I enjoyed my third of a century party last year (pictures here). I’ve been thinking about doing it again. Hopefully this time we can get the barbecue to work. The nearest weekend to May 11th could become my official birthday, one of the first big barbecues of summer.
I’ll be buying a barbie and sending out invitations soon.
Joey Manley, developer of webcomicsnation (which will be the home of Deputised Experts whenever it launches) is looking for XML experts to help with the syndication code. I’m sure some of the Spinneyhead family (team members and Friends of) must know something about this. The sooner he launches, the sooner I can start publishing my epic and have a big celebratory barbecue.
At long last the motorist appeasing Government says it’s going to do something about the school run. The most stupid of their ideas is to stagger school opening times. This would be so that those people too idiotic to save themselves time and money by getting out of their cars can carry on blocking traffic and making the roads dangerous for other people’s children.
In tenuously related news- eating too much is bad for you. (There is some good news, however. Chocolate chip cookies are 700% larger than they were 20 years ago.)
We did wonder last night if Daz is eating spicier and spicier foods so he can taste them after killing off his taste buds by eating spicier and spicier foods. Give him a couple more months and he’ll be about ready for some Quaker Steak & Lube Atomic Wings.
Somebody pass the chocolate syrup.
via Monitor Duty
Just before I headed off into town, I spotted a dead magpie by the collapsed remains of our makeshift barbecue. I figured I’d throw it in the bin when I got back, but forgot. Now I can hear the local children running around to the side of our house and crying out, “It’s a dead buuurd! A dead burd!”
John and I have been working on preliminary plans for the 4th of July. I can’t reveal more until we start purchasing the relevant stuff, but if it goes to plan it should involve a barbecue, the stars and stripes, one or more effigies of Wubble U and fireworks. This’ll be such a date specific thing that I’ll have to ask everyone I know with digital cameras and video cams to be there (like they weren’t going to be after I said barbecue.)
More details on the project as the kit is acquired.
Penny arrived at the barbecue on Saturday and demanded a copy of Another Education because she’d been printing it out and ran out of ink with only 20 pages to go. This is the sort of thing my ego needs. Demands that I publish the follow up, and a little bit of persuasion finally drove me to produce the Acrobat version of Ten Years Asleep- downloadable here. The online version has been updated to match it, and is available here.
A little note, which I’ll be incorporating into the download page and adding as an authors comment on the online version just as soon as I expand it some more-
Every few years, I sit down and write a State of the Ian story. In 1992 it was Ruby Red, two people picking up the pieces after traumas and fallout from previous relationships- with a little lesbianism thrown in because I became attached to a supporting character and wanted to make her happy. 1996 was politics in Another Education, with the compromises and bad decisions forced upon students by the increasing concentration on the bottom line in higher education.
Out Of Fashion And A Trifle Uncool was written in 1998 and was about a bunch of guys in their late twenties casting about for some direction in their lives, with varying success. It forms the major part of Ten Years Asleep. The original TYA was an attempt in 2001 to consolidate Education and Fashion and add some more stories spread over the decade to trace all the characters interactions over the period. Some of the chapters for this project have been included in the story put up today. Some others- notably a silly contemporary tale of Susan and Gareth unwittingly foiling industrial espionage- have been excised.
Looking back over the stories it’s possible to see themes- the female lead who has overcome some past problems and is now determined to leave them far behind, who falls for the clever but slightly flakey male lead; indie music; the Lakes; eccentric cars; beer. People who know me have spotted other things I missed, such as the feminine side I didn’t know I had. But the most obvious aspect of all the stories is my continued and ever optimistic romanticism. Like Gareth, I continue to believe that one day, through the simple method of just being myself, I am going to meet Miss Right. Based upon my body of work I’d hazard a guess that she’ll be a short redhead or brunette (but she could be blonde, black, asian or oriental. She doesn’t have to be short either- I won’t know until I know.)
I’m off into town to look Darcy-esque and see if I can bump into Miss Right. Enjoy the book.
Today is my official third of a century. Actual thirdness is either tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday, depending upon how it’s calculated.
It seems like a good day to take pictures for the MayDay Project. In a little while I’m going scavenging for bricks to mount my baby barbecue on, which has to be a good subject for a photo.
I’ve been in a wierd mood all day. The realisation that I’m three days away from being unemployed again struck me this morning and, along with some other stuff (lots of little things, which is the way it works with me) brought me down.
Hopefully I can get some writing done soon. Heavensent is on sporadic updates and I’ve had an idea for something a bit more biographical (in fact it’ll be stealing and then fictionalising some stuff I’ve blogged.)
The Friday Five never appealed to me, but this long list of questions has been doing the email rounds recently so I think I’ll share my answers-
1. What time is it? 21:44
2. Name as it appears on your birth certificate? Ian Pattinson
3. Nickname: None that I know of
4. Parents name/s: Jen & Ron
5. Number of candles that appeared on your last birthday cake: 33
6. Favourite food : Food
7.Date that you regularly blow them out? 11 Jan
8. Eye colour: blue
9. Hair colour: black/ dark brown
10. Piercing: no
11. Tattoos: no
12. How much do you love your job? My job loves me so much it has set me free. If I come back then it was meant to be (Hah!)
13. Favourite colour: blue
14. Hometown: Born in Bridgend, but family home is in Cumbria
15. Current residence: Victoria Park, manchester UK
17. Been to Africa? no
18. Been toilet papering? no
19. Loved somebody so much it made you cry? yes
20. Been in a car accident? yes. They weren’t all my fault.
22. Sprite or 7UP? sprite
23. Favourite movie? The Italian Job
24. Favourite holiday: Chamonix last year
25.Favourite day of the week: Saturday
26. Favourite word or phrase: Arse! (or Buttocks if I’m being polite)
28. Favourite restaurant: Haven’t gone to enough to really decide/ Yo Sushi, cause that’s where I went last.
29. Favourite flowers: Daffodils
30. Favourite drink : Alcoholic- Jennings Sneck Lifter, non Alcoholic- Fresh ground coffee
31. Favourite sport to watch: skate boarding
32. Favourite ice-cream: vanilla- with my own insane concoction of chocolatey bits and sauces slathered on the top
33. Favourite Sesame Street character: cookie monster
34. Disney or Warner Bros.? Warner Brothers
35. Favourite fast food restaurant: Lahore
36. When was your last hospital visit? I work in one, so Thursday. For real, Christmas ’99 after being hit by a car.
37. What colour is your bedroom carpet? green
38. How many times did you fail your drivers test? none
39. Who is the last person you got e-mail from before this? Feed back to my blog, the New York Times and lots of spam offering me mortgages, septic tanks and porn.
41. Which single store would you choose to max your credit card? Forbidden Planet
42. What do you do most often when you are bored? surf and blog
43. Name the person that you are friends with that lives the farthest away? My sister in Val d’Isere
44. Most annoying thing people ask me? When are you going to ask her out?
45. Bedtime? 11pm-1am
46. Who will respond the quickest? Dunno
47. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond? Jenny, Brian and Emma, because this is a reply to the ones they sent me.
48. Favourite all time TV show: Buffy
49. Last person you went out to dinner with? Jenny, Brian, Damian, Elke, Daz and Emily, or, if you extend it to mean any meal, my parents today.
As a follow on to the bit about abstention and exercise- people who are overweight in their mid thirties to mid forties (oh God, I’m just shy of the bottom of that range) have reduced life expectancies. Break out the rice cakes.
I tried Christmas shopping today, and got nowhere. The inspiration is lacking this year. When I realised I was buying loads of stuff for myself, I decided to cut my losses and come home.
Terry Pratchett Young fans send me slices of their birthday cake.
DF: I think that’s wonderful, don’t you?
TP: Ever since the cannabis incident I’ve thought it is.
Just when I thought we’d settled into another English Summer of rain, the sun comes out again. Yay! Actually, Double Yay! because I’ve just bought a huge pack of organic barbecue meat.
Added bonus picture of the Day! I just found the leaning bottles hanging around in an old directory. A personal favourite and the intro image to Spinneyhead’s very first incarnation.
Yesterday’s pic. And today’s.
Holiday’s almost over. I still keep bottling out of frontside turns and put a little too much weight on the back foot, but I am way better than when I got out here.
I now own a chocolate fondue thingy, snowboarding Action Man, scale piste basher (or Preparatore Piste Bully as it says on the pack) and one of almost every comics magazine published in France this month [including the rude ones, except for ‘Bede SM’- not my style]. I reckon the fondue’ll be the hardest thing to get through customs- they have a special ‘Kitsch to declare’ line at the new Liverpool airport.
I am off alcohol until at least the 15th of February (supposed leaving date) and I have to start practising for the Bogle Roll. 75-125 miles on a bike, in a day, past Bury and Bolton. And, as it’s in March probably in the rain as well.
And I’ve got to start eating healthily as well……….
