hovis

Well hello, sailor! I've been back in Ireland for the past couple of days; I was quite lucky to get here, considering the snow. Here's a run-down of my life up to this point!

Last week at work was pretty harsh. I worked until 9pm on Wednesday and Thursday, and until... actually, I can't remember what time I left on Friday. Probably about 6:30pm. A problem I've had lately, which is probably due to poor sleeping habits, is that I have a pretty poor awareness of events going on around me, and as such my memories of them are pretty sketchy too. Being home in Ireland is always the best place for me to catch up on my sleep, though, so I'm expecting to go back to Cambridge refreshed in the New Year. Otherwise I'm screwed!

I was in no rush to leave the house on Saturday morning, since my flight was at 4:50pm, which was a good thing, as I hadn't packed, and still had stuff to do. I did want to arrive a bit earlier to meet Myriam, though, as she was set to arrive in Stansted at about 12:30. I got everything done in time and left the house with about an hour to get to the train station, which should have been enough. It wasn't; due to the pretty intense snow we had recently, and the sub-zero temperatures that prevented it from going anywhere, I ended up waiting the best part of half an hour for a bus, which then took another half hour to get there. I could have walked in that time, but I had luggage with me, and I'd have been exhausted. Anyway, I arrived a bit late, but Myriam's flight was delayed too, so it was no biggie. We met up at the airport and swapped luggage around so as to stay within Ryanair's weight restrictions.

In the departures lounge, we had something to eat at Frankie & Benny's, and caught up with what had been happening recently. I made my way to my gate after that, and flew to Belfast with few problems. Slight delay in taking off due to frost on the wing, but it didn't matter, as I had to wait for Myriam on the other side. I started writing a review of Clark's 'Totems Flare' for The Chopstick during the flight, and did some more stuff on it at the Costa in Belfast City airport. Myriam's flight was delayed by about an hour, so when Mum and Dad arrived, we had to wait around a while. When Myriam arrived, greetings were said, and we made our way to the car. We got home at 12:15am, and had something to eat before bed.

That's pretty much it! Beck hasn't been to visit yet, due to the snow, and she's working tomorrow. A slight inconvenience, as I brought my Xbox 360 hard drive over, and some games (Forza 3 included), but not the machine itself. Of course, that's not the only reason I want to see her! Myriam and my parents get on really well, and we've mostly just been watching movies and drinking wine. It is a good way to spend the holidays. Anyway, I'm being antisocial, so I'll go. Bye for now!

Guess I should write something about my trip to Ireland, huh? Heeeere goes!

I had a half-day on Thursday, and got something to eat with Mum and Beck before going home to pack. Mum was kind of rushing us, though, and it was a bit stressful; I'd hoped to set up the internet before I left (God knows I'd been trying for a week), but I didn't get around to it. Mum's a little on the cautious side, so we turned up early for the coach to the airport, which got us there much earlier than we really needed to be, and resulted in us sitting around in Stansted Airport's horribly crowded Wetherspoon's. Glee. Beck and I listened to Bibio's 'Jealous of Roses'.

The flight was uneventful. On arriving in Derry, Niall picked us up, and we drove to Beck's. Before long Dad arrived to take Mum and I home, and I had a fairly early night. I don't remember much about Friday; Mum and I went to Donegal town in the morning for a bit of shopping, and I bought Beck a birthday present and a card. Beck came around a bit later, with her PS2.

I don't remember much about Saturday morning either, come to think of it. Most likely this is because of what happened later. It was Beck's birthday on Friday, so we went out for a meal on Saturday night; my family, her fiancée, and some aunts, uncles and cousins, 11 of us in total. The meal was nice, but I was already quite drunk by the end of it. This can probably be attributed to Dad. I had a glass of red wine on the initial drinks order, and then he bought two bottles of red. Seeing as it was just the two of us drinking Red wine, we had a bottle each. It kind of went downhill from there, too. The manager of the restaurant/bar we were at bought us a round of drinks (This has happened before, as we go there quite a lot), and mine was a whiskey and Coke, which I drank in parallel to my last glass of red wine. Oh dear. From here on it gets a little fuzzy, but from photographic evidence I estimate that I had some toxic-looking pink cocktail (A 'Woo-Woo'?), a glass of some clear orange liquid that I remember nothing about, and at least one shot which consisted of Creme de Menthe, Baileys and.. Tia Maria? My last clear memory is of dipping my thumb in the shot and having someone attempt to light it to play some stupid drinking game. Of course, the game is supposed to be played with Sambuca, and Bailey's doesn't really catch fire. And then... nothing.

I woke up the next morning, feeling okay. It then occurred to me that I had no memory of getting home the night before. I checked the time; 1:45pm. Starting to get a little worried, I scoured my memory for any hint of what happened after I blacked out. Ah, there it is.. I remembered kneeling in front of a toilet in a cubicle, retching into the bowl. I think my cousin was outside, asking if I was okay; I mumbled an affirmative. Great. I grew worried that I had become some kind of fountain of puke and completely embarrassed my family, and got the shakes as a result. With no solid memories, how could I be sure I hadn't? I steeled my nerves, got up and went to the kitchen. Quizzed my Mum a bit on what had happened, and she said I'd been fine (Apart from being sick in the toilets), albeit rather drunk. I'd been singing at one point, and we got home at about 2:30am (My last memory is from about 11:30, according to the timestamps on photos). Feeling queasy and unable to eat, but not hungover, I sat and watched Crocodile Dundee on TV for a while. Decided to lie down again for a bit, and our cat Mitzy joined me; she didn't seem very lively herself. Whilst I was resting, I reclaimed another memory. This was the one I'd been waiting for.

I was in the toilets again. Someone had been sick in the sink. Eugh. It was me, wasn't it? I was that guy. You know how if you get a bit of food clogging the plug-hole of a sink, you can usually dislodge it by putting your in there and swilling it around? Yeah, I did that. I think my cousin was behind me again, and he told me to leave it alone. So, my main concern now is whether I washed my hand off before I went back out, or whether I spent the rest of the night with a puke-y hand. My parents didn't say much on the subject, which was either because they didn't remember much themselves (They were also drinking heavily), or because they wanted to spare me.

And that's largely it. I spent the rest of Sunday recovering, and flew home the next day. Work has been pretty ordinary. I should go now, because I'm planning on seeing District 9 today. Laters!

Ruth.

While I was in Ireland, I had a root around in the attic in my parents' house. I was inspired by a post on the TIGSource forums about games you designed as a child, and decided to have a look for a bunch of my old drawings. Between the ages of about 7 and 12, I 'designed' a large number of games; most of them amounted to little more than drawings of a title screen and an in-game shot. I think most of the design was in my head, because I'm sure they made sense to me then, but now they're mostly incomprehensible. 'Long Shot', for example, was a Space Invaders/Galaxian clone with the sole distinction that your ship's shots were very long. I envisioned 'Pacman 2' as a 3rd-person 3D maze game. 'Atari Master' appeared to be a top-down shoot-'em-up where you controlled the Atari logo wielding a gun. There were also several untitled drawings that were clearly inspired by Adventure on the Atari 2600, but where the main character actually was a duck.

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. Among my drawings I found several Valentine's cards from a 'girlfriend' I had when I was about 7. Ruth. I put girlfriend in inverted commas not because she wasn't important, but because at that age all you're really doing is imitating aspects of adult relationships that you see on TV. I shouldn't be playing that down, though, as it's important for later on in life, and I think the fact that I never really did anything like that with anyone after Ruth can be held accountable for most of the relationship anxiety I feel these days. We would do stuff like kiss each other on the cheek, or perhaps a quick peck on the lips, the kind of thing that grown-ups thought was cute. There are actually a couple of photos of her at home, when she was at my 7th birthday party; I should have dug them out. I remember one where I had my arm around her, but she looked kind of uncomfortable. She was a pretty girl anyway, from what I remember.

There were two Valentine's cards from her, and it made me feel kind of weird reading them. They were full of the kind of rhymes kids tell each other; 'Roses are red, violets are blue', that kind of thing. Something struck me as slightly odd about them, though. Possibly because I don't really remember much about how things were between us. They just seemed a little bit too grown-up for a 7-year-old, but I suppose she got suggestions from her older sister, or something. Perhaps I just feel weird about them because they were directed at me, of all people. The second card was a bit of an oddity, though. It was written in pen, and seemed to be addressed to to someone else; 'Malcome'. His name was roughly Tip-Ex'd out, though, and replaced with mine. Was she two-timing me? Was that card even from her? There was some writing in pencil on there, in what looked a bit like my sister's handwriting, which read,

"Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust,
You are the biggest pig,"

Which certainly seems like something my sister would have written around that time. I think the card was legitimate, though, she just wrote on it later. The last thing I found was a small scrap of paper, torn from a notebook, which read,

"To David,
You look lovely.
From Ruth
xxxxxxxxxx"

I'm really curious how I responded to stuff like this; does she still have a collection of Valentine's cards and notes from me? Or did I not give her any? I can't remember how things ended between us; eventually my parents moved, so I left that school. I kind of get the impression that we drifted apart before that, though, and it would certainly be more in character for me if we had.

Well, it certainly has been a while! I feel bad about only posting once over the Christmas an New Year period, as I've posted quite a lot in the past, even if it was just to brag about the presents I got. I kind of feel like I'm broken lately, though; more on that later, perhaps.

I woke up early on Christmas morning, and spoke to Joiz online for a while before getting ready. My sister was a little slower off the mark, though, so I played Fallout 3 for a while (I think I was hanging around Rivet City). We started exchanging gifts at around 10am. It's weird, but I've always found Christmas to be a strange sensation; at least in recent years, like I'm light-headed and uncertain how to react. At any rate, it was cool, and my gifts went down pretty well (The main ones being the custom calendar I made for Mum with photos of our cats, the framed Achewood strip for Beck, and a Yes anthology for Dad). The main things I got were BioShock on the 360 from Beck and her boyfriend, jeans, trousers and a jacket from my parents, Squarepusher's new album, 'Just a Souvenir' and POLYSICS' latest, 'We ate the machine'. And also a new camera from my parents! I'll try to post photos from it on Flickr soon.

The rest of the Christmas holidays were mostly spent not playing as much games as I'd have liked (Although I did play Fallout 3 quite a bit, and also a bit of Rez, Castle Crashers with my sister and her boyfriend, and on my last day in Ireland I gave Viva Piñata a shot, and found it to be pretty engrossing, to the point that I might pick up a copy for myself), wasting time on the internet, and drinking Bailey's and wine. We went shopping in Derry, went for a nice meal in Donegal town, I visited the dentist and got a filling, and met up with an old friend. We went for a walk along the beach on Christmas Day, too, which is something of a family tradition.

So, I flew back to England on Wednesday morning, dropped a few things off at home, and then made my way to Guildford to spend New Year's Eve with Joel and Marcela. We went to a music venue with some friends, where there was a pretty decent DJ (Followed swiftly by a less-than-decent DJ), and a band called Wobbly Squadron, who can only be described as 'dance-rock-indie-psychedelia'. They were pretty sweet. We ended up in a club called Fahrenheit 55 until 4am, and ate some burgers from an all-night kebab place on the way home. I didn't actually drink very much, in all, because the taste of alcohol started to make me feel sick (I think that happens when I drink beer), so I felt okay the next day. Just kind of tired. We didn't do much, anyway; just sat around talking, and listening to music. I got to meet a Czech opera singer, too! She was practising her singing in the kitchen, while her boyfriend practised the organ in his room downstairs. My friends' house is always interesting.

Today I went to work in the morning, only to discover there was no-one else there, and I didn't have a key to open the office. I phoned my supervisor, and he said that he wasn't even aware I was going to be in, so he told me to just take the day off. So I did! I walked back into town, bought two CDs (MGMT's Oracular Spectacular, which I actually quite like, and Death Cab For Cutie's Narrow Stairs, which I'm listening to now), ate at Pret-a-Manger, and walked home, completely forgetting to pick up the package from Ash at the Post Office. I'll get it tomorrow!

Oh, hello! What? Put that down! Ah!

So, it's been a while. Here's an account of the past week or so, which I plan to keep as brief as possible:

The day after my trip to London to meet Jon, Ash and James, I travelled to Retford to spend the weekend with Steve, Sarah and Jon (Again). It was an 'all gaming, all of the time' kind of weekend, which was comprised mostly of Rock Band 2, Left 4 Dead and Geometry Wars 2, but also took in a game of Scene It which seemed to go on forever, 4-player madness in Castle Crashers, repeated deaths in Mirror's Edge, transvestites and dog abuse in Fable 2, and flying bears in Red Alert 3.

God, that was actually two weeks ago.. I don't even remember much of what happened at work in that time. It's been pretty uneventful, and I seemed to become more tired and scatterbrained with every passing day. I managed to get the majority of my Christmas shopping done, but I just couldn't find anything for Steve and Sarah. I'll try and plop something in the post for you when I get back, guys!

The Saturday after my weekend in Retford, I went shopping in Cambridge with my housemate, Harika. I bought two pairs of jeans, a hoodie and a hat with money that my parents gave me for my birthday. On the subject of purchases, I recently acquired the following CDs:

Nick Drake - Bryter Layter
PETSET - Flow Motion, Feather Light
DANGERDOOM - The Mouse and the Mask
Mr. Lif - Mo' Mega (A fantastic album, with some sweet production by El-P)
El-P - Cannibal OXtrumentals
Tool - 10,000 Days
Takagi Masakatsu - Journal For People (Present from James! Minimal, glitchy electronica)
Helios - Caesura (Also from James)
Lone - Lemurian (A nice mix of IDM and hip-hop)

Wow, quite a lot of albums. It occurs to me that I haven't really been mentioning my CD purchases recently. I don't think I said anything about Boris' album, Smile (Japanese psychedelic metal), Germlin's Youth Pixxel (Frenetic Bitcore, although I actually just downloaded this), or Pendulum's Hold Your Colour (Not much to say there, though).

Anyway, bringing things up to date: On Friday I went for Christmas lunch with people from work. The food was really good, and I had red wine and champagne with it. The only real highlight of the event was Dave and I having a conversation with Layla from the art department about what we called female genitals (Though I have no idea how we got onto the topic). I told her I was quite happy to refer to them as vaginae, and she confided that girls like them to be called 'Minky' or 'pushkin'. Truth or bollocks?

After the dinner, Conor and I made our way to Stansted Airport, and flew to our respective parts of Ireland. I had to deal with Ryanair's horrible queues, however, and it took me about an hour to check in my bag. Anyway, I made it with no problems, and I'm now in Ireland for Christmas. Oh, I forgot to mention: I bought Fallout 3 a couple of weeks ago, which I've been playing pretty regularly. I also bought Geometry Wars Evolved 2 and Every Extend Extra Extreme on XBLA, both of which are pretty sweet. Jon also lent me Fable 2 and Dead Rising, so my gaming for the next month is pretty much sorted.

I should go now, anyway. Bye!

Hello! I'm in Ireland now. Look: Top o' the mornin'; Guinness; Pot o' gold; Err... Liquid lunch.

My flight over is still kind of a blur. I left the house shortly before 7am, and walked to the train station. I got a lift with an old man who was going to a boot sale (He told me that time of morning was best, because there was a better chance of finding something interesting), which sliced about ten minutes off. The rest of my journey went according to plan. I didn't even lose my passport! At the same time, I was running on autopilot for the majority of it, and the time seemed to pass so quickly. I put it down to exhaustion, and I've been sleeping fairly well since I've arrived, so I'm feeling slightly more energetic.

That said, my aunt and her son came to visit on the same day I did. My cousin is something of a handful at the best of times (I'm sure I've complained about him in here many times before), so things here aren't as restful as I'd like. Still, I've got next week to myself. Except I have a series of four dental appointment, starting tomorrow. That's going to be fun, I'm sure.

I think I'll go now, and play some games before I go to bed. Look forward to another post: Possibly tomorrow!