Ho-hum

I hate working at the weekends - especially when it's really sunny outside like it is now.

Ah well, won't be for ever - I'm hoping that Atari will be in relatively good shape by mid-end October and I won't have to do weekends any more.

Been listening to new music (of course) - 1 of the pleasures of sitting at my desk all day.

Fink - Biscuits for Breakfast is brilliant (thanks for the intro Aurgasm.us)



Allmusic.com sent me an email thinking I'd like The Fratellis - Costello Music, and by jove! they're right. 1 listen to their album on myspace and I went off and bought it. Cracking stuff - and Glasgow boys, so like with Fink (from Brighton) I'm supporting the UK dominance of (good) world music.



It's not all doom and gloom though. I had an overwhelming urge to get back into coding ActionScript so decided to recreate my favourite device - the iPod. A few people have done this, but I've not been impressed so far so I'm going to give it a good go.

Hi! Remember me? :)

Shit. It's been nearly a whole month since I wrote anything on here. It's just been so damn busy - my work really is taking over my life at the moment. That's largely due to the 'little' project I'm running right now:



It's due to launch at the end of this month, and Christ there's tons to do still. But, I knew that when I took it on so I can't complain there. I'm gonna use tomorrow to write an overview status document of all the damn satellites orbiting the 1 thing we're supposed to deliver and hope it can help me tighten the reins on all the 3rd-parties involved.

So, what else have I been doing? This is as much a question for myself as anyone else (no-one reads this blog anyway :) ).

On Thursday, we had our company summer party and it was a brilliant, brilliant day. Breakfast laid on at work, on coaches at 9:30am. Get to Stoke Park at 10:45am:



where we're greeted with a lot of Pimm's. Then the events start: clay pigeon shooting (God, I loved that! Got top score - think I'm living up to my filmic namesake), archery (sucked at that), bucking bronco (didn't try it - too busy shooting things :) ) and volleyball in an inflatable bouncy castle thing (great fun, although I was a ringer for all the teams and my own so am *still* in pain - every part of me aches). Then at 6-ish, we had our company awards (I didn't win the "most dependable bar fly" - I don't believe it! Although it was my boss who did and he's my drinking compadre so it figures). We all got changed into suits & cocktail dresses etc and I whiled the evening away drinking red wine and smoking cigars. Top stuff. The coach back was a re-enactment of last year's party bus - music, craziness, singing, boozing. Ad agencies: crazy places. Back to London at 11pm, we caught last orders at the local pub and then went to the office to drink and play pool until 2am. Haven't done that for aaaaaages. Photos to come soon.

Spent a few weekends with friends at the dependable afternoon hangout, The Elbow Room in Shoreditch:



Was ill last weekend so watched The Godfather trilogy (finally). 1 is definitely the best. 2 and 3 are a bit meandering for my liking.

Gearing up for my oldest buddy, Jimmy, to come over to London for a couple of days. Gotta round up my troops and head to The George in Borough Market - should be a blinder.

Am off to New York again (5th time in 18 months :) ) in November and bringing 2 friends with me. They've never been so it should be a great time - I can re-enjoy all the sites and they can meet all my friends out there and come to the bars I always talk about. Hopefully Atari will be in a relatively stable way by then so I'll be able to go.

My big sis is away on a tour of the US right now - back next Sunday. I might be buying her house which would be great. 2 floors (huge basement - definite pool table material) and really, really nice. I lived there for 6 months when I broke up with my ex so it's always felt like a 2nd home. Gotta find out our finances and the price tags on both of our places but it's prompted me to do some work to my place at least (shower cubicle, breakfast bar, new doors & fittings, garden sorted etc).

Musically, I've added the following to my collection:

Breaks co-op. Caught these guys at Fruitstock, it's Zane Lowe's band. Not bad - a bit weak, but OK for a debut.

Fink. Checked him out on the brilliant Aurgasm website (one of my favourites) and bought the album based on the 2 tracks on there. Waiting for it to be delivered.

The Black Keys - Chulahoma. The boys have done a cover album of Junior Kimbrough tracks - a big influence on them and Mofro. Really good album, the tracks have a little more depth than their usual ones.   Have noticed the boys are releasing a new album on Sept 11th - I have it on pre-order of course. Oh, and I'm seeing them in concert on October 4th :)

Nick Drake - Bryter Layter. Stumbled upon this from allmusic.com and it's great. Really chilled out - reminds me a bit of Harry Nilsson.

Psapp - Tiger, My Friend. Very chilled, Morcheeba-esque album. Good for relaxing to.

I think there are more to list, but I'm losing track. My MP3 folder currently stands at 15,556 files (76 Gb) spanning 832 albums, the rest are lose. I estimate I own 90% of the CDs of the albums - the rest are downloads. I always prefer to have a tangible version :)