11:26 am Monday, 15 October, 2007
The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
Mark Twain
Archive for the 'social' Category
You came on your own, and that’s how you’ll leave.
12:28 pm Tuesday, 14 August, 2007
*Yawn*
Ended up in the pub last night to catch up with Nick. We hadn’t been out in a long long time and well events of the day conspired to ensure we’d be in need of some venting time in the evening.
So we went off the beaten track a little to the Kensington in order to play some pool. So it was a very quiet evening, at least to begin with. We played about an hour of pool while taking it quite easy on the drinks. This was not good tactics as I never reached my second pint, must concentrate a little more edge and rather shamefully lost four out of five games.
Not good. We decided we’d sit down over the next pint and so took a little break. After a while, and another 2 pints it was time to go back to the pool table. Then I am very pleased to report the score changed ever so slightly and I won six games in a row to make the final score for the evening 7 - 4 in my favour. Nick didn’t want to play anymore at that stage but I felt much better.
Going back for another correction, Jean writes in on the question of the word “sex” in Irish.
…gnéas means sex as in Male/Female, not as in sexuality. As far as I know (and remember it was nuns that taught me all I know as gaelige) there is no Irish word for sex meaning sexuality/sexual orientation etc.
So there we go then.
the weekend has arrived.
10:56 am Saturday, 16 June, 2007
Ah it’s now the weekend and I’m still not feeling great. I didn’t sleep very well last night and like an idiot I arranged for the moving company to get in early this morning to finally get rid of this extra box…and do you think they have shown up yet?
Although a large package from Amazon has shown up. While browsing for some collections of photography the other day, I appear to have gone slightly mad and bought them all. So a nice selection of National Geographic, Reuters, Life, uh Vogue portraits and some other more random collections. It has filled up, and in fact over-flowed what I like to call my “coffee table” book shelf. I’ll have to figure out what to do with the extras…once I finally get some furniture in.
So a somewhat massive weekend and indeed week ahead. Tonight is Jamie’s birthday which the annoying fucker has decreed is fancy dress. So I have a few hours left to figure out what the fuck to go as that will take little to no effort. The night promises to be heavy, I might hide the good whiskey somewhere so that we don’t charge into the flat late tonight and start sculling. That should be fun though, lots of good people out.
It does mean that tomorow must be a quiet day. Which isn’t so bad as I need to get going on my Glasto prep. It’s going to be a wet year so I suspect this actually means bringing wellies and having to pitch the tents in rain and worse mud. Ah well.
But before then, on Monday evening, is the Flickr book launch in the Tate Britain. I am looking forward to this a whole lot, aside from the books and the photos themselves, there is a varied selection of people coming out for it and I’m sure there shall be a drink afterwards. In the end they did select both of the wedding photos, so Andy and Ally feature twice with a shot from me and a shot from Kate. I’m amazed they did pick them both but it’s good news as hers was better than mine and I didn’t want to be cut!
So that’s Monday evening sorted. Tuesday will be last minute packing and then Wednesday we are off! It’ll be the first time I’ve had a lift there and back so that should be fun. I understand we have a bit of walking to do on the other end but sure with luck we’ll be around early enough on Wednesday afternoon to get a nice spot for the the tent and then, well then the week of the Cider Bus begins. Cannot wait!
I am in two minds as to what to do about cameras. I’d love to take my proper camera and selected kit but I’m worried about how much looking after of it I’d have to do. I do still my old pocket camera, so I may just pack up the two of them with some extra memory cards and maybe an extra battery. Then again, my proper camera should do me for 5 days with 3 full batteries and not so much flash usage and the amount of fun I could have with the wide-angle there would be awesome. I’m thinking I’ll come down on the side of the main but I’m still not sure. My mate Andy reckons the lockups are great and that I could use them to drop it off in the evenings while I go enjoy myself without having to worry about it. The last thing I want to do is leave it in the tent. I’ll decide on Tuesday I suspect. I have this horrible fear, knowing full well that I’m likely to decide to bring it, that something will happen to it. Argh.
In other news, I’ve been playing a little City of Heroes again recently. So many of the London crowd are back into it that it seemed like there would be teams and that and there have been. It’s been a little fun, not as good as it was way back when (man I loved perma-Hasten) but still fun enough. Double XP this weekend so I got 2 levels on my main last night which was glorious. More of that tomorrow too I’m sure.
And now to start the weekend in style, I’m going to cook some breakfast and put the washing machine on. How exciting!
11:49 pm Saturday, 2 June, 2007
I went out at 11am this morning to take photos.
I return at 11pm having taken photos, having had drinks with Derek and then having had drinks with Derek and Doug and then finally dinner/drinks with Derek and Doug.
It was all good, in fact it turned into quite a good day out.
I don’t suppose anyone using Brightview (and sometime in the past Tesco maybe?) as their ISP in London or searching for me from St. Vincents in Dublin would like to come clean and tell me who they are? As ever, I remain dave at davebushe dot net. Thanks!
Aviatophobia & other stories
5:48 pm Friday, 1 June, 2007
Lately I seem to have developed what I don’t want to call a fear but certainly a lower level of comfort flying. I don’t know why. I’ve flown a lot over the past year and I didn’t have a bad experience or anything like that. For the past few months though, I’ve just not been too happy throughout flights. It’s odd. I noticed it in particular coming back from Dublin there a couple of days ago. I just knuckled down with my book and of course we made it just fine. I don’t really have more on it than that, it’s certainly not going to stop me from flying but it seems odd that it would start to happen for what appears to be no good reason.
Anyway last night was a few quiet drinks in Hammersmith. Well, when I say quiet, I mean for some of us. Rich was heading off to Brazil to get married and honeymoon for just over three weeks. His insistence on just two beers died by about 7.30 and then of course there was a mixture of many shots to see him off properly. These things must be done. It was a good night.
Today I haven’t managed to do half as much as I had wanted to. Due mainly to my own lack of organisation, I’ve not managed to get my bookshelves and so I have no-where to unpack all my boxes to. This was not helped by a stop-off in the local bookshop after running several errands at lunchtime. However I’m quite excited that the new Richard Morgan novel: Black Man was out and so I just sat down and finished Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore so I can dive into that today. I’m really glad I did read Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore. It was as much of my kind of book as it had promised and then some. Themes of memory and identity generally go down very well with me and this hit both nicely. I did go looking for more Loriga in the shop but that was all they had. I must see if there are more translations available.
What else…well sticking with books. I did my usual trip into Easons and picked up a number of new Irish books, some of which I probably would not have picked up just from the shelf but I like to get a selection anytime I’m back. Shockingly I also bought not one, but two dvds in Irish. Gael Linn has just released two seemingly legendary Irish documentaries made in the 50’s and 60’s but containing newsreel footage of such events as the 1916 Rising and the civil war. It looks to be absolutely fascinating stuff and thankfully comes with English subtitles so I’ll have more than a snowballs chance of following it all.
12:26 am Saturday, 26 May, 2007
A most excellent night out. I’m shit at putting feelings into words but I missed this lot more than a) I had realised and b) more than I can ever explain to them.
Some photos up, including a number of portrait shots that I’m very pleased with. Slightly unusual for me but I will admit that I made a specific effort this evening to work at ‘em. I would quite like the chance to do more portrait shots, I enjoyed these quite a bit too.
Roundup.
3:11 pm Sunday, 25 March, 2007
It is a beautiful day, I’m sat outside on my balcony enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. Much of the week was like this and I had been looking forward to spending Saturday wandering around with my camera. Of course after being stuck inside while the temperature hit 70 for most of the week, Saturday was dull and wet. Typical.
It was still a good day. I took the chance to catch up on some reading. I had picked up some more John Varley and I read Mammoth pretty much overnight. It was good popcorn fun and while I certainly will pick up some more of his books. I have noticed that they are quite unusual for sci-fi books in that they are very quick reads. Just before this, I read a Robert Crais, Hostage, in a two and a half hour sitting which is unusual for me these days so it’s been nice to get through some. I’m now reading Elliot Perlman’s 3 Dollars. I wrote about his short story collection The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming back in the days before I moved the blog here and thus is likely to remain unsorted due to laziness but I really liked them and so I picked up several of his books. I was reading it on the way into town last night. It reads very quickly too but it hits quite hard in places. There was a moment where I had to put down for a little while because it hit so close to home. I’m about halfway through but I suspect he’s going to end up on the list of authors to buy all of their books.
So anyway, I was off into town last night. I went to Silver Diner for some dinner first and then into Barnes & Noble to pick up a present and then the Metro into downtown DC for Greg’s birthday drinks. I was slightly later than I expected, not getting in till around 9. I had forgotten that most Americans don’t like to stay out late and the crowd was already thinning. By 10 there was only a handful left. Now Greg claims that the last time we had dinner, he did not speak to the barmaid and was not playing matchmaker at the time, so I can’t accuse him of playing matchmaker again. He was however having way too much fun with it.
Anyway with so many people gone so early, the few that were left were moving onwards. It seemed like a waste of an evening to not carry on and so gay country western nightclub, I think it was actually called Remmingtons and yes there was line dancing and straw hats. Neither for me before you ask. The thought strikes as I write this down that I can’t think of a nightclub I’ve been to in the US over the years that wasn’t gay. Anyway many drinks later and it’s 2ish and a reasonable time to call it a night. Slightly hungover this morning but not so bad and Greg certainly seemed to have a good night.
So a quiet one today, I’ve just watched the first two episodes of season 2 of Life On Mars and will agree with the general it’s not as good as the first season but the two leads are eminently watchable and Liz White is adorable. Ep 3 is up when I’m done writing this and I hear that’s pretty good.
Tomorrow I start a new job kinda. I’m not entirely sure how it’s going to work but for the next few weeks I’m working with/for a team over here and I’m somewhat looking forward to seeing how all that works in more detail. Should be interesting to say the least. Tomorrow night I’m going to the 9.30 club to see two support bands for Lamb of God. I’m not familiar with them, I’m quite surprised to see both Trivium and Machinehead supporting as I’d have put either of them as headliners on their own. Machinehead were a highlight at Download a few years ago and Burn My Eyes is quite a decent album. So that should be fun.
Tuesday, making this a rather gay week, is V DC at Drag Queen Bingo. I think that really sums it up. Dinner is planned for somewhere before hand, Greek around Dupont and then well, it should be interesting. That’s about all the plans, I may take a day off if the weather is nice to head into DC and take some photos. I want to do the zoo at least a couple more times before I get out of here.
Other things. I broke and bought Crackdown for the 360. I was looking for something mindless that I could jump into for a bit every now and again and while I wasn’t too impressed with the demo there was good word of mouth on it. So that’s been alright. I was unimpressed at finishing the game in less than 4 days but with several achievements, time trials and races still to be checked out nevermind the download content I don’t think it’s so bad. It certainly works for small chunks of mindless crime fighting.
Ah yes, continuing the rewatching of TV shows, I finally reached the last episode of Babylon 5 yesterday. Some of it holds up but the flaws shine through a lot more now years later. The dialogue could go from excellent (Londo, G’Kar) to tripe (Sheridan) in a single scene shift. Getting through the first half, maybe even three quarters of season 5 was a chore. The last 5 I guess work very well together as a whole but the buildups quite poor. I may watch some of the movies and I have not seen all of Crusade but I’m in no rush.
I did make it three nights running at the cinema during the week and caught Black Snake Moan. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It has the advantage of Sam Jackson and Christina Ricci being eminently watchable but it’s an odd movie. Everything about it is charged but it’s a bit cliched pretty much from start to finish. It did leave me with quite a desire to go out and find some old Blues and take the time to listen and appreciate but it’s kinda tough to know where to start. I think I’ll just hit eMusic and grab their highest rated and see how that goes.
Washing machine is done, I guess I should go put on another load.
P.S. hi Mairéad.