talk tonight.

still no news on anything so i booked my course on thursday and it starts tomorrow and lasts a week. to be honest i thought i might have landed a contract by now but i appear to be about as popular as an authoritarian egyptian dictator. no news on my flat purchase as well and that is fucking dragging on as well. everything is taking so long its starting to turn into a pain.

to get a bit of a release i still have the gym and i was able to cycle on saturday and today even though it was very very cold. you cant get any heat in your legs and i dont like riding when i am wrapped up against the cold. i look forward to the day i can ditch the jacket, gloves and woolly hat. it was not enjoyable and i do actually enjoy riding my bike when its nice weather. its not just a form of transport or fitness. it is an enjoyable activity to do. anyways i hit it hard at the gym both days particularly today and i was wrecked when i got home today. its a nice feeling.

tomorrow i have the joys of citrix xenapp 6 for a whole week and who knows what will happen after that. actually there is an exchange 2010 course a week after that so if i find myself at a loose end i might see if i can get on that. a bit like the cycling i do actually enjoy doing this computer shit sometimes.

today i have mostly been listening to oasis - talk tonight. i have always been very critical of them and i found the whole brit pop thing in the 90s boring. a lot of oasis' songs are just simple repetitive songs which dont say anything to me unlike for example, the cure, which was so much more interesting and had more depth. i also dont really rate liam gallagher as a singer. he is not very good and i do find myself liking noels vocals a lot more. this is one of their best songs, which would not be as good has liam being whining on it. enjoy.



PS: respect to all the protesters in egypt fighting the power.

judas

still no news on anything. i had forgotten what a pain in the ass getting a new contract was. its a big one. a few more calls about stuff but nothing solid and no interviews scheduled. i can guess what will happen. nothing for ages and then all of a sudden it blows up and everyone gets in a hurry after making me wait for weeks and people start getting frantic. i have been here before. as soon as i sign on the dotted line somewhere i can guarantee i will get a call a week later from someone looking to pay miles more for my perfect job but i will be locked in for 3 months at another place. it happens every year.

cycled to the gym on the weekend and again today. the weather was so grey and dark all day and it started drizzling on my way home. its so grim in london these days. the days are getting longer. physics and maths tells us that, but at the moment it feels like they are getting shorter because its dark all day. this is the 5th month of darkness and shitty weather. its not funny any more.

had a weird dream last night. i dreamt i was being drafted to basketball teams and i said i would play for the la lakers or the boston celtics, but not really anyone else. someone mentioned cleveland and i said i wouldnt play for them, but that i was not like lebron james who was from cleveland and it was his hometown team but he left them like a judas. cleveland isnt my hometown so that means i am not a judas.

weird thing is i am 5'10" and have hardly played basketball at all. we used to play around a bit when i was at school but i was rubbish at it. i only play football. you would have thought the dream would have been me being drafted in the MLS. that would make sense, or me being signed by real madrid or arsenal or inter milan. dreams make no sense.

anyways, today i have mostly been listening to mona - teenager. enjoy.

bruce

had a couple more calls about contracts. things definitely picked up in the last couple of days of last week. also i might have had some more interest after correcting a mistake on my CV. i happened to re-read it and noticed part of it didnt make any sense at all. i had clearly cut and pasted some stuff around and hadnt proof read it. people recieving it must have thought shit, if he cant even write his own CV properly let alone know anything about servers. anyways, i dont think i had sent it out to too many places and its been corrected. i might have a chance now.

still waiting for the paperwork for the flat to get done. no news on that. i will call up about that course that starts on jan 31st that i think i will go on. i think it will help me. am going to give it a few days before i call them in case i land a contract and i dont need to spend £1200 on a xenapp course. either way we have a plan.

today i have mostly been listening to bruce springsteen - thunder road. epic.

zero

gyming and sorting out mortgage shit. thats been taking up my days. hopefully we are on the final home stretch with the mortgage stuff and its all just administration and paperwork and the transfer of money remaining. i was a bit annoyed with the whole process about a week ago but my excitement for getting the new place has returned.

have also applied for a few roles but its very quiet at the moment. i had lunch with one of the guys at the bank i just finished up at in december and asked him what was going on there. he said 50% of the staff, all contractors were not renewed after i went and that there was not much work going on whilst they waited for budget sign off which still hadnt happened. i was speaking to a recruitment consultant and he said it was the same at all the banks he was dealing with as well and he thought mid february would be when the market picked up. no bother as there is a course at the end of this month that i might go on and also it will be a couple of weeks before all this new flat work gets done.

i also heard that the chancer who worked at my last bank had been really worried right to the end and had been desperately calling up people he had worked with before to try and get a contract somewhere. how pathetic. grossly overpaid for 18 months and he is shitting himself about not earning money for a few weeks. i think deep down inside he knows he probably aint got the skill, talent or the workrate to get anything else as lucrative and was looking to call in favours from friends. i could tell him for free that he falls way below the standard i would expect if i was paying that much cash for a contractor. he would be lucky to get half what we were getting. i know that sounds bitchy but i have worked in quite a few places and met quite a few assholes and he is number 2 on the idiot list behind this fella.

got woked up at 8am this morning (i usually sleep in till 10am), about a job which sounded interesting but then the guy told me it was for a retailer, and i said i didnt want it. he then told me who it was and its a very high fashion luxury brand and i said actually i would do it for them. we shall see if he comes back to me. i did tell them i wanted a bit more than i usually ask for so i may have priced myself out of it. no bother.

anyways, i have been hammering it at the gym recently which is good. will try and get out on the bike tomorrow and cycle as well as the weather is dry but cold. have started reading a bit about SQL 2008. christ i must be bored.

today i have mostly been listening to yeah yeah yeahs - zero. wicked tune.

jigsaw

i am a man with a mortgage....approval. i finally managed to convince the bank that i had attained my modest wealth through working in IT and was not a senior figure in the sinaloa drug cartel in mexico. who would have thought it would have been so difficult. today i sent them my employment contract from the last bank i worked at. i had already given them my taxes and accounts but they still wanted more proof. anyways its all approved now. survey of the property is taking place on tuesday and i am hoping it will be plain sailing from now on. there will be lawyers and estate agents involved but both of them have been fine. i just dont really want to deal with the asshole at my bank again.

i can also concentrate now on trying to get a new contract and also doing a bit of study. have done none in the 5 weeks i have been off work. am feeling that twinge to do some, which is not a bad thing. we shall start off with some SQL me thinks.

football got cancelled last night because we didnt have enough guys. it was raining anyway so am not too dissapointed. hopefully next week we get enough people together to play. am meeting up with one of the guys i used to work with at my last contract, on monday. am also seeing the bank about some more paperwork but hopefully my week will be clear and no more running around after that.

am training like a beast. i would be doing even more if it was summer and i was able to cycle everyday instead of taking the bus. somedays i just cant be bothered to get the bus. forecast is dry tomorrow so will get my bike out for the first time in a long while.

today i have mostly been listening to radiohead- jigsaw falling into place. it is slowly. now i just need that phat contract at a small bank or hedge fund.

warpaint

the saga of my mortgage continues but i think we are coming close to the end of it now. they have verbally said its looking ok but they just want a rough breakdown of where i have worked over the last few years so they can get an idea of how i managed to save up my money. it fucking ridiculous because i explained it to them more than a few times, but they want to know again. they must imagine my lifestyle is like the one below.



anyways, hopefully tomorrow is the last day of messing around with this shit and i get the go ahead.

have also been applying to a few contracts i have seen but no news back from any of them. have also seen a citrix xenapp course that i might like to go on in a couple of weeks so we shall see how it all pans out. knowing my luck i will start the course and then miss out on a peach of a contract because i cant start that week. we shall see but my luck has not been too good recently.

have been going to the gym regularly and am feeling good. forecast is for it to be dry on saturday so i will be able to cycle for the first time in a month. i need it because i know i have lost resistance in my legs.

thats about it really. today i have mostly been listening to warpaint - shadows. a very good song. no video but thats not a bad thing. no distratctions from the words and music. immerse yourself in the splendour of this tune.

get together

i really am starting to get annoyed at being spoken to in an accusative tone by the fuckwit that is sorting out my mortgage at the bank. if i get turned down for the mortgage after my appeal it will mean i will have to go elsewhere and pay more, but it will mean being spoken to like a person and not like a criminal. he asked me again today where i got all my money from and i told him again for the 3rd time it was my lifes savings. why dont these cunts believe me when i say it. do i look like a drug dealer?. do i look like a fraudster?. why is it so hard to believe that i could have earned this much money. christ, it aint even that much money in the grand scheme of things.

tomorrow or the day after my letter should arrive from my accountant explaining why i do my taxes in april. when i told them i did them in april because that its the start of the tax year they didnt believe me again. they are questioning why i am following the rules, and not breaking them. cunts.



these people are not accusing me of shit but they look with scepticism every answer i give them, and yet i have done nothing wrong. its my money, its all acounted for and i paid all the tax. christ!, i paid too much tax in the last 2 years because HMRC have sent me a cheque twice because i overpaid.

i will be glad when all this shit is over with, though to be honest at the moment its taken away the initial excitement of finally buying a place. there are times when i just dont give a shit and think i wouldnt be dissapointed if the whole thing fell through. cunts!.

anyways, i also applied for a couple of contracts today. i think it will be the first of many but we have made a start.

today i have mostly been listening to madonna - get together. no i have not completely lost my mind. madonna now stands for everything i hate in music. she is a corporate money machine karaoke singer. you would think that having earned lots of money she could afford to take risks and do interesting experimental stuff. she doesnt because she clearly feels she hasnt got enough money. christ if she still feels the need for cash, there aint no hope for the rest of us. occasionally however she inadvertently makes a decent tune through the vast resources available to her she clearly has the means to hire some good producers or writers. this is one case where it sounds like she did, and its a good video as well. it sounds like daft punk to me, so its still not original.

warakurna

we are emerging from a financial crisis of which one of the main causes and symptoms was individuals and corporations and governments borrowing more than they could afford to pay back if conditions changed. banks and goverments ended up getting bailed out, while many individuals lost their homes and have been left with terrible problems. there was no bail out for them.

whilst all this was going over the last few years i was fortunate enough to be working all that time, and most of my time was spent at investment banks being overpaid. i didnt let it go to my head and start buying expensive watches or a flashy car. i still have my bicycle and my casio watch. i didnt go on holiday to the caribean or the seychelles, i kept going back to new york and california for a week or two and staying with my family and friends.

my point is that i didnt live extravagantly and saved my money. today i got a call from the bank (santander) that is arranging my mortgage. i had transferred quite a lot of money to them in preperation of giving it to them as my deposit for the flat i am in the process of buying. anyways, today they call me and asked me where i got all that money from and how it was suspicious for someone to be buying their first place to be able to put down such a big deposit. they also informed me that they wouldnt be giving me a mortgage and so jeopardising the whole deal. basically they fucked me in the ass. i told them i worked for that money and it was my life savings. i am not a cocaine trafficker and am not involved with mexican drug cartels. idiots.

even my mortgage advisor who i am dealing with seemed emabaressed at the excuses he had been given by them to give me. he said he would appeal their decision if i could get a letter from my accountant saying all the money was earned by me and had been taxed and declared. i already gave them that information but they said they wanted reconfirmation again. cunts!.

they fucked over people and gave out mortgages on the slackest lending standards a few years ago, and now when you get someone like me who has been responsible and has saved 55% of the value of the property and is putting that sum down as a deposit, therefore giving no risk to the bank, they fuck me over too.

i went to another bank this afternoon and started making arrangements to get a mortgage from them and they all seemed to think it wouldnt be a problem. only problem is that its going to cost me a thousand punds more. i will find out what the score is with the appeal in the next couple of days, but if it all goes to shit i will have to run around and get this other mortgage sorted out at the other bank and just jump through more hoops to get it done. its turning into a hassle.

the moral of the story is that the bank, santander are a bunch of cunts. i have been saving my money with them since i was doing a paper round when i was at school. hundred of thousands of pounds have been deposited with them from various jobs i have had and they turn around and treat me like shit and basically accuse me of being a fraudster.

today i have mostly been listening to midnight oil - warakurna. this comes from the album diesel and dust which is one of the greatest albums ever.

austere

3rd day in the 0-11 and we finally made it. its been boring thus far as it was a bank holiday and my gym is closed and i am unemployed, but we have high hopes. will call my bank about my mortgage tomorrow and will also apply to any new roles that come up. am going to hit it hard as i usually do. will also go to the gym in the afternoon. need to make the most of this free time to get shit done.

the new year has been quiet and as has been the case in the last 3 or 4 years, its another fresh start for me in january. where will i end up?. will i finally land that interesting job at a small company where i get to do lots of interesting projects?. will i get a job that sends me to new york and san francisco?. who knows, but lets be honest the odds are against it. still we live in hope.

today i have mostly been listening to the joy formidable - austere.