Underfed

Yesterday as I was in the dozy state between sleeping and waking my subconcious took me on a magical journey where I was running around tirelessly snatching blocks of sleep from around and about.

I don't fully remember all the locations of the sleep-blocks, but I do distinctly remember one being caught in the mouth of a handy dragon. (Handy as in 'to hand'). I had to snatch the sleep block from the dragon's mouth.

Presumably this is a metaphor. The hardy warrior seizing sleep from the very jaws of awakefulness, thus slaying the beast of tiredness for another day.

What disturbs me is why my brain feels that waking up is such a scary prospect as to render it through the medium of metaphor* into the form of a dragon.

But ours is not to know these things..


*that made me sound like a right tw*t.

what is a blog?

Do you want to know?

Do you want to know:
factually?
philosophically?
abstractly?

The choice is yours.

Some things that have no business sharing a bed:
- socks that you're wearing and puddles of water
- fly tippers and decent society
- political parties and christianity
- grape and the grain
- large crowds of people and places that I want to visit

Elsewhere, we are going to be watching Cool Runnings tonite. And eating lasagne. Oh yes.

The summer is over. Which probably means that we're in for some hot weather.

And this month is Baby Month. Interesting times.

Here are some song titles that I will be trying to work into actual songs.
They Thought Me To Be A Model Citizen
Take One For The Team
Hangnail to Whitlow
You Don't Have The Right

Whether or not this will happen, whether the content will reflect the names and whether the names stay the same is all a matter of chance you see..

overandout

say it again

This has been a jolly long week. Monday/Tuesday feels like rather a long time ago.

How about a brief summary? Ok ok.

- David Ford in Oxford
- M & M over for dinner
- recording. This has taken over quite a lot of time. It's coming along nicely, but there's still a fair amount to go
- there were a few glasses of wine and a couple beers
- played this morning. 'twas great.
- cooked up a hunter's chicked stew this afternoon. Another Jamie recipe. Very nice. Although I suppose it should be with 3/4 of a bottle of chianti in it.

I've had thoughts. But they are elusive little beggars it has to be said.

One thought that occured to me this afternoon was that in my reckoning it's a positive thing for famous people to use their position to encourage people to vote, but it's a very negative thing for them to use their position to encourage people to vote for a particular person or party.

This probably sounds quite reasonable on first inspection, but dig a little deeper and it's all based around the assumption that democracy is inherently a good thing. Which I'm not necessarily disputing, but the fact is that it is just another system. To assume it's the best idea is still an assumption.

In fact, I've heard it said that benign dictatorship is the best form of government. Which might be fair enough if you could assume inherent goodness in a leader with absolute power. But when we talk about democracy being the best solution are we not also talking in ideals?

Food for thought I suppose.

Have a good week would you?

overandout

fisheye

Ideas that I can't quite get to work properly.

Very much my style I'm afraid.

I've seen A LOT of blogs about html/css tricks/hacks/etc. Kind of comes with the territory of being a web designer with no formal training. Or maybe the territory of being a web designer (I hope). Any case, I really ought to take some notes of how I manage to fix things and pass it on. But I haven't so far. Kind of seems like a lot of work. I guess I should pass on the knowledge though.

We'll see.

I'm really tired and it's not even 9 of the clock. That is lame. And also lame.

overandout

big-ass lips

That's a big fat lip on my face right now. Foop-ball in the face just so as you know.

No goals tonite. Got very damn close though. Very dam close indeed.

I don't have any insights or revelations for you. Sometimes a boy done gots to recharging his batteries.

What I will say is this: never stick a fork in a bald man's head.

O&O

steaming

Back to work today it was.

Not too bad. Still fightin this chest infection madly yo.

Now there's a song I haven't heard in a while. Just Jinger's I Like You Madly. Check it out if you get the time.

Today's post is a little freeform in its.. um.. form. So whilst I'm thinking about freeform, check out Flight of the Conchords on youtube. Specifically this song. Brilliant.

You'll also notice that I have been checking out radiohead's new album. I love it. I paid a fiver, but I would have paid more had I had more money. It's very atmospheric. I like music you can get lost in. Radiohead are good at this. As is Nitin Sawhney and also for me, Lemon Jelly. I need to find more like this though.

I made a new strangeday website as well. Check it out. There's some hidden pages in there. I'm going to try and make it more and more labyrinthine as it goes on. Whilst not trying to rip off radiohead too much. Although their web presence presented me with some influence for my confluence yo.

Speaking of strangeday, we have a gig this Friday. Hopefully this one will be quite important for us. Which is why it's so neat that I have a chest infection. Which is why I gotta be leaving you to stick my head above a bowl of just boiled dihydrogen oxide.

What fun.

Peaceoverandout

Bingo Bango

There is a tide in the affairs of men. It is a riptide.

I feel like I'm running out of steam with this blogging lark. 3 years is a long time to be doing anything. Or at least in my life it is. I had to do a few years of that school business. But they made me.

After that I did:

- church youth worker
- office manager/database programmer
- temp/project assistant
- reprographics technician

currently averaging 2 years per position and haven't spent more than 3 years in any one position. I am a restless soul you see.

As I have stated before it would probably serve better to find a decent subject and start writing about that. But I am a jack of all trades. Not in the good way. I know a little about a lot of different things. I'm quick to pick things up but reluctant to devote too much time to any of them.

I do sometimes stop to think about what I could have achieved had I put the nose to the grindstone a little. But then I'm not that kind of guy. I'm not career minded I suppose. Or driven for that matter. I have a hard time chasing my dreams, let alone a career.

I think life for me, on the whole, comes down to who you affect rather than what you achieve. But that's just me. I wouldn't like to venture a guess as to who I've affected. Hopefully not too many too badly if you catch my drift.

Anyway. I'll try and remember to get on the pictures thing again. They can be interesting. Probably.

overandout

black and white and grey. Monochrome in fact. Or greyscale

Or grayscale if you're of the american spelling persuasion. Or ghrayschayle if you're cheating at Scrabble. Or greyskull if you're into nostalgia. Whatever.

Rants recently said something about the blog spectrum on his blog. I'm not sure where I'd fit on his restrictive little system (I jest, Mr Builder) but I've recently discovered.. well, I say discovered, it's more that I just made it up, so let's start again. I've recently made up that I would rather sit the whole way across such a spectrum than sit somewhere on it.

This goes for quite a lot of things. When I fill in those personality questionnaires or learning questionnaires or any of that guff I tend to come out as a hideous mish-mash of all of the outcomes/types. I'm running away from the truth perhaps?

On a vaguely related tack, we were just having a conversation about how different people see things in either black and white or grey (that's a very old concept so I'm sure you know what I mean) and how nice it must be to be able to see things in black and white.

I'm not sure I had a point to get to with this so I'm not sure how to continue. I would like to be able to see things as black and white. Maybe I do in some ways. For instance, I have a black and white view about how grey everything is. Everybody wins. Seeing things in grey is more tiresome I guess. If you see it as black and white it's easier to go about things.

Might be about time to wrap this up here and now. We're on holiday this week by the way. We're in Cornwall with the RealPilot and the Fogpilot (who now have a MiniPilot as well) until Thursday and then we're going up to Shropshire to visit the GrandRents-in-law. Fun fun.

overandout

to sleep perchance to dream..

we thought we were getting away with it but we couldn't fool ourselves for long enough.

I think on the whole I prefer doing things to not doing things. But then you knew that. Didn't you?

The stag day was fun, I played cricket but didn't get to bat (lordy, we won), mummy's going to be a vicar (but that's old news now) and I co-wrote my first song on piano.

What fun? What, fun?

I'd better be off now.

You can carry right along.

hay stings

What is up with all o' y'all then? Are you keeping it real? Real as?

I'm down in the Hastizzle. Could you guess? It's very nice and fun. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's super-good. We've been to Winchelsea, eaten a right pea-souper, been to King's (for the first time in over a year actually), had a reet good Easter Day scofathon, watched The Trap, Red Dwarf and Creature Comforts and generally lived it up.

However, there is now but a week left until it's back to work. That's not long. Especially since the days are flying by ever faster.

What to leave you with? A thought? A quip? A paradigm? A quote?

Howsabout this: I can do anything you can do better.

O&O

I don't like cricket

I love it.

Songs that get in your head eh?

How you all are these days? Good good. Pleased to hear it.

The busiest of weekends (not really) has for the most part passed. Fun times have been had. Alcohol has been consumed (I know, I know, but try to contain your disdain, Anonymous), films have been watched, books read, chats had and naturally, outrages discussed.

I didn't even mention the food that has been cooked.

El thinks I'm talking about things on here that I'm not. So does Fizz. Although one of the things they thought I was talking about was them, so I guess that's kind of true now. The conversation (or them asking questions) is getting a. intense b. weird.

Right. Done. And. Out

You knew what they say..

No news is good news I guess.

The front page (and page 3) story in one of the red tops yesterday was about a video from 1989. You of course had to read the story quite a way in to discover this information. Apparently someone did something back then and has since said things that make her a hypocrite.

The utter, utter, shock of it. They should just follow me around for a week. They'd be able to retire early.

It's a good thing I wasn't eating porridge or muesli at the time. The kitchen may have got a spattering.

That's all I got right now.

outandover.

To die by the sword is a fine way to die..

What day is it today? It is Wednesday. I was inspired by one of my dad's
posts to comment and I feel I should elucidate a little further.

The question to be asked is firstly can we trust what we're told by the
national press/media and by extension, can we trust anything we hear secondhand?

The cartoon here discusses a similar issue and concludes in probably much the same way that I will (ie. facetiously). I haven't planned this ending yet, but let's be fair, the odds aren't going to be long are they?

I'm not an expert but I'm guessing that whenever you read something the following factors will enable you to come to a conclusion on whether you believe what you're reading

• Your knowledge of the subject matter including:
• previous first-hand experience
• previous knowledge acquired through second-hand means
• Your knowledge of the author including the same
• Your gut reaction to the piece which will be based on a number of factors
• the first two factors above
• the author's style and language
• your mood
• probably a number of other factors such as upbringing, worldview etc etc.

Added to this, you have the probability of something you read being 100%
correct based on a number of other factors.

• The author's knowledge of the subject matter as above
• The author's motives for telling the truth, dictated by
• money
• power
• sex
• poops and giggles
• other
• The complexity of the subject matter and the inherent difficulty in fully understanding it
• The limitations of written language to communicate an exact thought - both on the part of the communicator and the communicatee
• If the piece of writing is constrained in length, whether the subject can be fully explained in that length.
• The author speculating or hypothesising
• I'd imagine this list is far from exhaustive

Bearing in mind I'm specifically thinking of supposedly objective pieces of
writing about events and such. Bring in opinion and you're on a whole 'nother level.

The issue of whether to trust a source to my mind seems arbitrary. There are so many mix and match circumstances that unless you are a first-hand observer how can you know what to trust? Even as a first-hand observer can you fully know your subject?

My conclusion? Well this is historically where it all falls apart of course. I was never really cut out to be a philosopher or a jedi. I guess I'm saying I don't know who to trust. Cynical? Bitter? Jaded? Yeah but I'm one helluva party-animal as well..

You shall know the truth and it shall set you free. Indeed.

Who I'd like to meet:

There's fun to be had with Myspace. Check it out..

WHO I'D LIKE TO MEET
Waifs, strays, vagrants, the homeless and heartbroken, the rockbottomers, scoundrels, prognosticators, procrastinators, the downtrodden, the meek and the humble, lowlifes, bums, whores and their trinkets, the unloved, the unlovely, the unwashed and the unbelievable, the cassandras, the pandoras, the caulfields, the high falootin', the rootin' tootin', the upbeat and the unbeaten, the faint of heart, the high rollers, toffs, spivs, the spick and span, the somebodies, the nobodies, the everyman, the good lifers, the nightlifers and the lifers, the old timers and the pew farmers, the holy, the backroom brawlers, the deep sea trawlers, celebrities, the chosen few, the remnant and the remembered, family, friends, hangers-on and droppers-off, the discarded, the mediocre and their pack-horses, the baggage handlers, the naive, the cynical, the blunt and the stooge, the flotsam and never forgetting the jetsam, the power-mongers, the backseat drivers, the shady dealers, the money men, the untoward, the walrus and the carpenter, the tailors, sailors, untold jailors, the captive, the free, the cast aways and the like, the upper class, lower class, middle class, high class, first class, second rate, economy, the whole and the sum of the parts.
And you.

on life and such..

We've had a gloriously lazy Saturday today. Which is a welcome relief from the madcappery that has been occuring in recent weeks. Also, we didn't play poker in the end last nite so I managed to sneak more precious hours of sleep from my body which will insist on getting me up at 9 or 10 regardless of the time I retire. Very good.

It's starting to get annoying that all I seem to be posting is HEY I GOT UP LATE TODAY AND I'M DOING THINGS LATER. I guess the pictures do add some interest, and I will every so often get creative.

Speaking of which, do you recall the tea hunt story from back in November? I was thinking about it just now because I was making myself a cup of tea and it appears that that box has run out. Although I have the thought in my head that there should be one more jar of them but I CAN'T FIND IT.

Back to the point. I would like to post something of note or even possibly something inter-muh-lectual. But alas. I do have thoughts sometimes, but one of three things happens. I either wimp out, forget what the thought was or more likely the thought is banal or unshareable. Two such examples from this week:

"bacon rolls are always good."
"there's few bad moods that can't be solved by eating a couple of bags of poly-trans-fattiated-saturates" (that's crisps to you and your cousins THE NORMAL PEOPLE).

See?

Since this is the second time I have now typed this guff (it's not getting better with repetition let me tell you) due to Windows being a bastard, I am going to stop. Once again Toby relearns the inevitable lesson about saving work and so on..

A real jedi wouldn't have these problems..

overandout

milkshakes

final bodycount:

7 lites of ice cream
8 pints of milk
various chocolate and assorted fruit
a lot of plastic cups
10-15 satisfied customers

Roll on Monday morning. I'm ready for you. For I will defeat with the aid of the lesser know deities of caffeine and TEEEEE-OOOOONS

post new-year's lull

It's dark, grey and rainy. Just like on my blog. Kinda.

Blogging about blogging is rather self-defeating actually. Kind of like cooking a saucepan. But since the whole thing is rather self-indulgent anyway and since there's so much space on the webbernet to fill and since and since and since and.. I DON'T CARE I'M GONNA ANYWAY.

See I'm not feeling it. I know that y'all can hollah because I've seen that nones of you are feelsking it either. I think back to December when I was posting every day (sometimes a couple of times a day) and I'm scared. What was I posting about? I can't imagine and I don't think I'll check because frankly I probably don't want to know.

Having said that, I posted that Very Thoughts post just a couple of days ago. That wasn't so great, hey? But I did post a Jeff Buckley video before that.

This post causes all sorts of metaphysical problems. Actually probably not, but stick with me here. The problem I'm posing here is, "Can you solve a problem of not having anything to post by posting about the problem of not having anything to post?" I suspect not.

So I will end.

You can't have it all, after all.

very thoughts

blank

Suppose I'd better

Hello there..

We're back. It was a great holiday. Lots of pics (and videos - eek!) to come (with the usual proviso that they probably won't until I remember in May).

Now I just have to settle into that weird back from holiday feeling. The passing eased by a new Cd (Iron Bottom Sound by Flick) and the fact that New Year's Eve is but a day away.

I'm glad to be back but also a little bit sad to not be with the snow and mountains. As I say, weird.

I will go now. Look after your fattened calves and eat your food.

Oh bugger

From the article, How To... Blog

Posting bad things on your blog is like dumping rubbish in space.

Ah well, what does he know, eh?

tobyandout

So close

good advice

Getting a chest infection then singing rock and or roll for nigh on 2 hours?

I wouldn't recommend it.

Last day of work before christmas tomorrow. Bring it.

it's not that I don't want to..

more that I can't be bothered.

You can work it out.