waiting for the bullet to hit has given me plenty of time to think, but little motivation to discuss. sitting on a 5-hour train ride, on the other hand, has given me opportunity and enough caffeine to wire up an entire LAN party.
i am an observant soul, and i observe many things that other people ignore. this isn't to say that a lot of detail doesn't pass me by, but i know that the unusual workings of my brain makes interesting connections sometimes. what i've been seeing in recent history has struck me as being so obvious that i'm amazed i never saw it before. when i was young and a noob my computer was pretty simple. it did what it did, which was about as much as i could make it do, and that was that. gradually as i became somewhat skilled my machine started to get whiz-bang. i had little programs to that made things pretty and perform every service under the sun - 3 different IM's, 4 different browsers, 3 CD Burning tools, a music player that put pretty patterns on the screen - you name it.
then, one day, i had to reinstall my OS because my hard drive died and i lost it all, so i rebuilt it. and again, and again as i switched and changed machines until eventually i just couldn't be bothered spending 12 hours reinstalling everything again every time it happened. since then my UI has become more and more austere, and since i got into linux, far less complicated in many respects. in fact, i was looking the other day at switching distro's to version advertised as being less complex still than the one i'm using at the moment.
this got me to thinking about some of the ubergeeks i've met over the years and how many of them eschew even a GUI a lot of the time and instead live primarily a text-based flatland. i remember sitting around uni wondering why they lived with such asceticism when it was so easy to rig up a pretty interface, which is when my inner eye turned outwards again and looked at some of what louise has been doing with her laptop - prettying up the desktop, adding tools, fiddling with RSS feeds... and i can't bring myself to care overly about any of it while i hack config files in a terminal window. it's almost like a bell-curve: as you get better and better your personal machine gets more and more complicated, until there comes a point where the complexity is in what you do, not how it looks and UI customisation drops away. louise is now where i was back at uni as she tracks the ever-improving average curve and i'm now assuming the role of the ubergeek with a ponytail, beard... and... a cheap sports car... with a penchant for alternative OS's...
oh fuck. i've grown up to become the arrogant, overconfident pricks i always hated. oh well, fuck it. at least i'm not massively overweight and i've had sex with actual women. i remember having a conversation with Spoon some years ago about how we were like the New Breed of geek - all the technical ability and aptitude but without anywhere near the social deficiencies that the previous generation was cursed with. we're stronger, faster, better, with an understanding of basic fucking hygiene and the ability to provide multiple-orgasms. we'll be superseded soon enough, but for the time being we're inheriting the world and we'll take no prisoners when the time comes to line up the Old Guard against the wall. we're kinder to our juniors than our predecessors and better able to evolve to cope with the changing environment and it's only a matter of time before those smelly sons of bitches get decommissioned.
all hail the nouveaugeek!
Friday, February 6, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Snippets #9: on togetherness...
it started to dawn on me as my mind wandered through the leavings of half a dozen different cognitive loose-ends this evening that people seem to find it insanely important that i be one of them. not me specifically, i think, more just me because i happen to be there at the time. it shows in the sorts of questions i get asked - they usually lead with: "So -
are you a foodie then?" erm... i like food?
how long have you been vegan?"actually, i'm an omnivore. i just have a lot of vegan friends...
would you consider voting for the conservative party?" not until they all commit mass-suicide.
have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?" haven't you accepted me as yours?
... and so on.
it's always nice to know that you're part of something that's bigger than you are. that you're surrounded by likewise individuals. to be able to look around the room and think: "These are MY people. We share the same ideals. I am one of them," and know that you're all safe and happy because you all think alike. i can't say that i'm overly different - i've always enjoyed a member of a marginalised minority - in high school i was in the cynically-named "Cool Gang", at uni i was in the computer and science fiction clubs, in the real world i ride motorcycles and assume all of the self-indulgent airs that come with being fast and vulnerable. being part of a small marginalised subset makes you feel special, like you're superior to the rest of society because you stand apart and meeting other people who share your minority views or habits reinforces how much better you all are because of it.
it's all bullshit though, of couse. we all like to think we're so alternative with our shoices of food, esoteric conversations about the literary criticism of Battlestar Galactica and penchant for ludicrously dangerous forms of transport.
"Ooh, I'm so special because I choose to physically love more than one person."
no, you just like to sleep around and get laid as much as humanly possible! not that there's anything wrong with that or that i really give a crap! i don't really care if you're preferred way of getting off is to be surrounded by cossaks who jerk off all over you while you sit on a small pink stool in a frilly bonnet and insist on being called Sister Pauline while a midget in a gimp-suit shoves cucumbers up your date and a small lamb licks honey off your testicles. seriously, it's fascinating to hear about. the first time. ok, maybe the second so i can get a proper grip (pardon the pun) on the details. what i don't want to hear is how isolated you feel because society won't accept your "alternative" lifestyle repeated over and over again ad nauseum.
what shits me to tears is when people give me grief because i'm NOT in on their subculture, as if by not subscribing to their newsletter i'm automatically one of the opressors who want to stop them from doing what they want to do. seriously, as long as the midget's happy, or at least well paid, i don't give a fuck WHAT you have them shove up your arse, and as long as you don't expect me to watch or join in (and you showered before coming out to the pub) i'm sure we'll get along just fine.
i understand though. i really do. we all have things that we're interested in, and when you live a lifestyle that 67% of the rest of the people around you don't or won't understand you tend to become suspicious of the people you come across, assuming that they'll judge you for it. we all want to be accepted for who we are and the choices we make and as long as these choices don't get in the way of what other people want to do when there's no reason why we shouldn't be. having these little cliques and groups makes us feel included... validated... like we're not alone. very few people really want to be alone and throughout history people have tended to cleave towards likeminded communities - the christians in the first centuries AD, science fiction fans at conventions, gay people in King's Cross, it doesn't matter. i just would have hoped that by now we'd be at the point where people with non-mainstream lifestyles could be accepted, and likewise, where these people could be less cagey about those who DON'T.
right now i'm exploring what it's like to be an oddball without a scene. i've not searched for, nor found, an SF group here in London. i've not explored the social groups for any of my hobbies. i hang around with special-interst groups, but their interests aren't really mine. the people i hang with tend to be random rather than people who indulge in any of my particular obsessions, and the odd thing is that usually we're all pretty accepting of each other. i'm finding it pleasant that i'm "that guys who's into x, y and z" as opposed to "one of us" or "one of them", without any of the assumption that i must conform to a label... except for Australian. that one i've been wearing often, loudly and with pride. fortunately or unfortunately, with my accent it's inescapable so i might as well just go with it...
are you a foodie then?" erm... i like food?
how long have you been vegan?"actually, i'm an omnivore. i just have a lot of vegan friends...
would you consider voting for the conservative party?" not until they all commit mass-suicide.
have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?" haven't you accepted me as yours?
... and so on.
it's always nice to know that you're part of something that's bigger than you are. that you're surrounded by likewise individuals. to be able to look around the room and think: "These are MY people. We share the same ideals. I am one of them," and know that you're all safe and happy because you all think alike. i can't say that i'm overly different - i've always enjoyed a member of a marginalised minority - in high school i was in the cynically-named "Cool Gang", at uni i was in the computer and science fiction clubs, in the real world i ride motorcycles and assume all of the self-indulgent airs that come with being fast and vulnerable. being part of a small marginalised subset makes you feel special, like you're superior to the rest of society because you stand apart and meeting other people who share your minority views or habits reinforces how much better you all are because of it.
it's all bullshit though, of couse. we all like to think we're so alternative with our shoices of food, esoteric conversations about the literary criticism of Battlestar Galactica and penchant for ludicrously dangerous forms of transport.
"Ooh, I'm so special because I choose to physically love more than one person."
no, you just like to sleep around and get laid as much as humanly possible! not that there's anything wrong with that or that i really give a crap! i don't really care if you're preferred way of getting off is to be surrounded by cossaks who jerk off all over you while you sit on a small pink stool in a frilly bonnet and insist on being called Sister Pauline while a midget in a gimp-suit shoves cucumbers up your date and a small lamb licks honey off your testicles. seriously, it's fascinating to hear about. the first time. ok, maybe the second so i can get a proper grip (pardon the pun) on the details. what i don't want to hear is how isolated you feel because society won't accept your "alternative" lifestyle repeated over and over again ad nauseum.
what shits me to tears is when people give me grief because i'm NOT in on their subculture, as if by not subscribing to their newsletter i'm automatically one of the opressors who want to stop them from doing what they want to do. seriously, as long as the midget's happy, or at least well paid, i don't give a fuck WHAT you have them shove up your arse, and as long as you don't expect me to watch or join in (and you showered before coming out to the pub) i'm sure we'll get along just fine.
i understand though. i really do. we all have things that we're interested in, and when you live a lifestyle that 67% of the rest of the people around you don't or won't understand you tend to become suspicious of the people you come across, assuming that they'll judge you for it. we all want to be accepted for who we are and the choices we make and as long as these choices don't get in the way of what other people want to do when there's no reason why we shouldn't be. having these little cliques and groups makes us feel included... validated... like we're not alone. very few people really want to be alone and throughout history people have tended to cleave towards likeminded communities - the christians in the first centuries AD, science fiction fans at conventions, gay people in King's Cross, it doesn't matter. i just would have hoped that by now we'd be at the point where people with non-mainstream lifestyles could be accepted, and likewise, where these people could be less cagey about those who DON'T.
right now i'm exploring what it's like to be an oddball without a scene. i've not searched for, nor found, an SF group here in London. i've not explored the social groups for any of my hobbies. i hang around with special-interst groups, but their interests aren't really mine. the people i hang with tend to be random rather than people who indulge in any of my particular obsessions, and the odd thing is that usually we're all pretty accepting of each other. i'm finding it pleasant that i'm "that guys who's into x, y and z" as opposed to "one of us" or "one of them", without any of the assumption that i must conform to a label... except for Australian. that one i've been wearing often, loudly and with pride. fortunately or unfortunately, with my accent it's inescapable so i might as well just go with it...
my day in the snow...
in the last 24 hours London has had the most snow drop on it that it's experienced in the last 18 years and pretty much everything ground to a halt. it was snowing lightly yesterday when i was on the bus, then while i was in Woolwich it started in earnest, laying a thin layer on everything. out on the balcony at SiJ's place i could see little kids running around, cars sliding down the hill and one poor motorcyclist who seemed desperate to get safely home while his rear end kept sliding out on him.
i headed for the bus fairly early and managed to get back to basecamp without mishap, where it was up to ~2 inches. comparing notes with louise, we looked out the window half an hour later to see it coming down thick and fast, and our reaction was the same: let's go downstairs! rugged up and down in the cold it was beautiful - everything was white, still frozen. no slush yet, traffic hadn't melted any of it yet. we were laughing, jumping around the footpath like children. i jokingly threw a snowball at her and she landed on her arse giggling. we horsed around until i lost feeling in my hands and came back in and watched it out the window for a while before we hit the sack.
it snowed through most of the night and by this morning it was a complete and total debacle out there. 4-6 inches covered everything that'd take it. louise managed to get to work eventually, but TFL canceled every bus route, every overland train and most of the tubes were either suspended or on massively reduced services. i got a call at 10ish advising that my interview for the day had been postponed, which did not impress me, but so many people were unable to get to work that it was almost like an unofficial holiday. London just... stopped. i lay around and checked the news and before too long realised that i had a mission for the day: rug up, go out in it, experience REAL snow and take as many photos as possible.
i cruised Facebook for a while to see if anyone wanted to join in, and suggested that if louise was considering getting out of work early she should hook in and come for the ride. by midday i was getting off the tube (Northern Line was the 2nd-least effected tube line) at Embankment and walking down the north bank of the Thames towards Westminster with my camera going mad. it took me nearly an hour and a half to get from from Westminster to Trafalgar Square to St Martin's-in-the-Fields to Charing Cross Station, partly because i kept stopping to take photos, partly because trudging down icy footpaths was slow going. louise met me near Trafalgar Square and fed me the second half of her sandwich, and we moved on through Admiralty Arch and through the park running alongside The Mall until we eventually reached Buckingham Palace, on through St James' Park and then up to Green Park where we parked ourselves in a pub and had hot chocolate. by the time we'd gone through Leicester Square it was 4:30 and she was getting dizzy spells so i helped her to Leicester Square Station and we headed back, getting in just as it was starting to get dark.
i was incredibly glad i'd dressed appropriately for it - two pairs of socks under my boots which were laced up to the top (by the time we were done in the parks my trousers were soaked to the knees. my feet? toasty and dry. thank you Steel Blue work boots!), singlet, long-sleeved shirt, short-sleeved shirt, coat, gloves, scarf and hat. i'd brought louise her gloves and mittens, as well as my spare hat, and with her boots and ski-jacket she was sorted. when we stopped at The Clarence in Green Park it took quite a while to remove all the layers, and our jackets and scarves etc took up a couch of their own.
it was quite amazing how quiet it was in town - with transport links cut off sod all anyone was getting anywhere, but there were a huge number of people in the parks mucking around, rolling snowmen, throwing snowballs, lads out with their girlfriends, parents playing with their kids... everyone having a lovely time and just simply loving it. the atmosphere was infectious and we spent four-odd hours with the biggest, stupidest grins on our faces. louise commented on it as being the best single day we've had since we got here and i find it hard to disagree too loudly. i wound up taking 240 photos over the course of the day which i'll be culling down a little, but most of them came out really well so it won't be by much. we had the best time, and all it took was a blizzard which ground the entire city to a screeching halt!
meanwhile, i was called in to do some more work tomorrow for Louis Vuitton - they have one computer that refuses to boot and i've negotiated a flat day-rate - no matter how quick i get it done, i get paid for the whole day to make it worth my while. this means i need to be up pretty early to get in there, but i suppose it's worth it... that said, i'm pretty worn out from today so i can see me sleeping well tonight...
i headed for the bus fairly early and managed to get back to basecamp without mishap, where it was up to ~2 inches. comparing notes with louise, we looked out the window half an hour later to see it coming down thick and fast, and our reaction was the same: let's go downstairs! rugged up and down in the cold it was beautiful - everything was white, still frozen. no slush yet, traffic hadn't melted any of it yet. we were laughing, jumping around the footpath like children. i jokingly threw a snowball at her and she landed on her arse giggling. we horsed around until i lost feeling in my hands and came back in and watched it out the window for a while before we hit the sack.
it snowed through most of the night and by this morning it was a complete and total debacle out there. 4-6 inches covered everything that'd take it. louise managed to get to work eventually, but TFL canceled every bus route, every overland train and most of the tubes were either suspended or on massively reduced services. i got a call at 10ish advising that my interview for the day had been postponed, which did not impress me, but so many people were unable to get to work that it was almost like an unofficial holiday. London just... stopped. i lay around and checked the news and before too long realised that i had a mission for the day: rug up, go out in it, experience REAL snow and take as many photos as possible.
i cruised Facebook for a while to see if anyone wanted to join in, and suggested that if louise was considering getting out of work early she should hook in and come for the ride. by midday i was getting off the tube (Northern Line was the 2nd-least effected tube line) at Embankment and walking down the north bank of the Thames towards Westminster with my camera going mad. it took me nearly an hour and a half to get from from Westminster to Trafalgar Square to St Martin's-in-the-Fields to Charing Cross Station, partly because i kept stopping to take photos, partly because trudging down icy footpaths was slow going. louise met me near Trafalgar Square and fed me the second half of her sandwich, and we moved on through Admiralty Arch and through the park running alongside The Mall until we eventually reached Buckingham Palace, on through St James' Park and then up to Green Park where we parked ourselves in a pub and had hot chocolate. by the time we'd gone through Leicester Square it was 4:30 and she was getting dizzy spells so i helped her to Leicester Square Station and we headed back, getting in just as it was starting to get dark.
i was incredibly glad i'd dressed appropriately for it - two pairs of socks under my boots which were laced up to the top (by the time we were done in the parks my trousers were soaked to the knees. my feet? toasty and dry. thank you Steel Blue work boots!), singlet, long-sleeved shirt, short-sleeved shirt, coat, gloves, scarf and hat. i'd brought louise her gloves and mittens, as well as my spare hat, and with her boots and ski-jacket she was sorted. when we stopped at The Clarence in Green Park it took quite a while to remove all the layers, and our jackets and scarves etc took up a couch of their own.
it was quite amazing how quiet it was in town - with transport links cut off sod all anyone was getting anywhere, but there were a huge number of people in the parks mucking around, rolling snowmen, throwing snowballs, lads out with their girlfriends, parents playing with their kids... everyone having a lovely time and just simply loving it. the atmosphere was infectious and we spent four-odd hours with the biggest, stupidest grins on our faces. louise commented on it as being the best single day we've had since we got here and i find it hard to disagree too loudly. i wound up taking 240 photos over the course of the day which i'll be culling down a little, but most of them came out really well so it won't be by much. we had the best time, and all it took was a blizzard which ground the entire city to a screeching halt!
meanwhile, i was called in to do some more work tomorrow for Louis Vuitton - they have one computer that refuses to boot and i've negotiated a flat day-rate - no matter how quick i get it done, i get paid for the whole day to make it worth my while. this means i need to be up pretty early to get in there, but i suppose it's worth it... that said, i'm pretty worn out from today so i can see me sleeping well tonight...
Monday, February 2, 2009
gourmet while you wait...
after a freezing start to the year the weather went mild, giving London a couple of weeks of comparatively warm weather. my scarf and gloves got stowed and i went out for a few days without a couple of my regular layers, then just as suddenly the weather went "psych!" like a 13 year old in an american sit-com and went fucking freezing again, with a brief moment of snow again as i was waking up this morning.
i'm blogging on the bus again, heading out on the hour-trip to Woolwich to help an english girl make lammingtons, and beg the use of her bath (the hot water at my place being barely enough to wash the dishes, let alone run a hot bath. i'll not complain - it's a good time to sit, look out the window and reflect on the last few days.
yesterday, after a month or so of meaning to, louise and i finally wandered out to the Borough Market off near London Bridge - absurdly packed and full of gourmet food (Ondine, pay attention!). you want a whole, unbutchered hare or pheasant? check. cheeses made in some farm's back shed, sliced off a 20kg wheel? got it. wild boar sausages, venison jerky, ostrich burgers? just keep your eyes open (the ostrich burger was really very good - that i can vouch for). 13 different kinds of olives, extra virgin olive oil, infused with a chunk of truffle... hell - whole black truffles stored in a jar on a bed of wild rice (£46 for one the size of a toddler's fist). organic bakers (selling brownies of the sort that chocaholic's dreams are made of), organic cheese and yogurt, organic coffee... fuck - think of it and some fucker's selling an organic one. it was great to wander and snack and taste and smell... well, as much as we could smell over the pervasive fumes of mulled wine which seemed to be a requirement. the application process for a stall must be:
"Good morning, what will you be selling then?"
We specialise in Jersey and Guensey organic raw sheep's milk cheese.
"Ah, we can always do with another stall selling that... wait... I don't see anything on your application form about selling mulled wine."
Well, no - it's not something we really do at Ben's Bovine Botherer's Farms...
"Oh no, we can't be having with that. EVERYBODY's got to sell mulled wine in winter, otherwise no one'll be able to tell it's English! The nerve of some people. You'll never fit in. Out!"
But...
"OUT!"
as we wandered we picked up some cheese, bread, some fresh apples and other odds and ends before heading back to base-camp for the evening and having cheese and cold-cuts for tea and watched movies until we were sick of the idea.
we'd have gotten in earlier, in part, had i not been out so late the night before. my resolve to Not Drink Too Much was tested hugely by the free booze at the Ruby Blue Lounge and one of the saffas (South Africans) who declared me to be his new favourite drinking buddy, but i managed to stop at 7 (or at least, that's the point i was at when the tab ran out). a good time was had - a big bunch of drunken IT Professionals in a classy venue with various girlfriends and wives trying not to look so uncomfortable. i managed to narrowly skirt a conversation that started with the line "You see, the idea that everything started from nothing, which exploded, and that after billions of years we've learned to walk and talk, is harder for me to believe than that God made it all in 7 days," but the rest of it was pretty damn jovial. i tried to leave at 9ish, but was dragged back in. i tried to make a move at 10:30 but was prevented. 11:30 and i finally excaped, walking Cathy (one of staff) to her bus stop since it was right next to mine. when i got in louise was still feeling a bit sick, but looked much better than she had for the week previous.
it's been a slow week, as i've discussed previously. i'm about ready to shoot people - if they could just tell me that i don't have the godsdamned jobs i'd be able to go and do something productive. you know, like Scotland (ok, i don't know how productive Scotland is or isn't, but doing Scotland would be in my book). each day that goes by drags while i wait and try not too piss off the pimps by badgering them too much. maybe i'll just do a spur-of-the-moment trip to Oxford or something in the meantime - where i can go and see and be back from in a day. something that doesn't involve sitting around the house in my tracky-daks.
meanwhile, i should probably pay attention to where this bus is going now so that i don't wind up in Plumstead.
i'm blogging on the bus again, heading out on the hour-trip to Woolwich to help an english girl make lammingtons, and beg the use of her bath (the hot water at my place being barely enough to wash the dishes, let alone run a hot bath. i'll not complain - it's a good time to sit, look out the window and reflect on the last few days.
yesterday, after a month or so of meaning to, louise and i finally wandered out to the Borough Market off near London Bridge - absurdly packed and full of gourmet food (Ondine, pay attention!). you want a whole, unbutchered hare or pheasant? check. cheeses made in some farm's back shed, sliced off a 20kg wheel? got it. wild boar sausages, venison jerky, ostrich burgers? just keep your eyes open (the ostrich burger was really very good - that i can vouch for). 13 different kinds of olives, extra virgin olive oil, infused with a chunk of truffle... hell - whole black truffles stored in a jar on a bed of wild rice (£46 for one the size of a toddler's fist). organic bakers (selling brownies of the sort that chocaholic's dreams are made of), organic cheese and yogurt, organic coffee... fuck - think of it and some fucker's selling an organic one. it was great to wander and snack and taste and smell... well, as much as we could smell over the pervasive fumes of mulled wine which seemed to be a requirement. the application process for a stall must be:
"Good morning, what will you be selling then?"
We specialise in Jersey and Guensey organic raw sheep's milk cheese.
"Ah, we can always do with another stall selling that... wait... I don't see anything on your application form about selling mulled wine."
Well, no - it's not something we really do at Ben's Bovine Botherer's Farms...
"Oh no, we can't be having with that. EVERYBODY's got to sell mulled wine in winter, otherwise no one'll be able to tell it's English! The nerve of some people. You'll never fit in. Out!"
But...
"OUT!"
as we wandered we picked up some cheese, bread, some fresh apples and other odds and ends before heading back to base-camp for the evening and having cheese and cold-cuts for tea and watched movies until we were sick of the idea.
we'd have gotten in earlier, in part, had i not been out so late the night before. my resolve to Not Drink Too Much was tested hugely by the free booze at the Ruby Blue Lounge and one of the saffas (South Africans) who declared me to be his new favourite drinking buddy, but i managed to stop at 7 (or at least, that's the point i was at when the tab ran out). a good time was had - a big bunch of drunken IT Professionals in a classy venue with various girlfriends and wives trying not to look so uncomfortable. i managed to narrowly skirt a conversation that started with the line "You see, the idea that everything started from nothing, which exploded, and that after billions of years we've learned to walk and talk, is harder for me to believe than that God made it all in 7 days," but the rest of it was pretty damn jovial. i tried to leave at 9ish, but was dragged back in. i tried to make a move at 10:30 but was prevented. 11:30 and i finally excaped, walking Cathy (one of staff) to her bus stop since it was right next to mine. when i got in louise was still feeling a bit sick, but looked much better than she had for the week previous.
it's been a slow week, as i've discussed previously. i'm about ready to shoot people - if they could just tell me that i don't have the godsdamned jobs i'd be able to go and do something productive. you know, like Scotland (ok, i don't know how productive Scotland is or isn't, but doing Scotland would be in my book). each day that goes by drags while i wait and try not too piss off the pimps by badgering them too much. maybe i'll just do a spur-of-the-moment trip to Oxford or something in the meantime - where i can go and see and be back from in a day. something that doesn't involve sitting around the house in my tracky-daks.
meanwhile, i should probably pay attention to where this bus is going now so that i don't wind up in Plumstead.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
i am Schrodinger's Cat...
i'm quietly freaking out right now. back before the end of last year i had a meeting with a pimp to discuss a contract for a housing company out in West London. it looked ok - money wasn't awesome, but acceptable. he thought i was going to be a great fit so i went for it. days passed, other interviews came and went, i did a couple of short contracts and the year ended with no news. game on after NY and i got word that the job was still live, but they'd decided to take it Perm. this generally means that i'm out of the running because no fucker in this town wants to look at a Working Holiday Maker for a perm job, so: shit. wait, what? they're still keen on me? well fuckery. fine by me!
days became weeks and they were taking their sweet fucking time with it, then suddenly they want me for a phone-interview. no problem, i say. the pimp sends me a cheat-sheet with some useful info and i take the call in the kitchen with my laptop in front of me and all my notes spread out. i hit it long, straight and into the crowd for a clean 6. i'm up for a second-round, face-to-face interview, which is confirmed the following week. i'm in there early, looking smart, and i spend the next hour Making An Impression - i've got the answers, i get on with the guys, we joke, we laugh, it's fucking textbook. technical skills? spot on. business process and procedure? i could re-write their books for them. personality and integration? don't even ask. i AM this fucking job. when will they have a decision made? end of the day they'll be in touch with my pimp. i'm fucking stoked.
the day ends and my phone's not rung. the next day's Friday and i'm pacing back and forth in the office in Leicester Square. phone rings at 6PM saying that they love me, they want me, they've already written off everyone but me and some other guy (there are 2 roles going, so i'm not stressed at this), and it's likely he won't accept an offer anyway since he won't take the cash they're offering. awesome. so What The Fuck? they had a candidate reschedule to the following Tuesday and they want to ponder some stuff over the weekend. ok, ok. Tuesday. i'll know Tuesday.
today's fucking Tuesday. i dived on my phone both times it rang to hear the wrong voices from the wrong agencies talking about other jobs. i play it cool and score a send-down (my CV's going in front of the client) for something i don't give a fuck about, but will take if offered since any backup is good. where the fuck is my pimp? i'm climbing the fucking walls here!
basically, this job is next-to fucking perfect. if it were in Central it'd be a dream. we're talking a modern infrastructure which needs a few upgrades, in a team which is rebuilding itself and needs fresh ideas on how to move forward from a hands-on techie who likes to get in and dirty. technology i know and more i want to play with, no sandpits to dance around which means everyone plays with everything. bunch of decent-seeming blokes working to make their world better and a slot for someone who wants to spend the next 18-24 months kicking arse and taking names, and they're offering £40-45k for the priviledge. this sitting at the top of my CV and i'm writing my own ticket - 2 years to ride out the bear market and the sort of role that makes pimps wet themselves. 2 years to get thoroughly sick of London, or not. 2 years to make some cash and work out what the next 10 have in store.
that's what's sitting in my head at the moment while i sit here in a box waiting to know whether i live or die. will the lid open to see me liberated with a golden ticket, or is the isotope going to decay and release the poison that prevents me from ever seeing daylight? i can't see outside the fucking box and my fingernails are stuck to the walls where i've tried to claw my way out. because i'll tell you what: i'm getting really fucking sick of this. this is the one. this is the job. this is the tipping point. if my phone rings tomorrow morning and i get a "i've got some bad news for you," i'm booking a train ticket to Scotland and going backpacking. i've got it all planned... in as much as i'm making a plan. i'll get to Edinburgh, wander around until i'm sick of the idea then find my way to Inverness (probably) for a few days, before moving on to Glasgow (maybe) and then back to London (unless somewhere else interesting blips on my radar). no idea how i'll get around but i know there'll be options. part of the adventure is working it out as i go along and running without a schedule. louise is working, and taking time off when she's not sure as to her future wouldn't be the best move for her (it's looking really good for her in this job, but there's still that uncertainty), but that doesn't stop her from meeting me up for a weekender somewhere - keep up the "travelling together" idea we always discussed before we got on that 'plane.
when i get back here i'll put another week or two into job-hunting again... if i've got the heart for it. as soon as i'm sick of it again i'm thinking Ireland, in the same style as Scotland. i've got the cash to do it. being loathe to spend more than absolutely necessary has meant that my slush-fund is healthy. the short-contracts i've covered have paid enough to keep me in rent, food and entertainment for the month and this has been a huge stress-relief.
of course, if the gods see fit to smile upon this damned soul then i'm looking at weekenders and a bit of settling in. maybe go for those music lessons i've been thinking about starting for far too long now? maybe find a nicer place to live with room for visitors? put some cash together and try to convince a couple of persons to come and pay me a visit and see some of this town? either way things go down i have an idea of how to move forward and that in itself has put a real spring in my step in the last few days. even failure has is opportunities. once again, Chinese New Year is going to be my marker for the end and the beginning. as much as i've long-considered Hope to be a tortuous whore of a feeling, i seem to have some at the moment so for the time being i'm going to go with it.
one way or another i seem to be entering a period of Change. i was flicking through my photo collection with someone or other and they commented that i've pretty much not changed much in the last 5... 6 years? the clothes change as they wear out, but they're still black and similar. the goatee's as it has been for over 10 years now. the pony-tail grew out and stuck for more than 6 so far. am i still thinking the same, "running over the same old ground, year after year"? have i been standing still while the world moves around me? maybe i'm overdue for some re-evaluation and re-consideration. what else should i be Giving Up while i'm in the process of a Slash & Burn? the process has been becoming attractive the more i start to think about it and the results? well, we'll just have to see, won't we?
days became weeks and they were taking their sweet fucking time with it, then suddenly they want me for a phone-interview. no problem, i say. the pimp sends me a cheat-sheet with some useful info and i take the call in the kitchen with my laptop in front of me and all my notes spread out. i hit it long, straight and into the crowd for a clean 6. i'm up for a second-round, face-to-face interview, which is confirmed the following week. i'm in there early, looking smart, and i spend the next hour Making An Impression - i've got the answers, i get on with the guys, we joke, we laugh, it's fucking textbook. technical skills? spot on. business process and procedure? i could re-write their books for them. personality and integration? don't even ask. i AM this fucking job. when will they have a decision made? end of the day they'll be in touch with my pimp. i'm fucking stoked.
the day ends and my phone's not rung. the next day's Friday and i'm pacing back and forth in the office in Leicester Square. phone rings at 6PM saying that they love me, they want me, they've already written off everyone but me and some other guy (there are 2 roles going, so i'm not stressed at this), and it's likely he won't accept an offer anyway since he won't take the cash they're offering. awesome. so What The Fuck? they had a candidate reschedule to the following Tuesday and they want to ponder some stuff over the weekend. ok, ok. Tuesday. i'll know Tuesday.
today's fucking Tuesday. i dived on my phone both times it rang to hear the wrong voices from the wrong agencies talking about other jobs. i play it cool and score a send-down (my CV's going in front of the client) for something i don't give a fuck about, but will take if offered since any backup is good. where the fuck is my pimp? i'm climbing the fucking walls here!
basically, this job is next-to fucking perfect. if it were in Central it'd be a dream. we're talking a modern infrastructure which needs a few upgrades, in a team which is rebuilding itself and needs fresh ideas on how to move forward from a hands-on techie who likes to get in and dirty. technology i know and more i want to play with, no sandpits to dance around which means everyone plays with everything. bunch of decent-seeming blokes working to make their world better and a slot for someone who wants to spend the next 18-24 months kicking arse and taking names, and they're offering £40-45k for the priviledge. this sitting at the top of my CV and i'm writing my own ticket - 2 years to ride out the bear market and the sort of role that makes pimps wet themselves. 2 years to get thoroughly sick of London, or not. 2 years to make some cash and work out what the next 10 have in store.
that's what's sitting in my head at the moment while i sit here in a box waiting to know whether i live or die. will the lid open to see me liberated with a golden ticket, or is the isotope going to decay and release the poison that prevents me from ever seeing daylight? i can't see outside the fucking box and my fingernails are stuck to the walls where i've tried to claw my way out. because i'll tell you what: i'm getting really fucking sick of this. this is the one. this is the job. this is the tipping point. if my phone rings tomorrow morning and i get a "i've got some bad news for you," i'm booking a train ticket to Scotland and going backpacking. i've got it all planned... in as much as i'm making a plan. i'll get to Edinburgh, wander around until i'm sick of the idea then find my way to Inverness (probably) for a few days, before moving on to Glasgow (maybe) and then back to London (unless somewhere else interesting blips on my radar). no idea how i'll get around but i know there'll be options. part of the adventure is working it out as i go along and running without a schedule. louise is working, and taking time off when she's not sure as to her future wouldn't be the best move for her (it's looking really good for her in this job, but there's still that uncertainty), but that doesn't stop her from meeting me up for a weekender somewhere - keep up the "travelling together" idea we always discussed before we got on that 'plane.
when i get back here i'll put another week or two into job-hunting again... if i've got the heart for it. as soon as i'm sick of it again i'm thinking Ireland, in the same style as Scotland. i've got the cash to do it. being loathe to spend more than absolutely necessary has meant that my slush-fund is healthy. the short-contracts i've covered have paid enough to keep me in rent, food and entertainment for the month and this has been a huge stress-relief.
of course, if the gods see fit to smile upon this damned soul then i'm looking at weekenders and a bit of settling in. maybe go for those music lessons i've been thinking about starting for far too long now? maybe find a nicer place to live with room for visitors? put some cash together and try to convince a couple of persons to come and pay me a visit and see some of this town? either way things go down i have an idea of how to move forward and that in itself has put a real spring in my step in the last few days. even failure has is opportunities. once again, Chinese New Year is going to be my marker for the end and the beginning. as much as i've long-considered Hope to be a tortuous whore of a feeling, i seem to have some at the moment so for the time being i'm going to go with it.
one way or another i seem to be entering a period of Change. i was flicking through my photo collection with someone or other and they commented that i've pretty much not changed much in the last 5... 6 years? the clothes change as they wear out, but they're still black and similar. the goatee's as it has been for over 10 years now. the pony-tail grew out and stuck for more than 6 so far. am i still thinking the same, "running over the same old ground, year after year"? have i been standing still while the world moves around me? maybe i'm overdue for some re-evaluation and re-consideration. what else should i be Giving Up while i'm in the process of a Slash & Burn? the process has been becoming attractive the more i start to think about it and the results? well, we'll just have to see, won't we?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
my liver looked up and screamed "save me!", and i looked down and whispered "no"...
i've heard more than a few times people claiming that London's got a drinking problem. i never really gave it too much credence to be honest, until i was having a conversation with... um... someone - i forget whom, could have been anyone - who was saying that because you've got a strong reliance on public transport and so (relatively) few people drive, it's really easy to sink pint after pint because you don't have to drive home. certainly, there are plenty of places to get a drink in the city... in just about every area i've been in so far. it hasn't helped that "going out for a drink" has become one of my main passtimes since i came here. it's the social aspect. you meet up with some people, you find a pub or a bar and you sit around over a few beers.
friday night i was out for tea with Cam's Vegan Meetup group and where did we go afterwards? the second-nearest pub (the nearest was too full) for a few beers. saturday night? out with louise to meet up with some of her friends. we met at a pub. then headed for a house-party. then another pub. sunday? pub, then a Walkabout.
i was supposed to be going to a movie session at Adnan's on Saturday, but cancelled at the last minute. there were a couple of reasons for this, but primary of them was thus: louise and i had a rough-patch leading up to NYE. we've sorted the worst of oyur shit out and are not getting along great again, so when she invited me to come and hang with her friends i thought that in the interest of better relations i really should go along for the ride. it was a good night which ended in a rowdy pub in Chiswick which was having a pre-pre-Australia Day party. we went pretty hard, which was dumb, but fun, although we still got back to base-camp at a reasonable hour.
why was having a big night Saturday dumb? because we both knew that Sunday was going to be fucking stupid. Australia Day was something we'd been looking forward to for ages. this year it was on a Monday which would have got in the way of having a particularly huge time, but the Walkabouts (an Australian-themed bar chain i'd managed to avoid until now) were doing it big on the Sunday to compensate. we had a plan to start in Covent Garden, meet some people, then head for the big Walkabout in Temple, on the Thames Embankment. get back to base Saturday night, get a late-night burger into us then get some sleep and be ready for a Big Fucking Day.
great plan, right?
i woke up in the morning to the sound of Louise throwing up into a plastic bag because the bathroom was occupied. she'd been ok the night before, but come morning and she was NOT in a good way. i went over, donated a hair-lacky to the cause (i've always got 3 in my hair which means there's always one i can spare) and rubbed her back until she was done and went back to bed to lie down. after waking up a bit i popped downstairs and picked her up some chips, a couple of small baguettes and some hommus - bread to settle the stomach, hommus because it's light and easy to keep down. she ate, felt a bit better, advised that she was good to go and we made our move into town.
we started easy - louise with a coke and me with a beer which i sipped. Alison, on her last day in town before flying out, and her friend Anna met us up and we footed it down to Temple to meet up with Daniel and his crew. when we got there it was Australian flags and accents as far as the eye could see, good music and a great vibe. i migrated to Snakebites and louise onto Vodka+Redbulls really fast. i honestly don't have a blow-by-blow for you, and you don't need one. as the hours ticked past we went round after round after round. we got to know Daniel's mates. Cam showed up and joined the fun for a while before heading off. louise made a stealthy escape not long before Allison and Anna, and Laura got in somewhere around 8:30ish. by this time i'd been drinking solidly for about 5 hours and Daniel and i had started swiping unattended drinks rather than heading to the bar. i found out later that she helped me to the tube station ("what are friends for?" she said later when i thanked her) and i seemed to have made it home ok from there, although i must have tripped over something somewhere because i'd grazed my knee - i didn't remember. what's that? i didn't menion eating anywhere in there? that would be because i forgot to, for the entire day. shit, you say? shit indeed.
i'll tell you what though - it was a GREAT day. still, i've made the executive decision that after 2 bouts of memory-loss in a month it's time to slow down and i've taken myself off the booze in any real way for the next little while. it IS way too easy to be drinking here. of course, that was going to happen on Australia Day regardless, but it's a habit i'll nipping in the bud here and now. i've been trying to steer my social events towards cafe's rather than bars for the last little while now in the theory that this will reduce my alcohol consumption some and this has been good so far, but i can see a serious shift towards diet-coke in my future. not that i have any intention of giving up booze wholesale, but a limit of 3 pints to an evening may be a good idea instead of the... um... i lost count at 8 or 9 on Sunday. hmm...
friday night i was out for tea with Cam's Vegan Meetup group and where did we go afterwards? the second-nearest pub (the nearest was too full) for a few beers. saturday night? out with louise to meet up with some of her friends. we met at a pub. then headed for a house-party. then another pub. sunday? pub, then a Walkabout.
i was supposed to be going to a movie session at Adnan's on Saturday, but cancelled at the last minute. there were a couple of reasons for this, but primary of them was thus: louise and i had a rough-patch leading up to NYE. we've sorted the worst of oyur shit out and are not getting along great again, so when she invited me to come and hang with her friends i thought that in the interest of better relations i really should go along for the ride. it was a good night which ended in a rowdy pub in Chiswick which was having a pre-pre-Australia Day party. we went pretty hard, which was dumb, but fun, although we still got back to base-camp at a reasonable hour.
why was having a big night Saturday dumb? because we both knew that Sunday was going to be fucking stupid. Australia Day was something we'd been looking forward to for ages. this year it was on a Monday which would have got in the way of having a particularly huge time, but the Walkabouts (an Australian-themed bar chain i'd managed to avoid until now) were doing it big on the Sunday to compensate. we had a plan to start in Covent Garden, meet some people, then head for the big Walkabout in Temple, on the Thames Embankment. get back to base Saturday night, get a late-night burger into us then get some sleep and be ready for a Big Fucking Day.
great plan, right?
i woke up in the morning to the sound of Louise throwing up into a plastic bag because the bathroom was occupied. she'd been ok the night before, but come morning and she was NOT in a good way. i went over, donated a hair-lacky to the cause (i've always got 3 in my hair which means there's always one i can spare) and rubbed her back until she was done and went back to bed to lie down. after waking up a bit i popped downstairs and picked her up some chips, a couple of small baguettes and some hommus - bread to settle the stomach, hommus because it's light and easy to keep down. she ate, felt a bit better, advised that she was good to go and we made our move into town.
we started easy - louise with a coke and me with a beer which i sipped. Alison, on her last day in town before flying out, and her friend Anna met us up and we footed it down to Temple to meet up with Daniel and his crew. when we got there it was Australian flags and accents as far as the eye could see, good music and a great vibe. i migrated to Snakebites and louise onto Vodka+Redbulls really fast. i honestly don't have a blow-by-blow for you, and you don't need one. as the hours ticked past we went round after round after round. we got to know Daniel's mates. Cam showed up and joined the fun for a while before heading off. louise made a stealthy escape not long before Allison and Anna, and Laura got in somewhere around 8:30ish. by this time i'd been drinking solidly for about 5 hours and Daniel and i had started swiping unattended drinks rather than heading to the bar. i found out later that she helped me to the tube station ("what are friends for?" she said later when i thanked her) and i seemed to have made it home ok from there, although i must have tripped over something somewhere because i'd grazed my knee - i didn't remember. what's that? i didn't menion eating anywhere in there? that would be because i forgot to, for the entire day. shit, you say? shit indeed.
i'll tell you what though - it was a GREAT day. still, i've made the executive decision that after 2 bouts of memory-loss in a month it's time to slow down and i've taken myself off the booze in any real way for the next little while. it IS way too easy to be drinking here. of course, that was going to happen on Australia Day regardless, but it's a habit i'll nipping in the bud here and now. i've been trying to steer my social events towards cafe's rather than bars for the last little while now in the theory that this will reduce my alcohol consumption some and this has been good so far, but i can see a serious shift towards diet-coke in my future. not that i have any intention of giving up booze wholesale, but a limit of 3 pints to an evening may be a good idea instead of the... um... i lost count at 8 or 9 on Sunday. hmm...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Giving Up (is not as bad as it sounds)...
i've been meaning to write something for days, but the thoughts in my head were a jumbled mess of crap so anything i wrote would have been worse. on monday i was going to write about despair, but i realised i needed to harden up and quit whinging. yesterday i was going to write about being irritated, but i realised i was irritated by the most trivial bullshit and was being ridiculously unreasonable. things are going well... or well enough that i need to be looking forward, not down. tonight i figured i should say SOMETHING, so i set myself the time limit of a rapidly dying battery and sat down to at least say what i've been up to.
the weekend was fun. after my Argos Experience i met up with the Internationals for coffee. Moonbug came along with a new arrival from Perth - another Paul i'd met years ago in Perth but never got to know very well. we wound up with Australians on one half of the table, and Other Internationals on the other, with me sitting in the middle trying to keep track of both sides. a contingent moved to a nearby pub and i hung around there for a pint until i decided that i was feeling just too crappy to stay out and left. i spent the rest of the evening eating chinese food and talking to people on Skype and cruising the net. a thought struck me the other day and i'd grabbed a piece of cardboard that was lying around and started sketching some ideas for another tattoo. i keep picking it up, adding to it, changing it, remodelling it then throwing it away again. i'm starting to get the elements the way i want them in my head, even if the final details are still a little fuzzy, so i worked on that for a bit.
Sunday came and i was feeling much better after having a comfortable night's sleep. after having fun with my new poi i met up with Laura for tea which was pleasant - shooting the breeze while eating cheap vegan buffet before wandering aimlessly the streets around Piccadilly Circus, winding up in Leicester Square in time to catch the briefest glimpse of Kate Winslett when she showed up for the premiere of her latest movie. i ditched the Canadian at 7ish and headed for Charing Cross Station to meet up with Adnan, Marti and Alice (a French girl i'd not met previously) and we cafe-hopped, drinking coffee and discussing arthouse cinema until 10ish. well caffeinated and with a spring in my step. we dropped Alice at Trafalgar Square, before walking across the river where i parted company and walked back to base-camp for no better reason than that i was in the mood to walk.
i swung into Leicester Square on Monday to find out that there was now a betting pool on who was going to be next to get a job. after inputting my stats into the formula i came out with 170-7 odds - the words odds in the room, and thereby the one everyone's put their 5p on. me, i put the penny i found in the street on the way in on Daniel if for no better reason than that betting on me was a sure-fire way to jinx myself. i have the 2nd-round interview for the permanent job i've been working on for the last few weeks tomorrow. the phone interview i had for it last thursday went well - the feedback was excellent. tomorrow's the do-or-die and i'm throwing everything i've got into it - every dirty trick, any coaching i could get from the pimp, any pre-planning and fore-thought i can do. a lot's riding on me getting it, and i'm not talking about the betting pool. if i don't get it i'm going to quit job hunting for the next week or two and go travelling - Scotland for a start, then... who knows? i figure i'll wander and go where the wind blows. it's liberating to Give Up.
Giving Up has been weighing on my mind. the approach i've been taking to a lot of things has been Not Working, which means that it's time to Give Up on a lot of my ideas, plans and pre-conceived notions. if your strategy is failing then it's time to rethink your strategy and if there's one thing i'm getting pissed off at it's the constant stench of Failure. it's been so long since i've Failed in anything near this Epic scale and i've not dealt with it as well as i'd have liked so it's time to Give Up on what i thought i wanted and focus instead on what i Need. it's time to pull a Descartes: erase my framework and rebuild it anew. the way i've been playing things has not been making me happy, so why the fuck am i persisting with it? why not just pack a bag and go somewhere - book a train ticket there and work out how i'm getting back later. the idea sits well with me and i'm more than happy to trust my instincts and go with it. my instincts have usually served me well over the years so when they're screaming at me i'll listen.
i left Leicester Square today with Hilltop Hoods playing in my ears and a spring in my step. i'd applied for a couple more jobs, but my heart wasn't in it, so i didn't put too much thought into it - i just bummed around drinking coffee and chatting with the other job-hopefuls until it hit 5 and i got bored enough to get out. talking back past Trafalgar Square with my coat flowing in the breeze and a spring in my step for no reason other than it felt right... for 5 minutes i remembered what it was like to feel Untouchable. i'll see how tomorrow goes - i should know the result by friday which means that this weekend i'll either be celebrating or commiserating, but at least i have a direction for what comes next one way or the other...
the weekend was fun. after my Argos Experience i met up with the Internationals for coffee. Moonbug came along with a new arrival from Perth - another Paul i'd met years ago in Perth but never got to know very well. we wound up with Australians on one half of the table, and Other Internationals on the other, with me sitting in the middle trying to keep track of both sides. a contingent moved to a nearby pub and i hung around there for a pint until i decided that i was feeling just too crappy to stay out and left. i spent the rest of the evening eating chinese food and talking to people on Skype and cruising the net. a thought struck me the other day and i'd grabbed a piece of cardboard that was lying around and started sketching some ideas for another tattoo. i keep picking it up, adding to it, changing it, remodelling it then throwing it away again. i'm starting to get the elements the way i want them in my head, even if the final details are still a little fuzzy, so i worked on that for a bit.
Sunday came and i was feeling much better after having a comfortable night's sleep. after having fun with my new poi i met up with Laura for tea which was pleasant - shooting the breeze while eating cheap vegan buffet before wandering aimlessly the streets around Piccadilly Circus, winding up in Leicester Square in time to catch the briefest glimpse of Kate Winslett when she showed up for the premiere of her latest movie. i ditched the Canadian at 7ish and headed for Charing Cross Station to meet up with Adnan, Marti and Alice (a French girl i'd not met previously) and we cafe-hopped, drinking coffee and discussing arthouse cinema until 10ish. well caffeinated and with a spring in my step. we dropped Alice at Trafalgar Square, before walking across the river where i parted company and walked back to base-camp for no better reason than that i was in the mood to walk.
i swung into Leicester Square on Monday to find out that there was now a betting pool on who was going to be next to get a job. after inputting my stats into the formula i came out with 170-7 odds - the words odds in the room, and thereby the one everyone's put their 5p on. me, i put the penny i found in the street on the way in on Daniel if for no better reason than that betting on me was a sure-fire way to jinx myself. i have the 2nd-round interview for the permanent job i've been working on for the last few weeks tomorrow. the phone interview i had for it last thursday went well - the feedback was excellent. tomorrow's the do-or-die and i'm throwing everything i've got into it - every dirty trick, any coaching i could get from the pimp, any pre-planning and fore-thought i can do. a lot's riding on me getting it, and i'm not talking about the betting pool. if i don't get it i'm going to quit job hunting for the next week or two and go travelling - Scotland for a start, then... who knows? i figure i'll wander and go where the wind blows. it's liberating to Give Up.
Giving Up has been weighing on my mind. the approach i've been taking to a lot of things has been Not Working, which means that it's time to Give Up on a lot of my ideas, plans and pre-conceived notions. if your strategy is failing then it's time to rethink your strategy and if there's one thing i'm getting pissed off at it's the constant stench of Failure. it's been so long since i've Failed in anything near this Epic scale and i've not dealt with it as well as i'd have liked so it's time to Give Up on what i thought i wanted and focus instead on what i Need. it's time to pull a Descartes: erase my framework and rebuild it anew. the way i've been playing things has not been making me happy, so why the fuck am i persisting with it? why not just pack a bag and go somewhere - book a train ticket there and work out how i'm getting back later. the idea sits well with me and i'm more than happy to trust my instincts and go with it. my instincts have usually served me well over the years so when they're screaming at me i'll listen.
i left Leicester Square today with Hilltop Hoods playing in my ears and a spring in my step. i'd applied for a couple more jobs, but my heart wasn't in it, so i didn't put too much thought into it - i just bummed around drinking coffee and chatting with the other job-hopefuls until it hit 5 and i got bored enough to get out. talking back past Trafalgar Square with my coat flowing in the breeze and a spring in my step for no reason other than it felt right... for 5 minutes i remembered what it was like to feel Untouchable. i'll see how tomorrow goes - i should know the result by friday which means that this weekend i'll either be celebrating or commiserating, but at least i have a direction for what comes next one way or the other...
Monday, January 19, 2009
joy in motion...
the thought hit me while i was chatting online like a fast-acting poison from a shakespearean play - in through my ear and infecting my head. it was an old memory, and old hobby i've not indulged in for far too long. i knew i could still do it. the muscle-memory remains, but i'm so out of practice i knew i'd be rusty. fuck it. now i wanted back in, so i did a quick search online and found out that the only store in the UK that hasn't gone purely online was up in Camden Lock Market so i got dressed and bolted for the tube.
2 hours later i was in a park i'd found in Holborn back when i had one of my first job interviews called Lincoln Inn Fields, spinning my newly-acquired poi around my head like a madman, listening to a playlist i'd constructed on the go playing fast beats off my PSD. i can still do it, but at the same time i've lost it. the moves are there but the art of stringing them together with grace will take a while to come back to me. i kept tangling the strings together on the complicated changes, but i wasn't caring. i started slow, moving pattern into pattern until i was warmed up, waited for Less Talk More Rokk to come on, pretended i was performing again and went off.
and by fuck it felt good - the buzz from cranking some dance music loud and slipping into the groove. play, adjust the strings, play, adjust some more until the length was right for the low tricks and play some more until my arms turned to jelly. i used to be able to spin for hours before i got tired - it's just muscles i've not used like that for years. i kept playing, trying out some patterns i'd never got around to perfecting back in the day, smacking myself in the face and avoiding hitting small children and dogs, until a grizzled old guy gruffly moved me along so he could lock the gates. the idea of parks that CLOSE is a little foreign to me, but it's not my park so who am i to argue?
i hit the street and wandered east towards Leicester Square until i found a Costa on the southern (less fashionable) end of Regent St to sink some caffeine - it came out in a soup-mug with two handles it's so fucking big - so that i could do some writing while i waited for Laura to finish shopping before we meet up for a drink or food or something.
there's a park across the road from base-camp - an old cemetery-turned-children's playground next to the church, but it's grassy and i'm thinking that would be an ideal spot to get some practice in and exercise when i'm feeling stiff and sore. i'll build my arms back up to strength and with any luck my knees will continue to behave. i'd forgotten how good it felt to jump around and weave patterns in the air. give me movement and bloodflow, give me speed and grace, give me fire and peace. give me back a little of what i used to love and memories of when my car smelled permanently of kerosene, from back in the days when my world used to burn and spin...
2 hours later i was in a park i'd found in Holborn back when i had one of my first job interviews called Lincoln Inn Fields, spinning my newly-acquired poi around my head like a madman, listening to a playlist i'd constructed on the go playing fast beats off my PSD. i can still do it, but at the same time i've lost it. the moves are there but the art of stringing them together with grace will take a while to come back to me. i kept tangling the strings together on the complicated changes, but i wasn't caring. i started slow, moving pattern into pattern until i was warmed up, waited for Less Talk More Rokk to come on, pretended i was performing again and went off.
and by fuck it felt good - the buzz from cranking some dance music loud and slipping into the groove. play, adjust the strings, play, adjust some more until the length was right for the low tricks and play some more until my arms turned to jelly. i used to be able to spin for hours before i got tired - it's just muscles i've not used like that for years. i kept playing, trying out some patterns i'd never got around to perfecting back in the day, smacking myself in the face and avoiding hitting small children and dogs, until a grizzled old guy gruffly moved me along so he could lock the gates. the idea of parks that CLOSE is a little foreign to me, but it's not my park so who am i to argue?
i hit the street and wandered east towards Leicester Square until i found a Costa on the southern (less fashionable) end of Regent St to sink some caffeine - it came out in a soup-mug with two handles it's so fucking big - so that i could do some writing while i waited for Laura to finish shopping before we meet up for a drink or food or something.
there's a park across the road from base-camp - an old cemetery-turned-children's playground next to the church, but it's grassy and i'm thinking that would be an ideal spot to get some practice in and exercise when i'm feeling stiff and sore. i'll build my arms back up to strength and with any luck my knees will continue to behave. i'd forgotten how good it felt to jump around and weave patterns in the air. give me movement and bloodflow, give me speed and grace, give me fire and peace. give me back a little of what i used to love and memories of when my car smelled permanently of kerosene, from back in the days when my world used to burn and spin...
Sunday, January 18, 2009
this is not the shopping experience you were looking for...
today, after hearing about it more than a few times, i was a recipient of the Argos Experience. Argos is probably best described as all the joys of catalogue-shopping, but with the added agravation of having to actually leave the house. the way it works is thus: you head into the store and walk up to one of the desks upon which there is a catalogue, a terminal and a notepad. you flick through the catalogue and find what you want. today, for me, it was a doona. every item has a unique 7-digit code which you can punch into the terminal to see if the store has one in stock. odds are they don't have it, but there are a range if similar items you can try. once you've found one that fits the bill and which the terminal says they have you write the code down on a piece of paper and take it to a cashier and pay for it. once paid you're furnished with an order number which you take to a third desk where the pickers find the thing and give it to you. simple? sure. why not.
i was more than a little irritated before i even walked into the store. i'd been out to Primark (purveyors of all things cheap and nasty) a couple of days prior and picked up bed linen to replace the stuff i'd been kindly loaned by louise's cousin way back when we first moved into base-camp a couple of months ago. i'd just been paid for the first time, and sorting that out has been high on my agenda. unfortunately i ran afoul of a) the fucking bullshit customer service you get in cheap-arse stores and b) the British aversion to the cold, which is why they had only 2 weights in doonas: Really Fucking Warm and Survive A Nuclear Winter. these weights are designated by TOG ratings. i now know that 15 is as high as it goes and i wish i'd been wiser prior to purchase otherwise i'd have walked the hell out of the fucking store instead of grabbing the last queen-size TOG 13.5 doona they had in stock. que a couple of days later once i'd washed the doona cover (i like to wash these things before i use them) and tried to sleep under the damn thing. last night i woke up every half hour or so in a sweat, overheating and boiling in my skin. this morning's trip to Borough Markets was set aside and instead louise and i walked into Brixton.
it was a beautiful day today - warm (by comparison to lately) with a sunny sky, so i took the opportunity to wear short-sleeves and get some sun on my pasty skin. we checked a few things out in Brixton before entering Argos and by this time what little sanity i had left after the night before was wearing thin. after flicking through the catalogue and trying the codes for anything cheap that fit the bill (i'd figured on getting a TOG 7.5 doona on the theory there was no way i could overheat under something described as "summer" weight) and finding that anything that fit my needs was "not in stock" i was so frustrated i was about ready to take my head in my hands, tear my face off and stick it to the wall. fuck it. i picked the cheapest, close-enough option and paid for it before waiting at the pick-up area while pushy motherfuckers waved their tickets at the harried staff. through great fortitude i managed to not drop anyone to their knees and beat their brains out on the counter before i was handed my item and bolted for the door.
i hate to say that this was a fair indication of my day thereafter, but i'll save that for another post...
i was more than a little irritated before i even walked into the store. i'd been out to Primark (purveyors of all things cheap and nasty) a couple of days prior and picked up bed linen to replace the stuff i'd been kindly loaned by louise's cousin way back when we first moved into base-camp a couple of months ago. i'd just been paid for the first time, and sorting that out has been high on my agenda. unfortunately i ran afoul of a) the fucking bullshit customer service you get in cheap-arse stores and b) the British aversion to the cold, which is why they had only 2 weights in doonas: Really Fucking Warm and Survive A Nuclear Winter. these weights are designated by TOG ratings. i now know that 15 is as high as it goes and i wish i'd been wiser prior to purchase otherwise i'd have walked the hell out of the fucking store instead of grabbing the last queen-size TOG 13.5 doona they had in stock. que a couple of days later once i'd washed the doona cover (i like to wash these things before i use them) and tried to sleep under the damn thing. last night i woke up every half hour or so in a sweat, overheating and boiling in my skin. this morning's trip to Borough Markets was set aside and instead louise and i walked into Brixton.
it was a beautiful day today - warm (by comparison to lately) with a sunny sky, so i took the opportunity to wear short-sleeves and get some sun on my pasty skin. we checked a few things out in Brixton before entering Argos and by this time what little sanity i had left after the night before was wearing thin. after flicking through the catalogue and trying the codes for anything cheap that fit the bill (i'd figured on getting a TOG 7.5 doona on the theory there was no way i could overheat under something described as "summer" weight) and finding that anything that fit my needs was "not in stock" i was so frustrated i was about ready to take my head in my hands, tear my face off and stick it to the wall. fuck it. i picked the cheapest, close-enough option and paid for it before waiting at the pick-up area while pushy motherfuckers waved their tickets at the harried staff. through great fortitude i managed to not drop anyone to their knees and beat their brains out on the counter before i was handed my item and bolted for the door.
i hate to say that this was a fair indication of my day thereafter, but i'll save that for another post...
Thursday, January 15, 2009
view from the 53 to Whitehall...
at going-to-work o'clock in the morning, sitting on the 53 to Whitehall and the greyness has covered the world in a mottled featurelessness which is probably as much to do with my continued lack of sleep as it has to do with the decorating. when i arrived with pre-made dough for scones in my bag i had 28 Days and Cog playing in my ears. this morning it's Something About Airplanes by Death Cab For Cutie, the peaceful melancholy of Champagne From A Paper Cup complementing my mood nicely while i sit here with my Eee surrounded by salary-men and school-children with the windows fogged up. the bus takes an hour or so to get to Elephant & Castle, where i'll change for one of the 4 different buses that'll drop me right in front of base-camp.
i spent the night in Woolwich after a do at SiJ's place because, with nothing to do the next day and an hour-plus door-to-door trip back to base i decided that i just couldn't be bothered leaving at 10 to catch the train and crashed out instead (SiJ has a spare room set up for guests). of course, that isn't to mean that i got particularly much more sleep than normal but then today that doesn't matter much. i completed another contract yesterday - 3 days running around again for Louis Vuitton. i'll not complain in either direction: i'm glad for the work, but at the same time i'm glad it's over. getting up at work-appropriate hours hasn't helped my sleeping patterns any, so i'll let them go completely and at least get some sleep in the next few days, even if it is at entirely the wrong times of day.
last night was really very nice - sitting around chatting until far too late. i'd made the dough for scones the night before, trialling a method which exchanges milk and sugar for lemonade, the dairy-free margarine making it vegan in accordance with the audience. the vegans have been feeding me a lot so it was nice to take a bring-and-share with me. spending the night out seems to help to break my time up and keep things interesting so i'm going to be more open to the idea in future (i usually prefer the familiarity of my own bed if it's reachable since there is a comfort in familariy).
my intended trip to Bristol is off for the time being. spending my days working and getting back wrecked every day led me to forget to actually organise anything, and by the time i thought of it again the timing had slipped again. i've made plans to hang around with the Internationals on Saturday and maybe Sunday which should keep me appropriately entertained and i'll look at wandering more seriously in a couple of weeks. there's an additional bonus to that particular plan, which is that there's every likelihood that louise will be out of a job then and will be keen to go wandering and while short trips on my own would be good, if i'm going to head to Scotland for a week and a half i think i'd prefer to have the company. in the meantime i'll be back on the job hunt... just not today because today i completely and totally Can't Be Fucked. i'm going back and i'm sleeping and lying around and maybe doing some more writing if the thought occurs. my motivation's slipped but since i've just had a bit of work i think i can afford to let it go for a day as a reward for hard work. i'll head back to Leicester Square tomorrow and be productive again.
i spent the night in Woolwich after a do at SiJ's place because, with nothing to do the next day and an hour-plus door-to-door trip back to base i decided that i just couldn't be bothered leaving at 10 to catch the train and crashed out instead (SiJ has a spare room set up for guests). of course, that isn't to mean that i got particularly much more sleep than normal but then today that doesn't matter much. i completed another contract yesterday - 3 days running around again for Louis Vuitton. i'll not complain in either direction: i'm glad for the work, but at the same time i'm glad it's over. getting up at work-appropriate hours hasn't helped my sleeping patterns any, so i'll let them go completely and at least get some sleep in the next few days, even if it is at entirely the wrong times of day.
last night was really very nice - sitting around chatting until far too late. i'd made the dough for scones the night before, trialling a method which exchanges milk and sugar for lemonade, the dairy-free margarine making it vegan in accordance with the audience. the vegans have been feeding me a lot so it was nice to take a bring-and-share with me. spending the night out seems to help to break my time up and keep things interesting so i'm going to be more open to the idea in future (i usually prefer the familiarity of my own bed if it's reachable since there is a comfort in familariy).
my intended trip to Bristol is off for the time being. spending my days working and getting back wrecked every day led me to forget to actually organise anything, and by the time i thought of it again the timing had slipped again. i've made plans to hang around with the Internationals on Saturday and maybe Sunday which should keep me appropriately entertained and i'll look at wandering more seriously in a couple of weeks. there's an additional bonus to that particular plan, which is that there's every likelihood that louise will be out of a job then and will be keen to go wandering and while short trips on my own would be good, if i'm going to head to Scotland for a week and a half i think i'd prefer to have the company. in the meantime i'll be back on the job hunt... just not today because today i completely and totally Can't Be Fucked. i'm going back and i'm sleeping and lying around and maybe doing some more writing if the thought occurs. my motivation's slipped but since i've just had a bit of work i think i can afford to let it go for a day as a reward for hard work. i'll head back to Leicester Square tomorrow and be productive again.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
by special request (this one's for you, Shadow)...
London after the rain is a filthy bitch. as you'd expect - the scum floats to the top and the grime sinks to the bottom, leaving the murky middle for the rest of us to move through.
walking to work along Regent Street in the rain is generally pleasant until you look down. my big, waterproof boots protect me from all but the worst of what i could walk through, which is good when the puddles are broad and black - black from the dust shed from bus tyres, the grit from the centuries-old stones gently rubbing together through thermal expansion and traffic, gradually wearing themselves down like an octogenarian's teeth, soot from the fires and exhaust we use to get around, keep warm and cook our food... it all pools in the depressions in the road and the gaps between bitumen and pavement. London after the rain is like a socialite after a big night - tired, ragged, lip gloss worn off, perfume washed away and mascara run, underwear soiled or lost, miserable and desperate for a bit of cash to get home. forget the cold which is crisp and soul-destroying, but a perfect reminder that you are in fact alive, ignore the gloom where you can better see the lights and slide comfortably through the shadow. walking the streets when the rain's gone and the puddles are drying is when this place is at its most depressing.
but when it rains... when it rains the city gains a lustre you'd never have anticipated. there's a feeling of life from the movement of water... the city's having a shower and it's singing while the scum washes down the plug hole and into the Thames. i love it when it rains around here. it's so completely unlike the downpours and storms and violence you get back home. Perth gets its semi-annual thunderstorm in January. from what i'm hearing i just missed this year's one. Canberra has its Spring and Autumn rains where the drainage ditches fill with water for those brief days, then dry up again for the rest of the year. here the rain's gentle. sometimes it's heavy, but even then it doesn't feel like it's battering you down. usually it's a caress that barely leaves you moist and even though you know it's full of the dust and detritus that you'll soon be stepping over in the street i never find myself getting upset when i'm caught out and it feels clean, not dirty.
i've been having one of those odd weeks where inconsequential things take on the strangest meanings. i had one of those "American Beauty" moments when i got back to base one night - the thick frost on the skips along the street glittering like a million tiny diamonds and i had to get a photo because for 3 seconds it was The Most Beautiful Thing i'd Ever Seen. grey buildings under a grey sky over grey people walking grey streets: a comforting backdrop to my stark black attire. the pebbles on the beach shifting under my feet while i stood in the freezing cold wind of night watching the waves lap the shore: a charming moment in time that could never be captured in a photograph.
i wonder sometimes how clearly i really see the world, but i can't help but enjoy the view sometimes. one of the benefits of having louise around is that i can gauge just how far i am off the deep end by how seeing how confused she gets by me. not that i let her reaction change things. i like it here - both the town i'm in and the mental overlay i can't help but give it...
walking to work along Regent Street in the rain is generally pleasant until you look down. my big, waterproof boots protect me from all but the worst of what i could walk through, which is good when the puddles are broad and black - black from the dust shed from bus tyres, the grit from the centuries-old stones gently rubbing together through thermal expansion and traffic, gradually wearing themselves down like an octogenarian's teeth, soot from the fires and exhaust we use to get around, keep warm and cook our food... it all pools in the depressions in the road and the gaps between bitumen and pavement. London after the rain is like a socialite after a big night - tired, ragged, lip gloss worn off, perfume washed away and mascara run, underwear soiled or lost, miserable and desperate for a bit of cash to get home. forget the cold which is crisp and soul-destroying, but a perfect reminder that you are in fact alive, ignore the gloom where you can better see the lights and slide comfortably through the shadow. walking the streets when the rain's gone and the puddles are drying is when this place is at its most depressing.
but when it rains... when it rains the city gains a lustre you'd never have anticipated. there's a feeling of life from the movement of water... the city's having a shower and it's singing while the scum washes down the plug hole and into the Thames. i love it when it rains around here. it's so completely unlike the downpours and storms and violence you get back home. Perth gets its semi-annual thunderstorm in January. from what i'm hearing i just missed this year's one. Canberra has its Spring and Autumn rains where the drainage ditches fill with water for those brief days, then dry up again for the rest of the year. here the rain's gentle. sometimes it's heavy, but even then it doesn't feel like it's battering you down. usually it's a caress that barely leaves you moist and even though you know it's full of the dust and detritus that you'll soon be stepping over in the street i never find myself getting upset when i'm caught out and it feels clean, not dirty.
i've been having one of those odd weeks where inconsequential things take on the strangest meanings. i had one of those "American Beauty" moments when i got back to base one night - the thick frost on the skips along the street glittering like a million tiny diamonds and i had to get a photo because for 3 seconds it was The Most Beautiful Thing i'd Ever Seen. grey buildings under a grey sky over grey people walking grey streets: a comforting backdrop to my stark black attire. the pebbles on the beach shifting under my feet while i stood in the freezing cold wind of night watching the waves lap the shore: a charming moment in time that could never be captured in a photograph.
i wonder sometimes how clearly i really see the world, but i can't help but enjoy the view sometimes. one of the benefits of having louise around is that i can gauge just how far i am off the deep end by how seeing how confused she gets by me. not that i let her reaction change things. i like it here - both the town i'm in and the mental overlay i can't help but give it...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
this is a test of the emergency broadcast system...
tei'm not entirely sure i'm happy with this - starting up a fresh blog, hiding it from the world. the entire point of starting an OPEN blog was to share. creating a hidden one (or even more amusingly, one that i'm pretty sure people will be able to find but not access) means that there are things that i have to hide. no, that's a silly train of thought. i have plenty to hide... it's just that i have this insane urge to write it down for some reason. there've been far too many times i've gone to say something here and had to stop, think, and rewrite, obscure, hide, obfuscate, obliterate, ignore, destroy, erase. the problem with honesty is that at some point you're going to piss someone off and it's hard to play politics if you're constantly pissing people off willy nilly. i'm also self-aware enough that there are some things that i feel i just have to tell SOMEONE, and that too is contrary to best-practice.
i've been thinking about this for a while - ever since i wrote a heavily-veiled Phase Shifting entry a couple of weeks ago. i had to say something... remaining silent was driving me to distraction, so i turned writing into a game it so that i could say what i want but i'm pretty sure no one knew what i was on about... and if they worked it out then what the hell. half the fun of the game is leaving clues for people to find and seeing if anyone pieces them together. i'd originally intended on creating a new account from scratch - an unrelated email address, a different name, nothing connected to anything anything anyone knows about or can trace (unless they manage to track my IP's), but i thought about it this evening and figured... why go to all the effort? sure, it would have been a fun game to make it difficult but at the same time possible to find this thing, but then eventually word gets out and there i am censoring myself again. there are only two and a half people on the "allow" list for it at the moment, although neither of them know it yet.
the best benefit i can see so far is that if i do bash something out in Futility i can always modify it and double-post it, thereby doubling my effective output. sure it's cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
at some point soon i'll start writing shit down, but right now i'm going to sleep. louise just got back from Spain and is busily passing out, and i was only staying up so that she wouldn't wake me when she came in. i have work in the morning. yay. boo. whatever. goodnight.
i've been thinking about this for a while - ever since i wrote a heavily-veiled Phase Shifting entry a couple of weeks ago. i had to say something... remaining silent was driving me to distraction, so i turned writing into a game it so that i could say what i want but i'm pretty sure no one knew what i was on about... and if they worked it out then what the hell. half the fun of the game is leaving clues for people to find and seeing if anyone pieces them together. i'd originally intended on creating a new account from scratch - an unrelated email address, a different name, nothing connected to anything anything anyone knows about or can trace (unless they manage to track my IP's), but i thought about it this evening and figured... why go to all the effort? sure, it would have been a fun game to make it difficult but at the same time possible to find this thing, but then eventually word gets out and there i am censoring myself again. there are only two and a half people on the "allow" list for it at the moment, although neither of them know it yet.
the best benefit i can see so far is that if i do bash something out in Futility i can always modify it and double-post it, thereby doubling my effective output. sure it's cheap, but not as cheap as your girlfriend.
at some point soon i'll start writing shit down, but right now i'm going to sleep. louise just got back from Spain and is busily passing out, and i was only staying up so that she wouldn't wake me when she came in. i have work in the morning. yay. boo. whatever. goodnight.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Snippets #8: on on multiculturalism (why can't we be friends, why can't we be friends)...
since i came here 3 months ago i've been making friends with people from all over the world. so far some of my best friends here include a Pakistani, a Dutch Canadian, a Korean Australian, a couple of Germans (one of whom was born in Bulgaria), a number of Australians and football team's worth of Brits. when the Randoms group last met up there was a French woman, a Danish lad, a Scot and an Irishman. over the weekend i've hung with all of these, plus a couple of Turkish and American girls. a lot of the conversations we have winds up being "Comparing Notes" - i'm interested in hearing about different parts of the worlds and who better to ask than someone who came from there? sometimes the conversations move on from that and sometimes they don't but somehow no one gives a crap about nationality. i've never seen anyone get narky - prime example: Greece and Turkey have been getting pissed off at each other for centuries. today i was drinking coffee with Adnan (Pakistani) and Marti (Turkish) and mentioned that my grandparents were from Greece. not a blink, not a frown, nothing.
Australia prides itself loudly on how it's an open, multicultural society but it seems that most people who move there keep to their own community groups, and they seem to bring a lot of their rivalries along with them. not that it's perfect here - the fighting in Gaza has caused protests here in London, complete with fights between pro- and anti-Israeli groups. my flatmates are Chinese and Malay and two of them haven't even bothered to learn any English. they have no interest in integration, which personally shits me to tears. for the same reason that i didn't want to move into a house full of Australians. i meet plenty of them around the place without trying and i'm as happy to hang with them as i am with anyone else who's good value.
the greatest joy of being in a different country is getting into the swing of the local culture and colour, even when a lot of that comes from a fuckload of other people who aren't from here. hell - it's one of the unexpected benefits of being here. it's proof, too, that if people see past the logo on the passport and deal with the person in front of them that we can all get along. that person may be a complete saint, a total cunt or anything in between, but you'll never know that if you judge by the accent...
Australia prides itself loudly on how it's an open, multicultural society but it seems that most people who move there keep to their own community groups, and they seem to bring a lot of their rivalries along with them. not that it's perfect here - the fighting in Gaza has caused protests here in London, complete with fights between pro- and anti-Israeli groups. my flatmates are Chinese and Malay and two of them haven't even bothered to learn any English. they have no interest in integration, which personally shits me to tears. for the same reason that i didn't want to move into a house full of Australians. i meet plenty of them around the place without trying and i'm as happy to hang with them as i am with anyone else who's good value.
the greatest joy of being in a different country is getting into the swing of the local culture and colour, even when a lot of that comes from a fuckload of other people who aren't from here. hell - it's one of the unexpected benefits of being here. it's proof, too, that if people see past the logo on the passport and deal with the person in front of them that we can all get along. that person may be a complete saint, a total cunt or anything in between, but you'll never know that if you judge by the accent...
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