Product Designers – the Curse of the Hermit

March 9th 2010

I have hermit-like tendencies, or more accurately, I want to. I spend most of my life just wishing that I could be left alone but thanks to product designers coming up with new shiny toys that keep me in touch with the world I don’t think I’m ever going to get there.

See, I really want to be left alone, but I seem to have some kind of genetic defect that makes me go ‘Ooooh, shiny’ whenever I see gadgetry and I instantly cannot live without it; iPods, laptops, netbooks, BlackBerry’s, Xbox’s, Sky HD, you name it. Pretty much everything has WiFi on it these days too, meaning that I’m always connected.

Essentially, until product designers stop making shiny things that I want, it looks like I’m going to be stuck in the real world surrounded by people and not in my glorious hermit republic. Ah well, it’s still the dream.

Themed Parties are the New Black, Apparently

March 8th 2010

I really wanted to have a weekend to just decompress, not see anyone and just get left the hell alone; unfortunately that never really happens. Some friends of mine decided on Friday evening that they were going to hold a gathering on Sunday afternoon, and that my presence was required. Sunday afternoon to me means barbeque (not in this weather, but you get the idea), films, a couple of beers and generally chilling out, nothing too strenuous. Certainly not murder mystery themed parties, but that’s exactly what this gathering turned out to be.

The Boiler Service Tantrum

March 3rd 2010

Living with people can be really annoying, but it’s even more annoying when you live with people who are constantly whining over stuff that’s got nothing to do with you – like the fact that they spent all day waiting in for the boiler service guy to turn up. Last time I checked, I wasn’t the boiler service bloke, but somehow it’s my fault that he didn’t turn up till 4.30.

Wedding Venues – The New Blind Date

March 3rd 2010

Apologies for the lack of regular updates for the last few days. There’s a story behind it though: I had a couple of days off work and my friends have been dragging me around wedding venues due to my ‘critical eye’ which supposedly will help them pick the right place.

Car Hire – the Alternative to Risking Public Transport

February 26th 2010

Normally I’ve got little time for driving – you can’t read if you’re driving and you can’t get in the car after a couple of beers the way you can with a train or bus (and if you do, you suck and you should remove yourself from the human race right now), earphones are usually a bad idea and some of my best phone conversations have been had on a train. Plus, the roads tend to be full of morons, which is why I’m glad I sold my car, but this weekend I’ve got quite a long journey ahead of me and I just don’t trust public transport to get me there on time, so I’ve gone the car hire route.

Schadenfreude Over Chauffeur Hire

February 25th 2010

I’m not usually a fan of social networking or anything like that, and I’m certainly not too big on Facebook (or Failbook as I like to call it), but what I am a fan of is that terrible, terrible joy you feel when an ex-girlfriend adds you and you find out that A) she’s got fat, B) the guy that she dumped you for has moved on to a younger/ skinnier/ dumber model or C) that the guy she left you for is so broken down that he’s paying for chauffeur hire every time they go out on the weekend just to shut her up.

Do I Need an Air Conditioner?

February 24th 2010

I’ve recently started writing a new project, which is intended to be an ongoing collection of short stories with an ensemble cast, kind of like an online, post apocalyptic soap opera but not. The whole point behind it is isolation and disconnection, but a problem I’m encountering is my own connection – my room has it all, Sky HD, Xbox 360, PC with internet access, BlackBerry phone with Twitter and Facebook on it and all kinds of other stuff that just connects me to the world and keeps me in touch at any given moment. That’s great, but I’m finding it impossible to actually get myself into the right headspace for it, especially with my two flatmates making squawking noises all the flipping time, so I’ve decided to go back to the self storage unit. The question is, do I want to hire an air conditioner for it?

Track of the Morning 22-2-10: Dismantled – Human

February 22nd 2010

If the Terminator decided to give up killing things and made records instead, Dismantled’s first album would’ve been the result. In all my years of listening to hardcore electro, industrial, and terror EBM, nothing has quite captured that same mechanised post-apocalyptic feel; sure Xentrifuge sound like the cybernetic apocalypse, but that’s the actual war against the machines. Xentrifuge’s pure, uncompromising electronic hatred sounds more like the Judgement Day war than the sound track to humanity being rounded up and exterminated in a scorched-sky, blackened post apocalyptic world, and that’s the image I get from Dismantled’s first album.