Everything is....

Everything is.... just a little bit up in the air right now.  Nothing feels quite right.  Lots of things feel rather unsettled.

The job security of me and my work colleagues has had some doubt cast over it, time off always feels fleeting... eked out between housework and hobbies and more housework, my mind is rarely at rest with all the things I'd liked to do and need to do and haven't got the time to do, fling in a recent bereavement in the family and you've got a mixture of emotions and mental health high-jumps bumping along with your average day-to-day existence.

How invigorating it was to leave behind the real world for a day, taking advantage of a rare combination of two days off in a row (miraculously including a Saturday off work) to tie together the opportunity of attending the Brickish Weekend at the National Space Centre and visiting family in Leicester.

A rather recently resurfaced love of Lego (I blame the Batman Movie and its accompanying minifigures) has left me with a geeky itch that I needed to scratch, and a whole slew of space and sci-fi themed displays and builds at a tourist attraction mere minutes from the majority of my wife's family was just too good an opportunity to pass up.  Within minutes of getting through the door we were already parting with cash... picking up a Ralph Wiggum as a belated valentines present for my wife, and then buying a 'classic' set of doors and windows (again, i must add, because my wife likes them.... ok, i liked them too) along with some other well-worn pre-loved bags of bricks and pieces and marvelling at a bunch of custom minifigs... we'd spent somewhere near an hour or so getting excited before we'd even left the vicinity of the 'brick fair' and the huge Paris themed build that was situated nearby the various sellers.

In fact we spent so long taking in so many of the builds and also talking at some length to the people behind these creations that we actually saw precious little of the Space Centre and its permanent exhibits, thankfully this can be easily remedied as booking our single visit online also secures an annual pass, perfect for the next time we're visiting family again.  And the creators themselves were equally as fascinating as the Lego builds on display, talking honestly and openly with both me and my wife about their passions, their ideas and sometimes about the price-tags that have fuelled their involvement, the complete lack of pretension and a willingness to 'just chat' was not only refreshing but also informative and very rewarding for me, and possibly gave my wife an insight into what she may have let herself in for.

With a handful more 'grab bags' of bricks and pieces (including a small mixed lot of wheels, again, suggested by my wife) in our tote bag we headed back to see family once the Space Centre's doors had closed, and I was more than a little surprised when my brother-in-laws curiosity about my purchases resulted in three adults in their thirties (two male, one female) all sat around building a variety of vehicles and oddities from the assortment of regular bricks and random components that we had accrued over the course of the day.

Time spent looking at Lego and 'playing' with Lego left little time to do some of the obligatory family rounds, but a couple of whistle stop visits to see family members of a wide range of ages was a perfect way to end the day, including some rather intense imaginative play and dance moves with a four year old that left me sweating and out of breath before a two hour journey back to London.

I'd met and talked to some fascinating people, seen some inspirational and breathtaking Lego builds, bolstered my own collection, built a spaceship (of course), spent time with family, dance partnered a care-free four year old and enjoyed quality time with my wife....

Maybe, just for today, everything is awesome!

hesitation.

Hesitation.

It haunts me.

Hangs in the air beside me, an apparition that seldom leaves me.

Holds me, holds me back.

I hesitate.

a thoroughly modern CV

I dislike job hunting.

It goes against everything I believe in.

Working for a living is certainly reasonable enough (in some circumstances), but being forced to distill all your skills and all your experiences in just 2 sides of A4 paper seems utterly ridiculous.... and that doesn't even leave any room for any of your personality.

So I'm left pondering how best to sell myself?

Do you go with the standard old 'team-player, hard-working, blah-blah-blah' intro/personal statement that you've had drummed into you is how a CV should open? because surely everyone else has been told the same thing about starting out that way and surely nearly every CV that drops onto a recruiters desk must lay out their initial wares in exactly the same old fashioned way...

And if you don't appear different from anybody else, how will anyone know that you are different from anyone else?

on the subject of old fashioned tho... what if the recruiter is old fashioned and wants you to stick to the same old format, play by the rules and perform exactly as expected, let us not forget that some people don't like change, and some of the people that don't like change may well be the people recruiting that wouldn't understand the concept of the post-modern self-referential CV that I had in mind...

ah, but what about LinkedIn?!? the presumably professional version of a social network.

I struggle with that too.... perhaps career-focused progression would fall in line with the way it projects itself, certainly I can see the advantages of having a full profile to browse that hasn't needed to be quit so cherry-picked in order to save space on paper, but what about poor souls like me that are still trying to find their way, where differing job sectors and careers are catching my eye, the old rule was to tailor your cover letter and CV for each job you apply for, but doesn't the modern principles of LinkedIn suddenly decide to go against that, along with every other recruitment site that would like you to upload a CV

So in brief, I need to choose who I am, to sell myself to people, when I don't know what they expect me to be....

modern job-hunting sucks.

The mystery of the disappearing Cuprinol

I'll admit it sounds like the most boring chapter in the Harry Potter series or perhaps an adventure that Sherlock Holmes and even Scooby Doo willingly passed on.

But the combination of 'home' life and steadfastly fixing my age at 30 finds you suddenly caring about the oddest things.

Those of us that remember the way things were remember when crisp packets held more and Wagon Wheels were bigger, and in a similar entry of world weary dissatisfactions I have now found that cuprinol seems to disappear.

(Anyone uninterested in D.I.Y based rants/observations may want to find something more thrilling to do with their lives right. about.   now.)

Certainly, the tin looks full upon opening, but as you progress trying to preserve your decking, behold, that it disappears before your very eyes.

I'm currently on my 2nd (new) tin this summer, having found the first was empty after only coating the decking 1 and a half times...

The old tin I just finished, it managed the decking twice over and then some, a few additional coats plus yearly applications to the garden furniture and a few touch ups here and there that saw the first tin last around 3 years.

And now, with the newest tin opened I want to cry thinking how much I have just paid for it and finding that it doesn't want to go very far.

a lengthy absence.

Oh.  Wow.

Over 6 months have passed.

More than half a year.

In real life, that is a long time.

In blogging life, that is a phenomenally long time.  So much so that I thought I would never come back.  When it's been that long is there really any point? Any momentum, any sort of pace or direction or forward motion has planted itself solidly in the ground.

Regardless, I've always written purely because I love writing, when I get the bug for it it's like an itch that I just have to scratch.  I need to find more time to scratch my itch.

Back when I was on more regular blogging duty, a couple of weeks felt like a long time and I would feel the need to apologise for such rubbishness.  and the I vowed to stop apologising for such rubbishness because it was turning into a whole load of apologising for such rubbishness, but right now is an exception.

Cos I've been rubbish.

At times, life has been rubbish.  Personal circumstances have been spectacularly rubbish at the worst of times, and sometimes not even that great at the best of times.  Life was changing, my job changed, since January I've found myself stuck behind a desk, one place I never thought I'd actually end up, all of these things, the time constraints, the constraints of having too much time to think while you mindlessly process data-entry yet never find time to act upon your 'real' thoughts, they have affected me.

When people say that they 'weren't in a very good place', I think I've been there now, it's true, it's not very good, don't bother going there, don't even pass through, there is nothing to see there.

It hasn't been completely fruitless, reviews and articles and mixtapes have cropped up in a few places, but for a long time it's been hard to feel like myself... I think I may be finding my way back there slowly.

in just this week alone I've managed to knock out a couple of reviews, as well as getting slightly more creative/constructive things done around the house/garden, and I thought a new entry for the blog should be next in line.

And there it is I guess, nothing too special.  But it is just me, writing again. and it feels better than it has for a long time.

a big deal for small businesses?

After all the excitement of Cyber Monday, when amazon and the likes were filling their coffers as millions of people elected to spread christmas cheer via CDs, DVDs and books, the smaller businesses of the world didn't want to be outdone and miss out on all the action.

and by action, I mean money.

What better way to raise awareness and profits, than by arranging a 'day', in particular 'small business saturday', which was yesterday, which you may or may not have spotted posters for around your town. The aim, to to divert some attention to your local traders and small businesses.

and who is behind this super-duper-fantastic idea?

oh, it's American Express.

the one credit card that small businesses, and quite often larger businesses do not accept, since the charges to the retailer per transaction are higher than that of your other credit and debit cards.

so go ahead and support your local business, just don't expect them to be able to take payment if you're waving that AmEx about...

door number 1

I've been off my blog-game, that much is clear, but that doesn't mean I've been slacking

in fact I've been trying to build up my empire slowly over at Desperately Seeking Susan Boyle, working hard on mixtapes and making connections, tweeting, pushing and cross-pollinating

it's been a strange journey, I started the seeking subo blog when I noticed that I was devoting a lot of blog space to music over here, and I reasoned that people looking to get a fix of a music blog may not be quite as appreciative of some of the other random crap that mixes in along with the music talk over here, whether it be my own music (kinda the reason I sorta set this blog up originally), my poetry, my thoughts, or just anything else that I felt the need to throw in with the rest of it

of course, since choosing to devote a blog to the music of others I then found myself blogging less about the music of others, I now seem to have come back around on myself and am blogging more over at seeking subo than I am over here...

and the one thing I tell myself that I probly shouldn't blog about is my own lack of blogging, frankly I feel that it must make a terrible read, but dammit, I'm human and things get in the way of other things, and if I didn't admit to this and instead gave of an air of the infallible then I doubt I would be very much like myself at all

all of which is a rather long winded way of saying that in recognition of the usual practises of blogmas and adventness I thought I should blog just a little bit more this month, don't be daft and expect a blog every day... I wouldn't want to disappoint you, but maybe if I can tap tap tap away for a bundle of minutes on a number of evenings this month and share my brainwaves, then perhaps that would be a good thing for me to get my creative juices going again (not guaranteeing that this is a good thing for anyone else tho....)

so... one post down!

cable spool & wooden pallets

'Found a cable spool down the road and brought it home if u want it'

....


'I don't tink so'


...

'But what about ur pinterest board?’


oh dear, after spending an afternoon turning an old unwanted wardrobe (from my brother's bedroom, replaced by a rather swish looking chest of drawers from a charity shop) into additional shelving for my kitchen cabinets, I could feel the creative impulses flowing through me...

sadly, mundane tasks have to take over and I have to nip to the co-op to pick up some bread, but one essential part of my lifestyle (hold on people, cos it's gonna get real crazy from here on in....) is to vary the routes I walk home, incase I may happen to stumble upon any random, discarded, unwanted crap that may just serve a purpose...

and as I make my way back with a 95p loaf of thick-cut white own-brand, I notice an idle cable spool stood in the middle of the path.... hey, that'd be bloody handy, since my uber-artistic little brother has got that pinterest board about cable spools and pallets, yet, to my knowledge does not have a great deal of cable spools or pallets currently at his disposal

I've picked it up, opting for carrying it home, rather than rolling it home, when I hear a familiar voice shout my name... shout my name quite angrily... shit... I've been rumbled!!

I turn around to see my girlfriend at the end of the path, I turn around and wave, trying to conceal the cable spool unsuccessfully behind me, I think on my feet, I set it down and it on it, acting casual.... 'I thought you wasn't gonna be home til half five?’

My girlfriend is already well aware of my habit of picking odd bits and bobs off the street... 'And what are you gonna do with that?'

'I'm gonna give it to my brother, he has a board on pinterest about recycling ol cable spools and pallets, I'm sure he'll make use of it'




afew hours later, and I find out that he probably won't....

but it's too good to throw away... right?

so, who would be a #BetterBatmanThanBenAffleck ?

this article was written for and originally appeared on Faded Glamour



We geeks sure do like to get riled up.

News is delivered to us via the Internet, and then we vent via the Internet, making sure everyone that may be privy to our streams or comments will certainly know exactly what is on our minds.

Ben Affleck is Batman, no different.  I'd seen endless tweets and opinions before I'd even managed to find a legitimate news source to confirm that this wasn't merely wild speculation.

#BetterBatmanThanAffleck was soon trending, animals, emos and slobs all in costume, and memes of Matt Damon filling Robin's hotpants were widespread, but amongst all this, can we have some serious debate?

Although he certainly wouldn't have been my first choice to fill the role, the choice doesn't fill me with horror or nerd-rage, his divisive turn as Marvel's marmite Daredevil seems to be a main sticking point for those against the idea (personally, I liked the film) but memories of Gigli are long gone following star turns in The Town and Argo.  On top of all this, he knows his comics, is friends with Kevin Smith and has a chin that works for a superhero that will have little else on show.

Let us not forget that Michael Keaton had people up in arms when the Beetlejuice star was announced as Tim Burton's vision of Batman in 1989 and any harsh words against Heath Ledger's casting as The Joker following Brokeback Mountain, were soon silenced with his now legendary performance.  But if not Affleck, then who do you seriously want to see in the famous cape and cowl?

Going on the strength of rumours that the upcoming Man Of Steel sequel will draw inspiration from Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns (Zack Snyder's big reveal of the planned sequel was preceded by a quote from the 1986 comic miniseries) the aspects likely to be used will be that of an older Batman than we have seen on the screen before, possibly coming out of retirement to face off against the Kryptonian, and one hell of a first fight between a mortal man and an immensely powerful alien.

My initial suggestion of Clint Eastwood (now aged 83) was probably pushing the believability of sci-fi and fantasy to its limits, sure he's got the menacing growl and Gran Torino proved he is still not to be messed with, but swinging from rooftops... probably not.  My next name plucked from thin air was Harrison Ford (aged 71) who could easily bring his best brooding to the film, and the latest Indiana Jones flick shows that he has still got an action hero inside him after all these years.

And then I hit upon a genius casting choice that I can't believe hadn't been put forward already, it's time to really rile up the geeks, and bring back George Clooney.

When he first donned the Batsuit he was fresh out of ER, looking to cement his move to the big screen, and got swept up in Joel Schumacher's neon kitsch-fest that was too busy pandering to Arnie and trying to sell toys to be taken seriously, but times have changed, the Bat-nipples are a distant memory and Bane is now considered so much more than just Poison Ivy's moronic piece of muscle.  And what about Clooney?  He got over it, he came out of a bad situation that sunk the Bat-franchise and could have sunk his career, but instead he took on roles that proved his worth with Out Of Sight and Three Kings.

Now, at the ripe old age of 52 (11 years on Affleck) George Clooney still maintains his chiseled features and eligible bachelor status, perfectly suited for a role as aged socialite Bruce Wayne, time and time again on screen he has proved his versatilty and after 15 years, now could be his chance to return back in black and right the wrongs of Batman And Robin.

Rizzle Kicks: and their part in the world of media's new slave labour

Hey you, youngsters!! You wanna join the shiny exciting world of 'Media'??

Well saddle up for what may well and truly be a slippery slope down shit creek without a paddle, or a paycheck!

I hope that others are likely to find an easier time of things than I have so far, and that everyone can land their dream job in a highly competitive market, but let's face it, a lot of people won't.

For too long I've meandered on the outskirts, quite content to do what I wanna do in my free time, and perhaps my life has happened at the wrong time, but it has given me a unique perspective on an industry that I wish would swallow me whole.

And perhaps the looming shadow of that nasty recession is still hanging over us and clouding our judgements, but even at the tender age of sixteen, when I was considering enrolling at uni in a course on journalism, I was first aware of the hard slog to 'make it' and the fact that you would have to put in a lot of time and effort, getting paid peanuts, just to gain the relevant experience, yet, now more than ever, I see the term 'internship' slung about.

This has always been the favoured route into 'the life you want to lead' and I know people that have travelled this route, and things are looking ok for them, but my life is different, I'm no longer at home with parents, I am reliant on an income to keep a roof over my head and the travel into London alone would be crippling before you double team it with the lack of pay.

I refuse to let this be the end of my dream tho, I want it too much and have let it slide for too long, but among the fiasco in the news about zero hours contracts that is cluttering up headlines recently I can't help but see the proliferation of internships across multiple job sites as taking advantage of this country's rather dire employment situation.

And amongst all this going on, my favourite pop-scamps, Rizzle Kicks have kicked off the campaign ahead of their second album by debuting a new video, proudly proclaiming that it was made by interns!!

The news made my blood boil, I bet it was bloody good fun, and a bloody good experience, but if the economic climate is gonna change for the better then I think we need to start providing opportunities and not just experience to those thirsty for breaking into the glamorous world of after show parties, powdered noses and overzealous exploitation...

Warning Signs

I guess I'm one of those people that sees the signs, and doesn't always know what they mean

And when all signs indicate the worst, perhaps it's time to disembark

In my old job, a furniture retailer, towards the end things didn't look good, and for a long time things weren't looking great, but I was comfortable. the pay wasn't amazing, but it got me by and it gave me an opportunity to save and more than that, it afforded me certain freedoms at times when we weren't busy... freedoms that I took full advantage of and lived a pretty fulfilling life whilst still manning a retail business, assisting customers and hoping to turn over a profit

when things weren't looking so great, I kind-of assumed that being forced out of my job that I was capable of doing blindfolded would be a blessing in disguise, a chance to find a 'real job' that paid 'real money', but the pressures of the 'real world' were too 'real', I had a mortgage to pay, a roof to keep over my head, i needed an income, and pronto!!

the time between being made redundant and being offered a job was extremely demeaning as I began to realise the fuller extent of the recession, my experience seemed to mean jack-shit as I was turned down for the most menial jobs, cashier works , cleaning jobs, and it was with this broken spirit that I scraped into an entry level position at a soul-sapping builder's merchant

less than two weeks into the job and I felt my life was in tatters, and I'm eternally grateful to my girlfriend for making me see sense and quitting, it gave me the time to make myself available for the next job that came along, something much more promising, the interviewer talked sense, appreciated the position I was in and talked about career development within the business

between jobs I was also interviewed for an assistant managers role at a well known stationer, i was offered the position two weeks into my new job but I plumped with the business that seemed to offer natural growth

and a year down the line and my opinions have changed, I can see the warning signs clearer this time around, the people that make the job worthwhile are slowly but surely disappearing from sight and the talk of management roles and training, well the view of them is even murkier, I'm privileged to be in a job that I don't hate, but at the same time it restricts me, suffocates my creativity and ultimately I can see the deception of a tight-fisted business clearly, it saddens me, but I don't belong here.

and so I yearn to take flight

It is a slow, torturous ordeal, but I have faith in a higher power, that what will be will be and that everything will work out the way it is meant to be

I've seen the warning signs

and I'm trying to put my life in reverse, to back up and change course...

all about the timing

Some things are all about the timing

and in this constantly connected, constantly evolving and ever changing world that we are living in this is thoroughly important in the game of 'self-promotion'

so, of course my timing is completely off...


urgh, self-promotion, what an ugly little term, essentially jumping up and down and going 'oooooh, look at me!', this is pretty much the opposite of how I choose to live my life, nothing wrong with a little bit of shameless plugging here and there... but I'd rather kinda just get on with it and hope that the universe shares a little bit of good will with me, hardly a go get'em attitude, I know, but this is simply how I am

thankfully, the modern world makes it far easier to be less show-offish and still get noticed, social media, blogs and unparalleled connectivity make short work of being in touch with people and getting your voice heard.

so of course my timing is completely off...


currently, in a whirlwind of stolen moments and furious activity, I am arranging self-publishing my debut novel, (hey, wasn't that coming out in April?), releasing my debut single (on course to be derailed, but with you very soon-ish), followed by the release of my debut album (in June, definitely in June), so I guess my online banter should make reference to the fact that all these things are happening!

of course my timing is completely off...

it has been nearly a year since I started a new job, a new job that pays ridiculously badly and leaves me with next to no free time throughout the day, compared to my job of 11 years prior to that, which paid poorly but gave me enough free time to try and be who I wanted to be, I felt that was a fair compromise to be honest.

email checking, social networking, actual networking, blogging, researching, all of these were possible if work was quiet, not the case anymore, my time is limited and little indulgences like these are long gone, my social networking presence has certainly taken a hit and prior to this, my last blog post was over a month ago!

of course, my timing is completely off!!!

and of course, the book I grabbed from the library, a book about one man choosing to flee his life of paying exorbitant London rents and instead living out of hotel rooms around the world in a social experiment in keeping costs down isn't just a book about the former mentioned, it is all this plus preparing for the release of his debut book...

as a 'published author' he is often on the blag and making ends meet via freelance work as he builds on his reputation, as the publishing date nears he relays the importance of his online standing and traffic to his frequently updated blog.

(grumble) ok, so my timing is completely off....

I can see the similarities and I can see the differences, both of us gearing up for the release of our first novel, him flying around the world (hey, to Vegas and Rekjavic and erm, the Soho Revue Bar, places I have also been!) and updating his blog and forging his reputation and living off the advance he has been paid, and me, who is selfpublishing, expecting to make no money, and haven't blogged in a while.


and I can see what I have to do, but so much of it comes down to having the time, I no longer have this disposable commodity to do so freely with as I wish, the time that I should perhaps be spending trying to maintain my online presence and keeping the world updated of my progress is instead spent trying to make progress, or trying to make dinner and make the house look tidy and all the other household chores, and then squeeze in a little bit of progress if I can find the time


I guess it's all about timing

Impact Detonation

oh, 90s comic books, what a bizarre, long and twisted love/hate relationship we have.

a relationship that I have revisited since loading a bunch of CBRs onto my gizmo, ready for reading without un-pollybagging my old issues.

back when I first laid hands on my new gizmo and took it to the Lake District with me, I powered my way through Contagion and Legacy, two back to back Batman arcs that spanned the Dark Knight Detective's titles and various spin-offs.

from what I can remember now, Contagion was so-so, and Legacy was marginally better due to the returning threat of Rās Al Ghūl, his daughter Talia and the reveal of her new suitor as Bane, making a welcome return but becoming an ultimately squandered character, since he could never really replicate the impact made since his debut in the Knightfall event.

And the problem was that after such wide spanning, multi-issue, crossing-over, behemoth storytelling that had spun Knightfall into two separate strands of Knightsquest and the seemingly concluding chapter of KnightsEnd, the last thing Batman fans really needed was another all encompassing threat to the comics world and to wallets.

which was exactly what Batman fans got when the KnightSaga span off into the rather oddly timed Prodigal and the runt of the litter Troika, which I have just finished re-reading.

very briefly, Prodigal deals with the fallout of KnightsEnd and the return of Bruce Wayne to the mantle of the bat, who then very swiftly hands it over to Dick Grayson, former Robin. Rendering the climactic climax of KnightsEnd slightly anti-climactic. After this 12 parter, Bruce Wayne comes back proper, unveiling a new batsuit (black, rather than blue and grey, and kind of pointless) and tackling Russian criminals running around being a bit rubbish all over four separate bat-titles with collectors edition embossed covers.

And that was that really, these flailing add-ons that did little to shake things up following such whopping, game-changing and era-defining cross-overs.

It was the age of comics that dragged me in, entertained and enthralled me, but to be absolutely honest... it did have a number of lows lumped in with all those highs.

The 90s was a boom era for new comic books, new artists and new tricks, I still have such a fondness for those days gone by, the regular trips to Barnet or Tottenham to stock up and get my comics fix for the week, yet all the sugar coating in the world won't change the fact thatTroika was perhaps really over stretching the gimmicks, the crossovers, and the reader's patience at the time.

Saul searching, part two

read part one of Saul searching here


finally, the Internet age was upon us, and was integral in the shaping of musical scenes, new music was now just a click away on MySpace and it was possible to connect directly with an audience.

one of my many, many, many musical discoveries was an Oxford based band called This Town Needs Guns (and yes, it is true, I often did choose who to listen to based on how entertained I was by their name) whose 7” vinyl I bought and whose t-shirt I still wear.

it was via a MySpace bulletin that I found out that This Town Needs Guns would be supporting Saul Williams at a spoken word set at Bardens Boudoir in Stoke Newington and I was full of excitement as me and my best friend that I had dragged along descended into the decadent basement venue, grabbing a loose flyer as we paid our entry fees on the way in.

we watched a couple of rather oddball acts, one involving fast forwarding and rewinding a dictaphone, both very unique, I looked at the flyer and presumed that one of them must have been Cats And Cats And Cats, perhaps I'd check out their myspace... but I wasn't sure who the other guys had been... and then the crippling truth hit me, and hurt me, that we were actually a day late for the Saul Williams date.

I felt pretty stupid, and bloody disappointed, and I cursed myself for not even being stupid enough to have been a day early, at least that way I could still come back the next day, but until I finally invent my time machine I'm just gonna have to live with my silly mistake.

thankfully our paths would cross later in life, and I would actually turn up on the right day for a Saul Williams gig, but who would have thought that missing Saul William's evening of poetry so narrowly, I would be included in his poetry anthology and actually be invited to join him on stage as his latest spoken word tour hits the road.

(except so far it has only hit the United States, I'm keeping my fingers firmly crossed for an English tour)

save me

#firstworldproblems

one of my favourite twitter hashtags, detailing the hardships in life that many of us have to deal with in developed counties

my own contributions have included jabbing non-touchscreen devices in confusion and the glare from sunshine making it difficult to read my gizmo in the garden

and now I have a new pet peeve to add to this list, for today I am suffering a great loss...

today I lost the preferences I had been building up on Zite

for those that do not know of Zite, it is like a magical oracle that gathers suitable reading material from all over the interwebnets, basing it's selection on tags that you approve, websites that you favour or block, and simply choosing whether you like or disliked an article you have just read.

in its early days it may throw up plenty of crap that you have no real interest in, and it is your prerogative to exclaim your disdain in such useless information, but given time it will adapt to your tastes and very rarely throw up a dud, ever

mine almost always displayed plenty of comic and superhero news, a smattering of music and film, with a side portion of interior design.

so of course I would want this tailor made reading experience to also be present on my sinister phone

I'll just download the app, sign into my profile and the magic will now also be in my pocket all of the time.

except it seems that I have never actually activated a saved profile, and in my haste to sign up and register my perfect fit Zite, I seem to have deleted all that I once held dear

and now I am back where I started months ago, mercilessly dipping in and out of articles in order to express my likes and dislikes and to block anything vaguely political or too America focused.

while there are clearly bigger issues facing the world right now, this is my own personal current crisis and my latest first world problem.

a busy mind

I lay in bed while my girlfriend is snoring next to me.

I'm cursing the alarm that I thought that I had turned off last night, yet still went off at half eight this morning, I curse that I cannot now get back to sleep

it has been a while since I have actually managed to get a really good lay in, to wake up later than intended feeling rejuvenated and harbouring no real guilt over the hours of daylight missed. it is an affliction, that my mind is too busy, and once it has been turned on it is hard to turn off again.

I wake up. and then I think.

I've thought about the comic that I didn't finish reading in bed last night, I thought about how my girlfriend told me that recently she has been counting herself to sleep and has rarely made it past 60 seconds (and I can certainly attest to this), indeed, this morning she has stirred a handful of times already and just rolls back over to sleep, whilst I have laid there hoping that I may succumb to sleep yet again, just til half ten or 11, have a real lazy morning.

I have thought about a couple of music apps that I downloaded last night, and how I might hope to record them and incorporate the Be Bot into my own compositions, I have thought about the lamp shade I want to buy from B&Q and that I probably need some screws to put the boards up in the geek room so I can get a move on decorating the final wall, I have thought about upshire car boot sale, and putting the washing out in the garden, and about writing a blog about thinking too much.

and sometimes, I wake up, and I do.

springing out of bed, leaving it unmade as I launch myself into the first task of the day, be it painting, loading or unloading the washing machine, washing up, tidying up, sweeping up.


I am proud of my aptitude to wake up and start achieving things on my day off, but some days, like today, I really would just like a lay-in.

other people's rubbish

I recently acquired a new addition to my penthouse geek pad, turning it from a unique attic space into an amazingly retro hang out.

as with many other unique items in my house, they are things that are seemingly unwanted by other people, found by me on my travels, chucked out and neglected.

yet unlike many of the other unique items that I have brought home, my girlfriend was actually rather impressed that I had rescued an abandoned vintage record player.

I had learnt from previous experiences that if I do not act quick enough, then I am likely to lose out on these spoils to somebody else, and so when I noticed a huge pile of random rubbish dumped outside a property alongside its 'to let' sign, I knew that I wouldn't have long if I wanted to lay claim to the metal mystery box and a wooden case below it that I had spotted and had got me intrigued.

it was lucky that I had invited my brother to swing by, as I dragged him out on a brief mission to investigate further, I politely rang the doorbell before rummaging through the contents of the front garden, prepared to ask if I could help myself to any unwanted goodies, getting no answer, we preceded to unravel the mystery of the mystery boxes.

on top was a reel to reel cassette machine, looking like a control panel of a time machine, even if I had no real use for it, it was still spectacular from an aesthetic point of view.

but the true treasure was below it, a complete record player in a beautiful wooden case, with a Hulio Inglesias 7 inch still on the turntable.

again, I was thankful for my brothers assistance as it would have been too much for me to have carried home myself, and when the journey was done, I plugged it in with trepidation.


Everything worked perfectly and it provided the impetus for me to finally get my arse in gear and rearrange the geek room that had been a work in progress and a storage space for far too long.

the lovingly reconditioned Shcreiber cabinet that had been fly tipped and dragged back from an underpass near Waltham Abbey made its way into the attic, to live out the rest of its life alongside the large wooden trunk that had been chucked out from an old couple down the road that were moving and is now full of fancy dress clothes, the broken briefcases that had been dumped a few roads away and the ikea display cabinet that was actually bought brand new, I put on display my girlfriend's set of Hatori Hanzo samurai swords, plugged in my brothers lava lamp and with all our extra bedding, tomato tins and toilet rolls tucked away out of sight in the eaves of the loft, the geek pad suddenly seemed to be wonderfully realised with these new additions.

there is still work to do in there, it is still a work in progress, but as I now set up to build up a small collection of classic or equally kooky slabs of vinyl through scouring charity shops, I have a rather enviable chill out pad that I'm proud to have put my own unique stamp on.

The weight of expectation

I don't tend to do movie reviews

I do however like to have a little moan when something that should be great turns out to be no more than mere trash

Take, for example, Green Lantern, or Watchmen...

and now, also Prometheus

Up until last week, I expected virtually nothing from it at all, I refused to be a sucker for the long, built up hype and viral campaigns, I hadn't bothered to tune into each newly released trailer as they hit the webnets

but the anticipation seemed to be growing around me, I could feel it, almost taste it in the air

I'll admit, having seen the trailer at the flicks, I was intrigued, and then last friday my social networks were filling up with talk of the film, and having already agreed to see it that night with a tribe of non-apologetic geeks, my height of excitement peaked

until I watched the film.

it was flawed. I shan't bother going into its flaws here, suffice to say, it was not what it promised to be, and neither was it what anyone really hoped for.

and now my summer is buckling under the weight of expectation

crushed by the disappointment of Prometheus, I wait with dread for the Dark Knight to Rise...

again, I've acted to avoid too many trailers and tidbits of gossip that have sufficiently proliferated the internet, and yet my own curiosity has occasionally got the better of me

but this isn't The Dark Knight following the modestly performing Batman Begins, even after the tragic loss of Heath Ledger, I don't think that expectations for the sequel were set too high until the film unexpectedly snowballed into critical acclaim and a widespread regard that it is now a benchmark for movies (not even just superhero movies) to measure against

and this leads us to where we are now, Avengers has cleaned up at the box office, Prometheus has shattered dreams, and now the final piece of Christopher Nolan's trilogy must take up the weight of expectation that is being put upon it, not just by geeks and comic book fans, but by... well, pretty much everyone.

leaving the demons behind

I felt burdened by burdens

I couldn't rest

and I was too worn down to live

it was a horrible state of affairs and I am glad to now be free of it.

I had been dragged down, run through the mill, tossed aside and a whole bunch of other things as I rode the topsy turvy ride of super-fun unemployment

and when the gleam of light shone by a job offer did appear, I could feel something inside me stirring to tell me that it just wasn't right

and it just wasn't right.


a pride that I placed upon getting back in the saddle was hiding my own uncertainties, and those closest to me I did not hide my uncertainties from at all, but I persevered, I have got bills to pay after all.

but it just wasn't right.

it was affecting me and my well-being, I wasn't who i am, and that is hard to deal with.

thankfully, the intense job searching has meant that more opportunities still lay before me, face to face interviews, phone interviews, more CVs and applications have been fired off

I may be back in the hole of unemployment, but at least I know who I am again.

collated answers and competency tests: who am i?

unemployment isn't fun.

the downtime and the freedom that you are afforded are certainly to be viewed as a positive, as long a you can stay focused and continue to set yourself goals and tasks to be completed.

but there is a downside too, amongst the chances I have to put on a load of washing, tidy the house (or the garden if the sun decides to shine), put washing away, make dinner and all manner of other domestic chores that I shouldn't derive quite so much pleasure from, I also need to commit enough time to job searches (cos that mortgage isn't gonna pay itself).

which wasn't terrible to begin with, giving it a little time each day, I soon found that even in this disastrous economic climate, there still appears to be a good number of jobs advertised in the job sector I am best suited to, heck, with 12 years experience, I should have no problem should I!?


and here is where the plot thickens, and why unemployment seems to deaden people.


on a couple of occasions, for a couple of retailers, I have been asked to conduct an online suitability test.

this should surely be a walk in the park, after all, I know that I'm more than suited to the job already. and right then, my entire working life and my charming personality is to be nobbled down to ticking boxes for set questions with no reflection of true self.

and since taking these two tests, one potential employer has already deemed me unsuitable for the job without even so much as talking to me.

I can now see the frustration that people must go through, even I, with my previous experience am simply not good enough, Jah help some of the other poor unfortunate souls that are out there looking for work, and when it is important to keep your head above water, remain positive and cling onto your sanity, these blows to your confidence can hit you hard.

I've had my mood swings because of it, but I've picked myself up, dusted myself off and kept looking, and tried to keep smiling

and now I know full well that employees of a large high-street pharmacist must be the ultimate human beings in order to have secured their hard-earned current work role, you are certainly a better person than i!