Its been a great day, spent with E. We did not do anything particularly exciting but instead wandered down to the sea front, played with his bricks at home and generally just hung out. Strangely relaxing and the fatigue of being woken up several times in the night - especially for someone who really needs his 8 hours - is not a problem. Spending time with my son is one of the most relaxing, almost meditive, things I have ever done.

Off to Denmark on Friday for meetings then the Xmas bash - must have self control. Last time I got pissed in Denmark I was so drunk I almost pooed my pants on the train home.

Reading: Strangers in Paradise (comic book), Adolf (comic book), Good Omens (again, not a comic book) and looking forward to reading short story collection from China Mieville.

Listening: Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, Rammstein.

Looking: Like I will be starting training again this weekend, after almost 4 months of lay off since my ankle started playing up. I won't be doing much running, mostly bag work and free weights plus diet.

Worrying: This subject actually deserves more thought but I'll put it in anway. My mate R has really got be thinking about the looming crisis in oil production and what the future is going to look like. I've been reading around the subject a bit and apparently its 2010 when the shit is really going to hit the fan......more to follow.

Last snatch, dumped another creative turd on Seathing.

So, I had a second interview for the new job I'm after. It seemed to go pretty well, including the initial swedish session (oohhh er missus) at the start. We switched to English pretty quickly, and the problem - I realised - is that it is really difficult to read someone when they are using their second lanquage, even when they are fluent. Nuances and expressions come out differently, so I was never quite sure how enthusiastic the interviewer was being about me. Oh, a note to self - or anyone else having an interview in Sweden - they check references well in advance of you being offered a position so you might want to consider not including your current employer, as I have done. I've had to do some damage limitation to hopefully avoid the worse case scenario of a. not getting the new job and b. my old boss deciding that my lack of loyalty is a good enough reason to get rid of me. Paranoid? Moi?

Notable event: It was E's name day on saturday and his first B'day last week. One year old. Shocking.
Books:Century Rain by A. Reynolds, 6 out of 10 - definitely not his best but okay. More from the Alita:Battle Angel Series and various Sandman collections.
Music: Mudhoney, Libertines and Queen.

"Arguably the most dangerous machine ever fabricated at SRL: Pitching Machine".....actually blogged about these guys before but this is so cool, firing pieces of 2 by 4 at speeds of 120 mph.

More to come, but now I must make the tea.......work strangeness abounds, second interviews undertook, contract renewals floating, dreams of permanancy...hmmm, sounds a bit like a haiku.

After a savage bout of mushroom, or poo, induced poisoning yesterday I feel relatively fitter (although a little thinner) today......I fucking hate being ill, especially when the family goes off to the summer house and leaves me lolling in my sick bed with nothing but John Carpenters 'Assault on Precinct 13' to watch. They actually didn't just leave because of my explosive diarrhea but also because its that time of year when we must replace the cars tyres with the mighty studded ice breakers.

Annoyed, because I've started reading A. reynolds latest - Century Rain. Don't get me wrong, its started well and is a novel departure from the universe of his previous books BUT once again the curse of ideas rises again. You see, his latest involves the use of alien transit lines - the Hyperweb - enabling mankind to reach the stars. Which is identical to an idea I had some years ago. This is not the first time this has happened either, Neil Gaimens story of people living under london was pretty much identical to an idea I had, involving 'dwellers' some years before. This suggests, to me, that - I really should write more or that, more likely I think, theres a universal pool of ideas which we can access, and that ideas are not really our own. Or, that we are all sad geeks pretty much influenced by the same source material.

Still laughing at: Joke in 'Catch me if you can'.......'Knock Knock. Who's there? Go fuck yourselves.'
Getting into: Franz Ferdinand. Partly because the musics cool but also because they seem to be one of the few bands that smile in photographs.

I finally got around to adding some links...more to follow when I get around to it.....(just beneath the archives on the right side)........

First things first, if you go over to http://www.seathingcity.blogspot.com/ you'll find Shunt - a rather unpleasant, poorly edited short story which I put together on the commute to work. If you enjoy it, or at least could think of worst ways to have spent the 20 minutes or so that you used reading it then so much the better. I enjoyed writing it, which is the main thing I guess.

Some statistics from my life:

Nappies changed: approx 900, which is an average of around 2 a day - the daily average is higher now, but I was working more before E stopped breast feeding.
Times I have sung: 'Go to sleep little baby': approx 1080 times 'Man of constant sorrow': approx 700 times. 'Whisky in the jar': approx 500 times 'Copperhead road':approx 500 times. These are usually sung in the day, frequently in a medley. E, wisely, nods straight off to sleep in the evening and thus is spared further renditions.
Full nights uninterrupted sleep I have had in the past 11 or so months: approx 25 (almost all from trips). This is out of a potential of 360, considering this - and the amount of people who have young kids at any one time - its amazing there aren't more incidents of sleep deprived parents going postal.

Speaking of nappies I notice that Madonna said that her husband dosn't change nappies because he is a 'man's man', what exactly is it about changing a nappie which is unmanly? All the men I know, including myself, seem to spend a far greater time talking about poo than women.

To finish. I finally got my hands on the last book of the 'Bone' series by Jeff Smith. Its up there with Preacher as my favourite comic book- read it, its a bloody excellent story. (hence the image at the top). Currently wading my through Stephen Baxters 'coaltruck' or whatever the hell its called. Soon to start A Reynolds new one. Also finish Alita: Battle Angel.

A site called Camera Toss catchs my attention for all the wrong reasons.....interesting, and yet again remind me, is this why we came from the trees?

Its clearly the end of days, with alarums and diversions ringing out across the land.......so heres something to bring some light, this is cool. One mans quest to barter from a starting position of a paperclip up to a house.

Just back from Oslo, and as K and E were up at the grandparents it meant that I'm slightly delirious from getting almost 9 hours of straight sleep.....feel slightly odd, and in a perverted way, that I could actually do with a few more hours kip. Oslo was good, the occasion was the jamboree for our organisation.

Oslo, nice city but bloody hell Norways expensive!

Heres some stuff from Flickr....

I've set up a new blog...http://www.seathingcity.blogspot.com/ which will shortly contain Shunt, a short unpleasant story (which contains adult themes, graphic sexual references and swearing). Right then, bring on the coffee.

Music: Sugar Cubes

Film: The Faculty, most excellent horror. Saw Flightplan the other day, first half cool Hitchcockian thriller the second part pants.

Book: A. Reynolds new book, the name of which escapes me.

Most eagerly awaited: Resident Evil 4.