Making bacon

Did I ever mention how much I wanted to be a DJ? Ah, yes, I did. Repeatedly. OK then! But did I ever mention that I now am a DJ, of sorts? Because I .. oh, wait. I've done that too. Seems I need some other flimsy excuse to big up mixcloud.com and my shows. And this is it! In an attempt not to gain listeners, but to hopefully entice others to make shows that I can listen to, here's a guide to how I make PORK. (No animals were harmed during the writing of this post; the chicken in the curry I've just ordered died ages ago. Probably)

Now, I could just say "I use such-and-such-a-piece-of-software, go read the instructions", but that would be pretty damn lazy of me, so what the hell: Flight of the Conchords doesn't start for ages, I'll kill the intervening time trying to be helpful. I may not succeed.

All that said, I do need to mention the software, as it is pretty central to the whole process.

The software #1

I use Übercaster. It's a Mac-only piece of kit which isn't free, both of which may alienate a lot of people from the start. But I only have a Mac; and I did try a few free hoops, but jumping through them proved comparatively painful.

The songs

I wrote a bunch of stuff here about how I go about picking the songs, and now I've deleted it: it was all pointless guff and bunkum. The simple fact is I buy and listen to loads of metal, and when a song grabs me by the bollocks I note it down. When I've got to 10-12 songs I call it a setlist.

The setlist

I have a formula. It goes something like this:

• start with something which sounds like a pig
• flip-flop between death metal and grindcore
• play something a bit lighter about three-quarters the way through
• finish with a beast

Not exactly rocket surgery.

The software #2

Back to the nuts-and-bolts how-I-make-the-show bit.

Übercaster is awesome. I want to make that clear. I'm not on commission, this isn't an advert, and I forked out 80 quid even though I could have easily got a cracked or hacked copy. I forked that out because I used it for the first 3 shows in free mode and loved it. The way Übercaster lets (actually, makes) me work is what makes the show so easy and fun to do. The enforced workflow is this: prepare, record, cut, release.

Prepreparation

OK, so there's still a step prior to Übercaster: I copy the mp3s I'm going to use into a directory for the episode, numbered in the setlist order. So for example 01-AnnotationsOfAnAutopsy-GoreGoreGadget.mp3 and so forth.

Prepare

Now I'm ready to fire up Übercaster. To begin with I'm presented with a mostly empty screen, with nothing but the mic configured. You can do a lot of things at this stage, if you're more professional than I am: set up auto-timings (if you know how long you want to, or are going to, speak for), use a show "template" which contains, say, the jingles or ads you're going to play already, etc etc. But I'm just going to play music and talk, so it starts thus:

Into this window I drag and drop the songs. Once they're imported, most times my OCD takes over a little bit and I arrange them into the right order, normally in 3 columns. Why do I do that? No idea. Here's some proof that I don't always.

Note the numbers in the boxes. They are the shortcut keys I have assigned each song. This is my favourite feature of the software: a key turns the sources on and off while you're recording, which means mute/unmute for the mic and play/stop for the songs. I set them up to be orderly and intuitive: M for the mic, 1-9 for songs 1-9, 0 for the tenth song, and if there are more, shift+1-9 for songs 11-19 (though I'm unlikely to ever play that many songs in one show). The next picture shows the dialog which comes up when you set it. It's so simple, and means no dicking around with the mouse/trackpad during the show.

Record

Actually recording the show is so easy -- because of the keyboard shortcuts, because all the chat is freeform, and because I do no mixing, beat-matching, cross-fading, etc, it's simply this:

• click record
• wait for the 3-2-1 intro countdown
• say "My name's Darren, and this is PORK"
• hit 1, hit M
• ... song 1 finishes, hit M, talk ...
• hit 2, hit M
• ... song 2 finishes, hit M, talk ...
• rinse and repeat 'til the last song

Here's the recording screen, with a song playing. The red boxes are the live sources, and the "clip" (song) shows how long it has left. It starts to flash with 5 seconds to go, which is handy. You can also see there's an overall running time near the bottom left too, plus the familiar record/stop/pause controls. There are other fancier bits too, volume levels and source controls, but I'm such a basic user they mean nowt to me.

I use a Logitech ClearChat Pro USB mic to record my voice, these days. Prior to that (for the first two shows) I just used the laptop's builtin mic. Nothing pro here, and I've no desire to spend money on more equipment.

The spiel

I have very little in mind about what I'm going to say between each songs. I mean, fairly obviously I'm going to say who and what I either just played or am about to play (or both), and I'll make some repetitive claims as to the filthy provenance of each song, and sometimes I'll say what album and/or year it came from. If the band are playing at Hellfest I tend to mention that, ditto if I ever saw the band live. But other than that I let the emotion take me where it wants. The key point, I believe, is that I listen to the songs live. They're not just cut and pasted in, with me doing the talking bits pretending I've just heard the song. I have just heard the song! And how it makes me feel feeds what I say.

I'm led to believe that Bruce Dickinson sounds rubbish and wooden on his radio show, as if he's reading a script and having his talking bits spliced in between the songs. The opposite approach to mine. Maybe his is better, I don't know.

Cut

Back to Übercaster. Cutting, for me, is just tidying up. Do I go back and listen to my own voice? Sort of. Sometimes I'll listen to entire links, but mostly I'll just listen to the transitions between chat and pork. In "cut" mode, Übercaster lets you drag entire clips around, and also shorten them by grabbing the ends and moving them inward. So, since generally I turn the mic off after the song starts, cutting mostly consists of ripping off the overlapping bits from the mic. Then I tighten the gaps between music and talking up a bit -- perhaps talk over a fading out cymbal or what have you -- and we are GO.

Übercaster lets you do loads more than I do with it. You can create volume envelopes, and by having multiple sources playing at once you can do mixes etc. I could fade a song out and talk over it, or fade it in, etc etc. But I don't. This software is powerful and I only scratch the surface. Pork scratchings, if you will.

Release

Release is their single-word for saying "save". Of course I'm being a bit flippant, and it's more than that: releasing an Übercaster project actually means saving it to mp3, filling the mp3 with ID3 tag metadata (including album art), etc etc. What's more, it has integration to things like Amazon S3 and FTP, meaning it'll acutally publish it on the internet if you want. But I only put mine up on mixcloud, so saving it as an mp3 is good enough for me.

Publicise

I'm really not going to document the mixcloud upload process here. Come on! Suffice it to show that I put the setlist in a text editor ready to cut and paste in, but that's about it. Then I go announce it on twitter (and therefore Facebook), and hey presto. PORK.

mixcloud invites

Turns out one of the founders of mixcloud likes what I have to say about it. Check the comment on my "radio darrenf" post. Very flattering -- especially the positive comment about the quality of my show(s), which, let me be honest, is a bit of a surprise. I'm well aware of the, shall we say, niche appeal of the music I've so far been playing, and I can't really envisage, based on what I know about the fella, him really getting into a bit of grind. ;-) Nonetheless, a compliment's a compliment and I'm grateful for any and all that come my way. Cheers!

I'm not going to write much about mixcloud itself. There's a more thorough examination elsewhere, or you could just read their own about pages, but the short version -- and what's got me so excited personally -- is this: anyone can be a DJ. Make a mix, or radio show-esque recording, and upload it: job done. Somehow the murky legal world of licensing the tunes you play (the obstacle that has stopped me from doing this before now) are dealt with for you. You create, others listen (online, no downloading).

I can't wait for it to come out of invite-only mode. But while I, er, wait for it to come out of invite-only mode, something else has my way come. From the founder bloke. Not just the complimentary comment, but my own personal 50-strong invite code to give out. As I said earlier on twitter, preference for them should really go to people who actually want to listen to my show -- if not for the music, then for the sparkling banter between the filth and fury (this is an exercise in epic narcissism after all, even if that is at odds with my disdain for self-promotion) -- but since I don't know many people who care much for either of those things I thought, fuck it, might as well just post it on here.

The code itself is gloriously simple and corresponds awesomely with my recent attempt at fashioning a consolidated online identity: it's darrenf. See what's happened there?

So if you fancy:

• listening to death metal, grindcore, and a fat cockney bloke swearing (me, here); or
• listening to dance music of various sub-genres, including "fidget", "glitch" and "wobble" (I'm not making this up -- but I guess it's no worse than thrash/speed/death/technical death/black/grindcore/goregrind/...); or
• uploading your own mixes/shows of any sort of music (doesn't everyone want to be a DJ? no?)

get yerself over to mixcloud's sign-up page and tell 'em darrenf sent you.

radio darrenf

EDITED AFTER POSTING: holy crap, loads of this is virtually identical to a post I wrote in August! Oops. Ah well, if you did actually read my blog back then, just skip to the bottom where I'm trying to drum up listeners. Ahem.

I think I've always wanted to be a DJ. Not a club DJ, or a between-sets-at-gigs DJ, but a radio/broadcast DJ. Someone who talks between and about the music they play, and has a listenership. This probably stems from growing up listening to the radio a lot. And wanting to be popular, of course.

When my bro' was first given licence to stay at home at weekends (where previously the whole family would up sticks and head to Mytchett), I was given the same licence. So while he was 18 -- or was it 16? -- when our folks gave him keys, I earned it 4.5 years earlier purely 'cos he was there to look after me. What I remember most about those weekends is having Capital Radio on all morning.

GLR/Radio London was on a lot -- Sunday evenings had a dance music show hosted by a fat bloke called Steve, from whom Kevin once won a bunch of vinyl. One of the albums had This Brutal House by Nitro Deluxe on it, still one of my favourite dance tunes. Straight after, or maybe a couple of hours later, there was Krusher's rock show. I remember him having Tom Araya on there once, picking his favourite tunes to play, and being aghast as he chose The Doors and other stuff like that. He claimed he didn't listen to metal: there wasn't much point, since he was in the best metal band around, so it would all be worse than the stuff he played each day. Fair point, Tom.

Another Tom, Tommy Vance, used to do the Friday Night Rock Show on Radio 1. I used to fall asleep with that on after coming back from the local rock club night in Morden, though more often I would set a D90 going to record it and then listen to it on my walkman the next day on the way to working in the Co-Op. Christ, what a lifetime away that was.

Charts. We used to listen to those a lot. The official chart show, or the network chart show -- think we flip-flopped over then the latter was invented, as the show seemed a bit more fun than the somewhat staid Radio 1 presentation of the former. But maybe we just kept swapping? That's just the weekly chart though -- not the best chart of the year, which was the Christmas countdown on Capital Radio. If I recall correctly, they used to play 500 songs as voted for by the listening public as being their favourite songs ever, each day between 0900 and 1700, for about 3 weeks(?) leading up to Christmas Day or Boxing Day or New Year's Eve or summat. In the years I listened to it, the top 10 seemed to have a few stalwarts - Layla, Hey Jude, Me & Mrs Jones, ... - and at least one piece of toss that had been pretty popular in the last year.

Sunday mornings for a while involved listening to Chris Evans, again on Radio London/GLR. He was outrageously funny, the sort of show where you didn't want to get up and out of bed because it most likely meant you had to turn the radio off and miss some of it. Russell Brand was that funny a few years later on 6music; Russell Howard's similar, but just not quite as good (which is probably why he's only progressed to Mock The Week, rather than full-on international stardom, so far).

Damn it. I started writing this just to boast about being a DJ in my own right, finally, thanks to the time-shifting wonders of the internet, audio encoding, podcasting, ubercaster, and specifically mixcloud.com. But instead I've veered into a huge reminiscence about how much radio means to me, and that's taken me by surprise. It still does mean a lot to me as well: I bought a DAB last year and love listening to the BBC World Service (knowing the shit that's going on in the world keeps my feet on the ground, I feel; more recently it's been a handy way to find out what's going on in Islamabad. I'd really rather it wasn't, though). And this in turns makes me sad, because I work for Global Radio right now. This is the company that owns, among others, my childhood friend Capital Radio (sorry - I mean 95.8 Capital FM). I finally work in radio, in music, so having been made redundant is not something I've taken lightly. Oh well.

So, back to boasting. Like I just said, I'm now a DJ! mixcloud.com -- if you can get an invite, as it's in a private beta mode right now -- is a site which lets you publish and/or listen to DJ mixes, shows, etc: anything with 5 or more songs really. It's mostly aimed at the dance crowd for now but I'm attempting to infiltrate that, starting with my debut grindcore/death metal show called PORK. I made one episode last weekend, loved it, and have had universally positive (if somewhat limited) feedback. So I'm going to make another one this weekend.. hopefully.

Will more than about 10 people, most of whom I know personally, ever listen? I'm not sure, but I'm also not sure I care.

Son, you're a bachelor boy

In front of me in the newsagent this morning was possibly the most single bloke I'd ever seen. He bought: 2 cans of some Red Bull-alike energy drink; a packet of Lambert & Butler; Zoo magazine; Nuts magazine; the Sun. And he was wearing a parka. Good effort son.

Talking of the Sun, top notch headline today of "From Russia With Lunch". Like it.

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Today's the day I'm going to get Frankenkarma! Fucking result. I need my music. XFM was entertaining for a while but I'm really fucked off with all these Red Hot Chilli Peppers "give it away box office" things (although I know they finish tomorrow), and the playlist is so dreadfully predictable. Here, XFM, give me a job as DJ. I promise to play these songs every single day: Albert Hammond Jr - 101; that Razorlight one where he whinges about America; Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - War Of The Worlds; Arctic Monkeys - View From The Afternoon; something by Hard-Fi; something by Kasabian; something by the Ordinary Boys; something by Bloc Party; Babyshambles - The Blinding; Snow Patrol - either that "if I lay here" one, or the one with Martha Wainwright; Panic! At The Disco - I Write Sins Not Tragedies; Muse - Starlight. Have I got the gig yet? Well?

Mind you I dunno how much I'll appreciate music tonight. My ears are ringing a lot from last night. Slayer just couldn't, and didn't, fail to be fucking awesome. Moshing there last night was the first time I've genuinely missed having long hair but that feeling soon disappeared in the shower this morning, heh. What gives with the opening band having finished their set before 1830 on a Monday night though, eh? Especially since they were (apparently -- I missed them) possibly the best of the 4 supports. Bah. Anyway.

Dear In Flames: be better. And faster. Really, much faster. You're supporting Slayer for fucks sake. Stop singing. In fact, just play Take This Life and then fuck off. Did you catch, when you said "what do you want to hear now?", that the crowd shouted "Slayer"? Innit.

Dear Lamb Of God: I thought you were going to rip my face off? You were alright... but actually I think I prefer you on record. Mind you I did think yer last two songs were shit hot and done really well. You don't half sound like Slayer and Pantera though.

Dear Children Of Bodom: 2 songs that sound like DragonForce and then a load of nonsense? Get it sorted. I'm told you started off as a black metal band. Try that again.

Thine ears bleed

Went to the Peel last night and saw 5 bands: Necro Ritual, Desolation, Amphitrium, Handful Of Hate, and Abgott. Got there early 'cos we'd wanted to see NR, and they were really very good. Again. And this time you could even make out the music 'cos the sound wasn't awful. Desolation are a waste of a good band name and a bit anachronistic, not really being black or death metal, or much cop either. Amphitrium and Handful Of Hate were both entertaining but it's a bit telling when the best song a band does is a cover. Good choices though, Bolt Thrower and Testament tunes. Abgott were, I think, quite good, but by the the time they came on I was pretty fucked and we all left before they finished to get an extra pint in the Cocks. Eesh. Wooj was full of wisdom, turning that pint down because "it won't make the night better, but it'll make the morning worse". I love that line of thinking.

I love all that corpsepaint bollocks too, but it has to be done right. Necro Ritual do it right but the singer in Handful Of Hate looked like a tart. Really. His face looked like a Mr Kipling bakewell tart. Not exactly scary. Not sure if you can make it out in the photos I took though.

Walked about 4 miles this morning, through Berrylands. It's a lovely place when it doesn't smell. Perfect walking weather too, but I had to come home 'cos this afternoon I was out at a rehearsal studio, jamming away on bass for the first time in months, maybe even over a year. I was nowhere near as bad as I thought I'd be.

No Napalm Death this evening but Slayer/In Flames/Lamb Of God/Children Of Bodom/Thine Eyes Bleed tomorrow. Can't wait. The only bad thing about it is that it delays my taking receipt of frankenkarma by at least a day (I learnt earlier this afternoon that it's ready). Alex is my current object of hero worship.

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The xbox360 pisses me off. I'm rubbish at the games and don't have enough patience to practice and get good at them. :-( Oh well. Chatting with people through the headset while being beaten at Table Tennis is quite fun for as long as it lasts... before I get in a mood, tell them to fuck off, and log off in a huff.

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I know what a teasel is now. That's because I saw a sign showing them, and then a bunch of them themselves, in the fantastically named and not-at-all-incongruous-no-siree-bob wonder that is Wilderness Island, in Carshalton.

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My sore throat has nearly gone. Turns out medicinal remedies rather than glucose, sucrose and eucalyptus did the trick. A few Lemsips on Thursday and a bunch of Strepsils since, job done.

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Senior executive recommends 20% job cuts across the company. It's good to be back at work.

Friend of the music business

My metal biorhythm seems to be stuck. I do wonder if the pendulum will swing back in hip hop's favour sometime soon (I did very much enjoy listening to Onyx - Bacdafucup yesterday in my left ear) but for now I'm well and truly in the clutches of guitarists. Went up town to pick up my Unholy Alliance II tickets yesterday, an exercise which cost considerably less than the next couple of hours spent in HMV, Virgin, and Sister Ray. Ended up with:

• Scum and From Enslavement To Obliteration by Napalm Death. Can't believe I didn't own these before on CD (IIRC I have 3 vinyl copies of From Enslavement...). I wanted the version of the latter that contains the former as bonus tracks, but I guess it's no longer in Earache's best interests to do things like that. Should have bought it in 1992 I guess!
  
• Deicide by Deicide. OLD SKOOL DEATH METAL. The weird thing about Deicide is that first time round I didn't really like them that much, and thought the lyrics were incomprehensible. But when listening to Lunatic of God's Creation the other day the words were simple to make out.
• Altar by Sunn O))) & Boris. I have no idea what to expect from this.
• The Shape Of Punk To Come and Songs To Fan The Flames Of Discontent, both by Refused. If memory serves, Refused were supposedly a fantastic punk band. I'm hoping so. Much like Nasum I missed their entire career through taking very little notice of metal for too many years.
  
• Dead Gone by Winnebago Deal. I saw Winnebago Deal in July, there's only 2 of them but by christ they made a fucking racket. A good 'un at that. I was going to go and see them again the week after, can't remember why I didn't. Anyway I thought it was about time I bought some of their music, just hope this album's a good choice.
• Phoenix Risen - A Candlelight Records Compilation by various artists. If not entirely black metal it's at least partially so. I bought this on the basis of it being a double album for 5 quid and containing a track by 1349 on it.
• Rephlexions by various artists. A "braindance" compilation from Aphex Twin's label, bought because it has a track by Bogdan Raczynski on it and I've wanted to get hold of some stuff by him for a while. This way is cheaper than spending the 30-odd quid his individual albums seem to command on Amazon. Having this album in amongst a pile of, I think, 4 of the above metal/punk CDs didn't half make the guy serving me at Virgin laugh.
  

Come the end of the day I also had The Best Of 2006, Uncut's cover disc for this month. Bit odd having a best of 2006 in my hands on November 1st but who am I to judge. If some people are to believed then the year might as well be over once October's finished anyway. I reckon Chris is a bit jealous that my October lasted 31 days and 14 or so hours this year ;-)

Going back to Unholy Alliance II finally, I'm wondering whether I'll actually be able to hear the bands there. Plans are vaguely afoot to make that the hat-trick in a long weekend of metal: on Sat 18th there's a 5-band black metal line-up playing down the Peel, and on Sun 19th Napalm Death are at the Underworld. Eek. Good job I kept all the earplugs from the various amenity kits the airlines gave me.

These boots really ARE made for walking

Feet felt fine this morning. So fine in fact that I've been out and walked for another 2 hours or so already today, into and around Kingston and back.

Felt pretty rough last night though. But rough might not be the right word. I just felt ... strange. I dunno, can't really explain it really. I didn't have a headache or stomach ache but couldn't finish the pizza I ordered; my legs and feet felt OK; but I just didn't feel right. So odd I can't even honestly say whether it was physical or mental. Fuckin' weirdo.

My sleep patterns are a bit screwed too. I got to sleep at about 0100, and woke up just before 0500. Went online for a bit, chatted with Phil, and decided to read me brother's blog. I'm terrible with blogs -- I write and write and write but hardly ever bother reading anyone else's, and for some reason this was on my mind. Maybe my ears were burning, 'cos it turned out the most recent post at the time was in reference to one of mine. No death but a bit odd if you ask me...

Got back to sleep some time approaching 0630 IIRC, waking up again at 0900. Not really in the mood for getting up I stayed in bed reading Fortean Times until a fairly sudden mood change enveloped me and I decided to go shopping. For metal. With my feet and legs showing no signs of having been put through any punishment I figured I'd walk again, and headed into Kingston. Didn't have much of a list, other than wanting to buy the new album by Converge, and the one by Death Breath.

Oh, bollocks, in the course of looking up Converge's URL it seems the album I just bought (No Heroes) is available in its entirety, officially, on myspace! Bah. Not to worry. But anyway, yes I managed to buy that album. I also got:

• Blood Mountain by Mastodon. No idea what these guys sound like other than this album is supposed to be superb.
• Stench of Redemption by Deicide. Heard one track off this, read some reviews, and just generally wanted some death metal. In fact I'm listening to this album as I type this.
  
• American Hardcore: The History Of American Punk Rock 1980-1986 by various artists. Didn't know this album existed, despite owning the book. Turns out it's not an accompaniment to the book though, but a soundtrack to the movie inspired by the book(!). I wish the difference were subtle, but judging by the tracklisting it means no Dead Kennedys and no Misfits. Not too bad for the album, they'd almost certainly be tracks I own, but it means the film is unlikely to be as good (for me personally) as the book. Oh well.

4 albums all less than a tenner each is quite a result. Although it seems to be the norm these days. Which is even more of a result, I guess. No Death Breath in HMV though, but my shopping wasn't over. I had a quick scan over the rest of the shop and found Lady Vengeance on DVD in a 3-for-20-quid sale, or as individually priced. The individual price was 19.95. I wanted the film anyway so looked for 2 others worth parting with 5p for, and ended up with Hostel and Syriana.

Left HMV and got most of the way out to the pedestrianised bit where a proto-Hayseed Dixie were putting on a bit of a show before remembering I had books to look for too. Well, book: after reading a review in Fortean Times I've decided I want to buy Skipping Armageddon: [subtitle I can't be arsed with]. Basically a demolition job (I think) on some crazy-ass right-wing religious nutjob. But Waterstones didn't have it, and neither did Borders. Well, I guess they might have, but I couldn't actually work out what section it'd be in. I had a look at religion, and politics, and social science, and biography, but no luck. Nearly bought a Mark Thomas book (this one), thought 18 quid was a bit steep for John Hartson's autobiography, but left empty-handed. I've got about 6 books I'm either halfway through or yet to start anyway FFHS.

I nipped to Banquet Records after Borders. I'm sure last time I went there they had a decent metal selection, but it's pretty piss-poor right now. Loads of punk/emo nonsense but barely any metal now. I'd gone in there really to look for Death Breath, but no chance of them having it really. Shame. :-( In fact it sparked off a bit of a lament. Why is Kingston so rubbish for music shopping now? Back in the day we had HMV, Virgin, The Record Shop, Beggars' Banquet (as was) and Tower Records. Can't remember if all 5 ever existed at the same time, but nonetheless it was until fairly recently a lot better than it is now. Virgin turned into some fucking clothes shop, Tower is half clothes, half PC World, and The Record Shop is now a knitting machine place (if I'm remembering where it was correctly). Actually, didn't TRS have two shops once upon a time? Ah I dunno. Anyway, record shopping in Kingston is shit now :-(

Enough about that though. Came home on foot (although I did wait for a bus for a few minutes, admittedly) and my feet still don't hurt. WTF?

I feel like I should write something

But I'm really not sure what. I always get bored of keeping this sort of thing up to date :-(

Simpsons is on Sky One at the moment. I've resisted ordering pizza, and instead ate a reduced-price quiche I bought from the Co-op up the road. Bloody nice it was too. As it goes I need to stop buying pizza, it's just so easy to order online. If only some other stuff was orderable online (eg Chinese or Indian), or more unrealistically, if only I could ever be arsed making something rather than just buying it in.

I bought pizza on Thursday night :-( after having a couple of pints after work, following it up with 3 pints at Waterloo and another 2 in the Flyer. I was on my own for the latter 5, getting a bit lonely and miserable and angry and depressed and stupid. Ho hum. Really didn't feel like going to work on Friday but I had to: I can't sensibly work from home without the laptop they've given me, and I'd left it in my desk drawers. Taking the day off sick would have been an option but since I'm working from home on Tuesday too (I love train strikes) I went in. At midday. Ho hum. At least it was pay day.

Did a morning's worth of housework and stuff yesterday before going to my first AFC Wimbledon game of the season. It was shit. Oh well. Went out with Hasty in Wimbledon later on and the damn pub stayed open 'til 1am. Had a beast of a hangover today, but I remembered how I got home which is more than can be said for Hasty, heh. It took me a while to haul myself out of the house to go do some shopping -- I was going to buy a couple of CDs, some books, a watch, a suitcase, some clothes, and perhaps a laptop and camera depending on how profligate I was feeling (my new credit card has a limit of 11,200GBP...). First stop was H Samuel, who had advertised a sale on Casio watches this weekend in the Metro last week.

Kingston's H Samuel doesn't stock Casio watches.

So into HMV I went. Couldn't remember the release date for the new Terrorizer album but Christ Illusion was taking pride of place so I picked up that, and the Municipal Waste album I'd been meaning to buy for months. That's when the hangover really started to kick in. There's something about aircon that really makes me feel fucking terrible when I've a hangover, and my head really wasn't having it. Bought the CDs and left. The Bentalls Centre was doing me in so I headed round to PC World, but decided buying a laptop wasn't the best idea right now. So I just came home. Watched Snake In The Eagle's Shadow which appeared to be one kind of Chinese dubbed into the other (ie Mandarin into Cantonese or vice versa), with English subtitles. Player have been showing loads of martial arts/gangster films from Hong Kong recently and I wish they'd show the ones dubbed into English. Not for the comedy value -- although I do appreciate that such value exists -- but because I could do with not having to stare at the screen the whole time. For a film like SITE'S(!) it's not so bad because the plot is so staggeringly familiar: old bloke teaches rare and powerful kung-fu style to young apprentice, who beats shit out of the evil head of an organisation which uses a different rare and powerful kung-fu style in a 10 minute long fight in the middle of nowhere at the end. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- I've watched loads of these films and never tire of them. As it happens I've just put on The Swordsman, another subtitled martial arts flick. Looks a bit more modern and well-made, but I recognise a few of the actors.

Unfortunately Player are just showing 2 films (twice each) over the next week, and I've seen them both before and not liked them. Even if I did like The Heroic Trio, I've got it on video so wouldn't need to record it anyway. Ho hum.

I'm finally done with booking hotels for my trip. A bit more research found me some places to stay in Perth and Hong Kong, while in New York I decided to stay at an airport hotel even though I have 3 nights there. Most people would head into Manhattan but the price difference was too great, and I don't really want to go there anyway. I'll probably get a cab or subway in on one of the two full days I've got there, but really I'm staying in New York just to rest up for a couple of days between flying in from Tokyo and flying back to the UK (not in business class!).

For all the other cities I thought it wise to book now and just use all the flights I'm booked on. If I get to Sydney when I want to, everything's fine; if I have to go 3 days later so be it. With family in Sydney it's a shame I might only get 2 useful days there, but on the other hand it's probably the place I'm most likely to visit again, and certainly a worthwhile destination for burning some of the BA miles I'll have by this time next year (ie: flying there for free*). Oh, and Expert Flyer says there's some availability on a flight one day earlier than my current one anyway, so that's good news.

I also took the opportunity, while booking hotels, to increase my membership of hotel programmes a bit. Why not go the whole hog, eh? Through work I already had membership of Starwood Preferred Guest (Yahoo! puts us up in the Sheraton, Sunnyvale) and Priority Club, and I discovered that the latter has a level of membership you can pay for: Ambassador. This takes your PC membership up to Gold level (not worth a great deal, I don't think) but also gives you a free upgrade to the next room level when you stay at an InterContinental hotel... which I happen to be doing. I'm also staying at a Crowne Plaza, and any way to squeeze a few more BA miles out of this holiday is fine by me. That's also why I joined Hilton HHonors, heh. But that was Chris's fault really.

Hold up -- I think I've seen this film before, recently too. Hmm. I'm going to put on Wing Chun instead. By 'eck I'm getting through a lot of films these days. Yesterday I watched Team America: World Police, and on Friday me and Wooj watched Sexy Beast. "No Don" "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" Heh.

Fuck! Before Wing Chun started there was a public information film, one about the coastguard, that I recognise from my Charley videos! I didn't realise they were dragging these things out for genuine use again, blimey.

Bank holiday tomorrow and rail strike on Tuesday means only 2 more days in the office for me this side of November.

Realised something a bit surprising earlier today: I've stopped looking at new release mobile phones. In the past when I've upgraded it hasn't stopped me keeping up with what's going on and looking for things that would do something a bit better, but it seems that I'm just too happy with my k800i. And it's true, I really have no complaints with it. The camera is perfect, I have no trouble using it as a modem over bluetooth or USB, I can ssh or browse the web or set my Sky+ box to record direct from it, I just can't think of anything up with it. And in fact last Saturday I felt the same, but Chris was playing with his and sending me messages that took advantage of some features I didn't know about, making me even more pleased with it than before. Turns out you can insert SE-specific (I assume) little animations and melody snippets and smilies into regular SMSes (ie, not MMSes). Fanbloodytastic that is.

Mind you I'm not sure I'll like the look of my next Orange bill, last Saturday alone I must have sent 50-odd SMSes and used a shitload of data too. Eek! Still, it'll be even more horrifying when I'm roaming all over the place.

A lot of those SMSes were sent while I was en route to Graham and Hazel's. They were having some kind of naming ceremony for their new sprog, and I was heading over with Loz and Yvonne's gift in hand. Originally I was going to get a lift over there, but their car broke down or summat, and on Saturday the possible alternative they lined up fell through. So I nipped round theirs and then went across to Lee on public transport. A bus from Hither Green goes pretty much straight to their house, and a Hither Green train was first to leave from Waterloo East so I got on that.

Now, I'd never been to Hither Green before and was unprepared for what came next. Firstly, at the bottom of the stairs, signs pointing left and right, with road names on them. I didn't have a clue which road I wanted, and had foolishly expected a sign to "buses" or similar. Using my finely-honed abilities in getting by with London Transport, I guessed that right was the correct direction. Outside the station there were no bus stops, but there was a map saying "Continuing your journey from Hither Green". Unfortunately it was just a street map. No signs for bus stops or routes or anything useful.

Hmm. What to do? Just about 10 yards away was a big crossroads, so I went and stood on the corner to survey for bus stops. After all, I knew for a fact that there was a bus which served the station. Couldn't see any stops though. Bought a bottled drink while considering my options, and when I came out a bus went past. Going the wrong way, and not stopping, but at least I was on the right side of the station. I started walking in the direction it went but missed which way it turned at the next crossroads, and when I got there I couldn't see it in any direction. Nor could I see any bus stops. For crying out loud!

Another guess was required, and I turned left. Pretty soon after a bus going in the right direction went past me. So while I'd missed a bus, it at least meant I was going the right way. Surely I was going to come across a bus stop soon? No, I wasn't. The next thing of note was an ominous looking turn along a road which looked like it might be one a bus goes along. I chose to assume it didn't, and carried on along my existing route. 5 minutes later I still hadn't found any stops, but at the end I could see a big road with buses going past. If I couldn't find a stop for the bus I wanted I could at least make alternative arrangements.

Reached that road and there were, of course, stops in both directions. Picked left, crossed over, and glory be the first stop was one which the bus i wanted served, and in the right direction 'n all. Hallelujah! Got on it and learnt the cause of all my grief: all the roads the bus goes along surrounding Hither Green are hail and ride sections of the route. I'd not seen anyone hanging around in likely stopping points and there'd been nothing at the station giving me a clue. FFHS. Obviously a very "you're not from round here" type service, where you can only use it if you already know. How are you supposed to know what time the last bus is though? Twats.

I had to leave the party after not too long 'n all, because I was off to a gig in town where the doors were opening at the ungodly hour of 1630. Only 4 bands on (despite Stargreen claiming 5, and because of that I missed Gorerotted :-( ) we eventually went in at about 1825 and only saw the top 2: Cryptopsy and Celtic Frost. The former were good but way too quiet, the latter were just good, but by unfamiliarity with the songs didn't help me. We were outside the venue again come 2145! Way too early, bloody club nights making everything happen 90 minutes earlier than is sane. Still, it gave us time to grab a pint, and I put one quid into a fruit machine that promptly paid me 50 quid out. Result.

Fuck. First ads in Wing Chun and I've not been following it at all. Time to stop typing and watch it (from the top) methinks.

Skinless and a skinful

I haven't actually had a skinful, but the word seems to go with 'Skinless' so well. Anyway, just got back from seeing Skinless in Croydon. OH MY GOD THEY WERE SO LARGE. Way way too good to be playing in Croydon in front of less than 50 people, but do I care? They put on a belting show and I'm resplendent in the tour shirt as I type.