3:40 pm Tuesday, 31 July, 2007
BBC NEWS | Special Report | Audio slideshow: Inside Associated Press
Archive for July, 2007
Someone turn me around / Can I start this again?
2:33 pm Monday, 30 July, 2007
Right, let me prefix this by saying that I didn’t get much sleep last night. I don’t know why. I went to be around 11.30 and I pretty much didn’t fall asleep until sometime well after 4am. This was not good, especially as I was up early this morning.
So I’m not feeling too hot right now. So a good start to what promises to be a long (is it the weekend yet?) week. Hurrah.
In other news, I’m searching for a book. I’ve read a few good books lately but nothing that has reached out and grabbed me and now I’m loosing interest in reading. I went back and read Kingdom Come again last night and it remains glorious but I need a novel. I had a couple of interesting sounding books recently but due my complete lack of paying attention and some well placed stickers in the store, I appear to have bought two children’s books and so I’m totally put off them. Oops.
So. I decided that I’d put aside the pile of semi serious modern literature and dive back into modern sci-fi in the hope something would really grasp me. On the tube on the way to work this morning I started M. John Harrison’s Light. It’s talked up quite a bit and so it seemed like a good place to begin. However it has left me totally cold. I’m onto page 48 and I have this dread that I’m going to struggle to finish it. So not really too pleased about that. It’s not so bad as that I’m not going to finish it
I’m also reading, and this is the only time it’s okay to read two books at once, a short story collection called The Last Book You Read by Ewan Morrison. The first two stories were excellent. I’m generally not a short story fan, I prefer to sink my teeth into something a little more but recently I’ve read and enjoyed a few collections (of particular note Elliot Perlman’s The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming) and I’ll come back to a story in this every now and again. I have a little tidying up of books to do at some stage this week so hopefully I’ll be able to pick out something for my next book which will do better than this.
After realising that the song I kept hearing around the place and liking is the Editors Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors, I’ve gone back and given their first album The Back Room another listen and I think it’s going to grow on me a bit. It’s also good to not listen to Stars again for a little while. Onto my new obsession :)
Now having just tried to make an appointment to see my GP, I find that because I’ve been so considerate as to not need to see him for about two years, I find that I am no longer registered with him and need to go in and register as a new patient again. Then once that is all done I’ll be able to make an appointment. For all the bad things (and I know there are a lot of them) about American health care, I was able to just walk in the door, pay some money and see a doctor. It’s the same in Ireland. None of this registering in the right area and then making an appointment or any of that crap. Just go in, say your name and take a seat. Now in fairness the guy did say he could sort it out if it was urgent but I mean for fuck sake. I was sure that all my records from America were sent to this guy, so I wonder now where they have ended up.
Now in fairness, when I had my tumour fun at the start of the year I did have to pay some money myself and the insurance bill was not small but it was still a case of seeing a doctor on day 1, a specialist 2 hours later and then I went home with scans and the surgery already scheduled. So while I know there is much America could learn from the British health care system, it would seem to me that there is something the British could learn too.
11:03 am Saturday, 28 July, 2007
So anyway, we are back up after a short burst of housekeeping. Lots more to be done whenever I have the time and really more importantly the inclination to do so.
Far more importantly this morning, I’m going to watch the next episode of The Wire and then figure out my day.
Live through this, and you won’t look back…
4:19 pm Friday, 27 July, 2007
I’m obsessing again…again. A good while ago I joined eMusic after Alasdair spoke highly of them in the pub one evening. I joined up, paid my monthly fee and grabbed some music. And then for a long time I’d find that I wasn’t using my full allowance and in effect I was throwing money away every month. So a little while ago I decided I’d get into it a little more and download some new music. I went through their reviews and their charts and then tried some bands that I’d heard of but not managed to actually hear.
One of the albums that I downloaded is Stars’ Your Ex-Lover is Dead. I took a quick listen at the time and I kinda liked it but over the past couple of weeks I’ve been going back to it on a pretty regular basis, and perhaps even buying a live album just for a few tracks. The title track is awesome with a very simple and effective video (YouTube). It, to use another of my favourite words, resonates. I don’t quite know why. So this morning, aside from a slight foray into the greatest hits of Foreigner (Cold! As! Ice!), I have been listening to Stars. I was also quite pleased to see they are playing a small gig in London in a few months and I’ve booked up for that. So yeah, obsessing again.
I was talking last night about going to see stuff and I realised that I really do need to get back into the habit of booking gigs and shows and so this morning I spent some time looking around. When I think about, it’s not all that unrealistic to book tickets for something in December so I have done so. I’m actually pausing and giving thought to seeing Arcade Fire three days running. This might be a little over the top though.
The weekend is now a little up in the air. I’d quite like to head out and see the Red Bull air races as planned but it’s madly expensive and I’m tired. I quite fancy skipping it all and just having a nice quiet one. Terrible, I know. I think I’ll just see how it goes. But I really should use my camera, it’s been gathering dust a little in recent times. Maybe a quiet one tonight, a quick catchup with the lads after work and then an early evening.
Of course I may just well turn around and go see Transformers because you know it just has to be done. I’m also thinking that a Ship call may have to go out. Fuck it, will just see how things feel tomorrow.
I had dinner in Joe Allen last night. It came very highly recommended but I’m not entirely sure why. Don’t get me wrong, it was all good fit the bill nicely but I guess I was just expecting a little more, don’t ask me what though! Still a nice night.
help!
2:30 pm Monday, 23 July, 2007
Man I love the internets. A quick mail out for some help before dashing out to lunch and then when I get back, I’ve got at least 10 good suggestions waiting.
Thank you all.
Speaking of help on the internet, there was a rather fascinating thread waiting for me in work this morning. We, as a company, live on listservs. Now this is fine with me, I know how to use filters and so I’ll happily go on every listserv there is and cherry pick what is relevant to me and only read them. This works very well for me. I leave my email downloading for 10 minutes or so in the morning and then I start. Actually while I think of it, my very best email rule is a very simple one. Once all the listervs are filtered into their right homes, I have one more filter. I run two inboxes. One of which contains emails to me and the other is emails where I am a cc. So I read the to me first and when I’m done with all of them I’ll worry about the FYI’s or the things I should know about rather than the things I should be taking action on. It’s not perfect but it works quite well for me.
Anyway we have a fairly open listserv that anyone in the company can subscribe to. We call it web-dev and it’s just that. It can get really techy, it can be a place to blow some steam (but careful, you never know who is on it!), it can be a place for a lot of things.
End of last week though there was an email to the listserv with no subject or anything other than the word “help” in the mail.
Response to this has been somewhat divided and there has been some fascinating responses to it. It’s really pushed some people to think about email and the responses to it. The first person, (rightly as it turns out) assumed that it was meant to go to the listserv software rather than the entire distribution list (help, of course, being a perfectly valid command) and so jumped in with a joke about being on the way. The next response kicked it off (in a very well intentioned way) by asking what if it had been a serious mail and someone really did help. He did note that he’d watched too many horror movies but it was ya know still a serious question.
So some interesting debate there and some interesting thinking actually. Good points were made that if you have access to email and can send help, we’d expect a message more along the lines
Help! I’m locked in the trunk of a car somewhere sending emails with my iPhone!
With the full acknowledgment of course that by mentioning you have an iPhone you run the risk of having jealous non-iPhone owners not helping but still, if you are really sending a call for help, more detail would be good.
As it turns out the guy who sent the joke message back, had already started getting in contact with the guys manager to double check everything was okay just in case, and then saw the correct message going to the listserv software seconds later after the guy realised his mistake.
It’s quite a short thread and there is a lot more humour in it and some really interesting debate. I really hope it’ll pick up and continue this when the US really kick off work anytime now as it’s absolutely fascinating and I’d love to see some very smart people kick it around for a while.
life still goes on
12:24 pm Monday, 23 July, 2007
Right then. It’s Monday morning and I’m shattered. I’m sat at my desk listening to Queen and trying to figure out an order for my thoughts. I may as well start with the Queen story.
I’ve written before about how my sister and my dad had such a major impact on my musical taste, both completely unknowingly. Next up to them, and in fact long before them was my next door neighbours while I was a kid in Dublin. I’m the eldest of three and so of course I had started school and all that before my sisters. Our next door neighbours at the time had twin boys the same age as me. They got a lift into school every morning from their dad. So for the first few years when it was just me in school, I use to get a lift in with them.
I use to look forward to these lifts every morning for one simple reason. They had a tape deck in the front of the car and as best I could tell, there was only one tape for it. So most mornings I would get into the car and there was at some stage during the few minutes a song playing that I loved. I’d have only been five, maybe six at the time and music was pretty much a new thing to me. As it turns out, it was a Queen album which I’d later come to find out was The Works but the song was of course I Want To Break Free. So it’s pretty much the first song that I remember, I still love it. Under Pressure has supplanted it as my favourite Queen song (and I’ve described it as my favourite song more than once) but I still have a little moment whenever this comes on.
Now the reason that I bring this up is that I had another little moment yesterday. I mentioned a while ago that I had developed a fear or at least a nervousness of flying. I still have no explanation for this. I was slightly unhappy on the way over to Dublin but it wasn’t so bad. Coming back last night though, it just wasn’t good. I wonder if it’s something as simple as an over-active imagination or something stupid along those lines. I still can’t figure out what it is. Anyway I was at a window seat yesterday and there was a lot of rain going on. I had seen a plane land on the runway we were about to take off from and it threw up so much water. I was not happy with this at all. But I was sat there, unhappy, thinking pretty much that I was a fucking idiot, I had no idea what was causing this and I should just get over it. I don’t know exactly what it was but something did just click and I got over it. I wish I knew what it was, as it’d be great to be able to just think something the right way and get over something. Anyway I had the window seat and it’s generally a new view in/out of Dublin and in/out of London so I put my book down and enjoyed the view. When I was allowed (stupid regulations), I put on my headphones and started scrolling through my iPod. I was looking for some inspiration for something to listen to and I thought I may aswell have a little laugh at myself and pick a song to listen to while the plane plummets to a fiery end :)
It took a little while, obviously the big guns (U2, Radiohead, R.E.M., Dylan) all got a few minutes of consideration but after scrolling through for a little while I realised I had to go old school. OK Computer (Karma Police, No Surprises) was quite high in there but on thinking, it had to go proper old school. So the next step was of course Michael Jackson. Thinking about it, I had to go with either Billie Jean or Liberian Girl, the latter something that I often forget but still one of my favourite songs. As I was scrolling back up, I spotted Queen and I knew on the spot what the song had to be. There was no question anymore, it was to be I Want To Break Free. So the rest of the journey home was Queen and it was glorious.
I was also thinking that in a way it’s quite lucky that I can’t write anything like as well as I would like or else I’d end up writing about music all of the time.
the pleasure, the privilege is mine
12:09 am Monday, 23 July, 2007
To make a mountain of your life
Is just a choice
But I never learned enough
To listen to the voice that told me..
Always love… Hate will get you everytime
Always love… Don’t wait till the finish line
Always Love
Nada Surf
For some reason I’ve had that song in my head all weekend. I had to take my iPod and have a little listen on my own late last night, it was really driving me mad.
I’ve fallen in love
I’ve fallen in love for the first time
And this time I know it’s for real
I’ve fallen in love, yeah
God knows, God knows I’ve fallen in love
I Want To Break Free
Queen
I’m sure I’ve told the story of this song before but I’m putting it here to remind me to tell it again. In short, it is the first song I remember and today I decided that it is the song I want to listen to as I die. One thing that really struck me, listening today, is that the verses all seem contradict and that fits into some thoughts of contradictions lately.
Now I am going to spend some quality time with my bed as I have been missing it recently.
