Christmas has been pretty good this year, but I can't help but feel I've left too much time for it. I'm pretty much done with it now but the tickets home aren't ‘til late the day after tomorrow, so while I could be in London making good use of a rare two days holiday instead I'm up here in Edinburgh just killing time. It probably sounds bad but to be honest it only takes so long to catch up with the family and get sick of watching TV, and between not having any friends in the area and the woeful weather it means there's not really much else to do. I do hate the sensation of killing time. Reading books and watching films are the stuff you pad out your day with, they shouldn't be the substance of it themselves. In any case I'm off to read some more Sartre. Love to your mother.
Christmas ‘07
Swansong
So I've just had a wee gander at google analytics' overly-helpful stats machine and am surprised to see that people keep looking at this site, in spite of the dearth of content. Sorry! At the moment the time I might spend on blogging is actually spent experimenting with blogging systems, and trying to have a single original thought about what to do with all this. Impossible of course, but I can't not try.
If you're looking to keep up with what I'm doing my flickr stream has seen a bit of a revival so it's probably more reliable, if only in the vague sense that grainy camera-phone snaps can relay. Oh and Facebook I suppose. And last.fm, if you really badly want to know what I'm listening to (which has been mostly Placebo, Silversun Pickups and Kate Nash this weekend). So yeah, a few updates from the past month in rough chronological order; one last gasp on mochaholic before I put the old dear to sleep:
- Day Watch is a great film and a worthy sequel. Shame there's no third. I'm reading the books now, they rule also.
- Saw Stars at the Scala. Not only was it great to see a band I've been "squee"ing about for so long, but we got to write a review here! Sweet.
- Questionable punch should be mandatory at all house parties, and it should be always presided over by someone who has already partaken extensively thereof and totally forgotten what was in it.
- The Witcher is a solid RPG, but given it's so dialogue oriented the crap translation from the Polish really lets it down. I'm sure I'll finish it one day.
- Afternoons in coffee houses are just as fun as they were 5 years ago. With more money to spend on masses of cake; possibly more so!
- Primrose hill is a handy place to watch the fireworks across London from afar, but bring a hot drink. Or port.
- Ratatouille is much better than a Disney film about a cooking rat has any right to be.
- I'm 26 now. I keep thinking it's 27, but no; 26.
- Scouts are way better than Engineers. Snipers tortured puppies as children. They're evil I tell you! So yeah Team Fortress 2 is brilliant.
- Beowulf is awesome, but only when in 3D.
- Stardust is a very silly film that wouldn't be worth watching if it wasn't for stunning performances from Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer.
- Pigeon Detectives were much better that I expected, partly because I wasn't hanging on their every word and could enjoy some serious moshing. Fantastic fun.
- In real life Will Self looks scarily like the food Critic from Ratatouille.
Hopefully drawing a line under this will help spur on the fiddlings with WP and EE, and a new blog will rise from the ashes. 'Til then add me on Facebook and Flickr!! ;-) -dan out