sleep lessons

i spoke to the lawyer yesterday morning, and things with the new apartment seem to be going well.

it was my birthday... and i felt crap for most of it. the best moments of the day were comprised of the guys really appreciating the cake i brought, and an hour or two that i could actually get some work done.

i was distracted by an uber-annoying task for a couple of hours yesterday morning, doubly problematic because it wasn't successful and, like everything else, was cutting in on the time i needed to be working on my project. my project, that desperately needs to be completed before i leave for south africa (the end of the year).

i started off the afternoon by re-attempting the failure from yesterday, and just as i began to get the hang of it i was told that it hadn't been relevant since the morning. it's good to be in the loop.

then this evening i was informed that the project itself has been frozen, and i've got almost no time to wrap up whatever i've done and document it before getting on to the next deadlined item. i think the guys noticed i was beginning to enjoy myself :(

i did some shopping on my way home yesterday, and bypassed the orange juice and bought oranges, with my fruit-fucker in mind. after searching for it for about twenty minutes, i phoned my flatmates and was told that neither of them have touched it or seen it.
i'm fairly confident that the weird guy was juicing when the new girl moved in :@

i had a couple of interesting conversations with vision, the first of which was surprisingly pleasant and the second surprisingly annoying. she began as if nothing had happened since we last spoke, as if everything was gravy, and then suddenly made a switch and informed me that she's been dating someone for the last year and that what i did was awful, and that it's inappropriate to speak to me.

but she... she got in touch with me - and she sounded hurt because i'd deleted her number...

alter bridge is creed? no way!

a fn evening (inappropriate chatter):
i spent the evening with gco, his sister and fn - haven't seen them in a while. we sat over beers in one of my favourite coffee shops, telling incredibly inappropriate stories and having a great time ^_^

fn came with me when i went to the ilke to meet egg. i had an odd moment where i walked right past the lead singer of eatliz: i registered her and her boyfriend a second too slow, and decided to leave them to it.

we were all impressed by the fact that the bartender picked rum on his second guess. maybe we'd all had too much to drink and i'd let slip before, but i don't think so. fn is a sweet girl, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer; she also drinks a lot and gets decidedly inappropriate. i don't think the guy at the kiosk's ever going to forget my face, he and his friends were laughing riotously as we made our way out :S

i got to sleep around 2.30 - 3am, and i woke up before 6am having slept like a baby. today was without any doubt the most productive i've been in forever, i was focused and feeling good, and here i was worried that going out drinking on a school night was a bad idea. as my mom just said, maybe i need to stop trying to sleep so much.

why was f.e.a.r. in my head for twelve hours? i have no idea where i may have heard it.

i had a pretty good start to the day - although i was struck by the hopelessness of trying to respond to all the facebook birthday wishes. i tried.

i managed to return last week's test results to the doctor within five minutes this morning, and then went to the dentist for a filling. she's a pretty decent one, and i was so relaxed that i snored myself awake a number of times while she was drilling. i've never had that happen to me before!

i've been struggling with organizing holiday permission, and today the story is more-or-less resolved. nobody wants to authorize me taking a month of unpaid leave, we all want it to be half and half. now we're tugging on the bureaucratic tape to see if we can make things work, but apparently the big boss is alright with it as long as we're doing our best.

bank disappointment: i finally made it to the bank on time! and discovered that i did get the release money from the army, but it's a pitiful sum so i'm not thrilled.

i have to restart my pc to get the sound working again, hopefully i've fixed the problem. i like the ubuntu forums, there are actually useful people lurking about.

then i'm going to try facebook again :P

belated post-concert, now post-coccoon

first item: the eatliz performance. i know now that their name means "abattoir". for anyone who's missed my previous impressions, they're an art rock group with simply fantastic ideas. and until wednesday night i hadn't actually noticed how much their songs have tunnelled into my head.

the eerie power of a band that sounds identical live to their studio-recorded album while maintaining such a high level of emotion was simply awesome.

aside from a bunch of new material that we were treated to, they had a jamming session that was surreally synchronized. it was disappointing that the experience had to end, and a bit odd that i was still going to be in bed in time for the following workday.

the club itself is great - it's underground with incredible sound, although the lighting caused the band to prove themselves on a number of occassions when everything went suddenly pitch-black.

upstairs is a bar out of futuristic noir, and they're purists meaning that anyone sitting down in sitting down to drink. they have decent live performances every night, so i'll definitely be visiting there more often.

my thursday morning post-concert wake-up was quite tardy, but i managed to get to base at the usual time in spite of the too-much-guinness-induced cotton wool in my head. unfortunately, for the second day in a row, the guy selling slap chips and i were out of synch, and i had to go without in spite of sNv being exactly what i needed.

after a number of weeks of waiting those of us who ordered finally received unit shirts. after my last experience with long-sleeves i expected them to be comfortable, warm and elastic enough to roll up quickly. the horrid-sleeved shirts we received proved to be quite the opposite, to the point where later on i didn't feel bad using one of them as an impromptu towel.

on the flip side of the release coin for the soldier i mentioned on wednesday, we talked over lunch about the perfect (and perfectly mean) gift. we had such fun with the idea that we couldn't stop laughing, and suddenly one of the mess-hall staff rocked up and asked if we could please stop enjoying ourselves because other people were waiting to be seated.

superb.

i had my hair cut by the new hairdresser, the first female practitioner i've seen in the army. she's not very good although she did me something passable, but i have to admit that it's the first time in years that i wasn't happy about having my hair trimmed. yesterday specifically it was simply splendid, and rather symbolic of a level of freedom that i'm not due for a very long time.

a few of us worked late yesterday, and i discovered that nystire (who's my project's primary resource) has apparently returned to working with me... without informing me. so he managed to waste a workday and the next couple of weeks are going to be rough time-wise anyway. i really expected a little more maturity than that, in spite of his being a right jerk the last while.

i caught the pointy-haired boss for a little chat regarding project limitations, and reminded him again that i'm going to be on holiday in a couple of weeks.
so? that's not a problem.
i'll be in france.
who authorized your taking vacation??
YOU did. and i've been reminding you ever since the deadlines were redefined
can't you defer it a little?

NO. we've been planning this snowboarding trip for ages, you need to book well in advance, and we're NOT deferring it. i'm praying that he now understands that if i say we might experience future difficulty with something that he should probably pay attention instead of giving me the "it'll be fine" line.

the bus i took back home was similar to that scene in invader zim - walk of doom. all the characters come out (or in) when the weather's miserable.

i discovered when i arrived home that my chequebook is invalid. i only ever pay attention to it when rent is due... so i defaulted on the rent payment and will have to get organized on monday. our landlord seemed in good humour about it, but i feel awful about the whole deal.

for almost four hours singer and i sat working on her cv. i wasn't expecting to need more than twenty minutes to finish it up, and we just kept running into problems. i was stressed out and already not feeling too hot, and when she eventually left i just passed clean out.

i wasted an hour or so on moo card designs this morning, and i'm completely unsatisfied with the results.

this morning i was stupidly freezing cold because i childishly couldn't bear wearing anything over my new penny arcade shirt on its first time out. the chilly twenty minute walk to the center, hopping from sunbeam to sunbeam unhelpfully, was an unnecessary mistake. i went to check something out and had brought the wrong thing (i might have a better explanation in a couple of weeks).

i walked into the disc center and bought the two alter bridge discs by quickly greeting the guys but not giving them a chance to talk :)

i frozen-meat-popsicled my way to meet with the kid for a great breakfast, although sitting outdoors after walking cold was not a good idea. after quick shopping, i got into bed and shivered fitfully until just before 6pm. i still have a headache but at least i've managed to turn the external aircon on.

singer introduced me to a band called ozric tentacles (not osric testicles - singer couldn't figure out why i wasn't taking her seriously when she tried to find one of their videos).

i'm trying to decide if i'm going to send fn a message - i haven't spoken to her since last week, and that's unusual for someone i'm sleeping with... unless we're no longer doing the bad thing. i'm a bit ambivalent myself, you see.

my head aches.

*cough*
*HACK*
*spit*