Author: Dan Q

Okay, so it isn’t actually snowing, so the title of this post was a little bit of a lie. But it has been: walking to work this morning, I passed a number of cars (presumabley having come down from the mountains) with small drifts of snow on their rooves (not just frost, like those in town have). Winter’s picking up pace. The weeks and weeks of rain we’ve had have at long last stopped, giving us a week of clear skies and frosty, crisp days. Wonder if we’ll get snow in Aber this year. I want to have another try at getting Claire sledging.

Went, last night, to the future history of the future of the thing that was historically The Future History Of Comedy, “Gorilla Monsoon”, Aberystwyth’s alternative comedy/open-mic thingy, with Claire, Jimmy, Matt, and others. Matt’s said a lot about it already in his review, so I won’t go over old ground by telling you everything in as much detail as he already has, except where I disagree with him.

Our MC was Bryan Patrick, who I found to be good throughout. His quips at things were spot on and his crowd interactivity was good, and he seemed to do a good job throughout of getting the crowd motivated and making them feel connected with him on a personal level. I’ve seen Danny Furness a couple of times before at Future History, and his performance has always been… variable… but last night he really shone: a particularly spectacular act which repeatedly made me laugh out loud. Anton Pique was next up. I saw this guy once before at Future History, where he did a wonderfully morbid and dark act which was one of those “funny but you don’t laugh at it” things we see so rarely, like Chris Morris’ Jam. Last night, however, he seemed to be struggling – perhaps trying too hard to maintain a dark, subtle humour while simultaneously trying to appeal to a wider audience. Perhaps not. All I know is that he didn’t tickle me quite so well as he did when I first saw him. Nick Page was our headline act, and, as Matt says, he was very good, delivering a stream of well built-up, developed, thought-out gags with a hint of “what-next, graduate?” loss that I can’t help but empathise with. Witty, intelligent humour with which to finish the evening.

Here’s a thought: who’s Wes Packer (he claims to have been performing last night)?

Following up on Andy’s post, this weekend I have to:

1. Write some PHP for an online auction site I’m doing some work for, in order that I might actually have some money this month.
2. Tidy the flat up: there’s a viewer interested in buying the building who’ll be visiting at 2pm on Sunday
3. Not play Age Of Empires III – it didn’t really “do it” for me – perhaps it’s just the piece of history (colonisation of America) it tries to convey not interesting me. Give me Civ IV any day.

Troma Night is on as usual.

The Bad
I’m working very hard for stupid hours and not getting paid for it. I’m not sure where my job is going, but it’s driving there pretty fast and the only room for me is if I squeeze into the boot. Which is full of socks, for some reason.
I have no time to work on my NaNoWriMo entry because any free time I have is spent looking for or quoting for the bits of contract work I’m hoping will help me to avoid starvation.
Not to mention the other projects I’d like to spend time on: Jukebox and Binky’s Big Adventure, among others.
Duality is misbehaving. This displeases me.
I accidentally bit my tongue quite badly (as in: spitting out heaps of blood) last night, and it hurts a lot and I can’t talk properly today, which is always a disadvantage when one had to run a training session in content management. Drinking is painful. I haven’t dared try eating yet.
As a result of all of the above, I’m remarkably stressed and keep snapping at people. If you’re among the snapees (yes, it’s a word – because I said so, that’s why), I apologise.
We can’t afford to come up to Jon’s bonfire.
I still haven’t got around to arranging stuff I need to for the Abnib Real Ale Ramble, and we really need to send the forms and things off this weekend.

The Good
Contract work is looking promising: if I get everything I’m quoting for I’ll actually earn almost double this month than I would for my “day job”. That said, the odds of getting everything is pretty damn low.
I’m feeling carelessly optimistic about a particular chunk of work that might become available to me next Wednesday.
Claire’s being supportive (both emotionally and financially) and useful. And, on a probably-unrelated note, sex is particularly fantastic of late.

So; a little bit of disbalance in the lists, but I’m hoping I can clear that up next week. Otherwise, it’ll be the corned-beef-on-toast-week all over again.

The gents toilets on the first floor of the building where I work is a complete mystery to me.

That’s not strictly true. I know where the stalls and the urinals are. I know how to make the taps – little push-button ones – work. I know that the hand dryer to the right typically warms up a lot faster than the one on the left. I know to check that there’s toilet paper first (because there frequently isn’t) and that I can liberate some from the overstocked disabled toilet down the corridor if I need them. I know all this.

What’s got me confused is the automatic lighting. Whenever I enter the room, the lights come on.

There are no sensors on the door, so far as I can see, and there is no optic sensor that could have spotted me (the only optic sensor I can see sits above the urinals and regulates the flush, so it doesn’t waste water when nobody’s in there – but the lights always seem to come on before I’m far enough into the room to be within the line of sight of this sensor). There is an optic sensor inset into the ceiling of the antechamber between the corridor and the toilets, but it can’t be this that’s responsible for the lights because I’ve tried to trigger that one (without entering the toilets themselves) and it doesn’t seem to do anything. There doesn’t seem to be a pressure sensor or anything. And the most mysterious bit of all: if you hide in the stall where a sensor might not be able to see you… or if you stand very still… the lights still stay on until you leave. I’m pretty sure it’s not activated by sound, as the car park can be pretty noisy sometimes and I’ve never gone to the toilet, that I can remember, and found the lights already on when I got there: I always see them flicker on.

Yes, it’s true: I’ve spent the afternoon so far playing hide and seek and musical statues with myself in the gents toilets. But I’m of an inquisitive mind and this is a mystery that needs solving. Perhaps there’s some kind of concealed optic sensor, or infrared tripwire grid across the entire floor (I’ll try standing on the seat of the toilet for awhile, later). Maybe there’s a body heat sensor of some variety. Maybe there’s a little imp hiding in the wall cavity with a remote control. Maybe it’s entirely random. Maybe I’ll never know.

I’m going to go to the toilet again…

Well, here goes nothing.

Words written: 0 / target: 50000

As many of you already know, I’m participating this November in NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month contest. The aim is to write, from a standing start, 50,000 words in 30 days. So… about 1,700 words a day. There were days that my dissertation got a lot more than that out of me, but then: I wasn’t working full time as well as helping with a million and one other projects when I wrote-up my dissertation. And in the end, that came to under 30,000 words.

In answer to the inevitable questions from those folks who can’t understand why I’m engaging in this ludicrous idea: no, I don’t expect to write something publishable; no, I don’t expect even to reach 50,000 words; yes, I’m going to give it a bloody good shot. I’m being joined in this challenge by several folks in Aber, including, I’m lead to believe (although some of these seem a little uncertain), by Sian, Paul, JTA, and Jimmy. A little bit of healthy competition as we try to keep our WordBars filling up will probably do me the world of good. Let’s see how far we can get.

When I say “All ready for NaNoWriMo,” of course, I am lying at least a little. I have only the vaugest idea of a story and no idea where it’s going, two characters: both underdeveloped, and no way of tying together all the ideas in my head. And I’ve written nothing down. This could turn out to be an inspirational benefit, or a self-destructive nightmare. But we’ll see, either way.

Anyway; better get ready to get to it. Damnit; why does Civilization IV have to be released in November, too…