2011

Haven't really been very good at posting here in recent months, I figured I'd do one of those horrible state of the family newsletter things that smug people send out with their Christmas cards, so here goes.

In January, Richard finally went to the set up of disciplinary meeting - remember kids don't ever complain about bullying at work - and was put on full paid leave while a case?? was built against him. After two months of sitting at home wondering what his next move was going to be he decided to resign. Since then he has been sat at home trying to get the motivation to either a) get a job or b) set up a business for himself.

;)

Today, Like Most Days

Today - it was far far too cold to get out of my bed with the two duvets on top of me, I put my hand outside of the covers and it turned blue after five seconds, reason enough I think to not move until I could wait no longer to relieve myself. This was probably about half eleven. I got dressed. Washed my face. Put my warm coat on and headed outside where the sun was shining, nice not to be in an office.

My Mother had asked me to go and get her a mop and a brush so off to the shoppers paradise Poundland in Northfield I head. I wander around like a zombie for an hour or so (not just in Poundland) and then take the brush and mop to my parent's house.

I use their Internet. I eat their food. And I get sore eyes from using the computer for far too long. I do/did really fancy a pint but having absolutely no money nor friends I don't enjoy one.

This is getting to be quite a typical day for me.

I guess reading it like that it sounds like a wasted day but it isn't. I've applied for lots of jobs that I don't think I really want. Replied to some emails in relation to a project that I will reveal shortly. And designed a wallpaper for everyone's living room which you will have to install when I am King.

Christmas Parties

I were in pub last night and there were lots of groups of people round my age obviously enjoying Christmas meet ups, this really depressed me as none of my mates can be fucking bothered. :(

Bad Art

I've seen an awful lot of bad art this weekend, space as made by MA students masquerading as seven year olds, bad Painting! and plain pretentious but utterly wrong over in Walsall. The bad art has obviously had some effect on me as today I have been trying and failing to do anything.

Pffff....Sunday, is how I feeling, if that makes sense to anyone.

Jobs Fairs

Yesterday I visited the Silicon Milkroundabout jobs fair on Brick Lane. It was much busier than I was expecting and it felt like the Birmingham Rag Market on a particularly busy Saturday. So after much pushing and shoving to get to talk to people I discovered that not that many of the start-ups want .net skills most want Ruby on Rails, some don't care as long as you can make a computer do stuff and everyone requires javascript coders.

Over a hundred new companies were present at the event most (looking at the brochure) had around ten people working for them and were expanding quickly. Not sure how some of them were going to ever make any money but maybe that's why I am not a billionaire entrepreneur yet.

And Free beer at a jobs fair? Was that provided because most developers are socially inept geeks? :)

Breaking Through

I seem to spend an awful lot of time fiddling around learning the basics of stuff but never actually progress to doing anything a bit more interesting than this, my mind wanders off into looking at other things.

Spent the whole day in front of the computer fiddling with no goal in mind, I guess that is the problem. Tomorrow I think I may have a screen free day.

Bit-Phalanx

Last night I saw a singing computer (for the second time), a man shouting about rude boys smashing up their hoods, the Modified Toy Orchestra noodling around on their casios and sounding a bit like Jeff Mills at his most minimal and Coppe (pronounced Co-Pay) very much like a very busy Ozric Tentacles.

Tonight I am off to watch people do more electronic noodling at the Science Museum.

Wed Nes Day

I waits in half expecting Joshua to turn up after school but he doesn't so I quickly rush into town in order to pay some bills and am sooooo fucking long in HSBC queue that the other bank I need to go to is sodding shut. I go to library to take some books that I'd not even opened back and to print off some stuff as I don't have any ink in my one at home. I pick up a graphical novel about a Russian air ace who is the real first man on the moon called Ascent by Jed Mercurio.

I wander down to the Custard Factory to find out what this social cinema thing is all about, we are allowed one glass of wine, one onion bhaji, one samosa and one meaty thing for free, very nice I thought. We are then ushered into the theatre space where we are told about this new night were we get to chose which film we want to see and when we see it we will be live twitting snarky remarks or discovering how 70 year old black and white movies are just as relevant today as they were then. The space isn't being used to it's full potential and the social cinema people want others to come up with ideas of how this space can be used to bring the joy back into the cinema experience. Personally I wonder if I'll be able to get Orange 241 tickets. He he....

Talk over, I think I might go home now. Then the heavens they open and I jump into the pub which was the Medicine Bar but is now Bar 78. It has been done out quite nice but it doesn't appear to have a dance floor, banging tunes or dodgy gentlemen selling cheap pills anymore so I'm not sure it will last that long. The beer was reasonably priced but 90s speed garage on the stereo isn't reasonable at all.

Two pints later I head down to meet my brother in Plug. He and a mate are putting on a night where they hope to catch stragglers and kids who dont want to go home after the student night in the Hinstitute next door. He plays UB40 at the wrong speed following it up with The Jackson Five then some dodgy sunshine reggae tunes - there are quite a few bemused looks from the queuing crowd outside when there is some obscure Moody Blues tune from off one of them Mail on Sunday CDs blasting out the door.

I must admit I am quite tempted to stay out and drink lots but sensibly figure that as I have absolutely no money I should probably get the last bus, I do, it smells of stale cigarettes and wee. I am quite disappointed to find that there is nowhere open in Stirchley where I can by dirty post pub food. I get home, starving and cook some Ainsley Harriot Morrocan Cous Cous which I drop on the floor so I go to bed.

Motivation

I've got lots of things I want to get done, sell the junk in my house, paint the bathroom, pick shit up of the floor, finish the art project I started, finish off the android/processing/vvvv/arduino software I started writing, update my diary, put the pictures I bought in frames and attach them to the wall...lots and lots of things.

My days at the moment generally go like this:

Get up about 10 or 11 think about eating some breakfast before realising that I still haven't got any food in the house and make a mental note to buy some for whenever. Put TV/Xbox/Music on and consider what I am going to do with this day in front of me. Choose to go out.

Pop down the shop and buy some quick and easy junk food that is neither particularly healthy or satiating. Head off to one of the suburbs and buy books in charity shops, maybe pop into library. Occasionally I might go to the central library with an idea in my head to research something but quickly get distracted by graphic novels/art books/something else and then an hour later decided that I am wasting my time and go and buy more junk food with extra fizzy sugary drinks.

No food in my house so I go to my parents house to be fed and to use the Interweb, read lots of interesting articles, think that's cool that is, I might have a look at the source code and tinker with that.......actually no what is this article....I'll read that first....ooooh a game maybe I'll play that for a short while.

Now three four five six hours have passed and the typical night will go down one of two routes. Either I will head back home with the intention of painting/writing/reading/programming but will turn on the TV and sink into my huge settee and not get out of it until it is time for bed which will be some time in the small hours of the morning - lots of crap to watch on the goggle box.

The other typical evening is the one where I head out to the boozer and drink far more than I intended (or at least lie to myself that it was more than I intended) and stay out till the wee small hours of the morning.

I guess I am in some sort of rut and need to somehow boost my motivation levels to finish off some of the things I've started. Hey but life is not so bad and I'm not in the massive groove that caught me last year and at least now I'm not dreading going to bed because I don't want to be at work the next morning. It's kind of nice having the ability to do whatever the fuck I want whenever I want, bit shit not having any money but I still prefer the freedom over that (at the moment anyway).

Time To Get a Job I Guess

Well even though we've had a nice few days I'm guessing that the summer is almost over and I suppose I'd better try a little harder to find a job. Not saying that I haven't applied for any but I will admit to not really looking that hard since April. It does seem that there isn't that much around here unfortunately so I'm going to have to go a bit further afield, as long as I'm not stuck in some horrible industrial estate in the middle of nowhere then I don't really mind where.

I'd quite like to do some web development but most of the jobs I've seen for that want PHP/mySQL skills rather than Microsoft C#/SQL Servers so I guess I'm going to have to lock myself away for a couple of weeks with some books and brush up on that. Also I'll have to set up to speed with JQuery, I did quite a lot of building web apps using Mark's (my old boss) Javascript framework but as clever as it was it's not standard.

The other thing, do I use an agency or not, I've never had a good experience of them and have been utterly messed about by them in the past but not using them cuts myself off from opportunities which is a silly thing to do.

The Joys of Being Underemployed

Last night I got hammered with Phil and stayed up until the sun came up. I didn't get up this morning prefering an afternoon start. I have spent the last few hours drawing in my sketchbook and now I am about to learn some new things on this here internet.

Lazy Lazy Lazy Lazy

Today, I haven't ventured more than ten feet away from the walls of my house. I surfed the web, snoozed in the bath, ate a bacon sandwich, surfed the web a bit more, watched a bit of crap of the TV, played computer games, had a siesta, surfed the internet a little more, ate, ate some more, looked for some jobs online (there are none)....

Sundays

Sundays are lazy days round here. Todays I gets up with a thick head thanks to drinking five pints of Budvar Budweiser in the White Horse with Joe (one pint of Stairway to Heaven, one pint of Blonde and a G&T) and drags myself up to Kings Norton to meet my Mother and Father at a car boot sale. They were very loaded up with lots of plants and decided to leave me as soon as I had arrived.

I must admit to not really being the mood for rummaging through other peoples junk with the sun trying to turn my head the colour of a tomato. But rummage I did and I purchased a (short) history of the Interweb and three CDs (LTJ Bukem, Optimo DJs and Arman van Helden).

I got home and since then I have surfed the Internets, I have looked at using the Twitter and Google Maps APIs for uses unknown as yet, I've listened to quite a lot of new music, I've eaten several cakes and I have felt slightly more rough as the day goes on. However I have been mostly frustrating myself at not being able to win the Cricket World Cup on this highly addictive cricket game. I think I might have another go in a minute.

My eyes must be very bloodshot.

Pay Day.

All of my money has been spent already. I am broke. Wahey.