sick

i am sooo sick. i thought i was getting better at one point yesterday but its gotten worse. i went to the gym last night thinking it might help. was feeling so weak that i could hardly lift anything and i nearly ended up injuring myself. felt like i was going to throw up at one stage and then a while later it felt like i was going to pass out. decided to end my session early before i did myself a mischief. 

took 2 paracetemol plus and some warm milk before bed last night and it didn't make much difference this morning. i called a friend of mine and asked what the numbers were like for football tonight and if they could do with out me. he said they were struggling for numbers and that if i pulled out it would screw things up and it was to late to cancel, so i have to go football tonight. aarrgghh!!. 

maybe running around i might be able to sweat it out. will take some more paracetemol when i get home and maybe some lemsip as well. if i don't post in the next few days you know i will have done a heath ledger and od'd on flu medicine. 

if i do survive i have just one more day to get through before we get the 3 day weekend. i need it bad.  

today i have mostly been listening to peter gabriel - red rain. 

graveyard girl

i have a sore throat and a headache and that thing where your eyes hurt. am not well. lets hope this is not the onset of swine flu but ain't been anywhere near mexico recently. its probably not. the sudden change in the weather is the reason i think. it was warm and sunny on sunday and freezing cold and wet on monday. 

i watched chelsea v barcelona on tv last night, and i thought chelsea were terrible. it finished 0-0 but all chelsea did was get 10 men behind the ball and kick barcelona. it was anti-football. a terrible advertisement for the premier league, if this is one of the top teams and they choose to play like that. what an embarresment. surely they can't be so negative in the home leg next week. my team, arsenal are playing tonight. i would rather lose than employ the chelsea tactics and get a draw. 

only 2 more days to get through and then its the weekend and i can recouperate and hopefully get better. actually its a long 3 day weekend which is even better. 

had a contract review meeting and my boss seemed quite happy with my work which is good. just got to keep things going i guess. 

met up with a guy that still works at the internet company i used to work for. same old stories but with different characters. idiot tech boss is still there and still whining about shit but not actually doing any work. its nice to hear these stories from a distance and not be involved in it any more. its less than 2 years since i left that place.  i have had 4 contracts since then, 3 of them investment banks. been to california twice, drove across america, done 12 exams and got a fat pay rise. leaving that place was the best thing i ever did. its nice to not have even the slightest twinge of regret. 

look after yourself V.

today i have mostly been listening to M83 - graveyard girl. enjoy

pontiac

sorry to hear that GM is going to kill the Pontiac car brand. obviously the saddest thing about is not the history or memories people have of the brand, but all the people that have been building pontiacs in factories and how their futures might be up in the air, like everyones in the auto industry. 

why can't they get rid of buick and keep pontiac. buicks make the most boring and dull cars you will ever see. tiger woods promotes buick which sums it up really, as buick is a brand for people that wear polyester trousers, pastel polo shirts that are tucked in, silly white shoes and who play golf. dull and unstylish and slow.   

pontiacs are good looking cars with performance and heritage where as buicks are just 4 wheels and a steering wheel and not memorable in any way. did buick ever make a car like the GTO?. no. ask yourself, what would burt reynolds have looked like driving across america in smokey and the bandit, in a buick. fucking ridiculous. that wouldn't have worked at all.....or in a strange way it might have worked because the police would not have noticed him at all driving in a dull boring 4 door saloon car that couldn't break the speed limit even if it wanted to.....but it would have been a shit film then....whereas in a pontiac trans-am, its a wicked film!. 

pontiac holds significance for me as it was the car that i drove across america in, last year and during the trip i kept a written journal called the pontiac diaries which i used to write about the journey on this blog. 

when we went to pick her up, all thay had at the car rental garage in were PT cruisers, and a couple of chevy's, none of which looked appealing and not the type of car you would want to cross america in.....and then just as we were deciding between a couple of chevys, a grey pontiac g6 coupe rolled into the parking lot and we said we would take that. we were saved. 

it turned out to be a really nice car. comfortable, fast, reliable and i thought it was a very nice looking motor as well. 

RIP Pontiac. i didn't know you for very long, but in the 3 weeks we spent together you never let me down, and you gave us great pleasure by taking me on a journey i will never forget. i got to drive across america in a historical american car brand with heritge and I thank you. 

today i have mostly been listening to ladyhawke - back of the van. another great song from her. 

russell

the weather was stunning yesterday. crystal clear blue sky, light breeze and bright sunshine from morning till evening. today its the first day of the week and its about 10 degrees cooler, slate grey skies and drizzle. fair enough i suppose, and i would rather it was like this whilst i was at work, but its still shit. the month of may begins at the end of this week and we really do need the weather to get better on a consistent basis as opposed to a few days of sun and then a few days of cold and rain. it just gets you down even though its just weather. 

am currently reading a book called liars poker which is about someone working at salomon brothers in the mid 80s. some of it sounds quite familiar although i don't think people are quite as brash and conspicuous with their wealth at banks these days and they are also slightly better behaved.....though completely contradicting that last statement, the brother of a  friend of mine, works for a big european bank and last weekend he picked up his brand new white lamborghini. looks like someone got a decent bonus last christmas. what creadit crunch?. some people just live in a different world to the rest of us.

every single person that i have worked with in an investment bank has one or more of the hobbies or traits. they have multiple games consoles (xbox, PS3 Wii), expensive watch (rolex and tag heuer are most popular), European car (bmw, merecedes, audi), plays golf and/or goes skiing. i think every single person i have met has or does at least one of those things. you would have to be a freak to not do at least one of those....ie me. no console, casio watch, bicycle, no car, i play  football and i hate the cold, so why the fuck would i go on a plane and travel to somewhere where its snowing. i had nothing in common with any of them. 

anyways back to the current job, there was a new guy that started in the messaging team who sat on the next bank of desks from me. he was a contractor. anyways, just heard overheard a couple of people who were discussing him, and it sounds like he didn't work out and was asked to leave. yikes!. it does remind you to be on your best behaviour and not screw anything up. actually i am not even sure he made it through 2 weeks. it may have been less. have seen it happen before. i got my first job at a japanese investment bank because they got some guy in and after a week he didn't work out and they got rid of him and got me in, in a bit of a rush. weird how shit pans out like that and hopefully its an opportunity for someone else. 

today i have mostly been listening to russell brand. he is a bit of a controversial character here but i think he is very funny. this is a clip where he talks about the death threats he got after he hosted the MTV vma's in the the states last year. 

take care V. 

googled me

i was in the lift with one of the guys who works on my floor and he asked me how things were going. i replied things were good and he said said "yes, this is a good place to just ride this recession out". chirst!, is that obvious that i am here to ride out a recession and jump ship when things improve. maybe it was what he was thinking for himself and what he was going to do. i hope it doesn't across so obviously that i am a shameless money-grabbing mercenary, though saying that, my work recent work history probably points to the fact i probably am. 

had lunch in the park near work today with someone i used to work with a few years back. hadn't seen them in a couple of years and it was good to catch up and even nicer that it was in the park in the sunshine. the weather is fantastic today. i can't complain about the job or the weather so i haven't got much to say i guess. 

out of boredom and curiousity i googled my name today. only 1 thing came up for me. it was from a few years back when someone had posted on a forum about how to do a mail migration. i completely forgot i replied and wrote a lot of stuff back to him. i must have really been into messaging at the time because i was coming out with all sorts of explanations and answers. its all coming back to me now.... 

it does make you wonder. as we get older i know we learn more stuff about how to do our jobs and life in general but i think we sometimes forget bits as well. 

enough of this deep pondering philosophical shit. today i have mostly been listening to lil wayne - prom queen. take care V. xx

chelsea boots and shorts

it actually feels and looks like summer today. the weather was wicked this weekend and the forecast is for it to be the same all week. at lunchtime i sat on the stairs of a building round the corner from work, with a friend of mine and we did our usual social and fashion commentary on the people passing by. there are some freaky people working in soho and it would be almost rude not to make fun of them with their white plastic sunglasses, skin tight jeans, mop top hair cuts and winkle picker shoes. some people take themselves far too seriously. 

amongst the various fashions on display this season were quite a few moustaches. not tom selleck, magnum PI moustaches, which is a dark straight thick, even moustache, but more like the wispy, cultivated moustaches with curls at the ends that are styled and trimmed to look like a 1930's 'your country needs you' recruitment poster or a circus strong man. there was one fat guy with a moustache who walked past in light grey pleated shorts with a grey suit jacket, t-shirt, scarf and chelsea boots. shorts and chelsea boots!. my friend said he looked like a gay oliver hardy, from the laurel and hardy films. i nearly shat myself laughing. 

will be out there again on thursday lunchtime for some more entertainment. people are funny. 

today i have mostly been listening to fleetwood mac - big love. wicked tune. 

mykonos

friday again and the weekend is almost here and i do need it as its been quite a busy week. we had some issues earlier in the week and i have been on earlies and its just been a bit tiring. looking forward to the weekend and the forecast is for bright weather which means i will be able to cycle to the gym instead of like last week, when i had to take the bus and it took ages. i spent longer getting there and back than i did actually training. 

feeling a little poorer today as the tax year ended for last year and i received some fat bills to pay her majestys revenue and customs. running palaces, bombing poor people, bailing out banks and pay per view porn ain't cheap and we all have to contribute. hadn't paid any tax or national insurance at all for a while and so your bank account starts looking deceptively large. its a few grand lighter today but its ok. its not like you can worm your way out of paying tax, at least not us normal people. the super rich can set up trusts and offshore accounts and various things but us commoners can't really do much. 

anyways, only a few more hours of the day left. today is the first time i have done any clockwatching since i started at this job. i used to look at my watch every 10 minutes when i worked at the bank. 

have a lovely weekend V. 

today i have mostly been listening to fleet foxes - mykonos. saw a documentary on tv a few weeks back about the music scene in los angeles in the late 60's and 70s. aside from the beach boys and the eagles i wasn't aware of much of an LA music scene from that time in history, but the documentary was really good. for me when i think of an LA scene its guns'n'roses and motley crue. anyways this sounds like it could have come out of that scene in laurel canyon in the early 70s. enjoy. 

the crystals

back to work today and it was surprisingly easy to wake up at 6.30 this morning. i thought it would be a struggle but it wasn't in the slightest. added bonus is that its a tuesday today and there are only 3 more full days before the weekend. 

weather today is cloudy but bright as opposed to dark grey, and its mild. thanks for being shit weather on the 4 days i had off from work. first day back at work and its nice weather. ain't it always the way. 

will go training tomorrow night as i only got 1 session done last weekend as the gym was closed for easter. i also missed a session last week so in the last week and a half i have only done 1 session. am feeling like my body is not my own and it feels like i am shrinking and going soft. 

today i have mostly been listening to the crystals - then he kissed me. phil spector got found guilty of murder yesterday and this is one of the songs he is famous for producing. dude sounds like a bit of a nutter. 5 other women testified that he had pulled a gun on them. jesus!, he makes chris brown look like a saint. 

at school i had a friend who rather bizarrely was a bit rascist but also really into soul music from the 60s which he got into because his dad had lots of old records. on the one hand he would say some rather unpleasant things about 'ethnics' and 'blacks' but on the other side he would make us  some really cool mix tapes of sam and dave, wilson pickett, aretha franklin and otis redding. he was more into atlantic soul rather than motown artists. later i discovered stevie wonder, smokey robinson, marvin gaye and the supremes, but for the first few years they were unknown to our group of friends that played football together and all we knew were the artists on atlantic records. 

(the crystals were not signed to atlantic). 

on that rather odd anecdote i bid you farewell. take care cali girl. have a good week. 

Xx

4 days

its been nice being off work the last 4 days but i guess it was too much to ask for some nice weather. its been grey and dark and damp everyday. its 5.30pm on a monday evening and there are a couple of hours of daylight left and the slate grey clouds have parted for the first time this long weekend we have gotten a glimpse of blue sky and sunshine. too little too late.

i haven't done too much at all. its not been weather that you want to go out in and its just been very boring at home. i reinstalled my pc and put everyting on nice and fresh. it always run better when everything is cleanly reinstalled.

janes addiction and nine inch nails are playing the 02 arena on july 15th. presale goes on sale tomorrow and my friend said he was going to get the tickets. it going to be wicked and its always good to have something to look forward to.

back to work tomorrow and my boss is away for 2 weeks on courses so hopefully the time should fly and there will be more work to do between the two us that will remain in the office.

have been researching places to stay in san diego but sometimes i almost feel a little like i don't want to go. i think i will get bored on my own for 2 whole weeks. its ok when i go to new york on my own because i stay with my uncle and aunt and its nice to go back to somewhere, where you know people, but in cali i will be completely on my own. my friend in san fran is going to be in england when i go out there so i can't even stay at hers. i wish my friends had a little more of a sense of adventure in them and wanted to come along. will be surprised if i don't end up going even if it ends up being solo. i shall not let their lack of adventure stop me. i'm going. end of story.

a place called home

went out with some friends in shoreditch last night and it was a good night. haven't been out much recently so it was good to see people and catch up. have been staying in a lot either because of study and revision or just because the weather is shite in england at this time of year. 

anyways, i literally had to run to catch my last train home and it would have taken me ages to get home on the night bus had i missed it. 

good thing i am on the late shift this week and was able to get some decent sleep before coming to work. would not have stayed out so late had i been on earlies. still feel a little tired today, but will shrug off my lethargy this evening in time for football. am going to give it a 110% tonight as i missed a gym session this week so will have to make up for it by running myself into the ground tonight. 

thank god (literally) for the long easter weekend. i really do need a couple of days off to get a break from work and reset my brain. aside from a few days at christmas its been work everyday since the end of september. feel a little tired in the head, not insane in the brain, just tired.  

my new contract came through and it officially runs till july 31st. i think that as long as i keep my head down and do some work and not break anything it will get extended again, which at least will give me a job till the end of the year and into next year if nothing else comes up, but i will look around and look to move on at some point when the market recovers. things still look pretty bad out there and i do know i am lucky to have what i have. 

that said even though i do like my job and the people are nice and its in a convenient location, i am pretty sure i will leave at some point probably within the next 12 months. it doesn't sound like it makes any sense to do so but it does to me. i still quite haven't found whatever it is i am looking for, which bring quite nicely to todays song, which is one of my favourite songs ever, PJ Harvey - a place called home. its wicked. its about finding somewhere to settle at some point in the future, which is a bit like me at work these days. 

look after yourself V.

extension

i heard back from my friend who called me a couple of weeks back, interested in going to socal later this year. he said he won't be coming. now that he said he is not going i don't think my other friend from football is going to come either. 

jeez, you would think it would be easy to convince someone to go to LA and san diego later in the summer, but you would be wrong.  ....sunshine, beaches, girls in bikinis, sightseeing, baseball, major league soccer, nights out in hollywood,.....eerrghhh!!, thats sounds horrible, thanks but no thanks. 

anyways, i completely forgot but its a 4 day week this week as its the easter holiday. i haven't had a day off this year so it will be nice to have a long weekend. in the words of trent reznor everyday has been exactly the same and i could do with a break right now just to break the monotony. 

got told today that my contract is being extended for another 3 months till the end of july, which is good. the market is dead as disco these days and i really wanted a break from having to deal with recruitment agents. they are like dentists where you only want to go see them when you absolutely have to, andbesides, there are some interesting projects coming up and i want to be around to do them or at least take some part in them. 

today i have mostly been listening to angels and airwaves - everythings magic. 

keep shining flower. 

 

last one

not pretending like i am some wordly wise oracle or something, but if i didn't know any better i would think that my boss is toying with the idea of leaving this place at some point in the not too distant future. i can't quite put my finger on it but i just get that feeling. we shall see.....or maybe we shall not see because i probably won't be here and will have moved on myself, by the time he does decide to leave..or not leave. whatever. 

football was good last night but getting in late and waking up early has made me feel tired today. got in a little extra late as i tried to help a couple of guys out changing a tyre on their car, outside the train station on my way back home. the tyre had come off the rim and the actual rim had smashed. i looked at one of the guys and said jesus, how did you do that?. he didn't really answer back but the sleepy and glazed eyes might have had something to do with it and there was a pungent smell in the air. i suspect some herbal cigarrettes may have been blazed moments earlier which resulted in diminshed co-ordination beihnd the wheel, which lead to an incident with caused the smashed wheel rim. anyways they didn't have the right size socket and we struggled away for about 10 minutes but it was no good and i left them to it as i had to catch my tube. 

after calling me a couple of weeks ago about maybe coming to california with me, my friend has gone all quiet again and not come back with any suitable dates for when he can go. typical. i will remind him, but if he doesn't come back with anything and starts stringing this thing out, then i will just go ahead and book my tickets and start making my own plans in the next few weeks. i don't want to screw around with this. i just want to get it booked and done. 

took my exam at lunchtime today and passed. that really could be it for a little while now and this was the last of the latest set of exams based around window 2008 and virtualization that microsoft has released and that i can take. there won't be a new version of server coming out for at least another 3 years i reckon, and previously i have never gotten so certified so soon. i did all the exams with in a couple of months of them being released. 

have a good weekend cali girl. i shall be resting away from my computer and books. you take care of yourself. 

today i have mostly been listening to la roux - in for the kill. 

gmail

whilst walking through soho i bumped into someone that used to work at the same company as me, a few years ago. not wanting to put to fine a point on it, but most people thought he was a bit of an ass. anyways we exchange pleasantries and asked about what had been going on, and then he asked for my email and said we should meet up for lunch seeing as we worked near each other. 

its at that point that having multiple email accounts comes in handy. i gave him my gmail email and he said he would drop a note. i never check my gmail. its just a dustbin account i have especially for situations like this. my primary account is a hotmail account that i have had since back in the day. anyways by giving my gmail it won't bounce back and he will not think i am an asshole immediately. this way he will think i am asshole for not replying, after a few weeks of silence.:-). sorry mate but i don't want to meet up for lunches. 

football tonight. playing till 11pm which means it will be after midnight before i get to bed. will have to wake up early tomorrow because i am taking a 2hour lunch for my exam, so i am making up my hours by coming to work early. its going to be a long friday. 

today i have mostly been watching a clip from a new film called in the loop. the scottish guy in it that swears all the time, reminds me of the chief executive of a company i used to work for. he was pretty intense but a really nice guy and a good laugh as well. just don't mess him around.