Milk’s Site

When I was a kid I used to churn through books, but for a long time in my teenage years I just couldn’t be arsed. It was at college when I caught the reading bug again as I had two hours of bus travel each day between Dundee and Perth that I needed some entertainment for. I remember picking up interesting and weird sounding (and looking) books from the sci-fi section of Perth Library, and eventually discovering the joys of Iain [M.] Banks. Around this time I also started getting interested in Philosophy. Unfortunately I happened upon Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness and got myself hooked. I even tried to convert to Randian Objectivism. Hey, being rational sounded, well, rational. Oh how I cringe now. There are rational philosophical arguments, and there are philosophical arguments that rely on reason so much they miss certain essentials of the human condition, like emotions. Anyway… Although I did eventually broaden my views and reading matter, I feel my interest in books waned; both because I bit off more than I could chew, plus my discovery of online gaming. Reading fell on the back burner again.

In the last few months I’ve started reading properly again, mainly to alleviate some of the boredom of my everyday life. I remember times when I was a small child, staying up till 3am, unable to put down a text because I was so deeply engrossed in the story, or even when I was at college or living in England and I simply had to finish or re-read a certain philosophical essay because the concepts contained within had made something just click in my head (or when I enjoyed trying to spot flaws in an authors argument, and tutting with indignancy when I did). I’d like to be able to recapture at least some of that feeling. I started off by going through two of my favourites once more; Iain M. Banks’ Consider Phlebas (which was signed by the man with “To Milk” a couple of years ago) and Look to Windward. Then I worked my way through Iain Banks’ A Song of Stone. I’d only read one non-sci-fi Banks novel previously, Whit, of which I can remember nowt apart from a very general plot outline. Coming out of two of Banks’ Culture novels, I was expecting A Song of Stone to have a similarly complex plot but instead I was amazed by the seamless movement between the beautifully contemplative parts of the story where the main character, Abel, delves deep into both his personal history and musings on the current situation, and the fulfilling descriptions of the happenings and action going on around him throughout the story. The story, in a nutshell, is about an aristocratic couple trying to flee their ancestral castle which is on the frontline of a disorganised and war-torn country, only to be stopped by ‘the Lieutenant’ and her loyal squad of men who commandeer the fortress abode for their own usage. Worth a read if you’re looking for a new bed-time story.

Currently I’m working through both Phillip Kerr’s sci-fi thriller Gridiron (which won the Bad Sex award in 1995) and the books which accompany the first person shooter game Halo. Gridiron is proving to be a bit dull after my tastes have been wetted by Banks writings, both in style and in more subtle things like technological terminology. Kerr likes to use fancy phrases to ‘amaze’ (or should that be patronise?) the reader like “It’s a recordable multi-session CD-ROM .. It’s connected via an (sic) SCSI interface to the computer, with a date and an archive number. Each disc contains up to 700 megabytes.”, where Banks simply gets on with it by giving a simple but descriptive name for a technology then letting the reader fill in the gaps like any good sci-fi writer should. I’m also on the second of three Halo based books by Eric Nylund (in PDF format), and I’ve managed to read them on the wrong order. Not that it really matters though, as most people who would be interested in reading the series will most likely have played through Halo previously which fits right into the middle of the second book. I’ll report more on these after I finish the third book.

Friday

Went out to a leaving do for one of the managers where I work. Unfortunately some major service problem hit the BT network (unsurprising) and the call level increased so he couldn’t get away (yeah, I work in a call centre if you didn’t know or couldn’t guess). But it was still an interesting and enjoyable experience to socialise with workmates outside of the work environment, something I’ve not really done before. I don’t usually go out to things like this so I decided to blog it in case you’re wondering why I’ve bothered to write it up.

A group of about 10 of us went to a couple of bars then headed to Fat Sams, one of Dundee’s larger commercial clubs (well, one of two moderately sized clubs), where the third floor was open for the first time so it was pretty packed. Everyone got drunk and danced a lot, whee. We stayed on the second for the majority of the evening and I was pleased to hear the DJ play some good popular electronic stuff like Faithless, Daft Punk, etc. I really should start work on AltDundee again. Then I could make a habit of visiting more of the smaller nights around Dundee and writing about them. Kill two birds with one stone and all that.

Many blue moons ago the second floor of Fat Sams was home to Dundee’s best alternative night, Kerosene, but new management decided it didn’t attract the right kind of crowd and axed it. Gits. It was a bit of a Nostalgia trip as I walked around the venue for the first time in years. I turned 18 while in Kerosene, although I didn’t have any proper friends in Dundee at that time to celebrate with. It opened my ears to genres of music that were still fresh and new to me then, and I also met many of my current friends either there or through meeting friends of Kerosene friends. It’s also where I first saw Daisy from afar and fell under her spell, although I didn’t actually speak to her until about a year later at the last ever Floodlight (’s Dundee Goth/Industrial night) when I plucked up enough Bacardy and orange juice fuelled courage to speak to her.

*sigh*

Anyway. After closing time I headed up to and ’s flat where they and were already fairly fucked. Sorry to for not turning up earlier as thought I would be, I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening after the works thing, but I came in the end, even though you’d passed out by then :). At 5am I headed back to mine to get some sleep as I knew Saturday was going to be a busy day.

Saturday

I dragged myself out of bed at 10am and tiredly packed a few things for my trip to Edinburgh. Saturdays for me have become synonymous with trying to sort my Council Tax out. This week saw me cancelling my Direct Debit (see previous post) but also being informed by an advisor that I can arrange the money to come out of my bank account on any day of the month, or even weekly. You’d fucking think that staff working in a council tax office advising the general public on their rights when it comes to payment options would have a modicum of knowledge about the only fucking subject they deal with fucking day in, day out, and not spout out shit to people who are trying to arrange their battered financial lives, making them stress needlessly about not being able to keep on top of things. Gah.

Purchased some glow sticks and headed over the Tay to my parents to make use of their shower (shaving body hair in a bath is a god damn nightmare). Ordered a ticket for the Megabus; £4.50 on the same day of travel, not bad, but I hadn’t used the service before and was worried the bus would be a rickety old double-decker and that I’d have to curl into a ball on an uncomfortable seat to conserve heat else freeze. Got back to Dundee with plenty of time to spare so I picked up Snorelax (I would have felt guilty leaving him behind) and a couple of other essentials from my flat before heading to the Megabus stop (hehehe; mega bus stop *chuckles*). I was happy to find the Megabus wasn’t anything like I’d feared; ’twas actually a rather pleasant experience. The bus was fairly new and clean, had comfortable seats with arguably more legroom than my old favourite mode of long distance public transport, the National Express, and was also nice and cosy despite the temperature of the night outside.

Got into Edinburgh just before 9pm and met up with who lead me to a cosy little pub where I met , and a few others who were also heading along to The Nightmare A’fore Christmas. After a few drinks then a change of clothes in the toilets we headed off on a brisk walk to a bad dream. I can’t be bothered writing up the entirety of the night but I had lots of (sober, pah) fun dancing to DeathBoy, Je$us Loves America and the DJs, and meeting and chatting with several peeps including , , & .

All in all, I had a great time. I’d really love to get out to Edinburgh and Glasgow more often, both for the music and for the nice people. I just wish I could afford it.

Sunday

On Sunday afternoon I met up with my Auntie Catherine and wandered with her around Edinburgh’s Ikea for my 21st birthday present. She’s always fun to spend time and chat with as she’s young at heart and much more on my level than any other member of my family. Saying that, things have been getting better between my parents and my sister and I since I don’t live with them anymore. Anyway, I got a new coffee table, two new side tables (at £6 each!), two lamps, a laundry basket and other miscellaneous items, all of which we just managed to squish into her car. As a result I now have something to eat meals on in my lounge instead of having to balance plates of food on my lap, and I no longer have my speakers sitting on top of plastic storage crates from Homebase (which were starting to buckle under the weight). Which is nice. I’ll get pics up at some point because I’m the kind of person that likes a record of The Way Things Were for the future.

That’s everything for now. Bai!

Ugh indeed. Was ’round at and ’s last night for a bit of a party. Also present were , , , , Brek (who needs to get a blog) and . Got rather wasted and thus cannot remember most of the latter part of the evening, but I’m sure it was all good fun. Trudged into the city centre this morning; the bastards at the council tax office cannot change my direct debit from the 1st of the month. My rent goes out the same day, which is a right bitch. My options are either some tight money management (haha, right), or just cancelling the direct debit and paying by cash again (that is, whenever I can scrape enough together). Fucking money.

Yes, I have a computer now. It’s a Dell, 2.8Ghz Intel, 512MB DDR, 160Gb HDD, DVD+RW, no floppy drive (I have my 128Mb USB key-fob to compensate), and…. no graphics card. Yes, that?s “no graphics card”. Due to a mix-up with the order (long story, doesn’t really matter anyway), the graphics are onboard (Intel Extreme). I?ve been looking at upgrades; specifically at the nVIDIA GeForce 6600/6800GT 256Mb AGP cards ? will have to see what cash I can save up though.

I?ve almost completed Halo and will be starting on Doom 3 next (although I might decide to complete Doom and Doom 2 first ? I like doing things in order like that, probably just mild ocd). I’ve finally cancelled my contact lenses; I just couldn’t be arsed putting up with the faff involved with using them everyday. I’ve also got a BT phone line into my flat, but Sods law – there is a fault on the line and I don?t get a dial tone. BT wants to get an engineer out to resolve the problem but I only get home after 5pm weekdays so I?ll have to see what I can work out.. Once this gets sorted I’ll be ordering broadband, probably through Zen. Then I’ll be a bit happier.