I was just browsing Amazon.Com - as one does when one really can't be arsed to do any work - and had desperance's book 'Bridge of Dreams' recommended to me. I idly looked at it, to see what it had to say and noticed the features it's got to examine the text. I thought the concordance was quite a fun one. Especially the information that the hardback contains 23,625 words per ounce.

I have not been a good writer today. I have not wroted anything. This is because I had errands at lunchtime which I couldn't do after work because I'm not entirely sure when 'after work' is going to be today. There is a meeting about grading and moderation and that kind of malarkey that I have to attend that isn't starting until 5.00 - which is half an hour after my usual finishing time anyway! And it's going on until all the students are done with. And there 108 students. It could take quite some time.

Bugger.

Oh well, back to writing again tomorrow.

On a better note, desperance hosted a 'Midsummer Phantoms' ghost story reading last night. And it was utterly marvellous. Three very different stories (One from desperance himself, one from Gail-Nina and one from Sean O'Brien. As I said, very different but all united by being excellent. What united them, strange for a ghost story, was the fact that they were all daytime stories. Everything (well, almost everything, Sean's story did have some pretty extreme rain in it...) happened in the sunshine. Which, in a way (especially with Chaz'z story) made it all the more spooky. Gail's story wasn't spooky at all, I thought, it was a light and airy and romantic story about a girls relationship with a ghost and her parasol. Chaz'z was Brideshead Revisited with added sex and haunting. Sean's was a story of a haunted cricket match. I am now really annoyed that I missed the first two Christmas ghost story sessions (I've got the book and CD of the first one but it really doesn't make up for it...) and I'm damned sure that I'm not missing another.
Just to top it off, I went out for dinner with Chaz, Sean and a few other people - notably renowned comic book creator Bryan Talbot. Chaz said I was very good and managed to keep my fanboy drooling to a minimum.

My last entry on my LJ - which I guess kind of makes this an 'existing on life support Journal' if not quite a Dead Journal - was on July 20th. And it was a pretty piss poor one to go quiet on as well. Oh well, that's life.

I've been doing lots of work - not good work or interesting work or well paid work - but work, and work that didn't allow me any internet access at all - for the last few months. I'm not going to talk about it because it was just horrendously dull and absolutely bloody awful. On the plus side, it's finished now. On the minus side, this means that I am once again unemployed. This has not been a great year for the ol' finances. What with getting married, being forced to move and neither Candy nor I having particularly brilliantly paid jobs it's been kind of hard. But, it'll get better. And, when I finally finish my MCSE (which is going well now, thanks for asking. There was a hard point in September just after the move when I lost my motivation for about a month or so, but it's back now and I'm just about to do my first exam. If things go well the rest of the course should get done more quickly.)

SO, what are the good things that have happened? Well, Max just gets better and better every single day. He constantly comes up with new stuff that neither one of us know where it came from and he's really articulate and imaginative and inquisitive. (The latter can make it hard occasionally. When he's meant to be going to sleep he is an expert at delaying it by asking 'whassat?'at every little sound. Which made it interesting around November the Fifth, I can tell you...) Candy and I celebrated our 15th year of being together this last month, which was very nice. We had lots of friends around who all brought gorgeous food and bottles of stuff and we just had a great afternoon, going into a really pleasant evening just sitting around talking to shewhomust, durham_rambler and Chaz. Something I haven't done for far too long and really need to do again soon. (Which, considering I'll be going to see them this weekend, is going to happen soon! Yay!)

Oh, and I've discovered the BBC Radio Listen Again malarkey. It's great stuff, that allows you to listen again (as the title implies) to radio programmes for a week after they've been broadcast. And, considering Radio 7 does the Goons and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue very week and there's a new series of Clue on Radio 4 and Radio 7 (again) have been broadcasting Doctor Who audios, things have been really pretty good on that front. Combining that with my MP3 player has been pretty much the only thing that's kept my sane(ish) whilst doing working. (I'm actually recording 'Galileo's Daughter' from Radio 7 as I type.)

So, there we go. I'm back on LJ. Dunno how often I'll update this thing. I'll try and be more regular whilst I'm unemployed but I don't know how long that will go on for - not too long, hopefully - and who knows what'll happen when I'm once again a non-dole scrounger.

In the office here at work, the radio is on. Which is why I usually listen to my MP3 player. However, for some reason I don't have it on today and so the radio is playing in the background. And it's BBC Radio 1. (It could be worse, it could be Metro Radio, the local independent radio station who proudly proclaim that they play lots of different music for everyone. Which, in practice means that they play lots and lots of different shite that no-one actually likes. And they have adverts. I will confidently proclaim that British television advertising is the best in the world (see things like the Orange phone ads, the various Guinness ads and so on - really well done and clever) (Damn an aside within an aside. That is probably going to end up longer than the actual original geeky random comment. Which I am going to have to continue in a bit, because I am going out for lunch with my friend Chaz now. And it's pissing down...)

(Back from lunch now. And it was delicious. I had Smoked haddock chowder with leek and ham. Now, I am now not a soup person as a rule, but that was one of the best things I have ever had the pleasure of eating. Sex on the tongue. And it was followed by an equally gorgeous chocolate cake. And, being the wonderful husband that I am, I have got a slice for Candy which I won't even try and eat unless she offers me some. I may make puppy dog eyes and follow each bit from plate to mouth but I won't ask...) (Oh, and it was all home made. Chaz is an excellent cook. And a good writer as well.)

I think I've closed all the parentheses properly.

Where were we?

Oh yes. The radio. Anyway, an hour and twenty minutes ago, the radio was playing a track - I neither know nor care what it was - and it had a riff in it that sounded exactly (well, probably not exactly, but close enough to it so that it set off some kind of alarm) like the theme tune to Blake's 7.

Sorry. Wasn't really worth it was it?

(Edited to correct the positive soup connotation to a negative one.)