my angel

well tonight i put on my leather shoes that make a noise when i put my foot down, i put on my smart trousers, i put on my black shirt and wore it open at the chest. i spent the night in the lane head hotel and i drank. and at the bottom of each pint glass there was bit of happiness. and with each glass i finished i got a bit happier. well thats a lie. there wasnt happiness there. its just that it took some of the sadness away. but taking sadness away and giving happiness are very different things. very different indeed. and i know which i deserve. the waitress was pretty. but she got confused with all the people ordering coffee at different times bless her. i would of told them to f*ck off, you have coffee now or dont bother. but she was smiles and laughter. and i drank because you werent there and you dont care. or maybe i just dont think you care. but ill never tell you. i dont want to hear the conformation that you dont care so i'll cry and sit and be depressed and drink and blog about sh*t instead. and then i'll wake up and the room wont be spinning any more and everything will be ok. i mean i'll be able to cope with things again. for a bit. god damn you. god damn me.

im listening to a song at the moment:

looking into your eyes
i see all i want to be
and i don't want it to end
if i could only put to words the way
i see you
i only know i had an angel with me now

and when i fall asleep
you're all that i see
you're in my thoughts
and all of my prayers
i wish i could be
all that you mean to me

my angel without wings
my angel

i wish you could see
all that you mean to me
but i can never find the words
to tell you

and when i fall asleep
you're all that i see
you're in my thoughts
and all of my prayers
i wish i could be
all that you mean to me

and when i fall asleep
you're all that i see
you're in my thoughts
and all of my prayers
i wish i could be
all that you mean to me
my angel without wings


you know, i'll drink until i cant see, and i'll forget whether my shoes are shined and i'll raise a fist to life, if just for one night and i'll talk about lyrics that you will never hear as if they are my own. but they are not.

i have a bottle of bourbon. goodnight

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Retire before I start work?

Today I received a letter from the Retirement Pension Forecasting Team at The Pension Service. The average retirement age in the UK is 63, I believe the mandatory retirement age is 65.

Now, while I realize that it is very important to save for the future, I see a couple of problems with being told to do so. The first is that, yes, I realize that it is very important to save for the future (see I even wrote it twice). Second problem is that thanks to three years of university I have debts that are running into 4 figures, couple this with not yet having a job, and it is unlikely that I will be able to save anything for at least a year or two, maybe more. The third problem is that I am 42 years off the average retirement age, 44 off mandatory age. So while the forecast is that I will get £84.25 per week basic state pension, a lot can happen in 40 years, so a) I doubt that I will actually get the amount they forecast and b) no one knows if they will still be around in 40 years.

Still, nice to know the Pensions Service cares about me.

Game Dev Diary - Absence nearly done

The official hand in for Absence is the 5th May, that's a week on Friday, which isn't very long. Our in house cut off date (ie when we decide that no more content is gonna be added) is the 3rd May, that's a week tomorrow, which is even less time :s

I was over at Salford today, and Z (one of our old lecturers and ex EA employee) was over to give us a lecture and then have a look at each team's game. Now, even if you don't know anything about games, you will of heard of EA, so it was damn cool to see someone who held a senior role in that company sitting and watching us play through the game. Damn, damn cool. He seemed pretty impressed too, which is excellent news seeing as we currently still have a few minor bugs, an overly shiny environment, and only about 70% of the content compiled and in game. (good news for us is that 99% of the content is finished and just waiting for someone to compile it)

Olly and myself have just been working on one of the bugs, and I'm happy to report we've got it fixed now, so my tasks for this coming week are to re-unwrap and re-texture the model we fixed tonight, then I'm making some ivy decals for the glasshouse, then Lance is writing an idiot's proof guide to compiling, so that me and Sarah can start work on the back log of content.

8 months work and now we are down to the final 8 days. I will be posting *a lot* of screenshots and links to where you can get the game, so I hope that any/everyone reading this will play it. Please.

Then go and tell your local game dev house how good it is and how they should give me a job right away.

Cheers.

Wasting time?

I've just spent the last two and a quarter hours giving the car it's first proper wash and wax for...well.....for a long time. We've had a really nice sunny couple of days so I thought it was time to get rid of all that Winter dirt and grime.

That being the case, I am fully expecting it to rain and/or snow tomorrow - so anyone from the UK, if we get sh*t weather tomorrow, it's my fault.

Sorry.

100

100th post. Only 6 months. Feels longer than that really. Well, I've done quite well, before this the only diary/journal I kept lasted for about 8 days. So 6 months is a good effort I feel. Apart from that it's not achieved much. The same thoughts are pretty much still there. I wouldn't say things are leveling out though. Less frequent perhaps. Only perhaps.

Why don't girls like the quiet guys? Perhaps it's time to stop playing the cards so close to the chest, although, it's a tactic that works for us, at Texas Hold'em at least. Maybe it doesn't matter how you play the game, maybe in the end the house will always win and you will leave with empty pockets.

Feels odd how situations can jack-knife so suddenly. It's time to take the bottle of bourbon and sit back, and laugh at how different it is, and celebrate 100 happy, sad, high, low, to the point, far from the point posts.

Hurrah.

Well that was short lived.

It's crazy how warm sunny weather can shift my dark moods most of the time. I'm feeling quite positive (for me) so I gotta get this sh*t typed out before it fades.

I was in Manchester today, we had a team meeting to play through the game. I am going to get a good mark for it, because it is a good game and I have worked hard.

I graduate in July (18th). I will get myself a good well paying job doing what I enjoy doing because I AM GOOD AT WHAT I DO.

Things will be fine after uni, it's just another transition and I've done enough of those.

I will find a nice house in a nice area because that's what I will try to do.

You're the one missing out, not me. I have a lot of things going for me, and I have ALL THOSE 'PRINCE CHARMING' QUALITIES that you read about in fairy tales.

I can drive with my windows down because it's warm. I can ride a skateboard, which incidentally is a fantastic way to hurt yourself in public, and what's more I can enjoy it. Not as much as once I'll give you that, but that 'first fix' feeling is growing itself. Wood and metal and urethane combines into an addictive drug. I can sit outside and drink whiskey in act like its 2000 again, or maybe 2001.

Grass in the gardens looks so sexy right now.

Polar Bear Summer (by one of my favourite bands)

the sun is shining on me, finally. finally.

and you walk so gracefully.

why don't you walk with me?

things are turning green and changing,

and it smells sweet. birds have come from out at sea,

and they sing for you and me.

time here is always so slow, but summer's fast.

let's make it last.

maybe this year you could stay,

and we'll wake together every day.

sometimes it gets so lonely up here on the top of the world.

out at night

I can still taste last night's whiskey. I sat outside with paul and we talked between the smoke and then I looked at the sky and I liked how it looked. There's something perversely beautiful about self destruction. Perhaps. Maybe you have to be in the right mood for it. No matter how much, or how little you have, you will always have yourself. And that can be a major problem. They might start it but ultimately you're the only one who can throw yourself away. There must be a faster way?

We drove around tonight, went up over the tops towards keighley. It was very wet.



Ended up spending a couple of hours underneath a road bridge. It was dry under there. There were lights which made the curbs look a muted yellow colour. And a lit up building, with a tree and street light just in front of it. The street light illuminated the tree, and it looked so peaceful and still. I bet it looks like that all night. Every night.

SEO

I'm doing some SEO and analysis work right now, just thought you'd like to know. Perhaps I should do some SEO on my sites, hmmm maybe I will, I'm not sure if I want to become a complete google whore though.

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I've got Leeds Festival 2006 tickets, which I'm really glad about. The weekend ticket sold out within about a second of the phone lines opening, only for all those tickets to appear on ebay. Rang up the ticket place to tell them that they sucked for letting ebay f***ers buy loads of tickets to sell on...and it turned out they had an extra allocation. So weekend tickets heading Pruv's way oh yes. Doesn't seem too long since I was posting about Leeds Fest '05 lol.

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In half an hour I'm walking up to pauls, then we are travelling in convoy to Tesco to stock up on beer, or maybe some cheap ass wine (depends on my mood) then to Scotts for a night of drinking, poker, music, TV, and meals cooked by Liam.

It's really sunny and (quite) warm outside and I feel quite happy. I don't care about the feelings of abandonment at the moment, they don't know what they are missing out on anyway. For now it's good weather and people I've know for years. Oh and beer, or cheap ass wine ;)

Sea.

Well I was in Blackpool the other night. We sat by the seafront and ate McDonald's. I bought this semi offbeat humour-zine written by the homeless and long term unemployed. I took a picture of the sea because I though it looked nice. Here it is.

clicky click for larger version.

Blackpool on Wednesday :D

Thanks to the wonderful eBay I shall be going to the ball(room) on Wednesday to see Placebo.

HURRAH!!