Monday, September 30, 2002
I've just finished uploading all the pics from the weekend onto the photo album. There's quite a few there. Oh yeah, I've re-arranged the order of the album a bit, so new pics will always appear on the first pages, to save people having to click through to later pages.
Steve 3:59 PM [+] (0) comments
It's been a while since I've posted, `cause we've been having something of a long weekend.
Thursday was spent on the local hippy market, just looking at cool stuff, then playing games in a local arcade, drinking coffee, and generally having a great day out, followed by a lazy evening in.
Friday was another lazy `do nothing` day, and then saturday, we hit the town... well... towns. We started out in Stony Stratford, one of my fave places in the world, and then went down the A5 into Towcester in the next county. I lived in Towcester for about 8 years as a kid, so after we'd done what we had to do, we went down the street I'd lived in, and checked out the spot my house had stood on. It's a real pity it isn't there any more. The whole town has changed a lot, but much of the stuff I remember as a young child is still there.
Having relived a few childhood memories, we went a little further down the A5 to the little village Brigitte lives in, and to her house.
It's a lovely place, quite old, and though it may only look like a standard 50s terrace council house, it's quite magical on the inside, with a real atmosphere of `cottage in the woods`. I love it.
This afternoon we went for a wander round the village and I took pics. I'll post most of them in the photo album tomorrow, but here are three just to give you an impression.
This is one of the roads in the village on the way to Brigitte's house. Very quaint, as you can see.
Brigitte's house is set up very high above the street, which is awesome, 'cause you can look down on the houses on the opposite side.
Looking up and over to the right a little, you can see buildings that were once an army base set on the canal. The place is just an office and industrial estate now, but strangely, I rather like the architecture. The pic itself was a real bitch to take, as it was rather dark and I didn't have the tripod. I had to rest the camera on the window sill, which wasn't the ideal position, and is the reason for all the phone lines in the shot, but hey, I like it :-)
Labels: photos
Steve 12:06 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Visiting my mum in town today was fun. The conversation was mostly about the eartquake the other night. It had woken her up, but her neghbour who she spoke to the next morning had slept right through it, and suggested that perhaps it'd been a dream. Of course, later on, it was all over the news, and the neighbour realised my mum wasn't nuts after all.This seems to have been the pattern all over the place... some people feeling it, and those they spoke to about it, untill they saw the news, thinking they'd imagined it or something. My niece Shannon felt it, and being scared, rushed into my sister's bedroom. My sister having slept through it told her it was just a bad dream, and I'd imagine felt quite awful when in the morning she found out it had been real after all.
Brigitte too slept through it, and when I woke her a couple of minutes later, saying we'd just had an earthquake, looked at me like I'd lost my marbles.
The thing is, in the uk, that's a totally natural reaction. We simply don't get earthquakes here... at least, none really worth speaking of, so when someone wakes you, or tells you in the morning that your whole house was shaking, skepticism is the only normal response there is.
I'll say this though, I'm very glad I was awake. Such an event being so rare an occurrance in this country, I can imagine there are millions of people having heard the news the next morning who're kicking themselves for having missed it. All we need now is for some company or other to start selling t-shirts declaring "I was awake during the earthquake! Were you?"
Steve 5:53 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Sat here listening to my 8 hour Bowie compilation, bopping away, with nothing to write, but wanting to write something.Y'know... it cracks me up sometimes. On my webcam page, it clearly states that I'm entirely straight, but I still get the occasional gay man/boy coming into the chatroom with hopes of something or other. I don't mean the type who're just there for conversation... I have several gay friends who drop in to be sociable, with no intentions other than to chat, and they're great company. It's the other type... being flirtatious or suggestive. It's.. I dunno. The idea of a gay person hitting on someone they know is straight, I find it rather offensive, but more than that, I find it confusing. Why do they do it? Is it something to do with me having long hair? Like "Oh, this guy's in touch with his feminine side. Bet I can turn him."
Huh! Sorry, but not a chance.
I dunno. Maybe it's not a gay thing at all, like the guy in the bar, hitting on the woman who's obviously not interested, but won't take no for an answer. Whatever... it's ignorant and rude.
Still, if it's the price for running a very public webcam, it's worth it, for the sake of the really decent visitors who come to the room.
Steve 3:35 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, September 23, 2002
Here's one of my fave pics of Brigitte which shows one of the many reasons she makes me so happy. She's such a happy woman, laughs easily, and makes me laugh lots too :-)
Steve 5:36 PM [+] (0) comments
Yup.. I didn't imagine it. Not that it'd be easy to imagine your room shifting and shaking.
Here's the BBC news report.
Truth is, I'm rather relieved it turned out to be an eartquake. Why? Well... when I was a kid, I experienced some sporadic poltergeist activity... doors slamming and rattling, things jumping about, that kinda thing. It didn't happen often, but it did happen, and it scared the crap out of me. To have the whole room shaking, the chair shifting under me, lights swinging, walls creaking... well, you can imagine the ideas that went through my head.
I was in the chatroom at the time of the quake, so since the bbc seems to be doing the usual "tell us what you were doing when the quake hit" kind of thing, here's the chat log.
neil_f> but it was the class punk rocker that came up to me at lunchtime & started up a conversation
@Benway> uh
@Benway> brb
@Benway> weird shit
@Benway> earthquake?
neil_f> i thought he was coming over to kick seven bells out of me. Des, he was a sound guy
neil_f> what, that wobble?
neil_f> maybe it was just the wind
@Benway> wasn`t the wind
neil_f> what happened?
@Benway> whole room shook
@Benway> nothing going on outside
neil_f> i got a rumble just when you said weird shit, but i'm pretty sure it was the wind
@Benway> no noise... just everything shook. I heard a thing like that a few years ago. Very localised earthwuake on the other side of town
neil_f> freaks you out when that kinda thing happens. we had one when i was six or seven, epicentre in north wales
* @Benway nods
@Benway> the only thing that comes to my mind is sudden subsidence
@Benway> it`s the only other explanation
neil_f> everything seem solid right now?
@Benway> seems to be
@Benway> I`m gonna look in the loft tomorrow... heard a lot of movement up there
@Benway> should check the roof`s still on
@Benway> well
@Benway> still on solidly anyway
@Benway> would`ve heard it come off
Steve 3:48 PM [+] (0) comments
Ok. Wierd shit going on here.
We just had an earthquake. Couldn't have been anything else. My whole room shook... everything was shaking... like there was a train going by under the flat. There are no trains within half a mile btw, and no heavy goods. I just looked outside... nothing going on. There was no noise... just shaking, very low frequency... not vibration... just movement.
This is Milton Keynes, 50 miles north of London in the uk. This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen here.
Totally freaked out.
Steve 1:06 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, September 22, 2002
It's getting VERY difficult to get into the chatroom lately. Dalnet's pretty much fallen apart, and the only server that seems to function remotely consistently is twisted.ma. How annoying.Probably doesn't matter at the moment anyway, as there's no-one about.
Steve 11:40 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, September 21, 2002
I'm being lazy today.Was supposed to go into town to pick up a battery charger, into wolverton to get a mop-head and other domestic bits and pieces, do laundry, and god knows what else. Did I do it? Nah. Settled for taking out the rubbish before the kitchen got into an overflowing state again, had a bath, and settled down to do very little.
It's a rather unusual mindset to be in, though most people already know I'm laziness personified. I find that when Brigitte's here, we're very wrapped up in each other, so practical stuff isn't a factor, and when she isn't, I'm so wrapped up thinking about her that practical stuff still isn't a factor. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining for a moment.... I'm loving every moment. It's just not something I'm used to.
From a blogging perspective, I'm trying not to do the "We did this, and this, and this and this together, and it's all so nice" thing. I mean... we do, and it is, just that I've seen a few blogs like that, and from the readers perspective, it's dull, and I don't wanna go down that road. Just let me assure you, from where I'm sitting, things are very far from dull :-)
Labels: blogging
Steve 7:31 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, September 20, 2002
A quiet day today, just catching up on sleep mostly. My old routine had already gone to hell anyway, so now I'm just settling into an entirely new one, and enjoying every moment.I picked up a new dvd yesterday... Black Hawk Down. Awesome. Far better than behind Enemy Lines, which left me cold. It's actually the second film in a month that I've felt the urge to watch twice within two days, the other being We Were Soldiers.
What else can I tell you?
A friend of mine popped round a couple of days ago with some good news of his own. His girlfriend from the states will be moving over here to live with him on sunday. This is great news, not only because it'll make him a happy chappy, but because he won't be feeling left out in the cold, or the odd one out, what with Brigitte and myself being a couple, if you follow my meaning.
Labels: movies
Steve 5:57 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
So what's been going on then?Well, I'm not going to go into the bad stuff, because it's done, and doesn't need digging over... besides which, it's no-ones business. The good stuff though... people who've been paying close attention to the comments may have figured it, but I'm gonna tell the story.
A while back, I signed up to a dating website, more just for a laugh than anything, and wasn't taking it remotely seriously, much less expecting anything to come from it. So then a few weeks back, I got a message from a woman named Brigitte on the site who'd looked at my profile, and was just curious. Looking at our profiles, we didn't sound like what each other was looking for, but exchanged polite emails for a while anyway.
Then she disapeared, so I simply figured she'd lost interest, and thought nothing more of it. A couple of weeks later though, I recieved another email, and I don't know what it was about it... can't put my finger on it at all, but I found myself becoming quite interested... there seemed to be more to her than I'd originally thought. After a few more emails, I found I was really enjoying reading and writing to her. So anyway, after a time, I suggested maybe we talk by phone, since there's really only so much you can learn about a person via email, and it's so much easier to get a feel for a person's character when you can hear them.
The first phone call, pretty much right from the start of the conversation, we clicked and in a big way. After a few days of chatting on the phone for several hours each day, we decided to meet at the weekend. Now here's the thing, at this point, while Brigitte had seen my pic on my profile and had a fair idea of what I look like, she didn't have a pic, so I had no idea what she looked like. In truth, she was convinced that I wasn't going to like her when we met, as I'd stated in my profile the kind of women I'm attracted to visually, and she didn't fit that description at all. But anyway, by now, we got along so well on the phone, it would've been a pity not to meet and find out, and whatever happened, we knew we'd be great friends if nothing else.
The day of our meeting came, and we were both in Milton Keynes shopping centre a little earlier than the arranged time, just wandering around and knowing the other was there somewhere. Now... the moment I walked into the building, a woman more or less fitting Brigittes basic description made brief eye contact with me as I walked along, raising her eyebrows. I looked, and looked away, thinking "Ugh... this ugly creature's giving me the eye." After walking a few more steps it occurred to me "Oh shit... what if that's Brigitte? I've just been really rude and walked away, probably with a look of complete disinterest on my face." Now I was getting nervous.
Twenty minutes later, the time came for me to ring Brigittes cell phone and tell her where I was so we could meet, and the first thing I said was "You must tell me honestly, have you seen me yet?" to which she answered no. You can't believe how relieved I was, 'cause I'd have been SO gutted if the woman I'd passed as I entered the building was her. Anyway, I was stood chatting on the phone, explaining exactly where I was, thinking that she was standing still. Little did I know that she was only maybe 30 feet away when I'd first called, and heading in my direction as we spoke. It's the strangest thing when you realise that the person you're talking to on the phone is in fact the person you're looking at, standing just a few feet in front of you with a huge grin on their face.
She grinned, I grinned, we clicked. Pretty much an instant connection. By the time we reached the little coffee bar, I'd already decided in my head, if she wanted to be with me, I wanted to be with her.
She did. We are. I have a girlfriend :-)
So Brigitte, if you're reading this, I've said it before and I'll say it again here... You rock my world!
Steve 8:39 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, September 16, 2002
I'm back.It's been a crazy time, full of extremes, and I do mean REALLY extreme. The highest highs, and the lowest lows. What's made it difficult is that the highs and lows have been connected, but thankfully, what might have ended in tragedy has worked out okay in the end.
Very few people know the whole story, and I'm not going to tell it here, as it involves more than just me. Suffice to say, my life has headed in a different direction, things are going to be different, some of which you'll see here in the future, some you won't. The biggest change a few people will see is less of me in the chatroom, particularly at weekends... though on weekdays I should still be about.
I guess I'm being vague here, so I'll say this... things are good, no.. they're VERY good. I'm a happy chappy. I'm just rather dazed, because things could so easily have been very different.
Keep reading, `cause I'll keep writing, and maybe you'll figure some of it out. I just need a little time to settle into things before I know how much I can write openly about.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some serious catching up to do on everyones blogs. I'm totally out of touch here, and haven't read anything anywhere for days.
Steve 3:23 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Haven't been online much over the past couple of days. My sleep pattern and whole routine have gone completely up the wall, and I couldn't seem to get my act together. Taking a couple of days off seemed like the only solution. I can't say that it's helped, and I've been struggling with a headache all day, so we'll just have to see.As predicted, I got a reply from the company I had the interview with last week, and I didn't get the job *chuckles*.
Labels: interviews, sleep, work
Steve 5:05 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, September 08, 2002
Friends and family sometimes ask me why I read car and bike magazines, when I neither drive, nor own a bike.Well, I was just sat reading a bike magazine, and found the perfect example of why I love reading these things. In describing the sound of a particular bike, they had this to say: "It's like a chorus of demented off duty angels, out on the piss on a karaoke night, yelling Nirvana through throats parched with too many Marlboro."
How could anyone not love such wonderfully descriptive journalism?
Steve 8:38 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, September 07, 2002
I appear not to be allowed to sleep today.I dunno why it is, but just lately I've been needing to sleep more than usual... just a bit burned out after a hectic week probably, and my routine's all messed up. So anyway, this afternoon I decided to take a nap, only as soon as I'd dropped off, the phone rings. It's a friend of mine who I always ask to phone me before dropping round, just to make sure I'm awake, 'cause I never answer the door if I'm taking a nap. Thing is, he's taken to phoning just as he reaches my doorstep to tell me to come open the door. Rather defeating the object of phoning really. Well, I just said it wasn't a good time.. which it wasn't. So... back to sleep, and again, just as I'd dropped off again, and I do tend to struggle to get to sleep at the best of times, the phone rings again. It's my sister needing tech help on the computer. I'm always happy to help my sister out, and love hearing from her... not complaining for a moment... I just want to get a good unbroken period of sleep is all.
Labels: sleep
Steve 9:27 PM [+] (0) comments
And the link list keeps growing. Blog of the day is Kara... Beyond Your Peripheral Vision. Musician, artist, writer, etc... reminds me of me, just way cuter.
So anyway.. this has got me thinking about my link list. It's probably about time I put them into some kind of order. As it is, they're reverse chronological... oldest first, but the only person who'd ever know that is me. I guess I could put them in order of faves higher up... it'd certainly be easier for me, as some I read more than others (though I do check each one every day), but that'd risk upsetting people, like "Hey, my blog rocks. Why am I below so and so?" That only really leaves alphabetical order, but... I dunno... that's kinda boring, and since people always seem to start at the top, and rarely reach the bottom, it favours those higher up the alphabet... or chronological order, which makes no sense to anyone but me again.
Oh sod it... it can stay as it is.
Labels: blogging
Steve 5:08 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, September 06, 2002
Well, I can safely say after that interview that I won't begetting the job. I'd taken paracetamol an hour or so before hand for a headache, which often has the unpleasant side effect of making me feel sick. Typically, it kicked in right bang in the middle of the interview, so while the woman's asking me awkward questions, like what happened to my previous job, I was concentrating on trying not to puke all over the interview room table. Hehehe. I managed to keep it down, thankfully, but I'm pretty certain my answers seemed very...hmmm... not what she was looking for. Thing is, how do you explain to a potential employer that you were sacked from your last job, 'cause you couldn't balance your domestic life with work? I can usually just about make it sound plausable, but today... not a chance.Anyway, as it is, I didn't much like the sound of the job when she described it fully, and since financially I'm not exactly struggling, I think I'd be more pissed off if I actually DID get the job.
Labels: interviews, work
Steve 5:23 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, September 05, 2002
Spent the morning single handedly winning WWII in Medal Of Honour, and I'm not even american... much fun.Then went into town and came away with a job interview for tomorrow at 3pm. I can't say I'm excited about it, and certainly don't expect to get it, but I guess it keeps up appearances and looks as if I'm making an effort.
Gonna try and grab a few hours sleep now... it's hard to come by of late, screwed up sleep pattern and all that, so I have to be utterly exhausted before it's even worth trying.
Ugh! True to form, just as I'm about to nap, the asshole next door starts playing his bloody drums. It's like having a tank turning its engine over in the next room. He doesn't play them in the traditional sense, more a series of continuous drumrolls, probably thrash or some such crap. The funny thing is, on the rare occasions I've heard him play a straight 4/4 beat... he can't keep time to save his life. God help the band that has him as their drummer, 'cause if he can't keep time, they'll all be out of time too. Where's a 50 calibre machine gun when I need it?
Labels: games, interviews, sleep
Steve 7:25 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, September 03, 2002
Watched a couple of movies this afternoon.Behind Enemy Lines... I'd seen trailers of this a while back and wanted to see it in the cinema, but never got round to it, so I've been waiting for it to come out on dvd for a while. Hmmm. I'm not sure it was worth the wait. The thing is, it's been done before, and better. BAT21 was a vastly superior film, also starring Gene Hackman. This just seemed cliched.
The other film I watched has also been done before, in the form of Platoon and Hamburger Hill (though certainly not Apocalypse Now, as they suggest on the box), but unlike Behind Enemy Lines, We Were Soldiers is a brilliant film, and superior to those that have gone before it. I don't care much for Mel Gibson lately, though his earlier work's great fun... in this though, he's really awesome, even if his accent does sound a little dodgy. Harrowing, traumatic, emotional and action packed... this is what a Vietnam war movie should be, it shows the horror of war, and the bravery of the men who fought it, and does it in an intelligent and sensetive manner. There's no gung-ho bullshit here... they just tell it like it is.
The only thing that bothers me is the notes on the packaging. Why do they have to compare every Vietnam movie to Apocalypse Now? That film wasn't about the Vietnam war, it was just based in it. It was an exploration into the darkness of the human soul, and an examination of insanity, going further into uncharted territory than any film that has followed has dared to tread. The people making these comparrisons need to wake up and try to understand what it is they're watching.
Labels: movies
Steve 11:02 PM [+] (0) comments
Very tired. Haven't been to bed yet, so must sleep now.
I'll be about later.
Labels: sleep
Steve 5:13 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, September 02, 2002
Happy Birthday...... Me :-)34?
How'd that happen? I'm sure I was 21yesterday.
So, what did I do to celebrate? Hehe... opened pressies at about 6am, and then slept for 11 hours. I do like to sleep in on my birthday... er... and every other day the oportunity arises.
I have to give it to my sister, some time ago she figured out exactly the kinda present to give me on birthdays and christmas, 'cause its kinda hard to buy stuff for someone who's got everything he needs and most of the stuff he wants already. Toys... or more specifically, executive toys. So I have the stress balls, the multi level plastic cylinder filled with ballbearings, the perpetual motion thingie, the electronic fishing game, and this year... the gun that fires rubber balls which stick to a plastic target. Much fun. There's rubber balls all over the place here... hehehe.
Steve 6:59 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, September 01, 2002
Oh hah. Some people really don't know when they've been taken for a ride.Some time ago, I ran a piece of software that reported the most frequently searched for phrases at a number of search engines, and for a time, the number one search was "homebased business oportunities". So, figuring I'd make good use of this information, I created this webpage, targetting that search term.
If you read the page all the way through, you notice it does eventually explain that my site doesn't offer any info at all on what the person is looking for, but obviously, people don't read the whole page... they simply click the link. The logic in doing this at all being, though the visitor to my webpage isn't actually likely to stay, or be interested in my site, they do end up helping my banner exchange... wherebye every 2 visitors to that page causes one of my banners to be displayed elsewhere, helping bring in people who may be interested in my site.
Anyway, the reason I'm mentioning all of this is because of an email I just recieved. "I'm very interested in homebased business oportunities. Please guide me." That was the entirety of the message. Hehehe... oh the possibilities for a windup. Most people, even when they don't read the whole of the page, realise when they click into my site that there's absolutely nothing relating to what they searched for.
This is where your REAL scam merchant would reply, requesting their bank details, credit card number, or whatever, promising great rewards. Lucky for them, though I may be devious, I'm not THAT devious.
Steve 10:17 AM [+] (0) comments
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