent’.

What other women?? What fucking scent?? Pan you are losing whatever fucking marbles you ever had. You are deliberately trying to put off a woman who has made it perfectly clear she isn’t interested anyway and all because you want to shag her. And the worst thing is :- EVERYBODY KNOWS. Oh God.

I spent the whole of Monday in bed. From Sunday night to Tueday morning was spent in a darkened room sleeping / bemoaning my fate. And I still didn’t have any good e-mails.

Friday, May 07, 2004

I’m up and down today because I’ve had a shit week. Well as shit as a week can be that requires every second doing one of the the folowing:-

1) Leaping to answer the phone expecting it to be an agent, but it’s just one of my useless friends having a nervous meltdown on me.

2) Sleeping

3) Watching shite TV (with the exception of The Learning Zone)

4) Playing video games.

I love my X-Box. Although I hare MS and all their works – the corporation that has done more to inhibit real intelligence growth within software – within their (albeit self referentail scope) the X-Box does kick the ass to hell out of the PS-2. I’m not familiar with Nintendo’s Boxy thing, which I’m sure is cool, but the X-Box does truly give it up in terms of frame rendering and distance integration. No where else can you target something literally on the horizon, blow the shit out of it and have fully integrated physics and AI in real time. I sound like a real spod.

But anyway – there you go. Fanboy returns. In 2 hours I have to go out and pretend to be a real human being and I’m pissed. And have no intention of stopping drinking in the meantime eitherl. Haven’t eaten anything since Tuesday but so the fuck what. Actually that’s a lie. I’ve eaten 2 muffins and 2 scones. With clotted cream and jam. Nice. Meantime, I’ve had the best dreams. I was with The Captain in great burger bar in NYC and he showed me how to get the cheese, which you had to apply for after they gave it to you, then I told a story to some kids a la Ronald McDonald and then I ran through the streets, except it was suddenty medievel London and I couldn’t get to work because American tourists kept braiding my jumper and then demanding that they pay for the damage . . . dreams huh?

All of this is leading to something, but I just don’t know where exaclty yet . . . something is brewing in the Pan brain, but it has yet to take proper form. I’ve been thinking of my childhood – Manchester, The Pampas, Dark looming heather mountains, the first girl I ever had a crush on. I can’t even remember her name but I can remember her face perfectly. I guess I was about 8 or so. I know she left, and then, and then, and then . . .

I’m using someone else’s computer right now. No one we know. And I’m going through his mp3 collection as I write. Some good stuff, but WTF did he download Dogtanen and The Three Muskehounds themesong???

The problem with blogging is that one feels a requirement to do it even when you have nothing that you'd really like to communicate with the outside world.

I'm still unemplyed, have had two interviews in the last week, both of which were fantastic technically, but both of which I fell down on on the dumbass question: "So why would you like to work for us?" Both times I was unable, despite an hour of interpreting their fumbling attempts to work out whether I really knew what the fuck I was talking about or not and let them know without them having to directly ask that , Yes - everything on my CV *is* genuine and I can prove it, to answer the question properly. Instead of saying "I've been saving myself for years just to work for a bunch of numptys like you" I was forced to answer truthfully: "I want to work for you because you have money and you're hiring." Quakk Quakk Oops!

Wankers. I know more about every aspect of their businesses and client needs than they can even comprehend, but because I seem to be pathologically incapable of lying my head off in interviews I'm not acceptable. What do they want? You can't have it both ways. Seemingly people would prefer to employ an ignorant fucking muppet who will be amenable to corporate dictak rather than someone who actually knows what the fuck is going on.

And I had my biggest smile and shiniest suit on. The only thing I can't do is bend under the fucking interview table and tell them what they really want to hear - yes your dick is the biggest and super tasty too - MMmmmmmmm mmmmm.

Maybe I'm just not projecting right?