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[26 May 2012|08:18am] |
Apologies to myself for missing yesterday's journal entry - though, to be fair, you brought it on yourself, mate. I better start with a recap, then.
Yesterday
I got my eyes tested. Not good. Having explained how well my lenses where - too good as I'm leaving them in for longer than 12 hours, she immediately pledged to find me some better contacts. Well, I could see the dollar signs in her eyes so protested that I saw no reason to rock the boat. On came extra tests, which involved rolling my eyelids completely up - causing much wincing and discomform. Suprise, suprise, there are problems. Apparently there are "signs of bloodvessel changes near my cornea", these changes are suggesting that not enough oxygen is getting get my eyes. If these changes continue then "at some point" I won't be able to wear contacts. She played the "eye health card", there's no getting round that - so it looks like I'm going to be paying another £7 per month for my plan - taking it back to what I was paying with Scrivens, some thirty quid each month. Boo!
Nights
Clara is currently doing night shifts - beyond her normal allocation because she's keen to do more unsociable hours before she begins her maternity leave. Which reminds me, I need to register for my own baby-related time-out paternity-whatsit. I spent the night sketching, playing Battlefield 3 and then at the time when I should have gone to bed, I put Civilization V on and spent 2 hours as an Egyptian Pharaoh, dutifully building great wonders.
Today
Helping mum get her luggage to the car, more scribbles, more games, more sun - oh boy this hot AND sunny weather is a most welcome change. Given the weather I'm going to make some MAN FOOD for dinner - cooked on MAN FIRE. There will be smoke! Hopefully some nice cucumber salad and some cous cous too.
t-fury
My geek t-shirts arrived! How geeky? D20 SAN roll for anyone who suffers a full-on view of the Great Old One himself Cthulhu "Flatagan Flatagan Ga-hummer-hummer what-ya-call-it R'lyeh" - come on, it's been 25 years since read this stuff!
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[24 May 2012|04:28pm] |
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Iron Sky
The crowdsourced SF Comedy featuring Moon-based Nazis attacking Earth in flying sausers received its one-time showing last night, and thanks to Haydn's forsight - and maybe his girlfriend, Kate's need to be an a different city on the day, I got to attend the screening.
Was it great? Yes and no. This is good, broad satire wrapped around a wonderfully steam-punky premise, executed with what I have to describe as eye-poppingly good effects (considering this is Independent cinema). If that's what low budget cinema looks like these days we should be asking more from our blockbusters. Although, maybe the fact that that film looked so good unfairly raised my expectations - although the film does have some marvellous gags it never escaped that feel you nearly always get with International productions, where the humour feel horribly forced and unsubtle. But laugh we did, and quite often - there was this wonderful scene that parodies the "Hitler in a rage" scene from Downfall delivered universal belly laughs accompanied by a round of cheering - cheering in a UK cinema is a rare thing, I'm guessing they're a something you only really see at these sorts of special showings where there's a critical mass of fanboy enthusiasm. Good knock-about fun SF comedy fun.
Wasp Chase
I thought I was going to be late today because Clara insisted that I eject a wasp from the bedroom while I was busy getting ready. The wasp was going to "mess with her calm" - presumably they can do that even if you are asleep. It has to be said that Clara's starting her night shifts today, so she was up till about 3/4am building an integrated transport system - in Minecraft, of course. This seems to be Clara's favoured approach to starting nights - not so much developing minecart systems, rather the staying up very late the night before so that she can sleep till late.
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| Work and Play |
[23 May 2012|04:21pm] |
Work
Progress! I finally declared the rewrite of the script and the corresponding slides complete! It has to be said that rewriting someone else's guide felt like having teeth pulled, it took twice as long as it I'd hoped.
Once I've checked over the rest of the syllabus I'll be able to run back to the world of documentation and - just maybe - stop a whole lot of spinning admin-guide-plates from crashing onto the floor. All good fun, to be sure.
Play
The Play, in fact. "Betrayal", Harold Pinter's exorcism on the subject of lost love and the corrosive effects of infidelity. insightful and full of crackling wit. There are two ideas that really struck me as quite brilliant; firstly, all three of the characters has in some way betrayed the other two, so the audience isn't given an obvious subject on which to place their sympathy. Each character is both victim and betrayer - the only moral distinction it appears is how each character carries their own guilt and deals with their own betrayal.
A second brilliant idea is in the way that the play runs backwards in time. While the scenes in each act run in chronological order, the acts regress - starting from
an awkward meeting between ex-lovers, listless and full of veiled regret and ending at the moment the couple's affair is 'conceived' through a poetic and deeply passionate declaration of love, nine years earlier.
This arrangement is more than theatrical artifice, it gets to the root of how our memories work - it's as if from that first scene we're pealing back onion-layers. Breaking the chain of cause and effect means that we're able to see and understand more about went on than the characters did at the time - especially in terms of the lies and self-deceptions.
As with any great play you are left with layers of meaning and many interconnected themes.
Wild and Crazy Idea of the day
Everybody agrees that Sheffield's Winter Garden is great - it's my favourite public space/architecture in the city by far! So, to reinvigorate Sheffield city centre, cover it with a huge canopy of timber and glass, keep it at summer temperatures and fill it with tropical plants. Work colleague Jessica likened the idea to the Eden Project. Yes, Jess - but with more shops!
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| May fair - so far |
[22 May 2012|09:25am] |
Remembering
There was a feature on News24 yesterday about how sufferers of dementia were being treated with showings of period footage from their childhoods (mostly the 40s). The reporter didn't really go into any science, but suggested that distant memories could be triggered by such viewings. This triggered a memory of a Radio-4 program about how smell has a more profound link with memory - and that the smell of fresh-cut grass and old style washing materials are know to cause profound flashbacks for old people.
It made me think of this Live Journal, which I have fallen out of the habit of updating, and how much I enjoyed dipping in and reading about what I was doing 5 years ago. So, once again I'll declare that I'm back in the daily journaly keeping business. Absolutely! This time, it's real.
Walk into work
For the first time in a couple of years I've ditched the music, audio lectures or radio when walking into work. For the first time I heard students "talking shop". Normally they leak alcholic drool and occasionally grunt, in contrast, this morning I heard one couple complain about the prospect of two hours of 19th century French literature, and some other young person fire missives about a fellow student filling their project with parabolic functions. Interesting, but I think the music may be coming back soon. I realise now ho much music shallows my thinking.
Daily Mash
Clara sent me a link to the Daily Mash. I should not have followed the link. I'm very busy and I don't need to be half-strangling laughter so that it sounds like a sob:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/warhammer-more-than-just-a-hobby-says-miliband-2012052127935
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| Noteworthy |
[29 Nov 2011|09:33am] |
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This morning, something noteworthy. After years of languishing in my lower pack, my back pain has this morning been promoted to my middle back. Horrah! I'd taken about 30 steps from my front door, heading off to work when I was struck by a searing pain that stopped me in my tracks. After a few moments of panic, in which I believed death was coming for me, I realised that the stretching exercises that I decided to do last night, for the first time in many months may be the cause.
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| Something I hate #2932 |
[13 Oct 2011|02:36pm] |
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I love this big, sprawling, messy city. I love the view from the hills, all the trees, the people are mostly good too. Today, I was reminded of something I really don't love. Now hate is a strong word, but I'm ready to use it here. So, clara has threatened me with a beans on toast dinner, she's on nights and we've not done a big shop recently, leaving us low on supplies. I've decided to buy stuff for a quick dinner during today's lunch break. The key ingredient, fylo pastry, the exciting element that would add an important touch of novelty to the dinner just couldn't be purchased anywhere in range of my city centre jaunt. It seems that if you're in the city centre and you want basics, there are plenty of mini-marts and express supermarkets ready to throw new potatoes at you, or shower you with sachets of couscous, but if you need something that is slightly more specialist then my friend, you are goosed.
Sheffield isn't some one horse town, it's a modern urban centre that is home to about half a million people. Why no fylo pastry, Sheffield?
I guess this is part of the shape of modern britain. The supermarket chains have fought an arms race, where only the biggest super-mega-stores can survive. This growth has forced them to build bigger facilities that wouldn't be economical to run in the city centre. There's also the difficulty of driving into the city centre, with its heavy traffic and lack of free parking.
Dinner will be made, but the cod streaks won't be wrapped in lovely, crispy pastry.
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| Dream |
[11 Oct 2011|09:02am] |
Last night's dream was one of the most horrible I can remember. Gone are the days when otherworldly fiends or preternatural horrors are the cause of a night's unrest. Now, It seems, I dream of having a terminal illness, albeit self-diagnosed - it seems that I was too scared to go the a doctor, at least until the final 'act'. Anyway, rather than face seeing my body ravaged to the point of failure, I had decided that I would commit suicide, which is not something that my waking self would ever likely consider. There's an interesting question: do the things we do or think in dreams signify some underlying belief that our waking selves finds too uncomfortable to admit?
The dream was long, vivid and left my unsettled long after waking - I guess because I was left with the notion that, in fact, we are are all terminal creatures. I'll tell you, while I'm not particularly comfortable facing death, when it becomes imminent and untimely, I'm especially uncomfortable.
On the way to work I was stopped by a couple of women, one of them asked me if she could leave me something to read - a pamphlet about 'the next life'. Coincidence? Not half!
Anyway, I got into work with damp jeans and find there's no milk in the fridge, so I've had to make do with black coffee. I'll sit here and wait for my spirits to lift...
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| Wind |
[06 Sep 2011|05:31pm] |
Tuesday
What's today brought? It began with extreme tiredness, which is probably because I was up playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 until the wee silly hours. I'm silly, Modern Warfare is not silly, nothing that serious, exciting and so super-super violent could ever be thought of as,silly. Anyway, I managed to stagger out of bed at ten past seven, having spent forty minutes in a cycle of 10-minute snoozes.
Angry sky
With our bedroom windows open, it sounded like we were in the midst of a force-9 gale. The sound of the wind was equal parts disturbing and alluring. Extreme weather is a bit exciting, had I been off today, like Clara I'd have relished listening to the howls and rattles of an angry sky. Instead I had to walk my way through it, although it soon became obvious that it wasn't as cold or as wet as I imagined. Today has been blustery, but we're not in winter yet...
Ouch!
I got into work, got a coffee, sat down and got stung by a wasp that had been hiding in my trousers. What a start! The morning has proceeded reasonably - no more stings, bites or infections. My change in role as finally been announced. I'm responsible for documenting the specification of new features, though writing specifications, producing wireframes and prototypes - answering to Warren who's taking ownership of our 'web experience/marketing' stuff. Exciting, stingy times.
Dinner
Looking forward to cottage pie. Good excuse to use some Henderson's Relish - which has been discussed at length in the office today.
Wedding Photos
Lee, our wedding photographer confirmed that our photos should be with us by Thursday, which is good. We really need to get a thank you card designed. Looking forward to seeing them.
Tilt Shift
There was a documentary on TV last night about the "Ground Zero" Mosque. It featured lots of establishing shots that had been treated to give this tilt-shift appearance. There's something compelling about that make it appear tiny look.
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[05 Sep 2011|06:20pm] |
Monday. The traditional start to the week. This week I shall start up my LiveJournal and once more put into written down words my thoughts and observations.
Beautiful morning. Very nearly chilly, but not quite. Sun low enough at 7:30 to give you that dawn feel - something you don't get in high summer as by 6am the sun is already well up in sky place. Clara hates the end of summer, she hates the increased rainfall, the prevailing gray skies and increasingly chilly temperatures. I love the hot sunny weather too, but I also love seasonality - life would be duller if the weather was always the same, the day always the same length.
I must start taking more photos - get ready for when autumn really hits.
Chocolate A few minutes from the office I Saw a fat woman carrying an industrial sized tupperware container stuffed with what looked like blocks of chocolate cake. As I walked away I couldn't stop thinking about what it meant. Did she live off cake, was she addicated to chocolate? Maybe, instead she brought cake in for her colleagues - in vast quantities.
Gems I should produce a list of gems of wisdom that I've accumulated over the 40 years of my life. If I am really lucky, I'm half way through my life. If I'm like my dad, and It has to be said, I am a lot like my dad - then I was actually hit the half way point about 10 years ago. This is not a thought that I care to dwell on. And I'd certainly would hold up my increasinly dusty collection of predujices and opinions as wisdom. oh no, not me.
Stone
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| *Blowing away dust* |
[18 May 2011|08:59am] |
It's time to blow the dust off this journal and get writing again. As much as I like how facebook plugs me in tot he masses, it feels a tad constrained when it comes to brain-dumping and radical opining.
Wedding Website
I've knocked together a website about our happening-quite-soon wedding:
http://www.markandclara.co.uk
There's some tweaks still to make, but it's 95% complete - which is complete as a website ever gets if you ask me.
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| Debate |
[22 Nov 2010|03:07pm] |
Most of the time I ignore brain-numbingly stupid facebook messages, but occasionally I feel the need to weigh in and comment. Usually not in response to someone's proclamations about the magical love force that emanates from Jesus - there really isn't much to say about that stuff, but when the message makes a falsifiable claim about reality, I feel somewhat duty-bound to respond.
Here's a brief 'discussion' that happened recently. I screen captured the discussion because I thought the comments might get deleted, and I thought it a useful reminder to me that what defines a fundamentalist isn't that they believe, but rather that they don't think..and can be rather rude while they're busy not thinking.
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| They're ordering curry... |
[17 Nov 2010|08:58pm] |
[Article Fragment]
Working late. They're all pre-occupied with the ordering of curry. This is hard. I'm the curry connoisseur. If I was into tattoos (which I'm absolutely not, by the way) my body would be covered in tattoos that celebrated the great curries I've eaten, and loved. When the food arrives I'm going to get my head down and block out the sights, sounds and smells of an office full of lovely food. To be fair I have eaten. A very fine Singapore Noodles ready meal from Sainsbury's, followed by a banana, but ready meal portions are tiny. I'm definitely going to be in calorie deficit today, maybe by 200-400 hundred.
The world today
There's apparently a plan to remake "The Wizard of Oz", one that involes using the original script. I'm not automatically against remakes - although I just wished that studios would have the nerve to remake films that originally bad, but had a great idea. Hmmm, that gets me thinking. What three bad films should be remade (as good/great films):
1. Krull or Dungeons and Dragons. Krull wasn't all that bad, D&D was almost too awful to be saved by a decent remake.
2. Cutthroat Island...oh wait a minute, that was remade as Pirates of the Caribbean.
3. Zardos..Because nothing wrecks a great idea for a film like Sean Connery in an orange leotard.
Facinating article about what coffee does to your brain -
http://lifehacker.com/5585217/what-caffeine-actually-does-to-your-brain
I say your brain, because I'm convinced that coffee in my brain mediates all neurological activity.
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[16 Nov 2010|09:08am] |
This morning I saw the most amazing photo of Sheffield city centre -- that I wasn't able to take, while peering over the wall at the end of Howard street. The buildings and streetlights working against the blue misty hues, under an increasingly rich gradient of orange and azure. It had the quality of a great oil painting, in that you couldn't help but stop and feast your eyes. Unfortunately a row of tall trees and nearby houses frustrated any attempts to capture the scene. The photos I did take on the walk into work were nothing worth showing. I wasn't able to take the time or apply myself. If we have a similar morning next Saturday maybe I'll come out and dedicate myself to a dawn shoot.
Work
Deadline week... gulp. Writing documentation for a rapidly and wildly changing product is just weird. It's like painting a landscape from the view of a high-speed train. At least things short start settle down soon.
Skepticism
I attended the "Skeptics in the pub" meeting last night. It was a presentation by Mike Hall (president of the Merseyside Skeptics Society and presenter of Skepticism with a K), who looked at five common (Christian) apologetics, deconstructing the arguments presented and exposing flaws (lots of flaws). It was a insightful and good humored rundown of why Atheism is the only rational world view.
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| Sun begins to set over 2010... |
[14 Nov 2010|10:45am] |
Exhausting day, yesterday. Ended up driving to the top of Stannington for half an hour to watch the sun set. It's odd that during summer, the sun drops behind the Loxely valley, but right now it finishes the day by slouching behind Lodge Moor. It's ages since we just sat and took stock - doing nothing but meditating on the moment - or in my case manically changing camera lenses and adjusting tripod levers. It made me consider how the year has all but passed.
Anyhow. This morning Clara and I have embarked on a competition. The prize is £50. The meat of the contest - weight loss. Whoever loses the most weight by the 1st of January wins.
The starting weights: Clara - 62kg, Mark - 97kg
Let the not eating muffins begin..... *whimper*
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| This was the day.... |
[04 Aug 2010|08:25am] |
I missed the bus by 10 seconds, but managed to run round the block to intercept it at a later stop - an achievement that gives you a 10-second burst of euphoria, and makes your legs ache for an hour. Buses from Stannington, before 7:30am carry an army of brown collar workers. If you're not a warehouse storeman or a cleaning lady, you sure stick out.
It's the first time I've caught the bus into work since we moved. I hope I don't have to do it too many times - I narrowly avoided the destruction of my soul by reading one of the 50 or so books I store in my phone.
Disappointed
Last night, the Earth was hit by a 'solar tsunami', C3-class solar flare that resulted in a gaseous blob of coronal mass hitting the magnetosphere. And, I didn't see a sodding thing. Someone somewhere probably got a real treat, in the form of a big norther lights show. No sign of it here, under the dampening glare of city lights.
Coming up
This is the weekend that mum meets Clara's parents. I'm sort of looking forward to it, but also, not. We probably should have got this out of the way much sooner. One thing it does mean, the weekend is going to be a lot more hard work, as for once, we're the hosts, not the guests. Gah! I hope we get better weather for it.
Work in progress
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| Start of weekend |
[24 Jul 2010|08:57am] |
Up with Clara at 5:30ish. By 8am I'd had breakfast, painted radiator pipes, started building a Traveller related 3D model and put a load of washing on. So, by 9am, it feels like a full morning. This is what I like about getting up early. Unfortunately, I've done little in the last half an hour except browse a bit. I might have a second breakfast, or at least a third mug of coffee.
Rest of day:
I plan to complete the first pass of the 3D model, which is the second of my "locations", which may be submitted as part of a publication if I can get enough decent work together.
I will try and edge Ian's book cover forward - definitely would like to have a work in progress to show by the end of the weekend.
Weeding the garden. The garden is Clara's domain really, but as we're having a dry, sunny start to the day, I should get stuck in and at least pull up the big weeds.
Town...present required for Tracy. Though I may do the searching over my lunch breaks next week...
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| synchro into the city |
[23 Jul 2010|08:02am] |
The long walk into work is starting to feel like routine, one that I quite enjoy. This morning's walk included a series of small co-incidences that ended up driving me into Starbucks.
I was walking along South road. Ahead of me, I could see a girl in a red dress walking in the same direction I was headed, at almost the same speed. That she was still walking ahead of me 20 minutes later wasn't any great surprise - I was, after all, taking a pretty direct path into the city centre. At the University roundabout I overtook her, which I was glad of; it's maybe not enough to not be a stalker, I think you probably have to be seen to be not a stalker.
I take a meandering path along the roads near the University buildings, between Trippet lane and West Street. A few minutes after I turned onto West Street the girl in the red dress also turned onto West Street at the exact moment that I passed. The coincidence struck me, not so much the fact that our paths had merged, but the fact that they had merged at exactly the same moment. I pressed on, turning towards the town hall by cutting through Leopold Square. I decided to get some cash out of the ATM, at the top of Fargate, turning away just as the same girl walked past.
It was at this point that I decided that get a large milky coffee, and was quite relieved that she wasn't stood behind me in the queue. It's easy to see how people see meaning, even the toying hand of fate in the way some events cluster and coordinate.
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| Seaside Sunday |
[29 Mar 2010|09:22pm] |
Well Saturday night was restful, red wine, posh crisps and two episodes of The Wire - season 3. We should have made a better effort to have an early night, as the plan was to get up early and go to the seaside.
Sunday morning was probably the second most unpopular for an early rise, after New Year's Day. The clocks changed back to English Summertime, robbing the whole country of an hour. I always wondered if someone, somewhere is collecting up these lost hours, but that's a crazy stream of thought for another night.
Up early, we were. About twenty minutes before the lark, and only a few minutes behind the early bird who got the worm - poor worm, he only remembered the clocks had gone forward as he was being plucked from the earth.
Anyhow, we were on the road for 7:30am, full of enthusiasm, and a new name for Clara's car - Skylark. We arrived in Bridlington close to the North Beach, choosing to head up to Flamborough head first. It was quite stunning, walking along the cliff edge, with the sun still low and the rest of the day trippers still in transit. After an hour or so we headed back to the car, parked next to the lighthouse. The place was finally coming alive.
Next stop, Bridlington - South Beach. It suddenly dawned on Clara that the car was now running on fumes, so we turned our attentions on finding a petrol station. We drove, and drove and actually found ourselves heading out of Brid before we chanced upon a Tescos petrol forecourt.
We fed Skylark, then headed back to the beach. We wandered around for another hour, then headed for a fish and chip lunch. It was fair to middle as fish and chips goes - although the portions were good.
We walked most of the length of the beach, Clara read out the prose, written into the paving slabs - pretty good work that retold local history along a mile or more. We returned to the car, my hope was to go and see the model village located near the North Beach. On arrival it didn't look open, or worth our efforts, so on the spur we decided to push north to Scarborough.
It was a little further than we'd estimated - but we found ourselves there about half an our later.
We parked close to the castle, I'd set that as a good first call. Unfortunately it was half an hour from closing when we entered the ticket office/shop, so we decided to leave it for another day. We headed down to the front for a walk out into the harbour, then along the beach.
We headed back to the car and headed for home just after 5pm, which, rather wonderfully, got us back before darkness. We both agreed that we'd had a fantastic day, we really should make the effort to go out and do more exploring, especially as the days get longer, and the weather better.
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| Earlydoors to West Riding |
[28 Mar 2010|06:54am] |
We're going on a day trip to Flamborough Head. Making the trip on what must be the least favorite early morning possible.
Weather reports still insist that the sun is a feature, but just how many intervals, how much sun?
Too late now, we're comitted.
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| In this week |
[26 Mar 2010|01:21pm] |
Obamacare
We watched conservative America explode in rage. Why, you may ask? Of course I'm left baffled. I've always inclined at least a little to the left. In the U.S., socialism is a dirty word, if not darn right dangerous. You hear conservative America use the world "liberal" through gritted teeth, as if saying the word was enough to cause immediate and chronic moral degeneracy. Oddly enough, checking through the dozen or so definitions provided at dictionary.com, not one of them is negative. Most of them relate to excessive tolerance, generosity and open-mindedness. So where does this negativity come from? Probably the winding road of history - that same road that resulted in English society being obsessive with resisting all agents of the Papacy for 300 years. The same cultural highway that has left French farmers obsessed with burning sheep. We often hear from people how their parents "screwed them up", I don't remember a nation collectively accusing the same of their ancestors. But surely it must be true.
All quiet on the TV front
A string of early starts has resulted in a week without watching anything on TV. We must not leave it too long before watching the second episode of The Wire (season 3) as we'll forget what all the little pieces mean, and as you'll already know, all the pieces matter!
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