mike[space] dot net

So lots of posts of linkage lately, but not so much about me ... so this will be one of those nice and self-indulgent updates, where I shall cover the gamut of exciting things that have been occuring in my life of late. The Saturday just gone marked the third Saturday night in a row with a serious sesssion of Rock Band going on. I've got seriously into the singing, really throwing myself into it. I'm not sure I am necessarily all that good, but I've been getting respectable scores on some songs, and frankly it's so much fun it's well worth it. Sarah is probably the best singer we've had on it overall I reckon, although Dan and Jo were the big surprise at my birthday party!

Speaking of the birthday, I got an awesome surprise gift from Claire, which was tickets to go and see Elbow, my newly discovered favourite band. They're probably not actually my favourite band, but they are fabulous, and they've also been one of those really exciting discoveries through a friend (thanks Ben), rather than the less exciting getting it off the radio because every man and his dog is into them. It's some time in October, and I am v, v excited. It was a remarkable achievement on Claire's part, as I found out about the gig a couple of weeks before my birthday, and had been trying to convince Claire we should go. Some good misdirection on her part to prevent me from buying tickets there!

I've recently worked my way through Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I was surprised to find myself really enjoying. They've had a lot of fun stitching it together, and I think it's proven to be pretty compelling. It's only 9 episodes long (for the 1st season), and it has some good stuff in there, with flashes of the future, some interesting paradox work, and they've avoided the idea of a terminator a week style approach, which would have got old, soon. The basic premise is that there's a bunch of terminators and humans that come back with various missions, and the Connors variously get involved and don't. It has Summer Glau (she of River in Firefly fame) playing a good Terminator, which she carries off very well, and overall I think I'd recommend checking it out.

The running is still going strong at the moment, and I did my longest run ever yesterday with Dave, coming in at 7.3 km. It was a good job I did go with Dave; asides from the obvious motivational issues that I would face with taking on the additional distance, my new fangled GPS watch ran out of charge in the first 5 minutes, so I had to rely on his tracking data to get the route. I am hoping it was an accidental discharge of the battery on the GPS because of how I stored it (still attached to the charging cradle), rather than a sign of a faulty device ... I've thrown out the box now. Anyway, the run went very well, and I am looking forward to knocking off an even longer run in the near future. 10k in September ... which I might be scrounging for sponsorship soon.

On the writing front, I feel like I've had a pretty good week, in that I've been consistently getting down to some work, rather than being sporadic and mood driven. This has its positives and its negatives. On the positive side, I feel like it's a step toward the more disciplined and driven approach I want to be taking with my life, and in particular with my writing. On the negative, it has meant that I have written some absolute crap. This does not do a lot for my mood, which I am sure Claire doesn't enjoy so much, and I know I don't. Fortunately, I have acheived my main aim of the week, which is to finally finish the short story that I began for Amelie over a bloody year ago. I don't think it's going to win any prizes, but it has some fun stuff in it, and I am looking forward to sharing it with her.

Which neatly segues into my plans for the weekend, which is to head out to Brussels to spend the weekend with Dad, Jane, Amelie and Sophie (Claire is coming as well, but it's hardly news that I'll be spending the weekend with her, now is it?!). Sophine is the new dog that they got recently, so she should be a lot of fun to play with. I'm kinda hoping that Wall-E will be out in Belgium so that I can take Amelie to it, but I can't seem to get a definitive answer on that front. Fingers crossed ...

And then in brief:
Made my first roast in the new house on Sunday, a very successful beef joint, went to Jake's birthday bash in Balham last night, got quite drunk, walked home - another 4 km on the foot distance for the day! Saw Juno earlier this week, thought it was brilliant, am getting absurdly excited about The Dark Knight and the aforementioned Wall-E, still haven't made much more progress on the short films or the website, but that'll get there in the end, my iPhone is working well now, and I think the triangulation might be better on the map - best new app is iPint or cube runner - I seem to be having a spot of trouble with my wireless connectivity from my laptop, currently unsure if its the router or the laptop, which is a little tedious ... I might be going to Shambala which is probably funnier for everyone else than it is for me, and for some reason I don't think I mentioned going to see Candide a couple of weeks back, which was really ace (thank you Andy). I also recently watched The Guild off the back of the currently showing Dr. Horrible, which is ace and well worth the time - probably geek humour, but I think it would translate well, and shows what you can do with a small budget (yes I was also a teensy bit jealous!!). And if I keep on typing, do you think anyone will notice or has everyone stopped reading by now - I think I have ...